#199 - Robert McKay - Songwriter/Musician

Unknown Speaker (0:06): Man, we're live.

Chris (0:09): What's up there boys and girls? Twitchers. Robert said 99% already. I'm at 25. You're 60.

Chris (0:24): What's up with that, man? I I still understand. Stupid Internet. Crazy technology. Technology, man.

Unknown Speaker (0:54): Yeah. Welcome to the show, boys and girls. This is the Chris and Mike show. He's Mike. I'm Chris.

Chris (0:59): A portion of the show is brought to you by Riverside FN, the one and only choice for all your podcasting platforms. Remember, we're live on Twitch, YouTube, and our website, chrisandmikeshow.com. You can go right now and you can stream us live. You can watch us have a conversation with the return guest part two, Robert McKay's Encore performance. Hello, Robert.

Unknown Speaker (1:16): Welcome. Hey, Robert. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Chris (1:21): So give us give us a give us a thirty thirty floor elevator ride. Why you're why you wanted to come back and what we're gonna talk about today and what's going on in Robert McKay's world.

Mike (1:30): So I'm releasing my first single ever.

Unknown Speaker (1:35): Okay.

Mike (1:36): Next one on June 20. So after after our first interview, the last time, I I've got first before or after Tennessee. But I went to Tennessee. I went to play in Nashville and everything. Came back for a song called Take A Shot.

Unknown Speaker (1:54): And I've written by the December, lyrically, board wide. I'm like, alright. I have these lyrics, but I don't have a singer. And I never sang before. I said, no.

Mike (2:05): It's good. I'm just gonna jump in and sing it.

Unknown Speaker (2:08): Yeah. Do it, man. Just do it.

Mike (2:10): Just do it. So I googled vocal lessons, and I found a place five minutes from my house.

Unknown Speaker (2:20): Nice. So

Mike (2:20): I've been doing vocal lessons since December. Nice. So, So did

Speaker 0 (2:27): you write this song after you went to Nashville? Because you hadn't gone to Nashville when you were on the show the first time you were talking about going there or North Carolina, if I remember. Right?

Mike (2:37): Right. So that, that was my, I wrote it. I wrote it when I got back. Nice. So the idea, the idea from take a shot, I was at the bar with my cousin and, you know, we we got plastered a little bit, you know, shots and everything.

Unknown Speaker (2:52): So Oh, yeah. So he said, he's open around. He says, dude, we should just pass out shots to everyone, tell everyone to take a shot. So I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, you know, that'd be a really cool name of a song, take a shot. So that's where I got the title from.

Mike (3:07): But I didn't wanna make it like a pure, like, just drinking song, even though it's now. I I wanted to kinda expand on the idea of it and more like take a shot on whatever it is. You know? For me, was Nashville. For me, was, you doing an open mic in Nashville for the first time.

Mike (3:26): You know?

Unknown Speaker (3:27): How was that?

Mike (3:28): That was good. So the place I did it was a songwriter showcase. So she does songwriter showcase does it four nights a week. So I went I went on a Sunday night. So the first two hours were all songwriters, and then she does open mic the last half hour of it.

Mike (3:52): So you got to do one song. So I thought I'd be nervous. I actually wasn't that nervous. And I got a pause afterwards. But it was really late, but it was really laid back, laid.

Mike (4:07): And I sat right in the front. So, you know, I got to see everything up front and, you know, upfront. And it was kinda intimidating all, but because everyone like, you know, it's not like open mic. You know, everyone's wearing professional stuff. You know, someone wore a suit.

Mike (4:25): So it's kind of like, wow. Okay. This is next level stuff.

Speaker 0 (4:30): Now you said you're releasing this as a single. Have you already recorded the song? Are you going in to record the song or?

Mike (4:37): Yeah. So it's already recorded, ready to go.

Unknown Speaker (4:40): Where did you do that at?

Mike (4:42): So there's a place that I take multiple lessons. He has a whole, the guy that runs it, he has a whole business, kind of like a, kind of like a guitar center. Like they do lessons for everything.

Speaker 0 (4:56): Okay.

Mike (4:56): He does this, he does the same thing. He has a guy that does audio too. So it works out because this place that came vocal same place that they record in.

Speaker 0 (5:11): So are you pretty happy with how it turned out?

Unknown Speaker (5:14): Yeah. For for my first song? Yeah. Would Did

Speaker 0 (5:18): you hire a bass player and a drummer then to do the background tracks or how did you tackle that?

Mike (5:24): So the guy that records it, he, he actually plays drums. So he helped me come up with the drum loop part. And then he just added the base afterwards to go with it. Okay. But it was pretty cool.

Mike (5:40): We did it fast. Like I did, I started, I had it finished by December. I did my first vocal lesson the first week in December. And we had the whole thing recorded a few weeks ago, like two or three weeks ago. I never sang before that.

Mike (5:59): So

Speaker 0 (6:00): So what would you say is your biggest takeaway from taking the vocal lessons? Is it self confidence?

Mike (6:09): Yeah. Doing vocals is totally different than playing guitar.

Unknown Speaker (6:16): It is.

Speaker 0 (6:17): Always tell Chris about that?

Mike (6:19): Nope. Yeah. So I, I re the first lesson I did, it was kind of intimidating because you're in a room where you don't have a guitar. You don't have anything to kind of like hide behind. Just you and all the person and that's it.

Unknown Speaker (6:33): Yep. Yeah.

Mike (6:35): It's like, oh, play this note. I'll play this note. It's like, oh, and you're like, no, you're making these sounds like, what the hell am I doing?

Unknown Speaker (6:43): I'll tell you

Speaker 0 (6:43): how accurate that statement is Robert. If you ever see any video clips of James Hetfield recording his vocals, he's always got his guitar with him.

Unknown Speaker (6:54): Oh, really?

Speaker 0 (6:55): Yep. Because he marries the two together so tightly that he can't sing without that guitar. Oh, wow. He's not plugged in or anything. He just when he's singing

Unknown Speaker (7:11): just to have it.

Speaker 0 (7:11): If you see clips, he's there playing it, just, you know, not plugged in through an amp or anything. It's just the motion of actually doing it. So what you said is so accurate. If you're a musician and a singer, sometimes you need that.

Unknown Speaker (7:25): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (7:26): But it is weird if you're a musician and then you just stand in front of a microphone and start singing. It's like, where's my instrument?

Unknown Speaker (7:32): Yeah. Oh. Yeah. That's how I felt. And it's like, no, I never sang before.

Mike (7:37): I always kind of hit behind the guitar. I'm not really into singing and stuff like that. But, know, it's kind of like, I knew I had to do it to get this song out and do what I wanted to do with it.

Unknown Speaker (7:50): Yeah. That's why

Mike (7:50): it's like, yeah, nice. Like, you know, okay. Go to North Carolina or Tennessee or something. Now I hope I'll put a singer, but if they can't come, then I don't have a singer. That was my oldest thing.

Mike (8:01): I'm like, no, if I'm going to do this, I might as well just do so I don't have to worry about that.

Unknown Speaker (8:07): Well, and you wrote the song, so you might as well, you might as well sing it because you play the guitar for it.

Unknown Speaker (8:13): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (8:13): You know, now, now if I was somebody like Prince who could play every instrument and I would do the same thing, I would bring the French bride to someone like Mike and say, okay dude, here we go. Now you just, you replace the guitar with your guitars, but I'm not together. Never pretend to be in, you know, so that's why I'm

Mike (8:29): I in my life. Actually wrote it at the time I was learning, decency, my kind of party and that's all he uses a tape on the first fret. So I I used the same I used the same guitar when I was writing it, you know, when I was messing around with it. So, you know, learning chasing out thing kinda helped me write this one guitar wise because I had the capo on it.

