Midi Jones: The Greatest Rags To Riches Story, Do Whatever It Takes, and How To Create Success

This week's podcast is a gold rush of wisdom and inspiration as we hear from the incomparable, Midi Jones, an incredible music producer who got his production chops from the EDM world. Believe me, when I say, you won't want to miss this one; the incredibly successful producer shares his remarkable journey from rags to riches - a testament to his relentless hustle that has led him to work with some of the biggest names in the industry. His philosophy of 'doing whatever it takes to succeed resonates powerfully through his experiences, ranging from donating blood weekly to stay afloat, to having a dream studio where he works every day.

The conversation navigates through not only Midi's career trajectory, but also key insights for anyone aspiring to make a mark in the music industry. We dive into the importance of networking, artistic integrity, and the need for a strong social media presence. Midi's firsthand account of his transition from being a homeless teen to a successful producer is truly enlightening, revealing the lessons learned, the challenges faced, and the individuals that shaped his journey.

Lastly, we delve into the practical nitty-gritty of the industry: songwriting, negotiating payments and understanding current trends. Midi provides valuable advice on rising the ranks as a music producer, the complexities of getting paid, and strategies for maximizing financial gain in a competitive sphere. If you're looking to learn from someone who's been through it all and emerged victorious, this episode is for you! Tune in, soak up the wisdom, and get inspired.

WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/9UGPyVjfvaU

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GROUNDS FOR SUCCESS LINKS
All Links Here: https://linktr.ee/groundsforsuccess

AUSTIN SELTZER LINKS
All Links Here: https://linktr.ee/Austinseltzer

MIDI JONES LINKS
Official Credits: https://shorturl.at/nqzA0
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midijones/

Transcript

Austin Seltzer: 0:01

Welcome to the Grounds for Success podcast. I'm your host, austin Seltzer. Together we'll unveil the keys to success in the music industry. Join me as I explore my guest's life stories and experiences to uncover practical insights to help you align with your goals more effectively. Hey Copy Drinkers, welcome to the Grounds for Success podcast. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. It is with my great buddy, midi Jones. He's the first person I'm having on who's just a producer, so I'm really excited for you to hear his point of view on the industry, his story, which is crazy, an amazing hustle come up story, the total rags to riches, the story of the world, total rags to riches like blueprint. And he's the dude who really put me on whenever I was. I was looking to step up my game whenever I came back into mixing from a long hiatus, and he believed in me and introduced me to my now manager, spencer, and so I'm so excited for you to hear his story On today's episode.

Austin Seltzer: 1:15

We're going to cover so many great topics, but a few of them are knowing where to put your energy, you know. Should it be into developing artists? Should it be an artist that have already made it? Should it be in pitch sessions, or should it be into yourself, like taking some time off?

Austin Seltzer: 1:35

Midi traveled a whole lot whenever he was younger. He wasn't able to get a job anywhere. Whenever he was here in the States and ready to look for a job because one he hadn't graduated from high school and also he wasn't a citizen of the US, so he had to find all sorts of other ways to make money to be able to continue to hustle and just stay afloat. He would donate blood every week and he's just like at this ultimate hustler mentality that I adore about him and it totally is. What makes him so successful is that he's willing to do whatever it takes and you know, like in good ways, I don't. His moral compass, as you'll see, is incredibly strong, but he does what it takes to make it happen.

Austin Seltzer: 2:27

I want to highlight that because we have this in common Skrillex, twelfth Planet and Joker were all some of his like early inspiration as to getting into being a producer. I totally resonate with that, and we get to hear about his story on how he linked up with Keri Gordy. That story, right there, is so crucial to learn from because it shows us all the little steps that had to happen to make that introduction successful. You know, sometimes we get introduced or we're put in a position that's, you know, a huge step up, but we might not be ready for it, and through this podcast, you'll be able to see exactly why Midi was able to deliver in that huge moment. We'll also talk about what a great pub deal looks like and when you should get a manager, and possibly one of the very best things that you'll learn about is money now versus money later, the long game or the short game, and how you should look at that. All right, let's get caffeinated. My boy Midi, my guy Dude, I'm so happy to have you here.

Midi Jones: 3:41

Thanks for having me. Cheers buddy.

Austin Seltzer: 3:43

One of one of my friends who gases me up about my coffee.

Midi Jones: 3:49

It's legit, the best coffee in LA. Dude Like this is definitely the best cup of coffee I think I've ever had. Like not kidding, like not kidding. It makes me so happy.

Austin Seltzer: 3:57

Me too.

Midi Jones: 3:57

It's a good cup of coffee.

Austin Seltzer: 3:58

What really makes me happy is it's black coffee Like you're not like yo cream that shit, but sugar in it. I take my whiskey and my coffee, the same way, dude, just like, give it to me.

Midi Jones: 4:08

Straight yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 4:09

I love it. Dude, thank you for coming on.

Midi Jones: 4:13

Thanks for having me, man.

Austin Seltzer: 4:15

Yeah, this is this, feels so full circle for me because, I mean, I've told you so many times but I really really feel like you helped put me. You did put me on the direction that I am on now, which I think is upward. Happy to hear that man, you deserve it. Thank you. Yeah, well, we definitely have to dive into like how I met you, because it's it's funny.

Austin Seltzer: 4:42

Like it's just so circumstantial, with the same company I was working for, yeah, but we'll get into that in due time. Felt like, felt like Dude. What does a normal day look like in midi's world If?

Midi Jones: 4:55

it's an average day, honestly, like wake up, shave my head, go into my studio, stay in there until it's like an hour before an actual session, eat something very fast, do the session work and then try to see my girlfriend before I go to sleep. Like day to day.

Austin Seltzer: 5:14

I love that. Wait, so the morning ritual is shaving your head. Yeah, I do that every morning, every single day. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of cool.

Midi Jones: 5:23

It really is. It's therapeutic a little bit, it's like a nice little routine, honestly.

Austin Seltzer: 5:27

So people make their bed in the morning to do that. One first goal and you shave your head.

Midi Jones: 5:30

Sure, like I wake up, drink a cup of water, shave my head, like it's weird, because I shower to shave my head and then I got to go to the gym, so I'm kind of like double showering because like, if my arms are so dead that I can't do this, it's a problem.

Austin Seltzer: 5:43

That's true, you're only shaving this one place because you can't lift it any higher.

Midi Jones: 5:47

That happened to me twice I was like okay.

Austin Seltzer: 5:52

I got to do this. That's funny. But wait, I think at one point you told me were you like a weightlifter, like a championship?

Midi Jones: 6:01

I was like an amateur bodybuilder for a little bit when I was like 20. Oh, bodybuilding, okay yeah, and just did like a couple of little tiny like things like around like super amateur, but yeah, it used to be like shredded when I was like 20. I love that. But wait, how did you get into that? Just some homies were like dude, you need to like lose weight and like I've like worked out for fun since I was like a teenager, but never like I like friendly competition. Actual competition is a different story. For friendly competition it's fun. So we got into that and just like the lifestyle was kind of addicting a little bit. Honestly, and just the way you feel is awesome, you drink so much caffeine, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 6:35

Yeah that's great, it sounds great, yeah, wait.

Midi Jones: 6:39

So whenever it's not friendly competition, you get like real fired up when like it's not even that, it's just like there's only so many things I truly care about that deep. And like my friends who like play basketball or play like call of duty, and they're like for real, like let's play, and I'm like dude play with somebody else because I can't even like. I've had some homies there's like a bunch of like volleyball weekends in LA and they're like come, like we do the thing and I know these dudes, I'm like dude, I'll come hang, but like if you want to play somebody else because you, I won't take it as seriously as you and you're going to get like mad, yeah, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 7:13

I fucking love volleyball. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 7:15

I'm saying like I'll come hang and like be a good cheerleader and I'm down for that, but like I, all of my competitive energy kind of goes towards my career, otherwise, like I'm just trying to have fun.

Austin Seltzer: 7:24

I love that. I mean you know where to put your energy, Totally yeah.

Midi Jones: 7:28

Yeah, but yeah, I remember like I think a Thanksgiving got ruined one time because of FIFA and I was like I just don't care yeah. It was like a little like Thanksgiving tournament.

Austin Seltzer: 7:39

I will say, though that sounds more fun of a way to have Thanksgiving go to shit. Family drama or whatever 100%.

Midi Jones: 7:48

I'll take that honestly, yeah, cause you can kind of go where that's not happening and it's still okay.

Austin Seltzer: 7:53

For real. But like whenever there's drama at the table between like two people in the family, then it just like everything goes to shit, like real shit.

Midi Jones: 8:00

It's not Thanksgiving without a little bit of passive aggression, just a little.

Austin Seltzer: 8:03

True, yeah, yeah.

Midi Jones: 8:08

I know this is such a beautiful space, by the way.

Austin Seltzer: 8:11

Thank you. I put so much love into this little room. You can tell, yeah, I. It really came out the way that I wanted. You should be proud, thank you. Did you see this room before? It was? Dude, I did, yeah. Did you see the white blank room that it was? I don't think. I think.

Midi Jones: 8:29

I saw it, when you like, painted before all this stuff was in here, I think.

Austin Seltzer: 8:33

Okay, but it was already black in here.

Midi Jones: 8:34

I don't know what kind of it was. I think it was like literally building it.

Austin Seltzer: 8:40

Okay, yeah, yeah, cause this was like a, this was a prison, yeah, I can see that it was cement floors, white ass walls, deep, brightest lights fluorescent lights.

Midi Jones: 8:51

Really.

Austin Seltzer: 8:52

It was like the room that you didn't go in.

Midi Jones: 8:55

It's vibey as hell.

Austin Seltzer: 8:56

Yeah, you would never know. Yeah, I know, it's crazy, dude. All right, I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning. Okay, I want people to understand your story.

Austin Seltzer: 9:10

Okay, and what you're, what you're willing to, to share on it but I think, of all the people that I know, you have the best come up Like. Probably no reason that you, as a kid, should be here right now with all of the knowledge and work, drive credits, life, everything that you have, like you fucking forged this life and I want to dive into that so people can can understand a great come up story. So nice for that. And I got you. Let's do it. Let's start in the very beginning. I'd love to know about your parents, your your childhood Sure, sure, sure.

Austin Seltzer: 9:50

Yeah, the first couple of years of life. What, what did that look?

