Crypto Megan Podcast | Scott Page: From Rock Legend to Web3 Pioneer

Welcome to the Crypto Megan Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Nielsen. I'm a high-end crypto and NFT portfolio and Web3 strategy consultant. I'm currently on a world tour as a Web3 keynote speaker at all the biggest Web3 tech and fintech events around the world as an industry leader to educate anyone from beginner to C-level executive, and of course, to advocate for women in Web3. My mission is to inspire new people to get involved in the crypto and NFT space with quality, entertaining information they can trust as pioneers in this cultural and financial revolution, a paradigm shift. Welcome to the show.

My name is Megan Nielsen.

I'll be your host today. AKA Crypto Megan. And today I have such a treat for you guys. We are here with such an amazing person to tell his story, his journey, and everything about the transition from music to tech to so many good things we've got for you today on the list. I'm here with Scott Page, legendary musician, entrepreneur, and tech advocate.

Woo!

You have so many businesses that you've been through. And also the saxophone and guitar rhythm for a band like Pink Floyd, Supertramp, and Toto. Scott, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. I'm actually very excited about this because I've been following you and I am a fan.

Yes.

I am a fan.

That is a huge compliment.

And we've had some great conversations, so I'm even a bigger fan in many ways.

Oh, yeah.

So I'm really very thankful to be here. Thank you so much.

No, honestly, it's a real pleasure to have you here. And it's a real treat to be here in Hollywood, in LA, you know, where all the magic is happening.

The magic.

You're just at the forefront of that. And I got to know you actually over a conversation video call that we had after meeting at an event in Denver, actually.

That's right. We did Future Shape 360, right?

We did.

That was great.

Metanoia's Future Shape 360. And it was an event that was geared toward musicians, artists, and the Web3 space. So we got to talk about that as well. But before we get into all that, I would like to get to know you and your journey as an artist and how you started out, how you were growing up, your interest in music.

Yeah, so, you know, I got very lucky. I won the lottery with parents. I got to have the greatest parents that any human could ever have. So I'm very thankful for that. But my father was also a musician and a serial entrepreneur. I grew up on a television— he was on a television show called The Lawrence Welk Show, which was a big variety show. It's actually still on television. I think it's considered— I may be wrong, but it— It's a classic. I think it's considered the longest running kind of television show ever. And it's like on some cable channel, but it was a Sunday night or a Saturday, Saturday or Sunday, I can't remember now, show that was on every week, variety show. And that was when there were 7 channels. Like, you know, we had 2, 4, 5, 7, 11, and 13.

There was a good chance people were watching this show.

That was it. That was it, right? So growing up around that, so I was around the television space and all that. And during that time, my father was, like I said, a serial entrepreneur. First of all, he was an incredible musician. He played 14 instruments. We had— when I was growing up, we had lighting businesses, boating businesses. We had a candy business. We had 26 donut shops at one time. We had my dad and jet skis. Well, those were called hydrokarts originally. And he was in that business and reeds for saxophones. And he was also one of the guys that— He was a big-time saxophone player. along with Brad Plunkett over at Kuhn, that started Amplified Instruments and invented the wah-wah pedal, the famous guitar pedal. Right. Which is, I think, just like a few years ago was 50 years. One of the great pedals still to this day.

Wow.

And then he also started a studio called the Sound City. It was actually originally called the Vox Sound Lab, then became Sound City, which there's a whole documentary out on that. It's one of the great studios it's turned out. I mean, so many incredible records have come out of that. Dave Grohl, actually, from the Foo Fighters, just bought the recording console, and he did a documentary on So if anybody out there wants to know about Sound City, you can go watch the movie Sound City and check it out. But anyway, I grew up around all this stuff. And so living in that, my father was one of those guys that never was late. Never. I can't ever think of one time in my entire life my father was late.

That's a real good quality to have, to be honest.

I wish I was that good till this day. But he was always this. So I was always around, and he kept me in all the activities and things that we did. And so I was always around this stuff, and I actually was studying to be an architect, but I kept playing music and I played trumpet. That was my instrument, which is funny because my dad was a woodwind player and I took a brass instrument up. And so I can actually say one of my big claim to fame is I'm the only guy that ever played on The Lawrence Welk Show and in Pink Floyd. Right?

Wow.

So that's like a really crazy kind of a thing. And it was the champagne music of Lawrence Welk. So anyway, through the years we had all those businesses. So I worked with him all the time. He kept me. I did everything with him. So I learned how to— got a real entrepreneurial spirit as time went on. So as that went on, I kept playing because he said to me, you can keep playing some music while you're going through school, even though you wanted to be an architect. So I studied drafting and design, and that was my career. I was going to go into architecture.

He encouraged you to study instead of just playing music?

Yeah. Well, my interest was in art and design, less about music. I wasn't really cared about music much, but I did it mainly kind of for him. So I played in the school bands, the marching band, all that kind of stuff through the years to keep just to kind of— more for him, actually, just to kind of do it. And so I was a draftsman. And then I got in this band with David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, who later became Toto. We had a kid band called the Merciful Soul Band.

Nice.

And I got in that band, and it was like a Chicago blood, sweat, and tears band. And we started winning all the battle of the bands and stuff. And I'm like, I was going back and I was working for this company, Audiodyne, drawing these exploded views of parts, you know, like, you know, the idea of a motor. And then they show the thing broken apart and everything kind of fits together, these isometric drawings. So I was doing that. And that's when we had no computers. We had to use a pen and a pencil. I was pretty good with a pen and pencil.

You imagine back then, if you're making it back then, you're really putting in the time.

That was it. You had to get out the rulers and do the stuff. And so anyway, we started winning all the battle of the bands and I got the music hook because all of a sudden I looked down and holy crap, there was a lot of girls in that front row. There was no girls at my job at Audio Dyn in those days. And I said—

So that's a plus, right?

I'm going to be a musician. So I completely flipped. I'd made that decision. And that was just when I got into college that I said, I'm going to become a musician. And I had to support myself, so I took up music copying. And at that time, what that was is the composer— I was working for a guy named H.B. Barnum and a variety of other composers, but they would call me up in the middle of the night and say, I got the score. They'd hand me a score, and then I had to write the trumpet part out, second trumpet part, third trumpet, the violins, all the parts out. And I'd stay up all night, drink tons of coffee.

Kind of like the back end or the behind the scenes.

Yeah, it was the behind the scenes. Then I'd show up at the date 10 minutes before 10, and they'd pass the parts out. And I'd pray I didn't make mistakes, because if you made mistakes, that wasn't good. So anyway, I did that because I had a pretty good hand, and that got me into the music business. And then I just became music fever. I just studied and studied and studied. It was 24/7. That's all I did was practice, work gigs, play clubs. And it's really funny, we talk about the music business in general, just kind of where we are now and where we were back in those days. You'd make $50 to $100 to play a club. Here we are 40-something years later. still $50 to $100. Those poor musicians have gotten beat.

Honestly.

Right? Just crazy. Crazy. So anyway, I just really fell into that, and I got lucky and got, you know, kept studying and stuff and, you know, really took the approach that I wanted to be around the music business. So even when I had club gigs that I could go play, if I could get a gig where it was like at, you know, Madame Wong's or, you know, the Whiskey or one of those places where the music industry was, no matter if it was money, I'd always take those gigs. And luckily, I started bumping into some of those people and some people heard me play. And the next thing you know, I started moving through it. And then I got lucky. Sort of the big first major kind of band was a band called Seals and Crofts, you know, Summer Breeze and those songs. And that was where I kind of did my first big tour overseas, Australia, Europe, all those types of things. So got into the music business, then started really playing, but always was very interested in the technology side of it and had the entrepreneurial spirit.