Speaker 0 (8:58): Nice. And for those of you who are not guitar nerds, a capo actually just shortens the neck.

Unknown Speaker (9:06): Yeah. But

Speaker 0 (9:08): It's just a flat piece that holds the strings down at whatever fret you wanna put it on. It makes the neck that much shorter. So we have people that are listening that are like, what are they talking about?

Unknown Speaker (9:18): What's the tape of?

Speaker 0 (9:19): That's what it is. It just makes the neck shorter. It's got a flat piece that holds the strings down and instead of the nut being at the top of the neck, it makes it however many frets shorter.

Unknown Speaker (9:30): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (9:30): And usually people will do that. So let's say that Chris can only sing in up to the key of E or whatever. So now we're either going to tune our guitar down or we're going to capo up. Right? Depending on where the singer's voice lies.

Speaker 0 (9:45): That's why you're doing that.

Unknown Speaker (9:47): Yeah. Yeah. Like I have it on the first part.

Unknown Speaker (9:50): Damn singers and their limitations to their vocal abilities.

Unknown Speaker (9:54): I have no idea. I have no idea what an angel was. I just sang. You just wrote the music and I just sang to it, man.

Speaker 0 (10:00): Never, never cared. Oddly enough, when I sat down, you just asked that question. So obviously, or oddly enough, when I sat down to relearn a lot of these songs, a lot of them are in F sharp. So that must be your sweet spot.

Unknown Speaker (10:14): Okay. Yeah. I didn't know. I just, I just, I just know what I heard and I sang to it and it was in key. So I was happy.

Chris (10:21): You were happy because you didn't give me shit. Now and then you'd give me shit. Every now and then you would press me for certain things. But for the most part, I think I just found that spot and just grooved out with it.

Mike (10:31): Ran with it.

Speaker 0 (10:32): And here's why. I was just telling him before you logged on, Robert, we had a singer before him who it just didn't work out for one reason or another, but I got to see the very first concert I ever played in Arizona. My mom actually still has a VHS. I watched on Saturday So with my dad asked me, you know, who was the better singer? And I told him Chris, obviously, but then I started pointing out to him why.

Speaker 0 (10:58): Because this guy had a real hard time hitting his upper register. He was always struggling. Right? Yep. So Chris would just blow through those.

Unknown Speaker (11:08): He'd hit the note and then just he'd hold it for another forty five, fifty seconds. Perfectly. Right? Wow. The voice would never waver unless he wanted it to.

Speaker 0 (11:17): So Right. It was the sheer power in his voice that drew him to me as a singer.

Unknown Speaker (11:24): Okay. Wow.

Chris (11:25): We told we told you the story how we met, right, Robert?

Unknown Speaker (11:28): I think so. Remember some of it.

Chris (11:31): Candle candle box concert. I was singing along with candle box and he kept looking back at me like, are you doing, man? Shut

Unknown Speaker (11:38): Yeah. I think you told me that last

Unknown Speaker (11:40): time. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (11:41): Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (11:42): So the show that we watched was actually at the place that Chris and I met. So it was kind of cool for my parents because they got to see the actual venue where Chris and I met.

Unknown Speaker (11:52): Oh, wow. That's pretty Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (11:58): Went on to open up for the Marshall Tucker band there.

Unknown Speaker (12:01): Nice. Can't you see you?

Unknown Speaker (12:03): Can't you see you?

Unknown Speaker (12:05): What that woman love should be doing to me.

Speaker 0 (12:08): Are you still planning on moving to Nashville or what's what's going on with your music going forward after you release the single?

Mike (12:16): Yeah. I I still wanna go to Nashville. I was actually in Nashville. I went in March. I went for I went for ten days.

Mike (12:25): So I did a I did a whole round trip. I hung out with my cousins in Knoxville. I went the day after Saint Patrick's. I hung out with my cousins for four days, and then I was in Nashville for four days after that. So, I did the open mic, I did a showcase.

Mike (12:48): I did country swing dance for the first time.

Unknown Speaker (12:51): Nice.

Mike (12:52): That's definitely different. I had a blast doing it though. You know? That's kinda like the icing on the cake for me. Like, alright.

Mike (13:01): I belong in Nashville or Carolina or something. Like, I have more fun with it than I thought I would.

Speaker 0 (13:09): Well, if you wanna pursue music, I would definitely probably gravitate towards Nashville because

Unknown Speaker (13:14): Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (13:15): They they call it music city for a reason.

Mike (13:18): Yeah. Yeah. I did lunch with one of the songwriters I met. One of the songwriters I met in October there. I kept in touch with him.

Mike (13:29): So we went up yeah. We went up eating off for lunch. And I played him the demo. And he's like, that's you singing and playing. I said, yeah.

Mike (13:37): It's like, sounds pretty good.

Unknown Speaker (13:39): So Very nice.

Mike (13:41): And then I played it when I did the open mic in Nashville. And I, you know, I got a full start. I actually sang it too. So, but I wasn't nervous. I thought I'd be more nervous doing it because y'all now you're singing and playing in Nashville, but yeah, I wasn't real.

Mike (13:58): I wasn't nervous. I was pretty excited.

Chris (14:00): See, I think if you have an instrument, you're less, you're less exposed. Because when you're, when you're a singer like me, where there was nothing but me and the microphone, I'm fully exposed. There's nothing, There's nothing to take the the fan's attention away from my face, like nothing. If I have a guitar, they could be looking at the car. They'd be looking at my hands, how I'm going up and down the fretboard.

Unknown Speaker (14:21): What you know what I mean? But when you're Well, That's

Unknown Speaker (14:24): something else.

Speaker 0 (14:24): That's just one more thing that they have to criticize you for too. So I agree with your statement wholeheartedly because I think I'm guilty of it too. When I go to see a new band, if it's just like Chris was saying, if it's a guy just coming out there holding a microphone, the first thing you're thinking as an audience member is, a fucking guy better be good. Right? Right.

Unknown Speaker (14:44): Yeah. Yeah. So I agree

Unknown Speaker (14:47): with It's this

Speaker 0 (14:49): soul and the audience. Least you and I, have that piece of wood between us that as crazy as it sounds, Chris is right, that there's something, security blanket to that.

Unknown Speaker (15:00): It is.

Speaker 0 (15:02): Because he'll tell you I'm one of the most introverted people you're gonna meet until I get to know you, right? And then I'll talk your head up.

Unknown Speaker (15:08): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (15:09): I'm not really interested in having deep conversations with people I don't know, so Yeah. That piece of wood is literally what allowed a guy like me to get up in front of thousands of people and play my guitar, you know? Yeah. Three of us are on the same wavelength and that it is definitely a security blanket.

Mike (15:29): Yeah. That's how I was growing up to, I was quiet as anything growing up, you know?

Speaker 0 (15:34): I always admired guys like Chris that could just get up there and be like, are you guys ready to fucking rock? Let's go. Let's And he wasn't faking it. That was there's guys that I saw that got up there that were like me, but they could pull off that act. His wasn't an act.

Speaker 0 (15:51): You know, I that

Unknown Speaker (15:53): love being, I love being on stage, I love being in front of people. I love performing.

Unknown Speaker (15:57): That's the extra You did. Part was painfully obvious.