Midi Jones: 9:53

like I was born out here, like by San Bernardino, and like I think the first place I ever like lived at was like my grandmother's place and like the Inland Empire for a couple of months. And my mom is Austrian, like from a small village with like 350 people, 400 people. My dad is born in the South and grew up in like South Central. He's African American. My mom is like very, very European and they got together in their early twenties, like I think it was like a hampton stance meeting, and they got married after knowing each other for six weeks, like like immediately, and like my mom got pregnant like on her wedding night, so there was like no time to back out of that shit at all, which I think is funny.

Midi Jones: 10:33

I have a twin brother, spent the first like little bit of my life out in the Inland Empire with my dad and my mom. They split up when I was really young. My dad was a. He wanted to be a music producer, which is why I knew it was like a job, and he did it kind of like amateurly ish, a little bit like kind of did some stuff. I don't know if you've ever seen the SNL movie the cone heads or anything. Growing up, of course, my dad had the soundtrack song of that let's go Like.

Midi Jones: 11:00

The main song that plays in the end is my dad's song. That was his like big claim to fame. Dude, that shit's iconic. It was kind of funny. So I knew that was like a way you could make money, like that was like a thing I saw my dad do. He had a ton of odd jobs and a bunch of like random stuff growing up. When him and my mom split she was a hairdresser. She took me and my brother back to the small Austrian village that she grew up in with my grandmother and all my cousins and stuff like the middle of nowhere, which is where I got my first little bit of like actual music music education. I played it.

Austin Seltzer: 11:29

How old were you at this time?

Midi Jones: 11:32

I think it was like seven or something like that.

Midi Jones: 11:33

Yeah, Like somewhere around there. It's like a long time ago, but my uncle was a orchestra like band leader and trumpet teacher so he gave me trumpet lessons and like taught me how to sight, read and how to play with others and the whole nine, which is, like, I think, where I get like my foundation from for the most part as far as like musical understanding a little bit. Really, really talented guy like really good teacher and those fortunate to have him growing up. But my dad had like a bunch of like music, like recording gear around. I would go to like studios with him as a kid. Like I think there's pictures of me with like those like drum headphones, like things where so you don't like blow out your ears, and that was always like my favorite like memory as a kid. Like it was always my dream to work at like Paramount Funny enough give the board and everything else.

Austin Seltzer: 12:16

That's crazy. And how old were you then? Because, so if your parents separated one of you were seven, you were going around.

Midi Jones: 12:23

Oh, like when I was like little little like a couple like that very few times I got to do that. When I was little. I moved with my mom. I was in Austria and told us about 12 or so and then actually kind of like ran away funny enough with my brother.

Midi Jones: 12:37

My parents are like a messy divorce in Austria, especially at the time it wasn't like how it is kind of now where things are a little bit more inclusive. It's a small village in the mountains with nothing kind of going on, and being like an ethnically ambiguous person kind of doesn't go great in places like that at times. So it was a little bit rough for me and my brother over there. It wasn't a lot of acceptance into who we were, and even from my mom it was really tough because she kind of left and came back with like a couple like not Austrian kids which really didn't go over well with some people, but for the most part, like all my family was so welcoming and great to be around, but it was still just like a very difficult place to be, if that makes sense, and so we kind of just left. Like I told my mom me and my brother told my mom we're going to go visit my dad for Easter break when I was 12. And we didn't go back until I was like 22.

Midi Jones: 13:33

Wow, yeah. And then a very, very little contact. Saw my mom here and there, but very little contact, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 13:42

So did you feel more drawn to your dad, or was it just that you were drawn away from Austria?

Midi Jones: 13:50

I was definitely drawn away from Austria because of the nature of how my life was kind of going at the time. But also my dad was like my hero growing up, like truly like everything I wanted to be like. He was a very charming, charismatic dude which kind of I learned the dangers of that stuff a little bit later on in life.

Austin Seltzer: 14:11

Can you share some of those?

Midi Jones: 14:12

Oh sure, yeah, no, my dad basically convinced like me and my brother to like move with him and so we moved and we just went to Spain with him on the kind of a whim and didn't look back and wasn't really in the system that much, like we were at one school for a couple of years and then we just went to Brazil, didn't get any education. While I was there for about I think a year or so to came back to the States when I was like 15 with horrible school records, like just they're like dude, like you didn't go to school, like what the fuck is this? Like we just wouldn't go to school even when I was in Spain, like I got very little formal education. And then while I was trying to deal with that, like I got put in like a charter school, all those different shit, and kind of dropped out of high school. At the same time that my dad got very sick when I was like 16, 17. So he ended up getting diagnosed with heart failure because we had black mold in our apartment and it just made everybody sick. But it really hit him very hard and through just a series of really unfortunate circumstances that kind of all happened at once we like lost our place to stay and we kind of were around like the LA area just trying to figure shit out. For like a while.

Midi Jones: 15:23

I think it was a good year of us together, just like bouncing from place to place like friends, places, ended up staying with a family friend where I literally slept in his closet and trying to figure shit out. I couldn't get a job at Taco Bell. I was like I didn't have an American passport or an address or a high school diploma, couldn't get a job at fucking Taco Bell and I tried so many times and I had no interest in making music professionally. If I'm being honest, I did it for fun. I thought it was really cool and really sick and I had like a dream of like going to like France and being like a recording engineer or some shit like that. But it seemed like unrealistic because, like, a lot of my family are like failed musicians not failed, but like they didn't do what they wanted to do and there was always like a slight sense of resentment to that. And my dad was a very like talented dude, like he could sing and dance and do the whole nine, but like he never quite got the success he wanted, and I think he was always kind of mad about it, which kind of like reflected poorly. But man, it was one of those things where I saw people making some money doing it, and this is when Depp Step was getting really big.

Midi Jones: 16:31

And I saw this article about like Skrillex like not having a place to stay and making his like big album on like one rocket eight or some shit like that At 12th Planet Dude at 12th Planet's place, and that dude was a huge inspiration to me because I'm like oh, this is a black dude in LA making like music that he's not technically supposed to be doing. Quote, unquote, absolutely. Because there was even like a thing when I started like making beats where people were like, let me hear your R&B shit, and I was like I make fucking EDM, like I'm not. Like that dude was like my hero, like those studios were my heroes because, like you can literally have nothing and do something that is typically not expected of you.

Austin Seltzer: 17:03

Yeah, do it well. One of the other ones in there is a guy that I recently became friends with and I linked you with is Joker. Yeah, that was like.

Midi Jones: 17:12

I mean, I was like so star struck is even when that dude DM me back, was like I was a big. I appreciate you for that. Yeah, I used to listen to that dude shit all the time, like really just admiring these people. Yeah, he's a fucking legend. Yeah, I mean fully and truly deserves all the flowers in my opinion. Yeah, so I started making like dubstep in this dude's closet on like a stolen laptop that somebody gave me, and I had a demo of FL studio that didn't let you save projects. This is one of the ways I learned how to get faster shit. So I had to do everything at once and export all the stems, because it would let you export and I would just have the stems ready to go, which is kind of funny, which is funny.

Midi Jones: 17:48

I've actually never heard somebody say that that's genius I used to go to like there was like Benjans demo sample packs and black octopus, I would get his men, I would get his crack shit. I didn't even know how to steal, honestly, because everybody was like here's a crack of this.

Austin Seltzer: 18:00

I'd know none of that shit. They also always gave free packs, too. That's what I used.

Midi Jones: 18:04

I made like my first like money. I ever got paid making a song with all that shit and like stock FL studio shit, which I thought was funny as shit.

Austin Seltzer: 18:12

I love that we. What you just described feels not in a closet, but very much the same as how I in the beginning started producing on FL Huh. I didn't know that. Yeah, I did not know what I was doing in FL, which I cannot say that I did not know what I was doing in FL. Like I don't know if I ever really figured that out. It was like lasting Ableton, that made me move over 100%. Yeah, same, but free sample packs.

Midi Jones: 18:38

Free sample packs man Like did the thing honestly, yeah, massive presets and just whatever. All that. Well, I was huge in like sound design because I was like it was like, at the time especially, it was like if you used presets, that was like somebody else writing your bars If you're a rapper. It was like. It was like whack. I was using like like Harmer and all this different stuff, like all those like native, like FL things, and I was like just like like massive was great at the night, it was like insane.

Austin Seltzer: 19:02

Just trying to rub Swire and Knife. Party made fun of modern talking, and then that was the thing you couldn't do.

Midi Jones: 19:07

It was the thing you could not do, like the little, like talky base thing. It was like everybody and their mom did that shit. I like loved like at the time, like Madion and all those dudes, and like Wolfgang Garner, like the complex you're like chopping, like making little hits and chopping it up. That was so fun to do.

Midi Jones: 19:20

Absolutely Mordfesting, exactly. And then there was nothing else for me to do. So I would just do that shit all day and that's it. I would even go to like there was McDonald's next door that had like $1 huge like cups I don't drink as much Dr Pepper as I could because I couldn't afford Red Bull. I would just stay up all night at McDonald's making beats, which was kind of funny Eventually, like my Godfather's, one of the people I stayed with in this closet, and he would bring me around these little like super, duper, duper, duper, duper hood studios, like to call it a studio.

Midi Jones: 19:50

It was a room with shit in it, honestly, and nobody ever wanted to be the engineer. And there was this kid who hired me to do his homework at Lars, like I live recording school. So I knew Pro Tools in theory I'd never seen it in person really and I messed around with it a little bit because my dad had it on his computer but he didn't know how to use it either and I was like I'll engineer. I graduated from Lars. It's told everybody that shit. I love that. So I would just do these sessions and, like there were times where I couldn't stay at the house, I would crash at the studio and I would just do like a 16 hour session that would feed me and I would do shit and I would just like make beats with these guys and have fun stuff.

Midi Jones: 20:24

And my godfather was eventually like I have like a thing happening, can you just like a CD of your shit or just send me some songs? And he sent it to a dude named Kerry Gordy who, if you know anything about Motown or anything the dude who made it is a guy named Barry Gordy who's one of like the biggest like music execs of like the 60s, 70s, 80s essentially like Michael Jackson, stevie Wonder, smokey Robinson. None of these people exist without this dude, barry Gordy and this was his son, who was also Prince's I want to say A&R manager and like just like a big exec as well. Inviting me up to his house in Bel Air with a bunch of other people, I quickly realized that I was the only person there not actively in the music industry.