Oh, yeah. And that spirit is infectious, let me tell you, in the best way possible. I mean, your energy, your curiosity, Your positivity, and just the way that you see life in general, it's contagious. You can feel that energy. It's palpable. It's real. It's something that made me even more excited to interview you because that transmits to other people around you.

Well, for me, just real quick, consciousness is my favorite subject, period. There's nothing more important to me than that inward journey because you blink, you're 50. You blink, you're on your deathbed. Time is a total illusion. And really, once I try to tell this to everybody, I say this in every one of my things. Because the only thing real right now is you and me talking. Everything else is an illusion. Like, everything.

Powerful.

And people can't wrap their heads around that because when you think about, what do you mean? But truthfully, 2 minutes ago, I can't touch. 2 minutes from now, I can touch.

All we have is right here, now, in this moment.

Right. So I just started to realize that the more present that I could be, my life would totally change. And so I've been able to kind of flip my perspective where I'm not lost in thought. We all get identified with thinking, and now I become the watcher, not the thinker anymore.

The watcher.

I love that.

I think that happens all too often where we get caught up in our thoughts instead of being present, instead of taking action, instead of going for things that we want and putting in the work and putting ourselves out there. Like you said, you were in those places where people could find you, where they could notice you. And I want to take it back just one step because I remember reading something about you that when you were around 17 years old, you started to play in a band, right? Was it something like that? And I remember you saying that you were one of the worst in the band.

Oh, I was the worst.

And that blew my mind because you just said, I would just go in the garage and practice every day constantly. pounding on the offense, just learning, making it better. And I think that's really, really cool for people who are up and coming because I think a lot of people just assume you're just naturally gifted and that's how it was. Oh, yeah.

Not me. I wasn't one of those guys that could just pick up anything and just start rocking and play it. For me, it's been a hard journey. Like, I have to really practice and really do that. But yeah, I mean, you know, I got the fever, and when I do it, I go hardcore into it. So I did definitely a lot of practice. And that band, again, was David Paich and Jeff Baccaro and that kid band that we had. got in, because that really got me excited about music, because they were, they were so good. I mean, they were incredible. Jeff Porcaro, to this day, is considered probably one of the greatest drummers of all time, right? And now we'll demonstrate it with the rhythm section. 1, 2, 3. And he was actually that voice in behind me that kept me motivated. You know, I never really told too many people about that. But I mean, I— because he took off, like, those guys took off, and I was kind of in the back, 'cause I was literally the worst guy.

Well, the worst in a room of legends isn't bad.

I could hardly play. I mean, second trumpet player is not like a big deal. You know, I couldn't hardly do anything. And so in the back of my mind, I always had that, like, man, I want to get to that point like Jeff and those guys. You know, they were— I just got to practice. If I keep pounding, I'm going to get there. And I'll never forget then when I got the call to go play with Toto, that was one of the things Like, one of the most— probably the most rewarding things in my life because it was something I strived for so hard to get to a point where I could be recognized to do something like that.

And the blood, sweat, and tears that went into that. I mean, you really have to have the mindset because if you don't, you won't make it, right? You have to really envision yourself being this person who you became. And you went literally from the worst in the band full of legends, which I wouldn't describe as really the worst, to a literal rock star.

I think it's Again, it comes down to that thing my dad instilled in me. It's just really— and my mom, too. I mean, I got lucky because my mom was the kindest human that the world has ever known. I mean, she was overkind.

That's amazing.

Right? But it was so instilled in me when I was a kid to make sure to take care of people. She would take care of the neighborhood. She would take care of the kids. She would always do everything for everybody. You couldn't do a thing for her. You could never do anything.

She was the giver.

She was the nurturer.

No, no, no.

She would never do it. We'd always go, come on, Mom, let us do something for you once.

Right?

So that instilled in my father's just curiosity, because I think that's one of the most important things. I'm very curious. I want to know. Right? You are.

I mean, you're curious, and that energy just propels you forward. It's almost like this living, breathing entity, this force inside you that pushes you to go for these things.

And it's like, again, by becoming more kind of aware, which is the kind of this consciousness thing, and becoming you, all of a sudden you become more of a kind of a magnet for other people that feel that way, and it kind of brings the right people around. So I've been very lucky that the ride— because I'm all about the ride. I don't care about the outcome. It's the journey. It's the journey. It's the ride. Like, what am I feeling right now? I'm feeling great right now talking to you. So I'm winning.

You're in the right place.

I'm winning right now. I'm like winning, right? That's the whole point. So, yeah, it's been a crazy journey and around the things that I've seen and been able to do. And then I just got lucky. A couple of things. It's like I try to tell all artists, you always have to put it out there. Like, it doesn't matter what you're doing. I mean, I got a great story, and I'll tell this because I can sell this on here. I worked with a guy named Michael Smotherman. And Michael Smotherman, when I did some work with Willie Nelson, Willie Nelson said, Michael Smotherman is probably one of the greatest American songwriters. Great songwriter guy. One summer we spent, we did a thing we started called Tune a Day. We'd write the tune, we'd record it, and we'd finish the tune. We got one hit out of that, which was great. He's the man. But Michael was like the really— this guy, When he walked in the room, he owned the room. I mean, it didn't matter. He was— he actually had at the time one of the biggest record deals for an independent artist, and everybody thought he was going to be the next Elvis, right? This guy, when he— he would own the room. Like, he would just own the thing. And I'll never forget, you know, because we'd be going there and he taught me more about music. He really taught me about— because I had the studio set up and, you know, we'd be— we'd be all plugged in, ready to record, be writing. And I'd go, it's like working and it's rocking. And he'd say, he says, okay, let's record it. And I said, let me tune up. And he says, no, don't tune. Don't touch it. It's working. Everything's working. The grind. Don't touch it. And then my intellect would come in and go, It squashed it. This is like horrible. Michael, I got to tune this thing. And he was right. It would kill it because certain spirit would happen there. So he taught me things about the first take, right? What happens in that first take? He would make me— we'd start the song. He said, okay, you go. Okay, you play. Put a saxophone part on. I'd just drop the mic in the bell and I'd get the noise. He'd put it and record.

Wow.

And just say, go.

That's amazing.

And it would— I would just throw something down. But what would happen is there was such a spirit in those because I couldn't think. It was like a whole different thing. You're just kind of thrown into the thing to react. And I started to realize that's where the magic happens. It's in those things before your mind starts to get into that.

So he taught you to feel the music?

Oh, he taught me. I mean, he was one of my biggest mentors about things that, like, you know, when he would always say, if it's a little out of tune, it just sounds like there's more of you. Like, don't worry about it. If it's working, it feels good. Don't worry about it. Just go for it. You know, always say that. So one night, and like I said, he owned the room. When he walked in the room, the whole place—

he had this magnetism.

Uh, he said to me, he says, you know, Scott, it's like 4 o'clock in the morning, been working out there, we're having a drink, you know. He's like, you know, man, every time you play your saxophone, he says, I don't care if you're just picking it up to practice or you're going to play a bar mitzvah or you're gonna, you're gonna, you know, whatever it is, you gotta play like you got a big—

Oh my God.

Dick.

That's incredible. You can say it here.

You can say it. A big dick. And I went, whoa. He says, you don't have to have it. You just gotta play like you got one.