Chris (15:59): Yeah. It was, you know, even Nikki, a couple weeks ago Nikki made reference to something. It's like, you like to be seen. I'm like, well, yeah, I'm an extrovert. Extroverts want to be seen.

Chris (16:08): I want to be out there. I want, you know, He used to climb up on the,

Speaker 0 (16:12): on the speakers and stand on the top of the speakers and like swing from the light trusses.

Unknown Speaker (16:18): That's crazy. Yeah. Was definitely,

Unknown Speaker (16:22): did. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker (16:24): definitely. Got

Unknown Speaker (16:26): yelled at Mason. I think Mason Jarrett is the one that yelled at me. So I stopped doing it everywhere we went. I was like, okay, okay. Get off the light truss.

Chris (16:34): Was just swinging on it. I wasn't, wasn't going to break it. I wasn't, I wasn't a big guy. I was a whopping one hundred and seventy pounds soaking wet. Was like,

Unknown Speaker (16:41): come on. Swinging.

Chris (16:41): You know, one arm and with the mic. They're like, I

Speaker 0 (16:45): don't think our insurance covers this.

Unknown Speaker (16:48): Insurance. Who needs insurance? It's rock and roll man. Damn right. So how long were you in Nashville, Robert?

Unknown Speaker (16:59): How, how what?

Unknown Speaker (17:00): How long were you in Nashville?

Mike (17:03): Four or five days. Sunday, Sunday to Thursday. And Thursday I left Nashville. I left Nashville, went to Charlotte. They don't open my Thursday night.

Mike (17:15): Then I came back home Friday.

Unknown Speaker (17:19): Okay. And you're in New York, right?

Mike (17:21): Yeah. I'm in Long Island.

Unknown Speaker (17:23): Okay.

Unknown Speaker (17:23): Okay. Did we talk, did we talk last time about you being a Giants or a Jets fan? Did we talk about that?

Mike (17:29): I think so. I'm a Giants fan, but I think, I think you asked me not last time.

Speaker 0 (17:34): You just earned a couple, points in Chris's book.

Chris (17:37): Did we open up with the cowboys this year in, in, in Jersey? So that'll be fun.

Unknown Speaker (17:43): I saw, I saw, I was just out.

Unknown Speaker (17:45): Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (17:47): Before and I saw it on the TV.

Chris (17:50): Yeah. It's time to put up or shut up all the hype around Harbaugh. We'll see if it pays off or not. Cause if we can start the year one against the Cowboys, that's a win, you know, that's

Unknown Speaker (17:58): a total win,

Unknown Speaker (17:59): not just a win, but a win, you know, like a win, especially with all the, especially with all our weapons we have now, you know, scataboo is gonna be healthy dart neighbors. Got a winner, man.

Speaker 0 (18:11): Harbaugh's like to win football games. Hopefully

Unknown Speaker (18:15): this year is a lot better than last year.

Speaker 0 (18:18): It will be. Yeah. I wouldn't expect miracles right off the bat, the one thing I told him when we talked about this the last time is that name is synonymous with football. It's right up there with Mannings and whoever else you wanna name that's a dynasty football family. I mean, the Hardballs like to win football games and somehow they're good at it.

Unknown Speaker (18:38): Yeah. Yeah. So

Chris (18:40): we'll see. Speaking of not being good at it, well, good at it, did everybody like how LeBron got swept again last night? Swept.

Unknown Speaker (18:47): I did. It was So swept

Chris (18:49): I I pulled it up on the FanDuel app, and it was, forty seconds left, and and the Lakers were winning by five. I'm like, can't be fucking kidding me. And then when I got up this morning at six, I just Googled up like, oh, right on the Lakers watched.

Unknown Speaker (19:09): How do you lose? I saw some of it

Unknown Speaker (19:10): before five. Just don't know how you lose up by five with forty seconds left, but they did.

Unknown Speaker (19:17): Yeah. It's the NBA. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (19:20): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (19:24): Team can be down by 22 points and there's two minutes left and somehow they end up winning. Right? Yeah. That's why I had to quit betting on the NBA.

Unknown Speaker (19:32): It's Yeah. It's all rigged.

Speaker 0 (19:34): Saying it's rigged, but It's rigged. Man.

Unknown Speaker (19:36): Yeah. It's

Unknown Speaker (19:37): tough. It's all rigged. They've had they've had more referees pulled out of the NBA under suspicion of that crap than any other sport.

Unknown Speaker (19:44): Well, one of them went to prison for sure. Right. Think two of

Unknown Speaker (19:47): them. Yeah.

Chris (19:48): That was during the Barkley Suns era. The Barkley Nash Suns era. That was a big, that was a big deal back then. That guy, that guy went down for sure. Now football football NFL's are gonna start going down.

Unknown Speaker (20:01): The umpires, you don't really

Unknown Speaker (20:02): get Sounds like football free.

Chris (20:05): Football basketball are the two. They're the two ones that I think have the most influenced by the officiating.

Unknown Speaker (20:11): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (20:12): You know, baseball, never really hit that. Right. And baseball, you

Unknown Speaker (20:17): never really hit it with hockey.

Unknown Speaker (20:20): No, no. And baseball and umpire, but now they can overrule the umpire's calls twice a game. Oh, only twice Okay. A

Unknown Speaker (20:29): Yeah. Never really hear it with hockey or sports.

Chris (20:34): Because hockey's hockey, man. Hockey's still pretty pure. Yeah. It's violent. It's cold.

Unknown Speaker (20:41): It's everything. That's everything it's supposed to be.

Unknown Speaker (20:44): That's it. Yeah. It's still a thing.

Chris (20:47): Right. It's like rugby on skates.

Mike (20:50): Rugby. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that.

Unknown Speaker (20:52): Yeah. So you have one song coming out. You write in a, you write, and you're gonna, you're gonna write a whole EP. You're gonna write seven more songs. I felt it.

Mike (21:03): Yeah. So, so, I actually have, I have like four or five songs I've been writing past two years,

Unknown Speaker (21:13): year and a

Mike (21:16): so once I kind of dove into like, okay, I'm gonna sing these. I kind of put focus on the lyrical part at least writing well, rest on them. So, so I have about four or five, I would say.

Speaker 0 (21:33): Okay. Then that's my next question. I know you're a guitar player. Yeah. When you decided to start writing lyrics, have you always written lyrics or is this something that you've tackled recently?

Mike (21:47): I would say recently. I would say recently.

Speaker 0 (21:54): Mean, that's another thing I don't do either, Robert. I've never, I've tried a few times and I think I've written a couple decent songs. I lost them when I moved back to Illinois, but when I read his lyrics, I was like, I'm done monkeying around with that shit.

Unknown Speaker (22:09): Thank you

Unknown Speaker (22:09): for I'll energy play guitar. That's it.

Unknown Speaker (22:11): Yeah. I'm good at this. I'm good at this part.

Mike (22:14): Yeah. Yeah, I, it's kind of new. I, I kind of based it off, you know, just experiences, you know, there's one I wrote, well, it was about a crush I had on a girl. I used to go into the store and kind of chat with her or whatever. So one of my favorite songs is Morgan Wallen's Spin You Around.

Unknown Speaker (22:39): So I kind of took that idea and kind of made it my own type of spin on it.

Unknown Speaker (22:44): Nice.

Mike (22:45): So I asked one of them, but yeah, you know, it's just how it comes, you know? Well, most of the music I already had before that. And then the, or I do it the other way around. Sometimes I write lyrics and be like, oh, this sounds good and try to put the use up to it.