Midi Jones: 21:03

I'm just just like a homeless kid. I looked like it too and first time I've ever been around any music shit. Let's do a give the most terrifying speech I've ever heard in my life, like OG music business shit. I remember this dude said a quote. He was like if you want to be Jimi Hendrix, do that shit on your own time. I was like I don't have money, and that was my idol at the time too, like musically, that's everything I looked up to. I was like this is scary and this is like terrifying.

Austin Seltzer: 21:27

I was like shaking my chair, damn, but that sounds like the most pop mindset, like straight up right there.

Midi Jones: 21:34

I don't think I would have ever made pop if it wasn't for that dude, which I'm eternally grateful for, honestly, which is just like this dude taught me like you can have artistic integrity and also make money at the same time, which is like it's a fine line to tell. But they ended up like being like who wants to play some music? And like my godfather volunteered me to go up in front of like music legends that I had only read about in like newspapers and shit like that. And like the first song I played was the first song I ever. They bought it and paid me money and I was like, okay, you can actually like make music. Oh shit, yeah. And like make money doing this shit, and it was like it was like thousands of dollars and I was like at the time I got this like MIDI tattoo on my arm. I'm sure you've seen it, but one of the reasons I got that is dude. I used to sell my blood like three times a week just to keep my phone on. I love that. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 22:21

But I started to look like I had like a problem because I was getting like track marks, because it was always like intern nurses. So I got this to like cover it up. Essentially, I love that, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 22:30

Which is kind of funny. What is okay? That's going to go on a, a Tik Tok clip or something like that, but that's great, I love that. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 22:38

I mean, but I saw I was making 35 bucks every time I did that shit. So to see like like a several thousand dollar check for a song I did in the closet, I was like, okay, I'm going to keep doing this shit, so we have to slow down here, because you're going through like all the big moments here.

Austin Seltzer: 22:54

Wait, so the caffeine is going. That's great dude Okay. So, I know you to be one of the only producers, in my mind at least that literally plays everything. You play everything. I'm sure that you program, but I mean your thing is like you play instruments and you play synths. You do all of that. So whenever you picked up FL and like when was the moment that you started playing and recording what you were?

Midi Jones: 23:24

doing so. I was hugely in the box when I first started off because I literally had nothing else. I barely had a computer. From being honest with you, this thing had like less than a gig of RAM. Like you couldn't do shit. I ended up.

Midi Jones: 23:36

One of the guys I met was a student named Wah Wah Watson who was an OG Motown guy who was like on Car Wash that song. I don't know if you remember that shit. He also kind of took me under his wing at the same time as this dude, carrie did. These guys kind of fundamentally shaped how I think about music and I was such a little bass head I loved anything heavy, all that shit. That's all I cared about. And this dude, wah Wah Watson, really drilled into my head. Like, if you learn a fundamental understanding how each of these genres work, you essentially can make anything you want, which is the basis of how I work today.

Midi Jones: 24:14

I learned that I was lacking very heavily in the musical side a little bit. I literally didn't know how to like play piano or anything until I was in my 20s and I just started like hitting people up because I was good at the sound design and drum programming thing. So I'll trade lessons with a lot of homies, a lot of people. I considered really, really, really good, I guess, the way I got into the musical instrument thing, which is skipping ahead a little bit, I didn't realize that.

Austin Seltzer: 24:43

I thought that was gonna go back in time.

Midi Jones: 24:46

That goes forward in time. That's actually like it's funny for what I'm known for now.

Austin Seltzer: 24:51

Which is kind of hilarious.

Midi Jones: 24:52

Yeah, you're the straight analog Like now, which is why I actually have some homies that call me Analog Jones, which I think is fucking funny.

Austin Seltzer: 24:59

I do love that actually.

Midi Jones: 25:00

But I ended up getting this friend named Jamie Silverstein, who was Miguel's bassist at the time, met the student super weird way but we ended up becoming very, very close and he introduced me to the whole band of Miguel, the guitar player being Drew DiCaro. I was like, wait, is this where Drew comes in? That's where I met Drew DiCaro. Shout out Drew, I love you. Shout out Falconry.

Midi Jones: 25:20

And like Jamie gave me a lot of my first like here's how you play bass, like actually, and here's how. Like music theory, drew taught me a ton of guitar lessons and even like key lessons. One of my dear friends, john Saucin, who is currently Casey Musgraves guitarist, taught me so, so much. I just got very lucky with my friends and my mentors with that stuff. I took some piano lessons, to be honest with you, that helped a lot. But like how to like actually like here's how you write and here's how you play and here's how you just don't do like bullshit. My friends who are like really, really great, and also a lot of the Motown guys, were just like here's how you cut fat and here's how you do like hokey shit.

Austin Seltzer: 25:56

Yeah, yeah, okay. So now we'll try and go backwards, because I really, really don't want to believe in luck. Sure, I do know that there is some ounce of luck, but I really think that it's gotta be less than like 5%. I think so many things that you do throughout your life build you into who you are 100% If you lean into who you are unapologetically and you do your best work and you're a great person and this, and that those opportunities will arise for you to be lucky. 100% what's?

Midi Jones: 26:34

the phrase Like luck is opportunity meets preparation. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 26:39

I was like like unrealistically unlucky for a lot of my shit, honestly, just kept hitting, like I trusted a lot of the wrong people and like made a lot of like bad decisions as far as like being like it'll work out and it just didn't a lot. It's like I think we were talking about this earlier. It's just like if you have a consistent and dedicated mindset and this idea that I'm just not going to stop, it is a matter of like when, not if, and it's just a matter. I remember like one of my old mentors was like it's not really like about anything other than do you feel like you can eat shit for like a decade, honestly?

Midi Jones: 27:13

And that's where like that comes in when a lot of my favorite producers are just like I didn't have a hit until my 30s, or like a cut until my 30s, oh wow. I remember like listening to like an Inker Patrick podcast where he was like I didn't get a cut three years until my first pub deal.

Midi Jones: 27:31

Like A cut and he was like he was like, I think he was living in his parents house until he was like 29. Like, I was like that and that's like one of like the all time great pop producers in my mind yeah, I'd love to have him one day.

Austin Seltzer: 27:41

I've never met him, but Great guy. What a great story just a three year deal, because how many people did just imagine, once you sign that pub deal, the world opens.

Midi Jones: 27:51

That sounds and even within hearing that, like when you have like Dua Lipa hits and all this good stuff and like, oh yeah, like three years is nothing, like go three years without anyone putting out your music. It is defeating. Yeah, I could only imagine.

Austin Seltzer: 28:03

Yeah, Because you guys are working, like probably writing or producing multiple tracks a day. If you're doing sessions, sure, so that's, it's a lot of no's. Let's just say even one track a day, you know the working days out of year, like 250 or whatever, it is times three, sure, but it could be times two after that, because a lot of the times you do two tracks a day, you can. Yeah, that would defeat almost anybody in the world and that's why only a few make it Sure.

Midi Jones: 28:29

Yeah, 100%. It is a little bit like I do believe in quality over quantity, but there is something to be said about just like quantity, because you can just like do numbers a little bit.

Austin Seltzer: 28:38

You say that, but I every single day you post how many sessions you're doing. Sure, you work. Sure, but that's cause I like working, I know. But everybody who really makes it sure loves working. You kind of have to.

Midi Jones: 28:50

I remember when I first met our mutual manager Spencer, I was doing like a lot of days, like three and four sessions like every day. I was also living in a studio at the time, so there's not much else to do, but yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 29:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for everybody listening. Middy introduced me to my current manager, spencer, and I Shout out Spencer.

Midi Jones: 29:13

Yeah, we love them.

Austin Seltzer: 29:16

We could tell that story but, before we tell that story, I would love to talk about how we met. But so I want to finish up kind of your come up here Sure, Sure. So did you say it was your? Was it your godfather?

Midi Jones: 29:32

He introduced me to the Gordy family. Okay yeah, who got me my the?

Austin Seltzer: 29:37

How did he become your godfather? That's a real. He was my dad's best friend growing up, yeah, yeah, because your dad was in music.

Midi Jones: 29:43

He was the son of a famous Motown producer named Norman Whitfield. This is his son, Michael, who was just like really good dude, nice guy, like funny dude. Well, there's like OG, like like character guys who just like is down to take you under his wing kind of vibe I can paint him in my head.

Midi Jones: 30:01

Yeah, just like, like was always down to have me around, really nice guy. You know like I'll run into him to this day, like here and there, and it's just like 19 again, which is nice. I love that. Yeah, and he like, honestly, it wasn't for him taking me up to that house that day, truly don't know where I'd be at yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 30:17

And so I just want to say that here's the look. If you hadn't been grinding in a closet and just putting in the time on your shitty laptop, that probably was dropped. Well, it was literally dropping sessions because you couldn't save them. You, every hurdle that was in your way, you jumped over it. Yeah, you produced a track without being able to save you bounce to stems. Then you probably worked on it again in a project you couldn't save, yeah, so you just kept on doing this over and over. You were collecting all of the hours of hard work and then, yes, the maybe luck part Sure, was that you were born to a dad that had a great relationship. But if you didn't put in all of that work, if you hadn't basically run away from Romania, Austria, I just said Romania.

Austin Seltzer: 31:11

I'm Romanian here we go. We're neighbors, austria. That's hilarious. Maybe in a past life I ran away from there. If you hadn't run away and come over here and then honestly probably had your dad talk you into going here and there and collecting all of these different cultures that you got to. There's no way that you would be you. Then you had this laptop and you put in the hours Just so that whenever you were in that room and you played some beats, they weren't the first beat you ever made.

Austin Seltzer: 31:49

They were things that you had been working on.

Midi Jones: 31:52

That's the luck. Sitting in the studio or your room or wherever, and just putting the hours in is super important. Truth be told, I think there's too much emphasis on that. If I'm being completely honest with you, I know so many amazingly talented musicians and producers that no one's ever heard of because they just stay in that room. I'd say, yes, you have to be skilled and talented and diligent, but you also have to go outside. If it wasn't for me, just going out and meeting people and just being down to hang, the hang is almost more important. At a certain point you have to be really good, but I think my ability to hang out was honestly a huge part of it.