Right.

And that stuck with me so hard. So now—

Internalized that feeling.

Every time, whenever I play and it's my turn, I go in this—

Blows out.

Right notes, wrong notes, bad notes, good notes. It doesn't matter because what carries across is that attitude. That powerful attitude of—

I would call it taking your space.

Yeah.

I'm here. This is who I am. And you guys are going to sit down and listen to this. Now, it's almost like a kind of like a confidence thing, right? Just owning what you're doing.

Being unafraid.

Fear.

No fear.

Having the courage.

Just no fear. So dropping sense of fear and just going for it. And that's served me well, right? Because like I said, I'm not really that good when it comes to tons of chops and millions of scales and playing hardcore bebop and stuff. But what I learned is it's really about telling a story. And so I've changed my whole— my whole attitude is really about a style. It's like my instrument, right? It's like I go in the studio, I take the— what's the cheapest mic you got? Okay, give me that mic. And I drop it in the bell. And the engineer says, oh, you can't do that. I said, you want it to sound like a saxophone. I want it to sound like Scott Page, right? Because there's just a whole thing about— So I just try to put attitude and style And I always say the most important thing is you got to wear your own clothes, right?

Be yourself.

Yourself. Wear your own clothes. You can learn from the masters, and I've done my share of studying. And I take a real deep approach to— I'll take 4 bars of a piece of music and I'll dive into it to learn it, like, play it 1,000 times. Because as you start getting deeper and you start getting closer to it, I believe going deep on something small will teach you more than going wide on a whole bunch of things because it forces you the way you think, the way you hear, the tempo, the rhythm, the attack in the notes, all these subtle things that happen when you start taking a deeper look at that. So, yeah. So it's been a pretty crazy journey. Wow.

That was some real musical alpha right there. I think you just taught people who are watching this—

The Big Dick Theory.

Yeah, the Big Dick Theory by Scott Page. I think you just taught people, up-and-coming musicians watching this, you just gave them all your secret sauce, man.

It is secret sauce.

That was amazing. It's kind of like that quote, if you don't believe in yourself, pretend you do, and one day you will. It's just about projecting this, even if you don't know that you feel it inside. And one day you're going to actually really feel it. It's going to become internalized.

That's it. You got to bring it out there and wear your own clothes. And one of the other things real interesting is I got really deep into meditating and really kind of getting to that point, realizing that all meditation points to one thing, a state of no mind, where thought drops and then you see reality. Right. But it's like, but the question, they call it awareness, right? But the question is, the puzzle is, how do I know I'm aware that I'm aware? That's the one you got to solve.

How do I know when I've been—

how do I know when I'm aware? Because your mind will say, oh, I'm aware, but you're not. You're missing the whole point.

That is crazy because a lot of people— I like meditation too. Zen, zazenki, I think it is. I do it a lot in Spain where I live, and I would do these sessions called sesshins. in Spanish. I don't know in English, but we would be like 4 or 5 days, we wouldn't speak, just totally quiet.

I would love that.

Like 5, 6 sittings a day, total silence. Yeah, when you eat, when you— and people think that meditation is about, you know, just breathing and thinking, but it's actually the total opposite.

It's about nothingness. No thought.

No thought.

Right.

It's so hard for us to do, especially in this day and age. I feel like people, there's so much tech, there's so much sensory, kind of like people are always Yeah. And it's so hard just to have no thoughts, but that's when you truly connect.

Well, that's where you play, too. So what I realized through the meditation, I remember I used to tape myself every night from the gigs. Every gig I'd play coming home, all the club gigs I did, I'd make a little cassette. I'd set my cassette up and I'd throw it in the car on my way home. So I'd listen, critique myself. I was flat, sharp. I was rushing, dragging, whatever those things were. And I just remember over like a 5 to 7, 8 year period of time, there was Like, 5 times maybe that I'd listen to that tape back and I went, holy cat, that's me. How did that— where did that even come from? I never would have even thought those notes, right? And then through the years, I realized what had happened is what I stopped thought.

Wow.

Thought stopped, and I became so present where I was just connected with the source. And so now for me, I mean, my whole thing, it's like right now I'm meditating like crazy. You have no idea. The whole idea is to just be as completely here and not somewhere else, because it's so easy. You can see people when you meet them, they're like talking to And they're like looking over their shoulder. Who's coming around? What's going on?

You notice when somebody's not there with you. I mean, it's so apparent. Such a powerful thing.

And it was Quincy Jones, actually. I had a company with Quincy, and he was the one that basically really made me realize that. Because one thing about Q, and everybody will say it, when you talk to him, I don't care who you are, the gardener, whatever, he's looking at you. He's having a conversation with you and your soul as deep as it gets. It's like this intense, like—

You feel it burning.

You feel it. He's paying attention to you. That's it. And I started seeing, wow, that is such an incredible gift. And giving people quality, to give people attention and listening at such a level. Right. And so he freaking really hit me to that, how important that was. But I started to realize that what had happened when I had those moments, that thought dropped. And so now when I go play, I always go play because I've now trained myself to the point where I can stop thought at any time. I can stop thinking. Because I know what it tastes like now, and I know how to stop it. And it's really the stupid part about it. The stupid part about it is it's so simple. It's so simple, but it's so difficult. Yeah, it's one of those things, and it's just a little quarter turn. But once you taste it, I can tell you what it is all day long, but until you taste it and feel it and know it, that's a whole different thing. Because so many people say, oh, no, I understand that. But here's the problem. The minute you say you understand it, you've You've already gone past it. You missed it. You cannot understand it.

You've already bypassed the point, right?

It's impossible to understand. It's only something that you can actually know. And once you know, then you know. And that's that. But so when I go play music now, it's like, oh, it's like I get closer to God, right? This is where I get to get close to God, whatever God, the source, whatever. Remember, the hardest thing to understanding what God is is the word God, because it sets a duality and separation. And so that becomes the problem. Because I'm a total non-dualist. It's all one. one thing. For me, you're God. This thing is moving along, and we're just part of it.

We're all part of it.

And our only job on the planet is to help consciousness unfold. Everything else is just like part of the, like, okay, cool, that's fun. But the real deal is that part of it.

I love that. I love that spiritual part. And I think so many people may go the majority of their lives without experiencing what it feels like to be that connected to their And that's something, especially in today's age, where technology is incredible and it can help us evolve and it can help so many things. But so many people miss that, and especially artists. I think your thoughts govern a lot of how your life ends up.

Well, no, you create a movie in your head. It's a complete movie because it's not real. It's just what's in your head, right? And I could be suffering right now. Oh, my God, I can't believe it. All these things are going wrong. But in reality, I'm sitting here talking to you. Yeah, in my head, I'm suffering. It doesn't mean those things aren't there or they aren't important. It's just not there. So, yeah, I mean, and why this is so important is I believe all the great artists go to that space. They all talk about it, from Miles and Herbie Hancock and Fathead Newman. There's that space. And that's one of the most important things for artists. I try to tell them is try to— is this inward journey. Because if you do that, it's going to help everything. It'll change your playing, it'll change your business, it'll change everything.

Your whole life.

Because instead of living in thought, you become the watcher and you live in the watcher language. I call it the watcher language.

I love that.

Yeah. And it's like a whole different way of looking at things and how things unform, and it just makes life much more playful.