Speaker 0 (23:05): Yeah. Him and I used to do the same thing. Sometimes I would come up with a riff and he would say, you know, either I'm gonna write lyrics to that, or I got a set of lyrics.

Unknown Speaker (23:13): And

Speaker 0 (23:14): then the other half the time he would just hand me a set of lyrics and somehow I would hear what the music should sound like in my head. Was crazy.

Chris (23:22): Yeah. Mike was really good at Mike was really good at that. I've told that story thousands of times. I could give him, I give him a set of lyrics and he he'd understand my emotion, my whatever energy was behind those words. Just

Unknown Speaker (23:34): yeah,

Chris (23:35): it's like it's like Lyndon and McCartney without the billions and trillions of dollars in recording songs.

Speaker 0 (23:41): Yeah. Yeah. We're missing the money part. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (23:43): The billing But he cut it was amazing. It was amazing. It's just here. He could tell me what the He knew what the mood was. He knew what the tone was.

Chris (23:52): I don't think there was ever a song we we we wrote that that didn't happen. It was never forced. Was always just it was

Unknown Speaker (24:00): just yeah.

Chris (24:01): It was just there, you know, and he would come he would play like this. When I came into the band, a lot of the music was already written. So then I came in over top of it with my own lyrics and just the irony of that is my lyrics They just fit. It wasn't anything. And they were completely different songs when I took them.

Chris (24:21): They had different names, everything. And I, you know, I never really listened to their music with the other singer because I didn't want to. I just wanted to hear them.

Unknown Speaker (24:30): You want to make it your own.

Chris (24:32): Right. I did that and, you know, his mom still likes one of the songs that I wrote, that he wrote the title better, which I'm like, come on, Kay. What the hell, man?

Unknown Speaker (24:44): Yeah. Like this one of them I wrote.

Speaker 0 (24:45): I don't think she has anything. Sorry, Robert. I don't think she has anything to compare it to with you. Because we never had anything. I, we never had that song recorded.

Unknown Speaker (24:54): It

Unknown Speaker (24:54): was

Unknown Speaker (24:54): Vision. Yeah. If I remember right. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (24:55): True. Yeah. True.

Speaker 0 (24:59): What were you saying about the song you wrote, Robert?

Mike (25:01): Oh, I said one of them is called, different kind of paradise, which I wrote after going to Tennessee the first time. Okay. I wrote after I went last May. So when I came back, I was talking to my uncle and it's like, you know, you know, of course, it's nice because you're on vacation then you don't have to worry about, you know, bills or anything. So I'm like, yeah, it was a different kind of feeling.

Mike (25:29): So then it kind of popped in my head, like different kind of paradigms. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (25:36): Like that title. That is funny. Yeah.

Mike (25:39): There's, so there's Take A Side, The Pond of Paradise, Green Tracer I wrote, I had, the lyrics came later on, but musically, it's probably one of the older ones I wrote like two years ago. And that came from it was the first open mic I did ever in North Carolina. And the name of the place was.

Unknown Speaker (26:08): Oh, cool.

Unknown Speaker (26:09): Oh, yeah. So

Chris (26:11): so we remind our listeners because now we're like in almost a 100 countries now. So remind our listeners, you started this because you just decided one day you wanted to be And so you would do a travel to open mic. So kind of back up a little bit and kind of share that little beginning of your story, because that's a really cool origin of how you got into. Well, had decided to before be a

Unknown Speaker (26:33): that, right? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (26:34): But

Speaker 0 (26:34): yeah, right. You beat cancer before all this, right?

Unknown Speaker (26:37): Yeah. So I want to backtrack a

Unknown Speaker (26:41): little. Yeah. Yeah. Just yeah. Just like a five minute reminder.

Unknown Speaker (26:43): So people that are just joining us and haven't didn't cause you've been, you haven't been here for a while. This was over a year ago, right?

Unknown Speaker (26:49): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very close. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (26:54): So just a five minute, you know, you know.

Mike (26:58): Okay. Yeah. So I'm a fifteen year thyroid cancer survivor. Right. Yep.

Mike (27:06): Yep. Don't have a thyroid, so I had it taken out I was first diagnosed. Playing guitar since mid, since eighth grade.

Chris (27:18): Nice.

Mike (27:18): So that's about ninety six, ninety five I started playing. I took lessons for four years. Once that ended, kept playing self taught myself. And then 2019, I hooked up with my guitar teacher that I still take lessons with now. I've been with him ever since.

Mike (27:42): We do lessons every Tuesday. So, and then my first open mic was in North Carolina. Me and her bikini friends, the girl that runs it, and, you know, keeping contact. I think I've been down there, I wanna say 12 times, 10 times in the past

Unknown Speaker (28:05): Nice. Few

Mike (28:06): Just That's awesome. And I always focus when I go down to make sure that she's doing she's around. So I get a chance to see her and hang out with her and stuff.

Unknown Speaker (28:16): That's awesome. But

Mike (28:17): My first open mic was at Hearst.

Chris (28:21): That's awesome.

Mike (28:22): I think I was more nervous at that than I was singing in Nashville. Yeah, because

Chris (28:29): it your first time, man. I mean, you know, and I'm sure you've grown as an artist immensely since the first time to being in Nashville.

Mike (28:37): Yeah. Now I love it. Now it's like, you know, I love doing the state, you know, playing with stuff like that.

Unknown Speaker (28:43): Yeah. But yeah, it's

Unknown Speaker (28:44): based on my backstory, you know,

Unknown Speaker (28:47): was telling

Unknown Speaker (28:48): everybody I

Unknown Speaker (28:49): was telling everybody I was too I think I was too stupid to know I was supposed to be scared to get up there.

Unknown Speaker (28:55): Right?

Unknown Speaker (28:56): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (28:57): That's always my running joke. I think I was just too dumb to know I was supposed to be nervous to get up there. Yeah. But we rehearse so much, man. And I'm sure that you can attest to that.

Speaker 0 (29:07): If you've done the work, of course, you're gonna have anxiety. That's human nature. If you don't have anxiety, you probably shouldn't do it

Unknown Speaker (29:16): then Right. Got probably butterflies. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (29:18): If you don't have that, then you're like a sociopath and you need other kinds of help,

Unknown Speaker (29:22): you know?

Unknown Speaker (29:23): But Yeah. But, yeah, you kind of want the butterflies to kind of, you know?

Unknown Speaker (29:28): Yeah. That shows you that you're human. Yep.

Unknown Speaker (29:30): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (29:32): Yep. My leg would start shaking uncontrollably. Couldn't get it to stop until I hit that first chord and then everything would be fine. You know, I'm like, let's just go. You know, I just,

Chris (29:41): I, yep. I would pace. I would pace nonstop. I'd pace backstage just nonstop pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Nervous energy like, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Unknown Speaker (29:50): I've done that.

Unknown Speaker (29:53): Yeah. Yeah. Just

Unknown Speaker (29:54): just I've definitely done that.

Speaker 0 (29:56): If anybody thinks that he talks fast now, you should have heard him at that moment in time. Oh.

Unknown Speaker (30:02): Oh, really?

Speaker 0 (30:02): It was like he it was like somebody put him on one and a half speed or two speed on your phone, you know, when you would listen to a podcast with somebody talking real slow, sometimes I'll speed it

Unknown Speaker (30:12): up. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (30:13): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like all quick. I'll go up and pace back and forth.

Chris (30:20): Yeah. Well, yeah. Cause everything's faster when you're alive. The adrenaline takes over.