Austin Seltzer: 32:33

Yeah, I love that. I think that that's honestly how I attribute anything that comes my way. I feel like my mixes are pretty good.

Midi Jones: 32:41

Your mixes are fucking great.

Austin Seltzer: 32:43

Thank you, but I don't know if I'm the greatest mixer ever, but I feel like I connect with people well and I really like meeting people, and I'm not just there to get work but, I, really want to hear people's story and I want to get to know them, and that's what this podcast is. It's like I was already having these conversations. I just stuck a mic and a camera in front of it. Exactly, but I think the hang.

Midi Jones: 33:09

So it's honestly because there's no guarantee you're going to murder it the first time you work with somebody. There's just too many factors. Your own headspace, like were you on a show the night before? Are your ears shot, did you hurt your finger? And you can't do shit as fast. Even if you shit the bed a little bit with an artist, it's like a great time and you know the vibe is there. They'll come back versus somebody you make a smash with and they're like I hated that process.

Midi Jones: 33:34

Yeah, like one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from Barry Gordy and he was like no one will ever hire you because you're sick and you're good. They'll hire you because they like you and you're good. Like they have to like you. It's just part of the job. There's a lot of like anti-social producers especially, which is like a lot of us were really unpopular in high school, myself included and we just sat in a room instead of getting like girlfriends and shit like that and produced. But that can also like it did for me for sure Fucks with your social ability. So I made it like my job to like learn how to make friends and learn how to like I don't know, be empathetic with people that you just met, which is harder than it sounds. Absolutely yeah.

Midi Jones: 34:19

Yeah, but but you, your job is to be a lightning rod for an artist to be able to you have to feel compelled to say a story that's going to make you cry yeah, like right now and then we're going to put chords to it, yeah, and somehow you have to be able to feel that with empathy and put that into pro tools. Yeah, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 34:37

Exactly. I had to think what doll you're in now? Sure, he used to be unable to.

Midi Jones: 34:43

Yeah, sneaking back in.

Austin Seltzer: 34:45

Oh yeah, it's a little bit yeah. It's a lot dirty to me. So you play these tracks in front of this room, do they? It sounds like they've bought you out.

Midi Jones: 34:59

They basically like gave me like a production fee. It's first time that never came out, but they gave me a production fee which is like the first little bit of money I saw. And then I continued to mentor under carry for a couple of years after that. I would go to his house like several times a week and be brutal, Be like a fucking three and a half hour like train and bus ride up there from wherever I was staying at the time oh, it's always so because it's like the top of Bel Air, so it's like hard to get to.

Midi Jones: 35:21

Wasn't staying around there and yeah, they would just have me by and just work on a bunch of stuff with a young artist named Jada Grace who was on Epic at the time and that was my uh, I was actually my first major label release was on this girl, I think one. She was on Capitol, funny enough. But yeah, they, they the Gordys went to bat for me and the song that I did with with a friend of mine and it like opened up a ton of doors and it got me like my first little deal and it got me like my first like couple, like looks of things and like articles and all that good stuff and it was just like it was a cool way to see and I met a lot of the people that I first started working with, like at that house, like all those people, like guys that I ended up being friends with for a really long time was like like they're further kids getting born and shit like that. It was like my circle started there, basically yeah, yeah.

Midi Jones: 36:11

This dude's intern. This dude named Ben taught me how to DJ and would like take me to like USC house parties and like, dude, like come DJ, I'm going to teach you the shit and meet people. I like met my like first, like real girlfriend there. Dude, like it's like all the shit happened for me going to that house Like almost every single person, including you, I can kind of trace back to me going to that house Really yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 36:30

Wait, how me.

Midi Jones: 36:32

Cause I met this dude at the who taught me how to DJ who. I met this other guy through that I met this other guy through who introduced me to this guy, nick, who introduced me to Brian. My gosh, yeah, no like for real like it's insane. Like almost every single person in my life. That's of value I can trace back to. That. Can trace back to like somebody in that house.

Austin Seltzer: 36:51

That's beautiful. Yeah, I almost feel like most guests I've had on this might be the most like impetus, like boom this is like this is the atom bomb experience. But most people can trace it back to like attract that they worked on or like somebody that they met who changed their mindset, but this is like yeah, yeah. This Godfather of yours. Introduction. Yeah, no they literally did so much for me, honestly.

Austin Seltzer: 37:17

Yeah, yeah, and I just want to. I want to harp on this one more time, like for anybody listening or watching it's, it really is all about the work that you put in to make sure that whenever you step up to that plate, you can deliver. You got to step up to the plate, like you said, if you never release a track, you never put yourself out there to get that hate and that hurt and that, whatever in the beginning, then you won't be able to have the thick skin later.

Austin Seltzer: 37:44

Yeah, Like you have to do that, but you have to put in the work. Yeah, whenever the stakes are low, 100%, just just do the damn thing so that whenever you were there playing those tracks, I'm sure you were still nervous as hell.

Midi Jones: 37:57

Oh my.

Austin Seltzer: 37:57

God, yeah, you had to have been, but, yeah, you played them and people. They resonated with what you did, so okay. So actually I want to know what was the first little deal that you got? What were you saying there?

Midi Jones: 38:12

Oh man, it was a small same company. It was a very short lived deal. I was only in that deal for like eight months or something like that, and after the deal I was honestly like back to square one. To be honest with you, it kind of taught me like what I did and didn't want out of a deal, basically, and it got me some cool stuff, like some sinks and a couple of things.

Midi Jones: 38:31

But like I learned that what we were talking about before, which is just like you have to work, no matter who's on your team, like you have to do it.

Midi Jones: 38:41

I did the thing that people do. It's like you sign your first deal and you think like it's just going to happen and it doesn't. So it taught me that no matter whether or not you're in a deal, you have to like hustle, like really hard and at the time, even like right before I was like signing this deal, I got introduced to a dude named Sam Hook, who was a dude who, like I, got a lot of my first cuts with yeah, and he was like a phenomenal songwriter and like just a good dude, and during my time in this pub deal he arguably got me way more stuff than my pub deal did as far as what I actually wanted to do and the things I was looking for. So it just kind of taught me the value of like maintaining relationships, because I know a lot of people can like self isolate after they sign a deal, which is also dangerous, in my opinion.

Austin Seltzer: 39:23

All right, I know several of those, and I actually. In all cases, it's dangerous yeah 100%.

Midi Jones: 39:29

You basically got to act like nothing's changed for the most part. You have to keep hustling, you have to keep doing your thing.

Austin Seltzer: 39:34

Put that money in some like not a savings account. Savings accounts aren't really doing so great, but that you know, don't go out and spend all that shit yeah. Like live like nothing happened and take a little stress off your shoulders because now you have some money. Yeah. Think about it as like your rent, but like work. Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 39:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and and still grind, go out there and meet people. Don't expect like the whole world to to change. Like I know, some ANRs are really really great at just scheduling out people. But yeah, just act like nothing is changed. Keep on grinding, if not harder.

Midi Jones: 40:09

Honestly, yeah, Well, the thing is when you look up and you meet your heroes, when you get to the point where your heroes start to become your peers. I remember this was an eye-opening thing and a lot of guys that I looked up to and a few of them became my mentors, which I'm eternally grateful for. But it was a little bit shell-shocking for me to be like man. I'm working a lot and this dude's 50, with hits and a crazy house, and he's working as much as me, if not more, and arguably making better shit fucking terrified me at the time. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 40:39

I was like, oh yeah, you get a hit and then you coast. So I was like, no, not even a little bit. It's insane how much output these dudes have. Like the reason these guys are at the top is just like what you said you have to love what you do, you have to do it consistently and you have to do it with like conviction. Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 40:54

I think that there's a, if not more than an ounce, an ounce of obsession.

Midi Jones: 41:00

No no, no, a fuck ton of obsession yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 41:02

It's like if you're away for it, like taking a vacation, like the second day in, you're like itching to get back.

Midi Jones: 41:14

I don't know a single dude who I consider to be successful that doesn't bring their laptop with them on a vacation.

Austin Seltzer: 41:19

Yeah, I don't know, we all say that we're not going to touch it. And then, boom, the next day you're just like oh yeah, the client wants blah, blah, blah and it's like bro, you don't even need to do that, dude, yeah, but I do.

Midi Jones: 41:28

I went to Vancouver to visit my brother and like I was like oh yeah, we're going to go out at night and do all this different stuff. Me and my brother are effectively like old souls, so we don't like when we are chilling, we're chilling. So he's like let's just hang out tomorrow. So I was just comping vocals every night, like while I was there.

Austin Seltzer: 41:44

Yeah, I love that, yeah, okay, so let's move on a little bit from there You've gotten some, some cuts. You signed the sink deal. Basically You're out of the sink deal. Yep, how old are you now?

Midi Jones: 42:04

I'm now about 22. I want to say I had like bouts of homelessness at this point, like I'd like one year here, a year and a half there, just through, like weird circumstances and just like bad situations.

Austin Seltzer: 42:17

Essentially, when were you living with homelessness?

Midi Jones: 42:20

So the first little bit around it was just like anybody who let me crash with my family, and then the second time around was just kind of by myself, and so I was just like this is where I learned how to run sessions essentially. So like by the time I got to like the Gordys and stuff like that earlier on I knew what I was doing, but I'd like I would sleep at like fucking bus stops, dude, and like train stations and shit like that, which a lot of my family doesn't know, funny enough. Really.

Midi Jones: 42:42

Yeah, but I was just like anywhere possible. There was definitely a point where I was on Tinder for a bed, if that makes any sense. Totally. Yeah, I've actually never heard that, but actually pretty genius. It's great, made a lot of good friends. Actually, I would be so upfront about it, like look, I'm like legit just trying to like sleep somewhere tonight.

Midi Jones: 43:05

Down to hang. Wait, people were receptive of that. You'd be surprised. Call it like like broken wing syndrome a little bit. Please explain. Oh, it's just like the idea that somebody wants to nurture a baby bird and it's cute. And that was. That was definitely me where I was. Just like yo, I'm down and out. No worries, if you don't want to hang Like you can't come to my place because I don't have a place. But I was like literally like on like Starbucks Wi-Fi, like texting girls on Tinder.