Right. And easier and not so heavy all the time. And the way that you navigate through life is much more— I feel your positive energy is just radiating, right? So I also believe that you attract that to you, that when you and I had that conversation, I instantly was gravitated toward you because that's the kind of people that I want to be around. That's the kind of people I know are going to get me to where I want to go. Yeah. And it's the energy that that just gives you this kind of vital force to continue to unlock your real potential in life.

Once you get that, you're Bill Gates. You won the lottery right there. All the rest of it doesn't matter. You figure that out, you've won. That's what it's all about. It's like, what am I feeling? Right? How am I feeling? And I always tell— here's a great— so for anybody out there, here's the thing that helped me figure this out is I read in this book, it said, okay, tomorrow when you Yeah. So when you get up and throughout the entire day, every time you can say this to yourself, remind yourself, stop yourself, put all your attention of where you are, and then ask this question, what am I feeling now? If I'm feeling any anxiety, tension, or fear, unless there's a lion chasing me or something's physically going on to me, then I know that I'm identified with a Interesting. Right? So that's a pointer. It's saying—

There's no imminent danger and you're feeling this.

So that wakes you up just a little bit because now you're becoming aware of how I'm feeling right now. And then what happens as you do this, you go, who's watching? Is there 2 of me?

Oh, we're getting deep here.

Wait a minute. Who am I? Am I this thinker or am I the watcher? Right? And that's where the fun starts to come in. And again, I'm all about this. I created this thing. It's called Enlightenment: The Ultimate Game. And I have I have this big thing. I actually was going to put it out. It was one of those, what do you call it, infographics. And I have a whole system to play this game. So I started taking this on as a game, right? Because I had a company where we built games. So I was around game logic and thought. I said, I'm going to use the same thinking about trying to figure out. And the beautiful part of it is I don't need anybody. It's just me and this brain.

Yourself and your brain.

What's going on in my head and what is happening. So I'm going to play that game for myself. And it's amazing. I'm telling you, folks, telling you, there's nothing more important than figuring this out.

Try out what Scott just described. Try the game and then let us know where you get.

Well, so the funny part real quick was, is the next day I got up to do it, and the next thing I know, I was laying in bed that night and I couldn't even ask that question once. I was so lost in thought. My mail. What am I doing? Where am I going? Da da da da da. I was not aware enough that I could even ask that question. So the next day I did it, and I did like two or three times. All right. And then I said, okay, enough. So I put sticky pads all over my house. So I go get my coffee. In the morning, it says wake up. I go to my computer; it says wake up. Okay, where am I? I'm standing here in my front. How am I feeling? Oh, I feel pretty good. Oh my God! I'm so anxious right now. Why am I anxious? Oh, I'm thinking about these bills and what I got to do and all this stuff. Wait a minute. It doesn't mean, like I said, those things aren't there. It's just that you're not taken over by it.

Right.

That's the thing.

That's what it is. And then you get overwhelmed by it. And some people, I saw Jordan Peter said says something.

Oh, I love him.

Oh yeah, he's great. And he said something. Something like, how would your life be if you didn't just spend the last 10 years avoiding doing what you got to do? Just ripping the Band-Aid off, I call it. Just attacking whatever it is that makes you feel overwhelmed and scared. And that fear is debilitating and keeps you from getting to where you want to go.

Yeah. And what's great is the more aware you become, you lose all fear of dying. So I don't fear that at all anymore. I mean, in a kind of silly way, I'm kind of interested. I'm like, okay, this is going to be a cool ride, right? Something's going to go on because I don't believe you die. Because this conscious, this thing that who you really are is, it just continues on. And again, people can tell me all day long, but I know different right now. There's just no question. And so it's fascinating because the goal of life is to die before you die. Because once you surrender to what is, remember, that's the game. Surrendering to what is. So surrender and forgiveness, they're virtually the same thing because if I don't forgive, I can't surrender, and I can't surrender unless I forgive, right? It's like this whole thing. So once you go with— you learn that, and then that becomes the thing is like, how much surrender am I? Am I really surrendering or am I telling myself I'm surrendering? Because you can tell, like, if your life goes like this, oh, yeah, you're up, you're up, everything's good. Something goes wrong, you crash and down. And now it's like, I'm down for weeks, and then finally something will come along good and I'll come back up again. So the goal is you can start to see how well you're doing because you become aware of the fact, am I up? Am I down? What's going on?

Right.

And so what happens is you go like this, like this, and then after time, the more aware you become, the more you kind of get this.

Responsibility.

And then all of a sudden, you just kind of flatline and you go, well, I'll take whatever comes on. Even the bad things. There's good things in it because they wake you up. There's things. So suffering can be the most important thing to help you wake up, right? And that's a whole nother story. Why I even took this journey is because I was suffering so bad and something went down. I lost my business. I mean, it was horrible. Horrible. One of the worst things in my life. Now I'm so thankful for it. It's the most—

Isn't that incredible how that happened?

It's the coolest thing that ever happened. Thank you, God, for having— getting pounded that hard, because that woke me up. It made me say, I can't take this anymore. I've got to go look somewhere else.

It prompts change.

It prompts change and makes you start thinking differently. And it forced me on this inward journey. And so, yeah, so now I'm very thankful. And right now I'm having more fun than I've ever had. And I love this Web3 space.

Oh, yeah, we're going to get into Oh yeah. Right now, because there's just so many incredible things that you've been doing. But just to summarize, you know, there's so many people out there that are, yeah, debilitated by this fear, by the state of being that they're perpetually in that's in a negative way. And I just hope that everybody watching was able to internalize everything that Scott's been saying, 'cause it's so powerful. It's, Jeff Bezos said, now segueing onto the next part of this, which is talking about the business side of music. He said, you can either have a job, a career, career or a calling. And if you have a calling, you've hit the jackpot.

Oh yeah.

Right. Because then it just becomes effortless because it's you. It's just where you're headed. And so you've got this serial entrepreneur background, this incredible perspective and state of mind, majority due to the way you were raised, but also the people who are around you, your mentors, right? Who make you bring out that greatness in you. Yeah.

Mentors are important. They really are important. And I wholeheartedly tell anybody young out there, man, find those people that can inspire you and keep you going and give you those insights. Because it's those little insights that change everything. Because a lot of times it's not like this massive thing, big thing. It's like just one little thing they said and you go, it clicks.

It clicks.

And that changes the game, right? So, yeah, mentors are big. And I've been very thankful. I've had incredible mentors. Incredible. Incredible.

Incredible. Yeah. But you also bring that on because of the way that you position yourself in life. I fully believe that you got those mentors because you put yourself in the position to be able to receive it.

Yeah.

So that's incredible. And so you played in— I mean, you have this rock star lifestyle all of a sudden.

I can't believe it.

You're playing with big time.

I've had more fun than any human being, and I'm alive to talk about it, which is hard to believe. Oh my God. Yeah.

So let's talk a little bit about that before we segue into how you're involved in Web3, but just this whole journey for you. this incredible musician and growing into your skill? And what was it like to be on the road with these legendary bands?

Gosh. And again, I have got to play with some of the greatest musicians that have ever lived and got to know many of them too, which has been very fascinating because just to pick their brains and stuff. It's like with Supertramp, John Hellywell, probably one of my great mentors. Again, not about music, but about life. I'd never— I've never been around somebody that was so passionate about quality. And he would have— he wore beautiful Italian clothes and he had beautiful cars. But he didn't do it because it was like, check me out.

