Franklin's Garage to Stage
All things starting a musical band. From garage to stage getting your band going and beyond.
Interviews with musician's, Producers, club owners, recording artist's and others in field of recording or performing.
Discussions on pitfalls to avoid and what works from personal and other's experiences.
Please text us your email so we can keep you up to date. We will not share your information with anyone.
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dana@franklinsgaragetostage.com
Franklin's Garage to Stage
When Musicians Stop Playing and Start Feeling the Music
Rob and Dana explore the magical moment when musicians stop playing notes and start feeling the music, sharing their recent band practice experience where everything finally clicked. They discuss how finding the right bandmates creates chemistry that transforms practices from work to pure enjoyment.
• Update on their new project and recent lineup changes
• Reflections on interviews with Robin Brumfield and Nile Atway from GrassFit Music
• Discussion about the challenges of modern music genre classifications
• Tips for new bands on member selection and maintaining a positive practice mindset
• "Oh Shit" segment featuring embarrassing live performance stories
• Importance of feeling rather than overthinking your parts when playing
• Announcement of upcoming guest "Quiet Son" and future podcast appearance
Text us your band stories, questions, or suggestions! We'd love to hear from listeners about your own musical journeys and what topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes.
Thank you and please visit our social medial sites to leave feedback and or support our project.
https://franklinsgaragetostage.buzzsprout.com
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Hi, welcome to Franklin's Garage to Stage podcast. My name is Rob Wardrums Franklin, and my co-host here is Dana Thunderbase Franklin.
Speaker 2:How you doing, man.
Speaker 1:I'm doing really well, really well. Hey, a couple things we need to discuss today. First of all, I wanted to talk about our last couple of guests we've had. But first of all, I want to say thanks for all the new listeners and, uh, and the continued listeners, uh, we really appreciate it. It's grown quite a bit. Uh, we are still asking for support because we do this all ourselves and we don't have any advertisers or anything like that, so any kind of support would be appreciated and there's a link for that on our website and also the podcast. Uh, and for that on our website and also the podcast. And if you're willing to be a guest, please do send us your contact information. We're willing to put on your MP3s, pump your band. If you're a solo artist, whatever information you've got out there. And, yeah, just text us and we'll get you on the show.
Speaker 2:Dana, what do you got to say today? Well, you know pretty much the same as you. I'd like to. You know, definitely appreciation for everybody that is listening and passing the word on. It's like you know we've got, you know, over 6,000 hits now and you know a bunch of different countries and cities. I think we've hit almost every state in the United States. There's a couple out there in North Dakota, south Dakota, I think. Dakota's in like Wyoming. Get us up, guys. I think you're one of the last few states we haven't been in. Yeah, we do all this on our own. So any support, you know simple, three, four bucks a month is all you know. If you can contribute that cup of coffee, and you know it would help us out tremendously.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and it doesn't even have to be monthly. I mean you could do a one-time thing and, just, you know, cancel it. So I mean any support would be appreciated. Like I said, we do this all ourselves, so you know we're spending the money ourselves to do this, but you know we appreciate even just you're listening. So thank you very much for that. Wanted to talk about our last couple of guests. We've had a couple of really cool guests. The first one was what the heck was I going to have Robin Brumfield I wanted to say Blumfield, but it's Brumfield. He was a solo artist and also a producer at GrassFit Music. Real intelligent guy. Had a really good conversation with him. And then our last guest was on nile atway. Uh, he was the c, he's the ceo of grass fit music and he had some great insight for, like, new bands and what they should do as far as management and social medias and all that. It was, uh, really, really interesting. I had learned a lot from both of these guys really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was really cool to talk to him and hear from him. After getting done listening to him, I felt inspired to go out and do even more stuff than what we're doing now. It's really some really good info. Yeah, that Robin guy, he was very well educated, you can tell, and knew his craft very well. And we had some other guests back, you know last month and the month before. Uh, you know ex band members and some family members and, yeah, it's good. It's good listening to everybody and getting their insights on. You know what they're seeing out there in the music world today and different. You know different parts of the area. You know a lot of it's on the West. Some of them are on the West coast and we're here in the East coast, so it's kind of cool to see the different varieties in the different areas.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, Nate, you know, like I said, they the Nile guy. He was extremely passionate. So you, I mean, if that you want to hook up with management, I would strongly suggest giving him a call or contact him because, like I said, he just came across as real passionate about what he's into and getting bands promoted. I thought that was really cool. I learned a lot. I never knew there was a genre called bedroom pop. I mean, there's so many thousands of genres out there. That's one I'd never even heard of before. So when he said that, I was like, huh, Bedroom pop, what the hell is that?