Unknown Speaker (30:24): Oh, for sure.

Chris (30:24): You know? The excitement, the rush, the the faces that everything just, you know, you just can't control it. You can't slow it down. That's why everybody praises Charlie, what's his face, last name from the stones? Cause he's a human metronome.

Chris (30:38): Watt. Charlie Watt. No, it doesn't matter what the band was. Charlie's like, fuck you. This is the tempo.

Unknown Speaker (30:45): Yeah. The best. Slow it down. Slow it down. We're not going.

Unknown Speaker (30:49): Nope. Not going fast. Nope. Not doing it.

Unknown Speaker (30:51): That's the same speed.

Speaker 0 (30:55): Know? Some bands can pull that off. ACDC, they pulled it off.

Unknown Speaker (30:59): Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (31:00): Phil Rudd was the same way. It was a human metronome. Yep.

Unknown Speaker (31:03): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (31:04): Yeah. Smells me and a lot of work.

Speaker 0 (31:06): Cigarettes and play a concert.

Unknown Speaker (31:09): Yeah. What do you smell the same during

Speaker 0 (31:12): a show? Oh, for sure. Wow. That guy always had a cigarette in his mouth, which is a testament playing the drums. Well, bunny Coles did too

Unknown Speaker (31:21): for the, for cheap trick. He always had a cigarette.

Unknown Speaker (31:24): I didn't know

Chris (31:27): bunny Carlos. Yeah. Bunny Carlos. What'd say? Bunny Coles, bunny Carlos.

Unknown Speaker (31:31): Yeah. Bunny Carlos. I was like,

Unknown Speaker (31:33): I know he's two thirds of

Chris (31:34): the way there. What's that? I one ironic. The irony of that is he looks like my old man. Yeah.

Chris (31:42): The, the, the, few, the few pictures I had of him or, you know, looks just it's just like, could be brothers. They're not obviously, but that's what that's what my father looked like the last time I saw his face. That's crazy. Was even crazier. The both from Illinois.

Chris (32:03): You know, weird, wacky stuff. Me too. Okay. We got four or five more songs. You got one that's coming out June 20.

Chris (32:10): Now is that gonna be on all the platforms? All the you can find it out all the places? Okay, cool.

Mike (32:15): Yep. So it's already uploaded on Discord. So yes, it's going be on all platforms.

Chris (32:21): Okay. Now why are waiting until the twentieth? What's the catch for that?

Mike (32:27): Originally I just did it because I wasn't still where I was going to be with the recording. Okay. But I wanted to do it before July 4. Like I wanted to do it before the fourth of So I wanted to give it that to kind of two weeks before to kind of be out there and circling before the holiday. So I don't want to do it after fourth of July.

Mike (32:53): Wanted to make it definitely before.

Unknown Speaker (32:57): Now you go ahead.

Unknown Speaker (33:00): Go ahead. Oh, no. Be my summer storm. So Gotcha.

Unknown Speaker (33:06): Okay. Now are you going, are you doing, are you doing a bunch of different podcasts promoting the song?

Unknown Speaker (33:12): Am I what?

Unknown Speaker (33:13): Are you doing a bunch of different podcasts promoting it? Are you going around talking to your motherfuckers? Okay. Cool.

Unknown Speaker (33:18): Yeah. I'm trying to.

Unknown Speaker (33:20): Right on. That's good.

Mike (33:22): Yeah. I'm always put on Instagram and Facebook and, you know, keep them active Yeah. With

Speaker 0 (33:28): How many other podcasts do you think you've been on Robert? Out of curiosity. I

Unknown Speaker (33:34): want to say 10. Okay. Around there.

Unknown Speaker (33:38): Right.

Unknown Speaker (33:38): That's a decent amount.

Mike (33:40): Yeah. I I did. My first one was not in New York. I, my first one was in Delaware. Okay.

Mike (33:47): I want to say three years. I I don't remember the year of Zach, but that was his first guest since just starting out.

Unknown Speaker (33:55): Oh, cool. Right on.

Mike (33:56): Yeah. So I did one in Delaware and then I did still I know I did like two or three Zoom ones. I did you guys twice. I did a girl from New York City. I've been on hers few times.

Unknown Speaker (34:19): Why So. Not?

Unknown Speaker (34:20): I'll probably, I'm gonna try to go on hers again because, you know, like I said, I was on her two times. Early.

Unknown Speaker (34:25): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (34:27): I like them. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (34:30): Well, it's

Speaker 0 (34:30): a great way to get, you know, for an independent artist, it's a great way to get your name and your music out there. Like, Chris said, when you were here the last time we were in maybe twenty, twenty five countries. Right. Since then, we've gained about 70.

Unknown Speaker (34:48): Wow.

Unknown Speaker (34:49): So we're just short of a 100 countries now. So. Wow. It is a great way to get your name out there.

Mike (34:56): Yeah. Yeah. And I do. I like doing them just to do them too. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (35:01): Yeah. On the other side of it too, but yeah.

Speaker 0 (35:04): How close do you think you are to recording those other songs?

Unknown Speaker (35:10): So I'm actually gonna start recording tomorrow. Right on.

Unknown Speaker (35:14): It's pretty close.

Unknown Speaker (35:15): So yeah, it's pretty close.

Mike (35:17): So the, the luxury is that the place that I take both of us, same place that I do the recording. So I usually I do it once a week. So whenever I however I wanna swap it out, I can. So Okay. I I was alternating one week vocal, one week recording, and just go back and forth.

Mike (35:44): Yeah. So once, like, once I had the guitar work down for take a shot, I swapped over to vocal to help with the vocal part. You know, I'll do that for two weeks. Then I go back into reporting, you know, to scratch vocals for two weeks, then go back to yeah, I have that luxury of going back and forth with it. So

Chris (36:11): Did you take your when you when you decided to become the singer of your band, did you take the songs to your vocal coach and have them help you with the dad? Very cool. Good job.

Mike (36:21): Yeah. So, so that's why I didn't take a shot. So, and actually my my first vocal lesson was the same day there's an open mic. So Okay. I already had to take a shot.

Mike (36:34): So I literally left. I left vocal lessons because it was right across the street. Went across the street. Digital open mic and I sang take a shot. So it was like like, alright.

Mike (36:50): I just did a first vocal lesson. I'm listening take a shot. So.

Chris (36:54): And how was the response?

Mike (36:56): Good. Yeah. Cool. Last time, last time I sang it, last time I did it, I opened my a few weeks ago after Nashville vocal out by me. Got applause and whistle.

Unknown Speaker (37:11): Oh, And whistles.

Unknown Speaker (37:14): Like, woah, someone whistled. No, no. I just get the you know? Yeah. No.

Unknown Speaker (37:19): I just get the whole pause. Heard someone whistle. I'm like, woah.

Unknown Speaker (37:23): Okay. That's awesome. That's cool.

Mike (37:25): But yeah, that's the school bank, the alternating, I just let them know ahead of time. Yeah. But yeah, so I'll do recording. Tomorrow I'm actually doing this for two hours.

Unknown Speaker (37:40): Okay.

Mike (37:40): So I doubled up to see. But yeah, we'll start laying down the track with the new chaser, which is all glass, bluesy gray type of sound.

Unknown Speaker (37:53): Right. Very nice.

Mike (37:55): Because I use my.

Unknown Speaker (37:58): I said, what was I was gonna say? Do you wanna share the lyrics of take a shot?