He's just—

He did it because he loved it so much. I used to always laugh. He collected Swiss Army knives, right? And he would find them all over the world. And one day, I'm sitting there in the dressing room, and I look over there, and John just got a new Swiss Army knife. And I swear to God, for like 15 minutes, he just stood there, and he was like looking at this thing.

Admiring it.

Just looking at it and stuff. And he just loved life and things so much. And every time he would take a bite of food, his eyes would go blank because he would just taste. You could see that everything was taste. So he was really the walking epitome of, to me, what presence was.

Right. And feeling.

Just built into him. his thing, right? He just had this. So he taught me a lot about that. And then, you know, then when with Pink Floyd, I mean, obviously playing with that band, I mean, that brand is truly remarkable. And it's so funny because I didn't know anything about the band when I got to do it.

You literally had to pull out some kind of Wikipedia and study up.

Oh, no. I mean, it was so strange because I had— we were doing a Supertramp album, and then Dave Gilmour, the guitar player, came and played on the record. And, you know, I've heard it's Pink Floyd. And I think I heard— I remember at that time, I remembered Have a Cigar, the song at the time, because remember, I was a saxophone player, and that was more about— I was more into rock and roll and R&B. So I didn't really know much about it. And so Dave came and played on that record. And then later on, I was doing this event, and I invited him down to this event I was doing called the— it was called The First Dance. And it was a— like a 30-piece band. I had the Supertramp guys, the Toto guys, and everybody. We took over Guitar Center in Hollywood, built a stage. And I did this thing because I was inventing— we're kind of early on in the stage of putting sound to picture together. And I created this thing with my friend Tony McSheer called Visual Sound. And we used zooming microphones and MIDI bass drum because the idea was I always thought it would be great to have a— nobody knows what it sounds like to stand next to Dave Gilmour when he's playing. Like, there's such a— it's like so cool when I'm this far away and I'm hearing the sound pressure, the stuff. I'm feeling the air, all this stuff. And I said, well, how can we capture that? And so I came up with this whole system where we're wearing lav mics. And when the cameras zoomed, the audio would zoom in and you'd hear that space and the way we did things. So I was doing this event. And so Gabe came to that, happened to come to that event a week later. And that's when I got the— he saw me play and everything and it was cool. And I mean, we played on the record and stuff, but it was different. He was putting his parts on. And then 2 days later, I get a call from him to go put solos on the record. So I went there and played on the record, did all of that. And then a couple of days later, he calls me back up and says, hey, we're looking— we're going to do this again, and we want to know if you want to join the band and all this stuff. And I said, Dave, let me think about this.

Let me think about it.

It was so funny to me because— Give me a minute.

I got to—

I didn't know. So I called my friends because I was working on my project, the one he came to, and I wanted to finish that. So he— so I call my friends up and I said, yeah, yeah. You know, I said, hey, man, I, you know, I went and I played on this Pink Floyd record a while ago. The guy said, you played on a Pink Floyd record?

Yeah.

I said, I just casually dropped— I just did a session. I went and did a session, played on this record. And then the guitar player, Dave Gilmour— I said, yeah, Dave Gilmour called me up and said he wants me to join. Dave Gilmour wants you to play in this band. He chose me, dude. You got to do that, right? And I'm saying, I don't know really anything about that. So that night I went to Tower Records. records, and I bought a bunch of the records, came back, and all my friends said, you got to do this. And I said, okay, I'm going to do it. I went because it was— he was talking about going away for 2 years.

Wow.

I mean, that's like, you know, hey, get ready, you're going to go away for 2 years. And I'm like, oh boy, do I want to leave for 2 years? And especially not knowing what it was. And boy, am I thankful I did that job. Very incredible. Incredible ride. And David Gilmore, and I always say this again: I learned a lot about music. He is the master of melody, tone and melody. It's he doesn't. You'll never see Dave Gilmore go. He just plays these beautiful melodies that everybody can follow along with, that that is telling a story. And I changed my whole playing because of that. I realized that it's not what you play, it's what you say. Right? That's the tea. It's not what you play. Because I started to realize that the guys that will knock me out, knock my socks off, they'll do it with one note. They don't need any more notes. BB King could go, ta-da, just tear your heart out with just one note.

It doesn't have to be that complicated.

No, it's not that. It's really about emanating the soul in the stuff. And it's like, it was funny. I was just commenting on somebody said, what makes music great? Why do people love it? It's about the spaces between the notes. It's about the attack, the way the artist hits the string. It's a different thing. It's about the time where you lay it. And it's all the things that most people don't think about is really what makes people get up and move.

Because it's pieces of themselves that they put into the music.

I mean, I used to go sit in the disco and listen to records, right? A period of time. And I'd see one record. I remember at that time it was boom, boom, before on the floor, boom, boom. Every song was different. was the same, right? The tempos, this whole thing. And you'd see some people would get up for a song, and the next song would come on, virtually the same song, and everybody would sit down, right? And I started wondering what it was. And it was very interesting because even though somebody's playing boom, check, boom, check, where you put that check, is it— it's that dead air before it happens. There's all these little subtle things that really take and they connect with people and you actually feel it happen.

I know deeply.

So, yeah. It's a you know music for me is really about communicating that experience from the artist, and so the great guys like I said they you know how many guitars there are? One guy will play guitar, another guy what's the difference? His hands and the pick, right? It's really in the hands. It's really in the way you attack.

Their individuality.

It's that all that individuality that really makes the great players. And you know again I changed my whole playing when everybody else was going ba ba da ba ba da ba da ba. I'm going pat pat pat pat pat pat pat pat pat.

You were going against the grain.

Oh yeah my old story. I tell everybody, when everybody else is going right, I'm going left.

You're very much— that's another thing that drew me to you was that you think outside the box and you're very much a free thinker.

Yeah.

So to segue from—

Really important.

Yes.

Free thinking is really important, especially today.

We could get into a whole thing about that, and we will. But to segue from the actual music and this rock star lifestyle that then you had, now we get to the business side of music. Right. And I know that I've read in a couple of articles that you you said that artists need to approach music like a startup business, right? To have that mentality of, okay, how are we going to actually live from this and make money from this? And now you, so you founded a company called Think EXP.

Yeah, that's my last one. I'm, I'm actually on my 4th company. Okay.

So that, that was your first one.

Yeah. I went, I went through one. Yeah. My first, the first one that really took off was a company called 7th Level that I did with Bob Ezrin, who produced all the Pink Floyd stuff. Wow. I brought him along.

I got him involved. Yeah.

And we did this thing called the Grand Scientific Musical Theater in Vegas. where we brought all the great— it's where we brought Hollywood and Silicon Valley together and stuff. Bob saw that and said, let's go. And the guy, George Grayson from Micrographics, who was running the 20th largest software company. And I was hanging out in the cyberpunk scenes with Timothy Leary and all these programmers in their garages making stuff. And it was really cool to be around.

That's exhilarating.

Yeah. And it was during the time we had the Digital Be-Ins, which later became Burning Man. So it was the early stages of all. So I was around all of that. And just the— I love the entrepreneurial spirit. I love that. And I try to explain to artists is I look at the business side, the art of business and the art together. What most artists do, or a lot of artists, let's put it this way, they're like, oh, I don't want to sell out. It's like, they're my fans.

Right.

It's like, it's about the art. It's about the music. And I'm like, here's the deal. It's like you can be a starving artist or you can all of a sudden have the resources you need to go really make art. Right. And so I try to look at it from the business and the art side. So again, being a serial entrepreneur, like I said, I'm on my 4th company. The first one, 7th Level, where I got to do my— probably my favorite, most important thing that I've ever done that I'm most proud of is I was able to direct and produce along with a guy named Richard Merrick. We kind of did what they coined the world's first interactive musical cartoon.