Speaker 2:yeah, that was a new one for me too. There are some strange, strange sub genres out there, it's like, I mean, whatever kind of music you play, if there's not a name for it, somebody will come up with one for you speaking of genres, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I kind of I kind of really don't like the whole idea of having like for rock. There's like 20 or more genres of rock. I think you kind of like pigeonhole yourself into like a certain group of listeners. That's the thing I don't like about having so many thousands of genres out there. You know what I mean. It seems like it kind of limits your audience. You're trying to appeal to somebody's only listening for like classic rock. You may have some cool original shit out there and I'll never hear it because they want to hear classic rock and you know, and vice versa.
Speaker 2:So that kind of shit, you know it's confusing yeah, yeah, it's like you know when you start out a new band nowadays, it's like you know if you want to try to advertise yourself, or you know, say what kind of music you're playing for you know, at certain clubs, like where y'all would do this. Like you know, if you want to try to advertise yourself, or you know, say what kind of music you're playing for you know at certain clubs, like where you know we do this. Like you know, it's like you said, you know, do you limit yourself by saying we're a death neo-punk band?
Speaker 2:or you know whatever some of these crazy names are. It's like I mean, if I hear just rock or metal, then I'll, you know, I'll probably check it out because you know it's both the genres that I like. But it doesn't limit it. You know, it's not a death metal or a stream, or you know, so you're not. You know, if you're not into stream then you're going to go there and you're going to walk right back out. But if you know ahead of time, you know, I don't know, it's too, too intricate, I think nowadays.
Speaker 1:It is. It really is. Also, I think, today we promised in the last couple episodes we're going to update you on our progress as well. We kind of really haven't done that. So, as you know, as we've said in previous episodes, we started a new project a few months back and we've gone through some lineup changes and I think we've finally gotten to the point where we're with members we really want to commit ourselves to. What do you think?
Speaker 2:you know, definitely it's. You know, when we first, uh, when you first moved out here and we got this going again, yes, some of the ones we had there in the beginning were, um, you know nothing against talent, because everybody that we've been with their talent, it's just you know different attitudes or different, different styles of music. So you know it takes the, it takes the right. You know, as we've said in many of our you know podcasts previously, it's you've got to go through all the steps to you know to make sure you're getting the right people that you want it's. You know it's not just musically anymore, it's like we've said we're. You know so it's a family and you all have to gel and and get along and put up with the goods and bads of everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and unfortunately sometimes it takes time.
Speaker 1:I mean really, sometimes it just takes time. You're really not going to know in one or two practices. Sometimes it takes multiple practices to say, okay, you know what. It started off really good, but this shit just ain't working, no more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we've had some guys that I mean they're talented, but it's like you know, just attitudes are a little bit different and you know they. You know either they want to control the whole project or control certain people and drive back and go. No, I want this and I want that. And you know we've always been one of those kind of bands where it's, you know, more of a democracy Everybody's got a voice.
Speaker 1:And we're not into the, the self-leader. Yeah, well, one thing I kind of wanted to discuss too is, uh, we've gotten to that point where every band well, hopefully every band gets to where the members are starting to feel the music rather than play the parts, if you know what I mean. Because once you start feeling the music not not thinking about your parts it's just like a lightning goes off in your head. It's like, oh, this is fucking sick and I experienced that last night. So I was really happy last night. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my practice last night was really good. I was like all the way home and it's like a 45-minute drive from me, so all the way home I was just like pumped. I was just listening to the kind of music that we play and other bands like us I kept thinking about our practice and how everybody was really getting into it and moving around for the little bit of space that we got. But you can tell that it went from just a couple of guys getting together and saying, hey, is this going to work out? Or just jamming to all of a sudden people like you know. It's almost like a stage feeling. It's like everybody's ready to jump on stage and get in front of a crowd and go crazy. And that's what I felt last night. The energy is just fucking amazing. I'm still excited about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the energy. It was just fucking amazing. I'm still excited about it. Yeah, me too, and you know this happened to me. You know, in almost every band I've been, and sometimes it happens sooner and later. But you can tell when everybody's actually starting to feel it instead of just like, okay, one, two, three, four, you know, counting it out or you know, knowing their parts. They're actually feeling it instead of thinking, and I just love that feeling it to me. I've had better practices in live shows, just because when you get that feeling you just can't, you can't, you know, repeat it. It's just, it's just, oh, I love it. It's another way to describe it yeah, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like you're thinking the best drug that's out there and it's 10 times that oh, yeah, yeah let's see why these um. But yeah, going back to the practice is like you know.