Austin Seltzer: 43:32

Dude, I mean, this is I. This is why I love you so much. Like like you're willing to share this. Oh I mean that's like a lot of people probably wouldn't share that, but Really, this is the fabric of who you are and why I think you are doing so well and so many people resonate with you. You've seen all walks of life. You've been there, you've done it, you've Absolutely overcome when you're fucking crushing. Well, we'll get to the present eventually, but Damn okay. So how do we go from?

Midi Jones: 44:11

So when I got out of this deal I was effectively like broke a shit like again, like so I was homeless for a while, got like like these couple cuts and couple things moved into a apartment with some homies. I got like a job as like an engineer at like a studio in like once. It was like to look a lake around there and met my first manager there, who introduced me to a lot of first people but also just got me enough money to be able to get a place with some friends that I met at this house was it like salary from engineering?

Austin Seltzer: 44:43

It was like it was a salary gig, yeah.

Midi Jones: 44:45

And then they found out that I made beats Effectively this is like before my pub deal, by the way so like just like where that came into there and how I got off of being homeless and stuff like that. Mm-hmm, that job kind of allowed me to get like I was in a three bedroom with seven people. That shit sucked. But these are all great friends and cool people so it was a good time Ended up getting like a studio, like it was like four people to like a room that was like a fourth of this size. Oh wow, yeah, it was like insane.

Midi Jones: 45:11

I would. We would be my one partner, my buddy, who we got our first major label stuff with. We'd have 9 pm To 9 am Slot. So we did that shit for a couple years. Oh man, yeah. But that's where I got like a lot of my first work and that like let me like also like transition from being like an Engineer into a producer. One of the guys at the studio, like I was saying a second ago, it became my manager for a little bit met a bunch of friends that guy, jamie, through this manager too.

Midi Jones: 45:37

So that's the dude. Jamie's really the guy who, like, introduced me to a lot of the people that ended up making my pop career career start to. But, um, yeah, the after the deal happened, when I was like with the Motown guys, got my first cut, got this deal out of the deal, super broke To the point where, like, I lost my car in my apartment again, sold everything I owned and just paid off my studio room for a year and Just grinded holy shit a lot.

Austin Seltzer: 46:04

No, plan B literally like.

Midi Jones: 46:06

Truly no plan B like the most humbling thing in my life was going back to that blood bank. It's just so blood Wow. I didn't know you had a full circle moment dude. I like got and lost everything like three or four times I fucking love that dude.

Austin Seltzer: 46:20

You just keep going.

Midi Jones: 46:21

That's the. That's the motto, that's my dad's motto. From when I was a kid. There used to be like all these signs, before we moved to Europe, in my house where our family motto was you don't give up, like no matter what it is. That's the whole thing, unboxing to it. It's like it's not literally about how many times you get hit or like that you hit somebody so much, how much you can get hit and still stand. You know, that's that's my dad's whole philosophy.

Midi Jones: 46:43

If you keep getting up, nothing can stop you from doing shit. So it just like fucking kept happening, like over and over again, and I was just trusting the wrong people, like over and over again. I'm a little gullible at least I was. When I was younger and I was in the studio, I was working on a bunch of shit. I was working with Sam at the time and a bunch of people and I just had this like Come to Jesus moment, which is like I got to stop betting on everybody else, hoping that people are gonna take care of me within this shit. And I made like a goal in my studio which was like I want to have a certain amount of money saved. I want to get a major placement. I want to get a plaque, I don't want to get a manager, and until I get those things, I cannot move out of this room. I'm gonna work as much as humanly possible and this was the year that you paid for.

Austin Seltzer: 47:27

This is the year that I paid for it at a small kind of like sold everything and you paid off here Literally had nothing outside of what was in this room. Were you living in that room?

Midi Jones: 47:36

Oh yeah, it was a studio that a homie I went to years before I knew he lived there and it was like it's a super illegal thing to do yeah, like you can't do that's like slumlord shit. But everybody in this place lived there. Like like more than half of the tenants live there. So I knew that they were like kind of cool about that. So I went there and a lot of the guys who were there are now like Multi-platinum producers, like with like murder beats and shit, all good homies, all like great people, and it was like cool, like all of us live there and all of us kind of got like a little come-ups at the same time, which is nice.

Midi Jones: 48:09

Yeah and at the time I was asking every single person I knew and this was my whole thing I took any little bit of money. I was doing like indie gigs for so many people as much as I could for like less than a thousand bucks. Like I'll do your whole thing, I would offer people free songs. Like I'll do a whole song, mix and master it, produce it, record you everything For free. If you want to put it out, we, and you don't want to do like a bunch more songs, you don't want to pay for it, we'll split it. If you want to do like more songs, you'll pay me a rate. And so that money I would go and just take people out all the time sushi, drinks, whatever's covered. You want to hang like people who I like thought were like Impressive in the music industry execs, producers, anybody like let's hang. And I would ask everybody the same question Do you know a manager? And I would tell them my situation, which is like I'm living at the studio looking for some shit down to do whatever work. Here's some shit I've been doing like. If you like the work, let me know what's up.

Midi Jones: 49:01

One of these homies was a dude named Josh cocktail who was a really like talented dude, knew everybody in their mom and One day he was like hey, what are you doing like right now, come get tacos with me. And he was one of those kind of dudes where you just don't ask questions, you kind of just do it. And I had worked a little bit on a project for a dude and his manager's name was Spencer and Spencer was at this taco dinner and and he was like Spencer me made a mini meet Spencer. And then he was just like Spencer, you should manage many you guys like go from here. And then you just kept eating. So that's how I met Spencer.

Midi Jones: 49:34

No way, yeah, and Spencer was an artist manager at the time and he was very open with me about being like I want to be an artist manager more than I want to be a producer manager, but let's see what can happen and we started working on a couple things together and it worked really well, really quick, and everybody just kept coming back and he just kept putting me in rooms and Eventually there was a kid named Omer Fetty who was a poppin producer now great guy, known him for a long time. He was on a song called naked from LMA which I got a little bit of a cut of, and that shit helped me out a fuck done, which is what kind of got me my first little platinum record.

Austin Seltzer: 50:11

Really. Yeah, I didn't know that. Mm-hmm.

Midi Jones: 50:13

Yeah, that's really cool story Totally, and this is a kid that everybody knew from like jump is gonna be super talented and successful. So like tried to introduce him to everybody and he made his own rounds and I was just fortunate to be able to be like. This is a cool kid and I think I don't know the people aspect of this industry kind of became more apparent to me when I was just like okay, being good isn't enough. I got you have to actually be smart about how you move and the people you keep around, mm-hmm, and I tried to like just hang around people that I thought were like good people you know, and like if somebody I thought was good recommended me to somebody who I thought was good, I would trust that. Yeah, I think that's an important thing. It's just like be around people who you trust their taste and people.

Midi Jones: 50:53

That's that's really big some people have like a terrible taste and people we don't know, that one friend who just can't stop dating the wrong person you know absolutely.

Austin Seltzer: 51:01

Yeah, I mean, I can think of a couple of producers who. I'm like my god, you're so good, but the people that you surround yourself.

Midi Jones: 51:07

I don't understand that will stop people a lot of the times there. It's truly like an understated crutch of just like not being willing to let go of the wrong people. Mm-hmm. Honestly, I think that shit. If it wasn't for that, I probably would have been further along in my career at an earlier age. Yeah, yeah, just truly didn't want to let go of the wrong people.

Austin Seltzer: 51:26

You would not have the wisdom, though Sure you, of all people I know just have, I can bring up any scenario and you won't just give me like a wise answer, you'll give me like an actual scenario that you know. Sure, either happen to you or happen to a friend. Yeah and I think that all of that comes because you are willing to take a chance on people and yeah, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 51:53

Yeah, wow, there's so many things in there that I didn't know. Yeah, that that was great. So what? You keep on talking about a pub deal that you had and it have you. Are you in a pub deal?

Midi Jones: 52:06

No, no, that was the only pub thing I've ever had a little sink thing yeah it was like a very short stamp.

Austin Seltzer: 52:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see that you're very into. I Don't know if it's breaking an artist which I'm sure that everybody is interested in, but I I definitely see in you Finding people that have crazy talent, but not just that like everything in place to really do something. But they need Either a great EP, they need a great ear a great producer something and you are very interested if, if you're passionate about 100%.

Midi Jones: 52:40

I, more so than like anything. I just like to vibe with people. If your music is awesome, like a truly great, and I don't enjoy the process of thinking it with you Like it's, it's a, it's a done deal for me, honestly, like, if we can vibe and you can be an empathetic person as well, because I find a lot of times that only goes one way, especially with, like, a lot of artists that I've met in the past, because it is it's one of those things where I Need artists to have a certain amount of like delusion. If I'm being honest with you, yeah, I want you to believe that you are destined to be the number one artist in the world, with zero evidence to back that up, because if you don't believe that, why would I believe that? You know?

Midi Jones: 53:18

Yeah, but it's also the thing that can make creating a little bit difficult at time, because the the Sort of like I don't know, the sub awareness can kind of not be there to like take it like a little step back from your own perspective, yes, which can make you know, working difficult. Yeah, so like the ability to kind of like step out of that mindset for a quick minute in order to create a song or, to like, finish the song. More importantly Is a vital piece of the puzzle for me personally yeah, yeah, otherwise, it's a job.

Austin Seltzer: 53:46

I mean we have mutual. I Think we've we've had experiences together where there are people like that and and also a talk that we had the other night over some killer Japanese food. It was like it. You need artists to have, like Artists who want to be at the top, they need to have this, something that makes them very tough to hang out with. Yeah, 100%, they need to have that. Yeah, I don't know, it just rubs you the wrong way, but it's not bad, it's not like I wouldn't. Isn't that my kind?

Midi Jones: 54:16

of person, a lot of my favorite artists that I like damn. I love your shit so much. I love look, I love your aesthetic, I love your personality, I love the music. I never want to meet you like so many of my favorite artists, honestly, yeah, because I, it's just part of it. There should be a certain amount of Undertainability, in my opinion for a superstar at least, absolutely but I feel like that is starting to change a little bit. I feel like a lot of like Stars, of what, at least what I consider a star at this point. There is a relatability that people really do respond to, and I feel like that's just, you know, inevitable due to like social media and like you are if click away from your favorite person and you can interact with them.