Very cool.

And it starred Howie Mandel.

Hey there, welcome to Jooland.

I'm Little Howie. Okay, uh, we did a whole series of titles with him, but that's where I really started getting into interactive media entertainment, which is why I love NFTs so much because of the gamification of what that is.

And the gamification of your community. Oh yeah, that is powerful.

Oh yeah, it's big. I mean, that people don't realize that's That's the biggest technology shift for artists, in some ways, I think, for just humanity, for businesses, for everything. And most people don't really understand it yet, but once they do, they're going to— it's going to be a big deal.

But changing of the world order, everything that we do up until now is going to be totally different. Totally different.

Yeah.

You know, we label it as Web3, right? The third layer of the internet. But, you know, internet isn't called Web2. It just is the internet.

It's kind of the next— what's next in the web, right?

Evolution of the web.

It's the evolution of the web.

That allows for the free transfer of value among a community that can have, you know, NFTs, which are— maybe we could give, just for everybody watching, a simple explanation of what NFTs are.

Yeah. So for me, if you think of NFT, it's really, it's really a contract at the heart of it. And it's where you can take this technology and you can attach it to anything. And what it allows you to do is build the rights, roles, and permissions to that asset in this, and it makes it one of a kind. Right? That's the uniqueness. So there's fungibility, which is like a dollar or a Bitcoin, which is exactly the same. I have a dollar, you have a dollar. I give you my dollar, you give me your dollar.

Exchangeable.

It's totally exchangeable, interchangeable. A nonfungible thing is something that isn't the change. Like my house and your house are not the same house, so I can't exchange that necessarily. We could, but it's not that they're not exactly the same. So once people start to realize that the NFT allows for us to create value and things around them, like, to me, the story is what an NFT is. Stories, experiences are NFTs, the ability to build community. And also what I love about it is, is now I can build something that I can say, I'll give you the rights to go build on top of it.

Right.

So we can build together in the community right now. And everything is moving. We're moving from kind of this broad market thing into what I call hives, right? Smaller communities. And I say, if you want to survive, you got to build a hive.

I like it.

That's the new world we're in, right? So, yeah. So these NFTs allow us to create a totally new experience that can go on after events can continue on. But it is the ultimate kind of loyalty token, loyalty program for artists. And what I love—

That's my favorite use case of them. I mean, even the Starbucks example where you don't even generate You don't necessarily have to be conscious of the fact that you're using blockchain technology.

Yeah.

You're just using it to certify digital ownership.

Yeah.

Just like a physical playing card could be yours and, you know, you'd have to go to lengths and bounds to keep it nice and to actually get it authenticated. Whereas an NFT, you automatically know through your verifiable digital ownership that that's yours. And then, you know, like a concert, I just went to VCon not too long ago.

Okay. Oh, that must have been fun. I love Gary Vee. Oh, he's so good, that boy.

It was cool. Snoop Dogg was there. And he was kicking ass and he was awesome. And so they announced at the end that your ticket to this event, to VCon, is now going to grant you access to a really cool exclusive event with Snoop Dogg coming up sometime in the future. So now you can reward fans directly, your community directly. You can transfer that value without the use of a middleman and you can directly access them, you know.

Yeah. Plus they have value now and there's a secondary market. Right.

Right.

So when was I had fans where I could build my business and I could help you make money too and grow what you're doing?

So win-win for everybody.

That's like crazy, right? That's like so interesting.

It is.

And yeah, so NFTs, you can build business models on top of, which is fantastic. And there's so many ways that you can use them. And as we become more, it gets simpler to use. You know, we're working right now, we're getting ready to launch our platform, which is a whole kind of— we have a unique twist to this whole thing because for me, My whole everything right now for me is about decentralization, right? We we must stay decentralized. Yeah, and I think we've got forces that are trying to push us into a centralized world, which would be the worst thing that could ever happen to humanity. So all I'm saying is be careful of that CBDC coin.

We do not want to like the CBDC.

We don't like that coin.

We said it here.

We I'm telling you right now, you do not want to put the people on a centralized. decentralized system, uh, because otherwise you're going to be a slave to a robot.

Yeah, and there's so many things they could program the currency. I mean, it's basically like it's, it's the same old tired system with better technology.

Yeah, with even more controlling technology, because even before, I can go to another bank, or I could pick my stuff up and go someplace. But if you got no place to go, that's not a good thing. So, uh, yes, decentralization is my whole cry right now. That's all I, I drive for. And people taking— basically, I love the concept of people taking control of their data and being able—

Let's define what decentralization is for those who are listening who aren't exactly aware of it.

Yeah, okay, so centralized is one system that one group of people basically can kind of control everything on one thing. So think of a centralized global currency. That would be centralized. I can use my same currency, it's everywhere. There's, there's no sovereignty. I mean, even if you look—

Banks are in control.

Yeah, banks, or a bank, or whatever, a world bank is in control. And if you think about, like, if even you look at the United States, we're a kind of a decentralized government because we have a federal government and then And we have the states, right, which have their own rights. And we want to keep it that way because we don't want the Fed to basically be controlling everything happening at the state level. And the states should make things. I'm a big constitutionalist. I just believe that's an incredible document that at least keeps the human condition under control because that's where it's getting out of control. And, you know, right now that document's starting to kick some real butt right now at this period of time.

Being put to the test.

Yeah, it's being put to the test like we've never seen before. Yeah. So decentralization. Is really allowing us to have choices. It allows you to do things that you could— I don't like this place, I'm going to go join this community over here. I'm going to go do this over here. So keeping everything decentralized allows it. And then if you really start getting into decentralized, like the app that we're building is 100%— we have no servers. It's all on the blockchain. Everything is there. It's completely decentralized at that point because I believe that this moment in time is the time that people have the power to take back the power of the currency and take back the power. And that's it. And when you look at NFTs, it is part of a currency in a sense. And I love the thing of NFTs because I think it's going to bring more people into crypto.

Absolutely.

Because it's just going to— they're going to be like, hey, I got this ticket, now I got a wallet. And wow, wow, I can— I got some tokens in here that I can go spend. So it's going to help people.

Keeps them engaged.

Keeps them engaged.

I've been in crypto for a long time and it feels so solitary, right? Because there's no real community rally. rallying around these fungible tokens, interchangeable tokens. But there are communities around these NFTs, these digital certifications of, I call it digital portable property.

Like you said, Ooh, I like that.

You can pick it up and leave and go somewhere else if you don't like what's happening in one region of the world.

Right.

You have sovereignty over your own money and total control.

Yeah, freedom.

You make the decisions. You have freedom.

It's freedom.

This is freedom.

That's what it is.

The third layer of the web is freedom. And it's all about, you know, I did a fireside chat with Helen Hai. She's a senior vice president president of Binance, and we were going over the iterations of the web, and Web2 was largely supposed to be this free value of information, transfer of information, right? The free transfer of information. And so somewhere along the way, that was meant to democratize everyone, but the information got stuck with the few at the top making decisions for the masses.

Yeah.

Right? And there was an unbalance in the world, and blockchain, it brings that transparency, it brings that accountability to counter that corruption in human nature, right?

Yep.

So then therefore, that's supposed to be now, this is the power to the people, that it's free-flowing, that we all have equal access. And it's just incredible.