Speaker 2:This is only the second time actually with all the members practicing been together and and even with the ending of some of the songs that we've only played once or twice together, where you know some of them got really tight and otherwise we're still trying to figure out how we want to end it and we'd look at each other and it's just kind of always happened and then you as a drummer you know, you'd fuck with us and kind of hold that last hit for a little bit and it was like not only was it a great practice musically, but even just all along it was just a lot. It wasn't, it wasn't like work, it was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly I mean I love practicing anyway, but it was, yeah, it was, it was awesome it was, it was and, like you said, I mean you can't.
Speaker 1:You can't capture that effect with drug drugs. I mean it's just, it's just sick. I mean that's that's why we play instruments for that feeling. Okay, dana, uh, I wanted to tell our listeners as well. Uh, we have a.
Speaker 1:Our next episode is going to be with a uh guest. His name is, he goes by the name quiet son. He's a producer and also a recording engineer. So I'm really looking forward to that because I don't know, I don't know shit about that and I want to, I want to hopefully get some tips from him on, you know, mixes and shit like that, because I mean, that's, that's, that's huge, you know, in recording and actually playing live, or they're just even practice. So I'm really looking forward to getting some information from him. And then we're also going to be we're not quite sure the date yet, but we're going to be on another podcast. It's called on stage um. As soon as we have more information about that or a copy of that, we'll make sure that that's linked on our website and podcast as well. Okay, dana, I think it's about time for that, what we call oh shit, it is all right, this is where we it's been a few episodes, yeah it has.
Speaker 1:This is basically where we talk about something that's either embarrassing or something that happened during either a live show, or before or after a show, or even at a practice, where something just didn't go as planned. So let's start with you. What do you got today?
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. Well, mine, um, mine goes from uh when we had our very first live show with our original band, um manalith, you know. Before, of course, we did a bunch of you know cover bands and stuff and then we finally progressed to just doing what our originals and we got you know good band together and it was we were fucking killing it and this was our first live show. So we're all excited and all pumped and ready to do it. We played at this place called Easy Street in Reno, nevada, and we were fortunate enough to where this place actually had a backstage area where we can, you know, dress up for the show. And you know, we set everything up on stage and then went back and, you know, got our stage clothes on, whatever and, you know, did final tuning and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, at the time this is my very first uh show that I was playing with this brand new wireless transmitter I had, and you know, of course I was using this, you know, at practice and all the stuff leading up to the show. And this goes back to one of those times we talked about one of our episodes, like be fucking prepared, because getting ready to go up on stage, turn everything on and I noticed my light blinking on my wireless transmitter on my my end of it. I'm like, holy shit, you know, everybody knows what that blinking light means means you're getting ready to cut out or you're already out. So thank God, I had an extra 9-volt battery back there to plug in real quick, because I delayed us 5 or 10 minutes of getting on stage. And wow, I was sweating, I was fucking burning. Of course I was nervous, as it was, because this is our first show with this set up, so we had a huge crowd there.
Speaker 2:So, I wanted to, um, you know, want to make sure everything was right and it was. It was fucking scary that would be.
Speaker 1:Hey, it probably helped in the long run. You know that anticipation. You know it came out a little bit later, so people are probably okay getting into it because we have some background music going, I'm sure so oh, yeah, definitely well, mine's.
Speaker 1:Uh, it was kind of a actually a scary moment in, in a kind of a funny way. Um, this is, I was playing in this band unfortunately you weren't in this band and this was in sacramento and we were playing at this club and I had invited I was separated at the time and I had was going out with a couple different chicks and I invited one to the show and then you know, we're, we're playing. I noticed like halfway through the set she shows up, but then towards the end of the set, oh shit, who comes through the front door? My other girlfriend and I was going out with the time and they didn't know each other.
Speaker 1:But then during the show, like just probably like second set in, I noticed they both went into the bathroom at the same time and I was just fucking sweating bullets. So it's just kind of one of those things where be careful who you invite to your show. But that was just kind of funny and I was nervous because I didn't know how the night was going to end up. And it ended up being pretty well, I mean, there was no fights or nothing. So it was just one of those funny moments.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got lucky with that one All right.
Speaker 1:uh, what else you got for us today, dennis?