Austin Seltzer: 54:52

Yeah, yeah, but the the interesting thing on that topic is, today's star is so much different, mm-hmm. Then you know, even five years ago star hundred percent the difference, I see mm-hmm is a star before we could be talking about an, an actor and a music artist, whoever, mm-hmm. If. They put on a show, a Serious amount of fucking people go, yeah, still to this day. And the weird thing about people who are below up on tiktok yeah, and then stream, actually stream. Well, which is a difficult thing, to get it over different yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 55:30

They cannot sell out even a 500 400 cap room. I saw this thing.

Midi Jones: 55:35

I saw an article not that long ago. This is one like that Steve Lacey hit was long enough, yeah. And there was this article that was like who is Steve Lacey and how did he come up out of nowhere? And I was like dude, this guy was in a super sick band for a decade before this. It was like he was well established in the music industry and at a certain point, it's just like you're not the tiktok thing.

Midi Jones: 55:56

And the issue with the tiktok thing, in my opinion, is that you're not truly creating a fan. You're creating a fan of not even a song, a specific moment of that song which is like will lead to a bunch of streams for people to listen to that one part, but the moment that's done, it did it, so doesn't pour it over mm-hmm, which is like difficult for For the artists more than anyone. In my opinion, it's good for the producers and writers who are part of the song. It's good for the label who is a part of the song, anybody else who is a part of the song, but I've seen almost every time this like identity crisis come with it after the fact. Yeah, I see that too. Yeah, because it's like if you have a upward trajectory that's going up and then you spike and that's all it is it really? A lot of times it's just a spike because of this one viral moment. People don't look at the fact that you're still on that up, if anything. It goes like spike up and then you're here and then you're up. It's still Higher than where you were. All people see was that downward from the spike, and that's tough and I don't think it's really fair. Honestly it's not fair to the artist, I should say yeah, it's not fair to the artist.

Austin Seltzer: 56:58

a lot of them get Signed to a major deal, yeah, and then they get dropped from yeah major deal, and it's got to be a blow to your ego, because that's the one thing you need your whole set of being yeah. Yeah, you need this thing as an artist.

Midi Jones: 57:14

It's a little counterintuitive in my opinion. Like, here's a person before a major deal blew up doing something that they just did. Naturally, put him in a deal. We're gonna put you in the machine. That didn't work for you in the first place. You had to do like your fans want to see if that you do have fans, what you were doing before.

Midi Jones: 57:31

A lot of times people get Introduced into the world through a major label, but if you don't, you kind of have to look at how you were introduced to your audience. That's really important than something we don't talk about. And if you don't stay true to your roots at least and it's fundamental way that you do it, it's tough, it's hard to rebrand, it's I'm not saying it doesn't work, but it's a very hard to like just pivot and also, like most people just aren't even like familiar with how that works. Right. So you're doing this super force thing that seems Insanely inauthentic because it kind of is, but you just trust the process because, like, these are veterans and these are guys, have been in the industry for so long. But when it doesn't work, it's really no skin off their teeth because you're one of a fucking hundred artists. But this is your life and then you don't know what to do right, yeah, yeah, we're taking people who are incredibly DIY.

Austin Seltzer: 58:18

Yeah, I mean, tiktok is all DIY.

Midi Jones: 58:20

That's the whole video of it.

Austin Seltzer: 58:22

Yeah, it's all raw. Yeah, like even though that a lot of them are edited well. The ones that seem to pop like real hard are just like a transition, sure, or something that obviously is DIY it came out of somebody's head. Yep, and now we're putting them into a machine and I think, whenever, like majors have to figure this out at some point, just like, allow them to just be the person that they are. That that's.

Midi Jones: 58:44

The one thing I care about personally and I feel like this resonates with a lot of people Musical talent is, of course, important and, like taste, even more important than that, but more than anything I want to see is someone being their truest self, the most authentic versions of themselves, creatively, their content, everything about it. I don't need even need to be a fan of yours to be able to appreciate that you are truly yourself. Hmm, you know.

Midi Jones: 59:10

I think people can hate like like. For me, like Lil Yachty is a very divisive Artists where you either love them or you hate them.

Midi Jones: 59:15

Yes but no matter what, you can not say that there is. You can't say there's another Lil Yachty, there's just one. You can't even be like. You know when people are like if you like artists like this, that's the most you should come. There's not even one for Lil Yachty, because he's just him. I totally agree, honestly, and I love that. I love when it's just like. I can't even imagine someone else being you.

Austin Seltzer: 59:34

That's my favorite shit.

Midi Jones: 59:35

Yeah, I think that whenever it's like you either love or hate this, yes, you're in, you're in the perfect spot, do I saw this quote that was like if everyone likes your shit, you're doing things wrong. Yeah, you're never gonna be great if everyone likes your shit. If people don't hate your shit, it's like you have to. What is it? You get love for free. You have to earn hate. I love that shit. That's a great quote. I think it's great. I think it's awesome. I think you have to be yourself Progetically, and I think that's what a lot of kids do on tiktok, and then they get to something that they're not yeah.

Midi Jones: 1:00:02

It's the inauthentic in authenticity that rubs people the wrong way, because all of a sudden you have a better recording budget, you're working with better producers, you're working with better writers, your shit sounds immaculate, it sounds great. Maybe that's not the vibe.

Austin Seltzer: 1:00:14

Yeah, you know that I think more now than ever. That's not the vibe, maybe still for radio, it's the vibe Sure, which is so very important a very important. Yeah yeah, I. So at this point I kind of want to. Can we take a pee break before we totally should? Yeah let's do it. Okay, so I wanted to talk about how we met mm-hmm. Yeah, I was working at a sink company and I Think you had already. I don't. Were these like throwaway tracks, like I'd all. All of those were already done.

Midi Jones: 1:00:46

So I used to going back a little bit to that, my friend Jamie and Drew Carl.

Midi Jones: 1:00:51

We had this thing that was like a we, me, him, the three of us started this weekly meetup that we called skyscrapers. That was like every Tuesday we'd link up at first it was a Jamie, sometimes one, but ended up being a Drew's like nice ass house with a studio in it when we'd link up once a week and we were all trying to be like Edm DJs almost, because this one, like flume, was like the king of the world to and we'd have to bring a track. It was expressly to get better and We'd each bring a track and like criticize it and we had a couple rules which is like you can't say anything about the track and you have to, you know, just basically take the feedback. It's purely just like a Informative, like let's get better together kind of vibe and eventually grew to like 20 people in this fucking little group. Oh wow, we link up every Tuesday and the deal was like if you didn't bring anything or you gave an excuse or you gave like a disclaimer, you owe dinner for the for the ground.

Speaker 3: 1:01:42

I love that yeah single that's not mixed yet like you can't do work in our, because you know what you can't do that to an anr.

Midi Jones: 1:01:49

You shouldn't do that to an anr Because the disclaimers and this is like a huge thing, I learned the hard way the disclaimers you give on a song before Someone's heard it is going to negatively affect their opinion on it the moment you play it, no matter what it sounds like.

Midi Jones: 1:02:03

Yes, every single time you already said something's wrong with this. This isn't done. You've told them that and, funny enough, a lot of the times of things that you hate about a record or sometimes people's favorite things. So let people make their own opinions and then go from there. There's a thing that like all the snares fuck, don't listen to it. No, that shit. Some people be like I love that fucked up snare, like you just don't know. So it taught us how to do that, but almost all of those tracks were tracks I did for that hang amazing.

Austin Seltzer: 1:02:28

So that was one of the huge nuggets. I hope people take away the disclaimer and just never give it. Death to the disclaimer dude, please, the amount of people that I have over that, show me yeah tracks and stuff and say, hey, man, you know this isn't finished, but I'm like I'll be able to hear that. Just let me hear the track. Sorry, I'm a mix engineer. I literally only listened to unfinished music. Facts, I mean for real they are never finished. That's my job.

Austin Seltzer: 1:02:59

I do that. So yeah, I love that. Please. I hope anybody listening and watching like that's huge Mm-hmm. Just Disclaimer that 100% so wow, really cool. Another nugget people should really get a group like that.

Midi Jones: 1:03:12

Yeah, no, support groups are Everything. Yeah, honestly.

Austin Seltzer: 1:03:17

I, I guess, whenever I was at the Blackbird Academy, I guess that was kind of that. I mean, it was like a Mentorship of a bunch of people, that that's what we were doing, and I kind of had that, but I didn't, as I I moved on from there. I have never had that and that's. I think that that's great. I just remember reaching out, maybe I don't know. Just a touch base Mm-hmm and then I reached out to say hey, I want to remix these tracks and then.

Austin Seltzer: 1:03:44

I to show you and blah, blah, blah, but fast forward, mm-hmm. I Want to say that I just kind of got off Facebook, mm-hmm. But then I randomly one day thought about you and I just messaged you and I was like dude, we should meet up, like yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:04:00

I remember that been so long yeah and it was because I had left or Very strange, I like I guess I got fired but I just asked for a big raise because I was asked to do a lot more work. Sure, sure, and it was mid-pandemic and it was just like, ah, we can't afford this kind of thing. So I was great, I got let go, which means I got to have unemployment for a minute.

Austin Seltzer: 1:04:25

Nice but in all actuality, only lasted a month, because I started up my company, which is now. Cells are sounds to mix and, yeah, realistically, I was just reaching out because I was like yo, mitty is doing some cool stuff. I really want to work with this guy because I didn't know you, right? Yeah, I didn't know you, but I was like this guy's doing cool stuff and you never posted on Facebook but whenever you did, it was like a Fucking bomb drop. It's like yo like that's a big song. Yeah so I reached out.

Midi Jones: 1:04:58

We didn't meet up and I saw you with Josh at fucking Jesse and friends.

Austin Seltzer: 1:05:02

Yeah, yeah, that's where we actually met up. So I at that time, I think I had mixed the first two Maggie singles. Yeah, she knows it. And then how could you do this to me? Mm-hmm and I'd never met Josh. I Saw him there. I was like yo, that's Josh I went up to him like, hey, man, it's great to meet you. And then I was like, oh fuck, midi. Oh, what's up.

Austin Seltzer: 1:05:26

But the funny thing is is, we had only met so briefly once yeah but that interaction felt so warm. I was like yo, this is it, this is a real friend. I was like but he's not even a friend, but he feels like I've known him forever and yeah, then maybe the next week. Yeah, we hung out. Yeah, you had me over to your studio Mm-hmm. We walked to Starbucks and makes me cringe. Now, I'm just kidding Nothing on this.