Yeah. And I'm a hardcore capitalist, too, because I believe it's the closest thing to nature. It's not perfect. But the problem with the systems is not capitalism itself. It's the human nature, the human condition of the people that get involved. So I'm a big believer in what I'll call conscious capitalism, one that has morals and thinking behind it, in a sense. Now, that's me. Some people will go a different direction. I can't control that. It's not the system. And that's why I'm so worried about any kind of going into a socialist type of place, because it puts power in the hands of a few people making decisions for everybody.

For the masses.

For the masses. And that never works. And it doesn't work, right? And now we hear this thing, yeah, but now look at the disparity we have between the rich and the thing. Yeah, sure, it's gotten out of control, but it's not the system. It's the humans behind it. And hopefully people are waking up now because we're seeing a lot of things that are going on going on around us that we never even knew was going to happen.

There's a lot of things bubbling under the surface. And we will get there. But just kind of as we're coming to the end of this insanely amazing conversation—

I'm having so much fun with you. I'm having so much fun. We could talk for hours.

We could literally talk for hours. I want to kind of highlight what the difference is and what this technology enables artists to do versus other iterations of what we've seen, like Spotify. How is Spotify limiting to the artists? And how does this new technology allow for these artists to have more freedoms without the essential control of that middleman. Yeah.

So here, I always give this example, and anybody that's seen my interviews, they hear it all the time. I went to a— this hit me hard. I went to an NFT meetup 6, 8 months ago here in Glendale, and this girl, 19 years old, gets up and she says, I'm a photographer and I want to be a photographer. I study photography all day. All I wanted to do is shoot photography. I got into NFTs 9 months ago, and now I pay all my bills. I pay my house, my rent, my car payment, everything. I live off my NFTs. But what she said was really cool. She said, and in my— in the smart contract, which is part of the NFT, she wrote a— she says, I gave a little piece to my community center. And she was so happy. She was beaming. She says, and so far they've collected 2.5 ETH. And at that time, that was $10,000. And you kind of go, tell me what— how artists at 19 years old can create a business like this and live off of it and do what they wanted to do. This is so powerful for artists because, remember, let's face it, you cannot sell music. Let's talk musicians. I tried. You can't sell music anymore. Where am I going to sell my music?

Right.

No downloads.

Nobody pays to stream.

Nobody pays. They don't— CDs, I don't do those.

I mean, we already saw that with Spotify. People— I mean, this whole thing started with Spotify. Pirate Bay.

Yeah, exactly.

I always give this example of The Playlist on Netflix. I love that because it showed, I kind of feel like it mirrors what's happening in crypto right now.

Yep.

Where we started with the pirates, they wanted everything free and they were total rebellious and that was great, but it didn't help the artists at all.

Right.

And so we had to find some kind of crossroads and Napster, Kazaa came and we understood that music was gonna be streamed freely, right?

Right.

And then Spotify came and it was kind of a hybrid version.

Yep.

guess what that was at the time was Sony the dinosaur and all the record labels, you know, they kind of came to an agreement that this is how we're going to run this model. But still, the artists were lost in it.

Oh, no, it's still terrible. I mean, streaming is a really— no offense— is a horrible business model for artists because you can't make any money in it. I mean, here's the deal. We know that 1 million streams will generate roughly between $4,000 and $5,000. And there's all these formulas of basically do it. The problem is, I remember looking at a thing, it was like only 3 to 4% of the entire Spotify catalog reaches a million streams. So that means 98% of that stuff doesn't even generate $5,000 for the artist.

Wow.

I mean, so, I mean, it's horrible. I mean, maybe it's a little different now, but it's, it's not a good business model. And the record labels own all the streaming services now. And if you— whoever owns the playlist controls, and that's now turned into sort of pseudo-paywall. You want to get on the playlist to get out there. How do I get on? So when NFTs come on, it's a total different game because now it's not about massive audience, it's about the right audience. I have a friend that does the Warped Tour every year, and she makes clothes, and she's an artist. And she says basically it's about 125 of her fans cover her nut all year because she sells her stuff to them. They come to her shows. She cuts little—

125?

125 fans basically cover her nut, which is great because it goes back to this thing. Remember, we're really going into that thing of the 1,000 true fans. And the 1,000 true fans was coined by Kevin Kelly out of Wired magazine years ago. And the concept of the 1,000 true fans is this. A true fan is somebody that will spend $100 a year on you, whatever you're selling, whatever you're doing, showing up. If I have 1,000 of those fans, there's my first $100,000 in revenue with 1,000 And so that's thinking, and that's really $8 a month on those 1,000 or whatever it is. So it's really not a lot of people, but NFTs make that really work. Because now my model is it's not the 1,000 true fans, it's the 200 true fans.

That is—

That's all you need. You can build a business like crazy around 200 people, make a living and do stuff. You just got to find those right people. And now that we have the tools to do that, I have Twitter, the 24-hour cocktail party. I can go find an audience.

I like that.

I don't need anybody. I don't need any— I could build my own audience right now. I can take the order, I can make the money, I can go direct. And now with NFTs, it completely blows it up. I mean, every artist, I'm telling you, if you're a musician out there, if you're not spending time on this, you got to go put the 30, 40, 50 hours. Go in there and learn this because this is how you're going to make money now. It's where the money is. It's where the business is because it's about the fan. It's about owning that market. Remember, whoever owns the audience wins.

That's right.

It's the game.

Now we have— we can take ownership of all of these audiences, right, through NFTs. And artists can directly reward their super fans. They know who they are.

And they're programmable. Yeah. Remember, remember, an NFT is programmable. I could create an NFT that every year If I had a daughter, I'd say, I'm going to create an NFT for you for the next 75 years. And this NFT is going to change every year on your birthdate at exactly that time, even after I'm gone. That's like crazy, right? That is powerful. So NFT starts— gets really interesting how what you can do. And you're looking at guys now like BT who did that drop where wherever you are in the world, the music's different and what time of day you listen to it. So you've got this living, breathing things, right? So we're at a very interesting time where you have that opportunity to build your audience. It's the total direct-to-consumer, wallet-to-wallet model. Don't need anybody else.

No middleman.

All I have to do is be creative and create— figure out how to create value for my community, right? And build stories. So to me, everything about an NFT is it's the greatest storytelling device that you have, because inside that NFT you can tell a great story. And that's what people care about. They want the story that goes along.

It creates engagement.

Where's it going to go? Where am I going to go?

With your or what you're selling. I mean, that's every brand's dream is to have that engagement and that storytelling mechanism.

Exactly.

And that connection to their community.

And what's beautiful about an NFT, if somebody buys that NFT, you know, as a marketer, you know, you used to try to get open rates when you send an email out or send a text message. If you bought, have an owner that bought that NFT and is part of your community, I guarantee you 99% of those will open That's a good point.

We used to go off totally different metrics. Yeah, you know, I've been working with startups a lot in Spain, and it was like you had the ratio for how many people received it, how many actually opened it, uh, how many clicks they did on the— I mean, it's just so different back then than what the power we have now is. It's like a whole new way of getting those analytics, but much more direct.

Right. And then if I'm a new artist, people say, well, that's great for big rich artists. No, no, no. The new artists, if you've got those super fans, remember, all the money's in the super fan. We now know through the data, because that's the other thing we have that we never had.

Yeah.