Speaker 2:well, you know, I think, on our last, actually last couple episodes, you know, talking with those other guys that you know they're both from, uh, the la area, I believe, and they were talking about the local, not even local, but just the music scene in general now, and it was interesting to hear what they were saying. As far as, like you know, I think one of the questions you even asked that night was you know, is rock music even a thing out there anymore? Because it's just, you know, you just don't hear as much as you know the pop and all the you know, you just don't hear as much as you know the pop and all the you know, hip-hop and the stuff that's really country. You know all the other stuff that kind of seems to be taking over, I guess, per se, but to hear Nile say, no, it's really strong out there, I think social media just makes everything so different nowadays.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know it's just yeah, it's changing the whole environment. You know good and bad. You just gotta get to points where you're not afraid to use it. And I think us, being a little bit older, we're not afraid, we're just not familiar with it. It's like, okay, well, what the hell do we gotta do to get out there? So we're gradually breaking into the new world. I guess at least I am. I know you've probably been a lot more tech savvy and you know, of course, you're the one that does all the editing and all the stuff for this program, which I appreciate, because I don't know shit about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, social media, I mean it is huge and, like I said, if you're a band out there and want even more exposure, you know come to us, we'll get you on the show. And, like I said, we've got over 5 000 you know hits now, so your, your music's going to be even more exposed. So if you want to be a guest and have your stuff on our, on our episode, please do, uh, send it to us yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd love to hear from everybody out there, all the different different states and different countries, and I mean I'd love to hear what's going on like in England and our last, our last member, our last listener was Denmark, so I'd love to hear what's going on in these other countries.
Speaker 1:I would too. Yeah, I'd like to hear what the whole process is out there, if it differs from ours at all. I imagine it's pretty much the same, but I mean it'd just be great to hear from them. Okay, dan, you want to talk about some more like about our practices? Um, we've pretty much been sticking with our rules, which I really think helps. Where we go in, we all have the same mindset like, okay, nobody's gonna like do drugs or do any heavy drinking or anything like that. We're sticking to the songs that we've all agreed on and worked on and we're kind of adding songs when we get to the point where we know we're getting the other ones, you know, somewhat polished to where they're ready to perform. But what other tips you have for, like, newer bands out there?
Speaker 2:Well, I love everything that you just said and you know, if you listen to some of our previous episodes, we've done a lot of this in detail, as far as from beginning up until when you actually get the band together. But yeah, some of the best tips, like we said, stick to your guns about how you really feel about it. I know when we first started out again, we almost got to the point where, with even the first couple people that we got together with, we were going to settle just because we wanted to play so bad, even though it wasn't nearly close to what we were looking for. You know I'm not talking music musicianship wide, you know, I'm just talking about general. You know attitudes and maybe the type of music that they wanted to play or something like that. But definitely stick to your feelings.
Speaker 2:After that first time you guys get together, whether it's just with one person or two or a whole new band just getting together at the same time you're going to know what's fitting and what's not. I mean you might be happy with, you know, say, the bass player and the drummer if I can tie this shit with the guitar player, maybe not quite and the singers, you know, not sounding the way you want it's. You know you'll know when it gels like. You know, like we just talked about, it's last night fucking definitely gelled for us. And you know, we knew that. You know we went. You know, like I said, this is our second practice together and and we knew this like well, shit, if we're sounding like this second practice, you know you give us two, three months, we're gonna be polished as hell and ready to fucking take on the world. Man, that's, that's how you gotta feel about it yeah, it really is yeah I was just thinking about our, like first auditions.
Speaker 1:It's like we we've gone like 180 degree difference from what we were willing to accept then as to now. It's funny how that progress of lining up auditions changes once you start getting more polished and accomplished musicians in the room.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm not saying anything bad.
Speaker 1:If they're listening, I'm not saying anything bad. If they're listening, I'm not saying anything bad about, like, your musicianship. Like you said, it's just more you know the genre you want to play, the way you present music. You know all those things you know fit into that category of what makes a band and what doesn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, yeah, exactly, and I always, you know, I always kind of compare practice to almost like how a sports team and stuff is Number one. You've got to want to go to practice. If it's a chore for you, then you need to fucking find a different line of work. I mean, I look so forward to going to practice, even if the last practice sucked or if I'm not feeling good or whatever. Forward to going to practice, even if the last practice sucked or if I'm not feeling good or whatever. Going to practice is it's kind of like a big high point of my day or a week, something really look forward to oh, and that's, that's the way you should feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool sports.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, compared to sports teams, that you know it can't be just about one person. It's like, you know there might be one person that's maybe a better musician than the other ones, or, you know, maybe he's got, you know, different ideas or whatever, but it's it's still. It's gotta be. The core members all have to be exactly in sync and you know, regardless of who's better than who, it's, you know it's you can have the best three members of you know, say, the bass player, drummer and guitar player absolutely fucking awesome. But if you got a singer that's not quite up to par, you know that kills the band.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same thing goes for every individual member, you know. Yeah, yeah, you can't have a front man. That's going to destroy the rest of the band, and we're pretty fortunate to have a guitar player slash vocalist that's got double duty and he's doing it really well, so we're really fortunate there.