Unknown Speaker (38:04): Yeah. Let me pull. I don't have the moment. Yeah. I don't have it in front

Unknown Speaker (38:10): of me. Okay.

Unknown Speaker (38:11): All good.

Chris (38:13): You know, I like lyrics. But

Mike (38:17): yeah, dream chaser. I'll start playing down tomorrow.

Chris (38:21): Okay.

Mike (38:22): That's definitely more of a grittier sound there to take a Okay. I'm down a half step, want to storks on it.

Speaker 0 (38:33): How would you describe your sound if somebody was curious?

Mike (38:38): Country and rock. Country rock.

Unknown Speaker (38:41): Country rock.

Mike (38:42): Definitely want a rock. Definitely want a rock side. I would say take a shot and different kind of paradise. Have definitely has more of a country influence on it. They still kind of have that rock edge to it.

Unknown Speaker (39:02): So, yeah, I would say, I would say rock first and foremost.

Chris (39:07): Yeah. I really do like that. This side of paradise is a title. That's pretty cool.

Unknown Speaker (39:11): Different kind of paradise,

Unknown Speaker (39:12): different kind of paradise. Yeah. Different kind of paradise.

Unknown Speaker (39:15): Be a great name for

Chris (39:16): an album. So I was thinking that's why, that's why, that's why I opened that up because he's gotta have, when he records the rest of the songs, at least he's gonna have an EP.

Mike (39:25): So, yeah. So the name of the EP is gonna call, it's gonna be called messy metal, The messy middle, which is kind of just about finding yourself and kind of the whole process of, you you're becoming this new person that you weren't before. So I never sang before, now I'm singing, you know? So just the whole putting yourself out there and, you know, changing, changing for the better part. But just the whole in between part of it.

Speaker 0 (39:57): Well, I agree with that line of thinking wholeheartedly, Robert. People hear me say all the time. I don't know why, but you never hear people talk about the fact that number one, you never know when your last day is. Right? None of us know that.

Speaker 0 (40:13): And number two, people do not live like they're only gonna do this one time. You know, they worry about such weird shit. Right. That's why I've never fit into what I would consider, you know, modern society because my brain doesn't think that way, you know? It's like, I'm not gonna fret over who thinks what about me or what I'm wearing or what I said or Yeah.

Speaker 0 (40:35): I'm not them, so I have no control over that. Know, I think that's the part that people don't understand is what people think about you is really none of your business. So I really admire and I follow you know, I like all your stuff on Instagram, and I follow you on Facebook. I really like, you know, your hashtags, your fuck fear, and you know, people need to embrace that. You only get to do this once.

Speaker 0 (41:00): And God forbid, you could you could be dead tomorrow. You could get hit by a bus or killed on the freeway. Or I mean, I hope that never happens to anybody, but it could happen.

Chris (41:08): Yeah. A plane's tire could could rip the top off your cab as you're driving down the freeway.

Unknown Speaker (41:14): Right. Or you could get hop the fence and get sucked into a jet engine, you know? Right.

Unknown Speaker (41:20): Did you

Speaker 0 (41:20): see that in the, at the Denver International Airport? That guy obviously committed suicide, but he did.

Unknown Speaker (41:26): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (41:27): Yeah. And that's kind of why dove into the singing part because it's like, yeah, rather than worry about, okay, trying to find a singer, you know, if they can't travel then, okay. I don't have a singer. Right. You know, I just kind of said, no, screwed up.

Mike (41:42): Going to look into vocal lessons and just go all in for it.

Unknown Speaker (41:46): Well, the, the, the other benefit of being a guitar player who sings that you don't have to have a band behind you to do open mic.

Unknown Speaker (41:52): Right. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (41:53): It's just you and your guitar. That's it. So, and now do you go up there? Is it plugged in or you're doing acoustic?

Mike (42:00): Most of them are acoustic. Most of the open mics are acoustic.

Unknown Speaker (42:04): Okay. Cool. Yeah.

Mike (42:05): So some of them are electric, but most of them are acoustic.

Unknown Speaker (42:09): Okay.

Unknown Speaker (42:10): Which I don't mind.

Chris (42:12): Okay. So now when you do open mics, are you just doing like three to five songs or you're just doing one and done?

Mike (42:17): It depends how busy they are. Okay. So it'll be between three and five. Sometimes if it's really busy, sometimes some other places will do one. Was one I watched

Speaker 0 (42:32): that yours was like seventeen minutes. You must've done like four or five songs during that one.

Mike (42:38): Four or five. Yeah. I know. I know the one there's one by me, they do outside. Kind of like a farm stand type thing, but it's a big deal.

Mike (42:50): What's your first doing that first one, the twenty seventh, I think of this month. But that one gets pretty jam packed. So usually that one, they do do once long. But, yeah, it depends. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (43:05): It depends on how much of a crowd there is and how many players there are.

Chris (43:09): Okay. So what do you have coming up for open mic spots?

Mike (43:15): One, one on the twenty seventh, that's at the, farm Sam type thing. And then there's another one by me. He does it the first Tuesday of every month.

Unknown Speaker (43:27): Okay.

Unknown Speaker (43:28): So that'll be that. And then, yeah.

Chris (43:32): So how many song, how, how many songs do you know right now? Like if I said, okay, play all your songs, how many songs you got?

Mike (43:38): As far as covers or original?

Chris (43:40): No, just in general. Like if I said, if I, if I told you, Hey Robert, I got thirty minutes for you to play. Could you fill that space?

Unknown Speaker (43:46): Yeah, I definitely can. Okay. Yeah, I definitely can. Cause it's

Chris (43:53): both in Yeah, this is why I'm asking that. So you're, I mean, I guess you're doing open mics, you know, you're doing quite a bit of that. I think you need to step up now and go find a band to open for. Yeah. And start doing, you know, thirty minute because most opening bands are twenty, thirty minute sets.

Chris (44:08): But that way you can start working on more of your material, recording, start honing because the biggest thing that Mike and I've always talked about the more you play live, the better the recording of the song is because you learn so much playing live because of the interest to kiss intricacies of the live performance and the sped up adrenaline, the reaction to the people around you, and just the mistakes that you make on stage that nobody realizes you're making, but they're happy mistakes because you end up making the song that much better. You fill this spot with that. You can do a little improv because you may forget where you're

Unknown Speaker (44:42): at in

Chris (44:42): the song. So all of a sudden you go improving, you know, all the things that happen to us on stage that people don't realize happens to us on stage because they're not sitting there in the rehearsals, you know, day after day, hour after hour. So they think it's just part of the song. So I think so for you to get your best product out there, I think you should start evolving now. Okay, let's move from the open mic.

Chris (45:03): So let's find a band you can open for play twenty minutes. That's start honing the craft of now that you're singing because that's a whole nother aspect of you now. The more Mike and I believe that once you go on stage for a show, that's worth 10 practices in our heads, you know, if not more, depending So on the element of the I would challenge you to kind of take that step now. You, you got over the fear of just going on stage by yourself. You got over the fear of playing a national.

Chris (45:29): Now you got over the fear of being your own singer with the guitar. Now take the next step and do that because then you're gonna, your growth is gonna just, gonna just compound. Wow. Because the more you do that, right. Because this is gonna sound,

Speaker 0 (45:43): this is gonna sound crazy, but you're gonna, you're gonna wanna practice that if you're gonna do it by yourself. Yes. So we used to practice our actual show in our rehearsal space. So we would set up the rehearsal space like it was a stage, right? The only difference is we would all face the drummer.