Usually we have access to data, which is like the big deal. We now know that superfans, which is like if you have 100,000 followers, that's probably 1% to 3% max of your audience is what we'll call the superfan. But those are the people— 60% of your revenue is going to come from those people. So once you can identify the superfan, create the right superfan model for them and create value with them, because then the token is like, again, it's the club. It's like once you got my token, man, I'd be in that club with you. And I got superpowers because mine has certain stuff because I do things and all of that. It creates a total different experience. And loyal fans, superfans is where we'll keep you going. So for artists, I mean, it's incredible. I mean, we just saw Gabe Weiss, who's one of our guys. Gabe is the greatest. And he sold his collection out in 5,000 pieces in 5 minutes.

In a bear market.

In a bear market.

That was incredible to witness. Oh, yeah.

Unbelievable. And then my partners over at Opus Labs, they just did a 1,550 token, sold it out at 1 ETH apiece. 1,550 of them. It's a couple of million dollars. So if you build the right community and you create the right value proposition and you create the right experience, people will pay for that. Because what can you sell? You can't sell the music. What can you sell? You can sell the experience and the relationship.

Right. Because the streaming, we'll just accept that that has got to be free because that's the way of the world now. But what we can do is unlock access.

Yeah.

That access is what everybody— your superfans, they want to be able to spend time with you or to get to know you better and to connect with you, engage with you. So this essentially allows for us all to be on an equal playing field, right? Depending on the work you put into it, the passion you have for it. And that, like you said before, artists shouldn't be ashamed or feel like they don't want to enter into this. How do I make money? I mean, like you said, you make the money, it gives you the resources to go out there and do great things. Yeah.

Yeah. I teach a thing called SPACE, which is Story, Plan, Army conversion, education slash execution. I've kind of double E'd that one now because that's important. And really, everything is about the story. You have to have a great story. When I tell artists, what's your story? And they go, I'm from Cincinnati. I grew up on this farm. I played things. I said, nobody cares about that story, dude. It's like the story they care—

You got to be real.

The story, that's fine backstory, like where you came from. But what's— and this is one of the things, what you stand for is more important than what you sell. That's a really—

Power.

Incredible, powerful thing that I actually learned from watching the film The Curse of Von Dutch and that brand. And I remember when the guy that did that talked about that classic never dies. And, you know, what you sell is more important than— I mean, what you stand for. And so that's why getting your story right. And then I try to explain to him the story. What's good about the story is now I can find— once I have that story, I know the keywords, I know the phrases, and now I can grow attack against that and go find my audience. Because now I can identify— we didn't have this before. I can go find an audience now that cares about what I'm doing when I understand it, which is great. Why do I— yeah, right. So once you have your story again, then it goes into the plan. Plan. I use Lean Startup principles. Everybody out there, go read Running Lean. That'll blow your mind. And there's a thing called the Lean Canvas, which I've read.

The Lean Startup too, I think.

Yeah, Lean Startup is the main thing. Running Lean is a book about the Lean Canvas, the one-page business plan, which I recommend to everybody. Artists, that's the greatest tool that ever lived. It's a little interactive thing. You can get it at Lean Stack. I think it's either leanstack.com or .org. I forget what it is. You go in there, it's 9 questions it asks you. It forces you to go through it. 20 minutes the first time. It's really fast because it teaches you these fundamental tenets. Fail fast, right? Because if you got a bad idea, get out of it quick. You got to get it out of your way. You got to get out of your way.

I want to die slowly.

Right. What's the smallest thing you can do that can give you the biggest bang for the buck? And test and validate everything. throw any gas on it till you've tested and validated. So in a world right now, especially for artists and musicians, it's not about how much stuff you can make. I hear an artist, I'm going to go make an album, and I'm going to go, that's cool, it sounds fun, and it's all of that. But where are you going to sell it? Nobody's going to— it's going to be very difficult to sell an album. This is a singles world. And again, is that the right stage for you right now? Because I think what you want to do is stop working at Starbucks and get playing music every day, right?

Right.

So let's go. Let's fix that. Let's solve that problem first. Let's be that girl where she gets to go do her photography all day long and not having to be doing something else. And NFTs and this new technology and the opportunities, because again, remember, NFTs in this what we'll call metaverse space, right, is going to be the commerce and it's going to be the, the glue that's going to allow you to conduct and sell.

It'll unlock everything.

And everything, I believe everything will be NFT. We're going to be living in this augmented space.

We're going to conduct and run our entire lives.

Yeah, I'm going to be going up to like, oh, I just walk up to this thing, there's an NFT, and it says, oh yeah, there aren't many, there aren't many cases that don't call for becoming an NFT to make it better.

No, no, really. Even the Capital One Cafe across the street, you have to go and somehow validate that you have the card and swipe. What if that were an NFT? I mean, there's everything in life can almost be—

Exactly.

Turned into—

Well, I think everything will be. I think I don't care if you own a yoga studio, gym, you're a bar club, everything will start being in it because it is that loyalty program, a way to manage your audience at a much, much deeper level. I can drop things in their wallets. I can create experiences for them. I can reward them in ways that I never had, and they can collect, and then they can have the opportunity if I'm smart. Because my whole thing is I want people to build on my stuff. I want to just give it to creative people and say, go, man, make something.

Let it accrue its own value.

Go do your own thing. Right. But I always get my little 10% royalty in the back. Right. I'm happy to have 4,000 people making stuff out of it.

It's a win-win scenario for everybody.

It's win-win. Right. It allows us to build community and grow people and empower people and lift them up like we never Definitely humanity headed in the right direction.

And now we just have to make sure that the space evolves in a way that's meaningful in the right direction, that we stay away from the CBDCs.

Yeah, I mean, the place we're at right now is very— we're at a very big crossroad on the planet. I mean, if you look at AI, that's a scary thing, right? Because remember, people said, oh, it'll never be smart as a human. And I'm like, wait Wait a minute. If you've got access to the database of the entire planet and you could just recall that at any moment, I'm seeing some pretty smart AI right now.

Yeah, that's definitely getting in there. And man, you and I could go down this road all day. I think this is going to be for our part 2.

Yeah.

Because we're definitely going to need a second conversation.

That was fun.

I mean, honestly, I could go all day long with you. You're an incredible human being.

Oh, gosh.

Thank you so much. Thanks for your energy, like we said in the beginning. It's just infectious. And you are truly a master storyteller. Um, you know, we have so much to learn from you. Actually, I think this could be like a masterclass instead of a podcast episode. We could make this an NFT.

Yep. Yep.

Um, but Scott, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much. I'm so thankful.

I really enjoyed this conversation.

Me too. I'm happy I got to do it with Crypto Megan. I can't believe it. I feel like I made it.

Yay. All right. And I hope to have you on again really soon.

Anytime. You know, I'm here. I love to talk. I'll do it anytime you anytime you need me for anything.

All right, I'm gonna take you up on that.

Come on, we got we we're on a we're on a mission, man. We are decentralization to keep the people power to the people freedom. That's it.

So bringing up what's happening in the world today, we can't get around it. We've got to address it. We got to talk about this. We got to create awareness of what's going on right now. And the huge problem that we're seeing is the lack of free thinking.

To me, that's the most important thing that's been taken away from us. And then you start thinking about it, the way the information is flowing. So we've gotten to the point where people cannot free think. And so what is free thinking? Free thinking is being able to stand back and look at both sides of the story no matter what. That's the part about the AI and all this stuff that gets a little scary, because if you control those algorithms and make— put the right same information up in front of people's minds— because I can't believe how many times I'll I'll bring information, and the people don't even know— they don't even know that even existed.