Speaker 1:But, you brought up a point I really want to stress on. It's like don't count on every practice being perfect, because you're going to have off days, or two of you may have off days and then the others are doing all right, but you're never going to have a I mean I won't say never. You're not going to have 100% of the time a practice that's perfect. I mean, I don't care how accomplished you are.
Speaker 2:You're going to have a bad day.
Speaker 1:I mean everybody does.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I mean if you go into practice you know saying oh this is gonna be sick tonight and it sucks, I mean you're gonna have those nights, so don't let it like deter you from being excited about the next practice. Like you are, I mean you've got to be always be excited. I mean just got to be your attitude going in, even if you don't like feel a hundred percent. I mean you've got to be mentally prepared to go in there and give it your all, even if you may have an off day.
Speaker 2:That's my opinion. Yeah, that's a great tip, great opinion. I mean you know any new musician that's you know listening to this podcast, or I mean that's a great point. You know, if you're that one guy that doesn't want to go to practice, or maybe you're intimidated which we all get, especially if we're new musicians and you're trying your first band, I don't care how good you are, you're going to be nervous and you're going to be maybe a little bit scared to do it. But that's how you broaden your horizons and that's how everybody gets better by just going out there and doing it yeah, and when you, when you feel like that, you're kind of like intimidated.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're like a newer musician. It's going to show when you're playing too, because you're going to overthink your parts rather than just, like we were talking about earlier, like feeling your part. I mean, once you get to that point where you're feeling your part, you know it's going to going to gel a lot better. But I think we all do. I mean we all overthink, especially a new tune. You kind of overthink your parts. You're like anticipating, you know, maybe the next breakdown or next verse or bridge or whatever, and instead of just like feeling the part you're currently playing. So I mean, we've all gone through that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, it's almost like I mean, if you listen to something like older, some of the older, well, shit, maybe even some of the newer music, you know some of the recordings that are out there it's like you can, you can tell the ones from the bands that like their first or second album, there's, you know, a little bit more edgy or raw and it's you know they're maybe not quite polished, but that energy and that vibe that you get. I like those way better than the polished shit that's out there, that's so overproduced that it's just I don't know, everything starts to sound the same after a while. But some of those newer bands, that raw energy, it just sounds sick.
Speaker 1:Speaking of which, I just watched this documentary on Motley Crue. I'm a big Motley Crue fan because I like Tommy Lee's drumming style, but I mean, they basically had a couple of players that didn't even know how to tune their damn instruments, but their first album just came across, like you said, raw and edgy, and it may not have been 100%. You know musicianship, but you could, like you said, you could feel that energy and that rawness and it just came out as okay, these guys are going to go somewhere and obviously they did Okay well, in closing, once again I want to thank everybody for listening. Like I said, we've grown quite a bit from where we first started. We really, really appreciate it. We do want to hear from you, though we haven't received a whole lot of text or e email, so I mean, whether it's good or bad, you know you can tell us hey, you guys suck, or you know, tell us what you like about the show either way we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:All right, dana, what else you got for closing here yeah, you're about the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just drop us a line out there, people, let us, let us know I, we know we've got the listeners out there because you know. So I could absolutely. I think we actually just hit over 6,000, I think just the other day. So I mean every month we're just getting it's like we're doubling our viewership, you know every month, from the previous month. So I mean we're not, we're not hearing from you. So drop us a line, tell us where you're from and you know what's going on in your life. If you, if you're just starting out a band, or if you've got a band that's out there for 10 years, we'd love to hear from you and go give us, give us some, uh, some pointers that you know, maybe you've experienced in your bands and getting them together, or just any, any kind of shit that's going out there. Do this stuff and let us know.
Speaker 1:Or suggestions for future episodes. We'd really appreciate it. We still want to get some bar owners and booking agents. We haven't had them yet, but that's one thing we're in the works with as well. I want to thank everybody again. Dana, great talking to you again today. Thanks for the practice last night.
Speaker 2:Thanks for the great fucking night. It was good talking to you, man Nice, and looking forward to our next show. Thanks for the great fucking practice yesterday. Happy jamming to everybody and freaking. The Fear Band hit us up. We'd love to hear from a whole band too what's going on with the dynamics of it.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. Yep, all right everybody. Thank you and bye.