Speaker 0 (46:03): So on a stage, you're facing the crowd, obviously. But we just turned the band in so that we were facing the drummer so we could work. Right. But you if you're gonna I agree with Chris wholeheartedly. You're gonna elevate to that next level if you do what he said.

Unknown Speaker (46:20): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (46:20): But my advice to you is you're gonna wanna learn how to fill that time because you can't just fill it with singing and playing. Right? No. You have to have some kind of show too. And because you're a one man band, start thinking about that Or get yourself a band, you know, all you need is a bass player

Chris (46:41): and a drummer. Right. And case in point, when we would do that, I would, I would take my spot during our rehearsals and I would introduce the band. So they knew when I was going to introduce the band.

Unknown Speaker (46:51): Funniest thing is when he would do his little spiels in rehearsal, he would go, now this is where I'm gonna be doing blah, blah, blah. And he would go to the bathroom and he'd still have the microphone. Yep. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 0 (47:02): We're filling this bay note. Okay. And the song's gonna start about now. That's how tight we would put ourselves because we knew we only had thirty minutes, forty minutes. Sometimes we only had twenty minutes.

Speaker 0 (47:13): Yep. Uh-huh. Because we were the opening act for a national touring band that we we got what they gave us. Right?

Unknown Speaker (47:20): Yeah. Some bands were Yeah.

Speaker 0 (47:22): Generous and some bands weren't so.

Unknown Speaker (47:24): Right. The, yeah, we did that. Yeah. So just I challenge you to that. Cause I think that's your next, that's your next progression.

Chris (47:30): Thank you, Mike. Yeah. It's your next progression.

Mike (47:32): Yeah. I definitely feel I'm at a point. Like Lisa where I'm kind of hit pass open mics was like, all right,

Unknown Speaker (47:40): now it's

Mike (47:41): fine to go take that next step up. Yeah.

Chris (47:45): And open, open, open mics are cool for what they are because it gets like my very first live performance ever was an open mic. I played three songs with my band disturbed and, you know, it was, I don't remember it was a blur because we were so hyped up and so journalized. It was a Boston's place can typically called Boston's next to Big Surf Mic. And it's just, you know, it was just, it was crazy. It was a blast.

Chris (48:08): Was and then you get off stage like wow, you know, that's that that there was the initial rush of doing that with with so open mics have a purpose. Yeah. So don't stop doing them. I just think you need to start figuring out a way to start building up to that aspect of it because it's going to just help you grow as an artist. Yeah.

Mike (48:32): Yeah. Always felt open mics were good for, you know, kind of harness a whole new craft and see what works and see what doesn't work. And I, that's always kind of how I always created them too. You know, like I'll mix up the songs. All right.

Mike (48:46): Because I spoke with this other more. People respond more to this than the other ones. Definitely helps. Yep.

Unknown Speaker (48:55): Yep.

Mike (48:57): And it definitely got me to where I am now. Doctor.

Chris (49:00): Robert: Absolutely. You got to start somewhere, man.

Unknown Speaker (49:02): Doctor. Robert:

Unknown Speaker (49:08): right. So where can people find you on worldwide web, Robert? Okay.

Mike (49:15): Yeah. Facebook is Robert McKay.

Unknown Speaker (49:18): Okay.

Mike (49:19): And then Instagram, I always forget this title. Dream.user202four. Or if you look under Robert McKay under the. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (49:34): If you type in your name on Instagram, your page

Unknown Speaker (49:37): comes

Speaker 0 (49:37): That's how I always find you.

Unknown Speaker (49:39): Okay. I always, I always get some, I always forget the list that's on.

Speaker 0 (49:44): No, if you just, if people are listening and you want to find him on Instagram, just type in Robert McKay. That's how I always find him. Your page pops right up.

Mike (49:51): Okay. M c k a y little spelling on

Unknown Speaker (49:55): it. Now here's another thing I want to challenge you to do Robert. Okay.

Unknown Speaker (49:59): All

Chris (50:00): the challenges, man. This is your Facebook page. Okay. Yep. Your cover photo needs to be about music, not football.

Unknown Speaker (50:08): Yeah. Okay. That's what I

Chris (50:09): was Yeah. You want cannot because seriously because you want you got your music link. Right? You're you're a musician. You're calling yourself a musician.

Chris (50:16): What's the music link? But you you you got your your stuff dabbed as a musician here. So you need to start becoming that guy. If this is a personal page, which is cool, create musician page, create a bit, create a like Mike and I have Chris and Mike show page, right? Then we also have our individual pages.

Chris (50:36): Create a page that has your performances where you're gonna be. You can pimp out your music, can pimp out your merchandise, you can pimp out what your upcoming shows are.

Speaker 0 (50:45): On this subject, I agree with him again because if you go to my personal Facebook page right now, Robert, the first thing you're gonna see is a Chris and Mike show, because that's how, you know, we're trying to promote this.

Unknown Speaker (50:55): Yeah. You're trying to promote. Okay.

Speaker 0 (50:57): I agree with him. Either start a musician page or get rid of that and put a picture of you in that hat or something that, you know?

Chris (51:05): Yeah. Or just make it, make it. Yeah. You're going call yourself Robert McKay, right? So go on Canva or something to make your, have, make a logo, make a Robert McKay band logo, you know, whatever you're going to do, start building your brand.

Chris (51:17): This is the perfect time to start doing that. Cause you're kind of, you're starting to release your first song. So if you, if you do it right, you have time, get a brand going with your first single release because then you can start building momentum off of that. Right. Brand recognition is huge, man.

Chris (51:32): It's huge. Psycho bunny. Right? Brand recognition.

Unknown Speaker (51:35): Yeah. Like

Mike (51:37): I started to wear the hat, like the reels I put up on Instagram to start, start to promote, take a shot. I started to wear the hat that I wore in Tennessee. And I'm like, this actually works.

Chris (51:53): Then, yeah, make that part of who you are, make that part of your brand, man.

Unknown Speaker (51:58): Yeah.

Chris (51:59): We have a really cool. Yeah. We have a really cool country singer on a couple times now, Dave Nudo. When he's on the show, doesn't look like Dave Nudo, man.

Speaker 0 (52:06): Yeah. No. I'll tell you what, man. That is a great example. Go look at his Facebook page and scroll through his photos when he's with his family.

Speaker 0 (52:17): Mhmm. Then and then look at what he promotes himself as. Chris is right. He doesn't even look like the same guy. No.

Speaker 0 (52:24): He has such a badass southern rock country look. He looks like he's straight out of ZZ Top, man. I

Unknown Speaker (52:32): mean Mhmm.

Speaker 0 (52:33): Yeah. But as a normal everyday Dave Nudo, he's really just a average as Joe Walsh says, he's an average ordinary guy. Guy.

Unknown Speaker (52:41): Yep. That's Dave Nudo. That's Dave.

Unknown Speaker (52:43): Look at that look, dude.

Unknown Speaker (52:45): Oh, yeah. K.

Unknown Speaker (52:46): That's long. That's almost like the beard.

Chris (52:48): Right. But and see, there he is there, but see, there he is on stage. That's his cover photo. So he has a cover photo, you know, away, this dude is he's a musician. Like there's no there's no question about it.

Chris (53:00): That's that's a better look. That's a better. That's what he looks like. But when he's on our show, his hair is pulled back in a, in a, in a ponytail. You don't see it.

Chris (53:07): You just see it on his head and he's wearing sunglasses. He's just, he's like this. He's just this dude. That's hanging out talking to Christian Mike.