Austin Seltzer: 1:05:53

Yeah, I'm just kidding. Yeah, we were at your studio and you showed me at me it's fucking amazing spot. And yeah, we I Don't know we just had immediate heart to heart like it was like we were just like already close and basically I had a conversation about the managers I had at the time and I didn't know who to talk to. But I knew that you had been in the game for a while and you know everything was Seemingly going great for you. I'm sure that behind the scenes there was Difficult this and that, but I was. Yeah, it looked good from the surface. So I asked you and we just Basically the advice that I got was it seems like you really align with them as people, but on the business side they are not understanding what you need. No, and that's okay, you know, but you should move on. And I totally agreed great people Just like my. For me personally, they just weren't the right people and you're like look man, you're doing some cool shit and I can't promise you anything, but you should talk to Spencer.

Austin Seltzer: 1:07:02

If nothing more, it'll be a great conversation.

Midi Jones: 1:07:05

That was a huge pivoting point for me as well. When I first met Spencer and we started working together, it was like A having a buffer between you and your clients I feel like is insanely undervalued, especially like within the DIY music community. That's kind of like flourishing. At the moment, there can be a little bit of like too much personal overlap, in my opinion, where, like, the manager really comes into play and, like what you said, like having someone else represent you too, like the uptick in business I got from getting a manager the right manager specifically like changed my life. Like that alone, aside from the big projects and stuff like that, I think we had like the first year me and Spencer worked together, we got like 50 released indie cuts which, like helped me get out of that spot and do all the different shit. It was just like, aside from the major labels, it just like the regular stuff. It was great.

Midi Jones: 1:07:54

Yeah, I find there are a ton of parallels to working in this industry and dating. Funny enough, there's a lot of things you have to treat people with like respect and be like mindful of your feelings. If you dismiss people. It's sensitive industry. Everybody. Creatives are sensitive people. You have to be, you can't be empathetic with all the other side of the coin, which is sensitivity.

Midi Jones: 1:08:16

So if you dismiss that and dismiss some of these feelings, thoughts and how you talk to somebody, it's a problem in my opinion and a lot of people do that, especially a lot of like suits that I know because it's business. It's like we're here to get shit done and we're here to make money and we're here to like, make sure it happened, but you can end up making people feel undervalued and almost dehumanized at times if you don't watch it. So having a manager that has almost better people skills than you, I think is a huge plus. Honestly, all of this shit is relationships, literally. It's so. Much of my work has came because I was drinking buddies with somebody. Honestly, like it's a really undervalued thing. Good taste, good people skills Honestly, those are like the top two for me.

Austin Seltzer: 1:09:01

Yeah, yeah, that's great stuff. When do you think you're ready for a manager?

Midi Jones: 1:09:11

Honestly, when you feel like you are at a point where you can sell your product, like quality wise, I do believe in development and stuff like that, but with production it's one of those things where, until you can have somebody vouch for you, it's tough, like if somebody can't stay behind your product, like that is the whole, like sitting in the studio and doing your shit.

Austin Seltzer: 1:09:30

But do you think like as soon as you have a viable?

Midi Jones: 1:09:32

product, you don't need one. The problem is is without revenue, there's little incentive for a manager to do anything for you, and this, as much as this, is like do it for the love of the craft and all that stuff. People tend to forget the business side of the music business. People have to live. People have to have a reason to want to invest in you. Incentivizing people to want to work with you is probably the biggest thing you can learn how to do from like not just like a people perspective, but like letting people know like, hey, if you get me a gig, you will have equity in this and I will take care of you.

Midi Jones: 1:10:03

I was so upfront with everybody even before Spencer. Like anything you get me, I'll give you a cut, like anything. And whether it was like an engineering gig or like, oh yeah, go to this guy's place and just record him doing this, or like, produce this thing out for this person, I'm gonna break you off, you're gonna get compensated, I'm gonna take care of you. I think if you incentivize people, they'll be incentivized to do things for you and you can have friends and this stuff. But again, it is a business and why would somebody work for you just because I don't expect anyone to do that for me necessarily.

Austin Seltzer: 1:10:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't either.

Midi Jones: 1:10:36

And like I was back to like putting in your time beforehand because I had worked with Nico on a project for this dude named Slush Puppy and he was mixing Slush's stuff and I would go over to his house and we'd open up his session and like mess with stuff and I knew he was like a nice, receptive, easy to work with dude who did good work. So when you were like do you know anybody? He was like the first kid who honestly came to mind Shout out Nico, you're gonna be listening to this. No, it goes with it.

Midi Jones: 1:11:04

But if I would have went to his house and he would have been super weird about me having notes or like having any kind of like attitude, like or made me feel uncomfortable with like being like hey, can we adjust this? Which people do all the time? Unfortunately, because there was a little bit of pride wrapped up in your work, because it's a personal extension of yourself a lot of the times Him being receptive and being open to it, like. If it wasn't for that, I would not have recommended him, no matter how nice his work was you know?

Austin Seltzer: 1:11:30

Yeah, as someone who's not in a pub deal, I'm really curious what somebody should look for in a pub deal. And are you interested in getting a pub deal, and what would it take?

Midi Jones: 1:11:43

Sure, First question, what you should look out for. In my opinion, the two most important things are the deal points, like the actual structure of your deal, and then the person signing you. Like your point person, your deal is truly only as good as the person who's gonna be working with you, no matter how much money you get. If you meet somebody who truly believes in you and is going to push you the way you wanna go, that's worth more than it's weight in gold. In my opinion, having a champion is more important than anything at any company you go to. In my opinion, I know people that have signed pub deals and the person that really believed in them left the company a week after signing and then they just got stuck in a deal with nobody to look after them.

Austin Seltzer: 1:12:23

Yeah, so should you always ask for a key man class, which for the listeners just means like when?

Midi Jones: 1:12:29

they go, I go.

Austin Seltzer: 1:12:29

yeah, I'm signing this deal because of this person and if they move on, the deal is.

Midi Jones: 1:12:34

You can ask for it. But the biggest thing it's the L word. That's hard to get. You know, leverage. That's hard to get in your first pub deal unless you get like a mega hit or like something, or somebody truly believes in you and is willing to give you the leverage that you want. It can be hard to get a key man class.

Austin Seltzer: 1:12:49

Yeah, whenever I said that, I was like that would be so tough. They're handing you this? Much money and Sure, then they have to keep that person there. Yeah, so you don't leave.

Midi Jones: 1:12:59

It's kind of a gamble. You can it kind of. There's a lot of fear that goes in the signing of pub deal and sometimes there's a lot of cavalierness that can also go into it. There's this idea that is gonna change your life and it might sometimes, but you kind of just have to act like it won't, honestly and just like do the work and work with your team as much as you possibly can, make it as easy on yourself as you humanly can. Honestly, I think once you have the leverage and you meet somebody that you like, I think it's.

Midi Jones: 1:13:24

I've said no to enough deals that I would have been out of by now, you know. So to a certain extent you can be overly cautious too, and I know a lot of people that have weighted themselves out of their pub deal options and stuff like that. I would definitely sign a pub deal, for sure it's to the right A&R person. Yeah, I don't know. I still to this day I think mentorship is more valuable than anything. So I would either. For me, I want the ability to sign people Like I want to sign people like pretty bad, because I have, like I do say no to a ton of work and it would be nice to like bring people on and like help out with that, but I don't think that's a responsible thing to do until I have an infrastructure set up for it. I don't want to sign somebody and they're like, how do I collect my money? And I'm like, oh, you need a pub deal. That would be shitty.

Midi Jones: 1:14:11

That's why I think, personally, attorneys are more important than managers. At first, because you can get a pub deal offer before you get a manager. And then what do you do? Yeah, yeah. So, it's just being aware of that. And again, it is a little bit different today than when I first started. I don't think people are that willing to accept a standard deal as they used to. I think the idea of the standard deal is changing a little bit too.

Midi Jones: 1:14:35

I think it's just about doing whatever's good for you. Yeah Cool, yeah Good for everybody involved.

Austin Seltzer: 1:14:40

Okay. So I feel like a really, really hot topic recently has been crediting. I feel like a really, really hot topic recently has been crediting. Credits are a difficult thing. We were talking the other night about, I guess, a Demi Lovato track that you don't have a producer credit on. That you worked on right.

Midi Jones: 1:15:07

Worked on this tune with a good friend of mine, mitch Allen. He brought me in to play a bunch of things and a lot of credit. I got like I think he got me like eight credits or nine credits on that thing Piano player, guitar player, bass player and I didn't get an official producer credit on it, but I posted on Instagram. I thanked Mitch, I was like very happy to be a part of this and honestly and this is kind of the thing about it Spotify credits and all that stuff really do matter. But dude, like so much music it's like uploaded every day.

Midi Jones: 1:15:34

The Instagram post helped me so much and also everybody involved being like great job on the post. You know what I mean. As long as you get your validation, that was a credit that really helped me out a lot. Honestly, even though I didn't get co-production and Mitch did a great job and everybody involved was like awesome with it, I still was able to take advantage of that and I think I was talking to a couple of homies about this. Recently, a good friend of mine worked on a really big tune and he was a vocal producer on it. So he's like I'm not gonna post about it. I'm like dude, that fucking Instagram post will make you a lot of money If people know that you're working on stuff that they enjoy like I've never had anyone be like oh, you're not a producer on Demi Lovato's thing.

Midi Jones: 1:16:14

It was like I worked on it, so I posted about it.

Austin Seltzer: 1:16:17

Yeah, I mean. I will do the same service for you that I did on that, yeah, and the reason that I brought it up is yeah, I mean, of course we'd love to get credited, Of course I'd love somebody on Spotify to be able to go through a track and see that I mixed it.

Austin Seltzer: 1:16:33

That would really help me out, but Instagram for me as well, like posting and then on stories, just reposting, the day of that something comes out. The people that I know that have come my way from seeing posts is 10, if not 100, fold from what a Spotify credit would do.