Unknown Speaker (53:18): He said he calls that guy Dave's Roadie.

Chris (53:20): Right. Yeah. Dave's Roadie. But see this but then and I know we're pimping Dave Noodle on your spot, I just this is a good example.

Unknown Speaker (53:26): That's alright.

Chris (53:27): See this? But see that? We we know everywhere Dave's gonna play. So even your open mic spots, want to drop those. When you start, when you start building that momentum and you want people to be able to go to your Facebook page and your Instagram page, Instagram's kind of hard, but Facebook's really easy to do.

Chris (53:42): So where you can start, you can start showing more and more businesses business. This is a band pitch. You're not going to see a lot of him, but this is his music too. Yeah. The Lord of the devil go look that up.

Chris (53:55): Mike and I love this Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (53:58): That's the picture.

Unknown Speaker (53:59): Yeah. I'll definitely love the

Chris (54:00): money shot. Yeah. That's the money shot. Yeah. But just so just, know, like I said, just we've we've I felt like we know you from the when you first started doing this.

Chris (54:11): Now you've come along this far. So now let's get you to the next level because that's Yeah. What Be

Speaker 0 (54:17): proud of what you've done.

Unknown Speaker (54:18): Absolutely. Absolutely. I just, I just want come up

Speaker 0 (54:22): with this I think he gets misunderstood sometimes. It's all out of love brother.

Unknown Speaker (54:26): It is. No, I know. Is 100.

Unknown Speaker (54:28): Well, I remember the first, I remember the first time we talked I about I was talking about scales and you were saying, yo, just play the rhythm. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 0 (54:36): I'm not even saying you're taking it that way. I'm just saying in general, sometimes, you know, he he gets excited and it's all coming from a place of love. He wants to make you a better musician. He wants to make you a better human being.

Chris (54:47): I want you to be famous because then you can say, you know, I was on Chris and Mike show and they helped me become famous. We selfishly

Unknown Speaker (54:54): have some skin in the game.

Chris (54:56): The more successful our guests are, then the more people go to the show they go, know, then they go to you and then it's and you can cross the meat. It's kind of like we'd like to intertwine musicians on the show because it's cool. It's like, you know, a year from now when you build all your stuff up, then we have somebody else on this news like, hey, check out this guy, Robert McKay. He came on, you know, when he first started. Now look what he's done.

Chris (55:18): Look, look how he's grown. And then it's your cross pollinating viewers and guests and listeners like, oh, can go check out Robert. You know, some people I that are watching was just

Speaker 0 (55:28): gonna say, man, just watching his journey has been fun. You said, we basically caught him at the inception of this idea. And, you know, you kinda were up in the air. I'm gonna go one direction or the other, and I've really watched you choose a direction writing that song, having the balls to go out there and perform it multiple times, place it on the internet. That takes guts, dude.

Unknown Speaker (55:52): It does. And you're bearing your soul, man.

Mike (55:55): Yeah. And, and like the first time we talked, like, you know, like, I wasn't still real. I really still wasn't on offense about sinning at all. Like, I was still kind of striding away from it a lot. Mhmm.

Mike (56:08): But, you know, then when I went down to Nashville and I sat in that room, you know, for the for the open mic and I'm walking everyone around and I'm like, woah. Like, this is why, but it was also kind of like a humbling experience, but it was finally, I remember sitting there, I was texting my uncle. I'm like, this is where I want to be. The light bulb kind of went on, like, this is what this is what I want.

Chris (56:34): Lay the foundation, start laying that foundation now because when you get to Nashville, you have to have a little bit extra to be recognized because Nashville's full of what? Musicians. It's it's the East Coast version of Hollywood, right?

Unknown Speaker (56:48): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (56:48): So you gotta, you gotta have all that stuff built up around you. So this is your challenge, man. Start now, start building that stuff, start building the brand, start building the look. I'm gonna give another

Speaker 0 (56:59): guy to follow Robert, and you might follow him already. His name's Peter Dancklinson.

Mike (57:05): Okay. I don't follow him, but I will.

Speaker 0 (57:07): Okay. Just go to Pete's diary on Facebook.

Unknown Speaker (57:10): Okay.

Speaker 0 (57:11): This kid was born with a weird, rare disease where, like, one side of his head didn't form. He's had, like, I don't know, 70 different surgeries since he was an infant. Wow. This kid has become I've watched him just like I've watched you. I watch I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it, man, because he was a young kid when he started playing a guitar.

Speaker 0 (57:34): Was probably seven, eight years old. He just moved to Nashville, and I saw him play in the lead for the Ace of Spades with a band that he was just sitting in with. And he fucking tore it up, dude. And I cried. Wow.

Speaker 0 (57:49): Because I'm so proud of him. You know? It's like Yeah. Not only did he have the balls to get up there looking different. And, know, for years, kids made fun of him.

Speaker 0 (57:58): And I mean, come on. Kids are cruel. Yep. He persevered to become arguably a better guitar player than I am now, and he's half my age.

Unknown Speaker (58:08): Go ahead. Wow.

Speaker 0 (58:10): So whatever he lacked in physical makeup, he was blessed with an incredible And it'll just be motivation for you because he did exactly what you want to do. He grew up around Chicago in a suburb.

Unknown Speaker (58:24): Uh-huh.

Speaker 0 (58:25): And he just made the move about a month ago. And this is about the third or fourth video he's posted of him sitting in with different bands, but it's just a really cool feel good story of somebody who could have just said, you know what? I got a bum deal in life and I'm just gonna ride it out with my family and probably, you know, get money from the government that he's entitled to for sure. But instead he said, I'm gonna become something, you know? I'm gonna inspire people.

Speaker 0 (58:53): He wrote a book. It's a very inspiring story for people that want to follow him. It's Pete's diary on Instagram and Facebook.

Unknown Speaker (59:00): Okay. Yeah. I'll definitely. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (59:03): So we'll have you back on in a year. We'll see where your progress is at, man. And the year I want you in Nashville opening for bands.

Unknown Speaker (59:10): I definitely want to in Nashville.

Chris (59:11): No pressure, man. No pressure. So find Robert, just Google Robert McKay. You'll find him on Facebook and Instagram. Find all his things.

Unknown Speaker (59:20): Watch his journey as he grows. You're feeling serious about that, ahead. Go ahead.

Mike (59:25): I'm always, I'm always posting stuff too. Pretty often. Yeah.

Chris (59:31): So follow Robert and learn all about his journey as he continues going upward. If you're feeling sad, sorrowed, or depressed, suicidal, don't do it. Go scream in a pillow, go journal, go write a song, go play a guitar, go outside and run and go exercise, go work out, find someone to talk to. If you cannot find someone to talk to text 988, somebody standing by to help talk to you off that ledge. Tomorrow is a better place with you and it don't leave a hole in somebody else's heart because you decide not to be here when they wake up in the morning.

Chris (59:59): The Chris and Mike Show, I'm Chris Heesmike and for Robert McKay, thank you very much for coming on show, We truly appreciate your time. It's the most valuable asset we all have. So excited to see where you continue to grow and where you, where you are a year from now. We'll have you back on. We'll have you back on and we'll, we'll chart your next year of your music musical journey.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:17): Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:19): Absolutely. You're welcome. Kicking ass out there, Robert. Yeah, buddy. I'll keep following you, Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:26): I always, I always see the notifications.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:28): Yeah, cool. Don't leave yet. When Mike sets us up, we gotta make sure everybody's uploaded. Peace. You guys.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:36): Love you too. Peace.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:37): Thank you.