Midi Jones: 1:16:59

Dude, I'm guilty of it. I'll check credits every now and again, honestly, whenever it's like who did this, which is great, but, like I get most of my news via like social media and also just like management stuff, like, honestly, I think it's good for people who are like on the come up and obviously, if there's like a huge song, it's really really important for your name to be on there and I think you should like do what you can for that stuff. But, dude, so much of this is word of mouth, like, so so much of this you know. Yeah, and also the shout outs are really important too, even if you don't get the official credit, because sometimes it is a little bit more complicated, unfortunately, On the engineering side, I think it's like kind of ridiculous that there's no engineering credits on Spotify.

Midi Jones: 1:17:38

If I'm being honest, I love that title does it, which helps you a lot If you can do it, put it on title, you can put it on music and you can post it there, which helps a lot, which is a little bit of a workaround, yeah. But, dude, even on the Demi Lovato thing, like Mitch and Blush and everything like they all gave me like shout outs, which was great, that shit helps a ton, I think, as long as people know you're on something that it's important for you to like, advertise those aspects, even if it's not as simple as upload my credit to Spotify.

Austin Seltzer: 1:18:06

You know, yeah, yeah. And I mean, are you comfortable sharing the number that you told me that you think from that post, how much money that brought in?

Midi Jones: 1:18:16

Oh dude, so much money Like six figures worth of revenue from that one song. Just from like this Instagram post of people being like I like your work, yeah, like I like your stuff. You know, it is also just like a bit of a childhood dream to like hear like one of my favorite singers and like the first thing you hear is me playing piano.

Austin Seltzer: 1:18:31

Dude her voice is unreal. Yeah, shout outs, yeah, unreal.

Midi Jones: 1:18:36

Yeah, dude, like it's not as easy sometimes because this again is a relationship driven industry. I had no relationship. I had no business really being on that song. If I'm being honest with you, like I got like given a shot and I'm very grateful for that. But it's not as simple sometimes, unfortunately, to just be like yeah, just like this is this is what you think you should get, so this is what you're gonna get. Like it is a little bit more complicated than that at times, but that doesn't mean you're getting like screwed over. Necessarily. It doesn't mean that you're like not getting what you deserve. Sometimes it's just like you gotta figure out how to get to that like advantageous position with in that Cause. It's just like the relationship itself is always like.

Midi Jones: 1:19:19

This is where I find people like mess up a lot. Will it be like I didn't get credited right on this thing or I didn't get that, or I didn't get that? So I'm gonna like talk shit about that person or fuck that guy, and I just think that's the wrong way to go about it. If I'm being completely honest with you, I'm so grateful for all of the credits that I have. However, I have them. If I'm being completely honest with you. There's so many amazingly talented people in this industry that don't even get that. So if you can, just if you learn how to navigate within the system, if you wanna change it, once you're at the point where you can change it, do that. But you can't complain about the game while trying to play it. If that makes any kind of sense, it totally does. So if I see people that are like doing like real strides to try to like make the change they wanna see, you know which is really really really great, and then it's you know Jackson is doing awesome, which I know like Louis Shorl and his wife are really behind that, and they're very like down to like get into the trenches within the fight of like let's credit people properly and stuff like that.

Midi Jones: 1:20:15

But I've kind of learned too. It's just like if you make it your job to like expand your network and to like people are gonna know that you worked on things because you're around. You know, dude, I had like an A&R pull up with a bunch of songs that I hadn't heard in six years, that didn't even come out, and he's like I've loved your shit for like a while. Oh, wow, yeah, like songs I literally forgot I did, and it's just like. Sometimes it just takes the time I think that's the important thing to realize is just like there are certain guidelines, some of them you might not deem, like you know, the most favorable in the world, but like if you learn how to play within them.

Midi Jones: 1:20:50

Every artist complains about their A&R, every single one. Everybody complains about their manager, everybody complains about their agent. But if you take that like, look at it logically, a lot of the times not so much in this like artistic bubble of like this is what I want. If you just look at it from like the standpoint of like just like admin, like if I was in a business, how would I handle this? It tends to make the creative side a little easier, in my opinion, because then you're not just bitter. That's how we get better musicians and better engineers and everybody else like that, I think, fight for your credit. If you can't get it, do what you can honestly, but like we should all be advocates for everybody getting credited properly.

Austin Seltzer: 1:21:29

Absolutely, but I think the point of this point is that Instagram or something on social media where the world can see, is way more valuable 100%. And then now you go to a little show at you know blah blah, blah place and you run into so-and-so. Hey bro, I saw that post the other day. You worked on so-and-so man killer track. I've got this thing that's coming up. I think you'd be great on it. 100% Right there.

Midi Jones: 1:22:01

That's it. So much work, so much work just from Instagram and like DMs and stuff like that. It's truly like the first thing whenever I'm like hey, is it cool if I bring a buddy into our session? When I text somebody, the first thing they ask me. They don't say who's their manager or what's up with this, what's their IG. Oh yeah, it's the first thing, it's like LinkedIn for like musicians. Yeah. I told you.

Austin Seltzer: 1:22:23

Yeah and it actually kind of cracks me up whenever people want me to mix something or they ask, like what I've worked on. I'm like, damn, there are so many ways to find what. Like every thing I work on is on my Instagram. Yeah, Like it's all right there. Sure, I say what the track is. If it's on an album, I'll say what tracks it is. The LinkedIn bio has literally everything that I've worked on. I mean, I try and keep it as readily available as possible 100%. But my Instagram dissing on Facebook I never get on there.

Austin Seltzer: 1:22:57

No professional mixing work has ever come from Facebook 100% Instagram DMs like every single day I will get something like, and generally it'll be somebody that I don't end up working with for one reason or another, but there's so many people that will reach out like bro, you killed this mix. I love what you did there. I'm working on this and I think you'd be great. I think that this whole point is that that post is worth so much Dude.

Midi Jones: 1:23:24

I've even made a bunch of good friends, like producer homies I work with consistently because they DM me and be like hey, dude, I like your shit. We should link up sometime. Like networking on Instagram is truly great too. I know a lot of people whose whole career started off Instagram.

Austin Seltzer: 1:23:36

Yeah, one of my best producer relationships came off of a cold DM that I sent Hudson Mohawk. Yeah good, I sent him a cold DM and was like dude, I fuck so hard with the stuff that you do. Mm-hmm. I would really love to do a spec mix for you just to see if we vibe yeah and me and Ross work together all the time now. I mean legend that dude has worked on some insane stuff 100%, I think.

Midi Jones: 1:24:02

personally, this is where, like, the negligence of Instagram can really get in your way a little bit because, like, even like, if you do get the Spotify credit, I'm like great, now I know who worked on that. I have no idea how to get a hold of this dude, whereas it's a little bit more reachable when you can go somewhere else and be like okay, I see where you did this shit. Very cool, let me text you about it, you know. Yeah yeah, I love that. Mm-hmm.

Midi Jones: 1:24:24

I feel like you're a really good example of all of those points, of just like everything we talked about, which is like being personable and like going out and making relationships while simultaneously like putting in your 10,000 hours and like hone your craft. I think you're a great example of everything you should try to be in the music industry. Honestly, wow, thank you.

Austin Seltzer: 1:24:42

I got you. Yeah, I'll tell you. I put in all of my hours at that same company. Yeah. I may have worked once upon a time for you know a very famous person, big mixer as an assistant. You don't learn what your sound is. You don't learn your workflow. No, you learn how to make things flow as easily for somebody else as possible 100%. But what flows for them doesn't flow for you.

Midi Jones: 1:25:10

You just have to figure that out through trial and error, like as many times as you humanly can. Yeah. That's the funny thing about all of this stuff is like the way it reads on paper on how something works, and how it actually works is usually very different.

Austin Seltzer: 1:25:21

Yeah, that's why YouTube videos and stuff are very difficult. You can learn really cool tips and tricks, but you have to implement them into whatever works for you. Yeah. Yeah, that company. Over three years, I think, I mixed I mean well over 2000 songs. It's easy and just like I'm sure at the beginning it was trash and yeah, I just I learned what I like, what my ear likes what my workflow should be how to use plugins to get the optimal thing that I want.

Midi Jones: 1:25:52

Yeah, the thing about staring, especially when you're first starting, in my opinion, of like a blank canvas, is that the thing that's really daunting is the infinite possibility of what you can do Like, especially like you're first sitting down to write a song. You're first sitting down to mix a song, produce a song you can do. If it's no pressure, you can do whatever you want when you're first starting. That's like decision fatigue immediately before you, like you don't even know what decision to make, which is especially daunting when you have tight time constraints. Your privilege of being able to make any decision kind of goes out the window, which is, I think there is such a beauty and limitation to be like, hey, you have to mix like 10 songs in the next like two days and it's like okay, I really don't even have the time to wonder what EQ is best for this. Let me just go with something that I've you could even do, like I read this is great, let me try it. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 1:26:42

Same thing with Sink. I used to do bumpers, like when I first started out, like for the Kardashians. If you're a really horrible orchestral Dev step song while they're having a fight, that was your boy for a long time. Get hundreds of those things, but like I would get, like you need to do 20 by, like tomorrow, and I would have timers. Do not underestimate the timer. In my opinion, that's probably the one thing that made me like not overthink. Shit was like I have like a third party one that's like not even on my phone, so don't get tempted that I still work with.

Austin Seltzer: 1:27:09

Like a Tamiya Do timer.

Midi Jones: 1:27:11

Kind of it's like a digital timer that you can like put a ring around, like in, like up to like 90 minutes or something like that. But I used to have like challenges with homies. Even like, let's see, you can make a doper beat in an hour, and what it does is just like, if you need to make something sound good, how do I do it quickly? So like, even if you go back and change it, like you have to be able to put in the hour to know what does and doesn't work for you, and that's continuously evolving.

Austin Seltzer: 1:27:31

Yeah, yeah. That's one of the big takeaways that I got from. The person that I worked for for a while was like speed for mixing is everything If you are not second guessing. Nobody cares about the little minutia of a frequency of this blah blah blah. It's like how does everything feel? Yeah? More importantly, yeah, how do we get there as quick as possible? Because if you go too long then you lose the inspiration of the track.

Midi Jones: 1:27:59

Yeah, I think the hardest thing, one of the hardest things to do in any industry really, but especially in creative industries, is how to break through plateaus Like that's like. For me that was a really big challenge, cause I always kept feeling like they kept hitting my ceiling like quickly, essentially, and then it would just stick at this one point. One of my mentors, who was a dude named John Levine, who was like an amazing guy and brought me in on a lot of my first big stuff.

Midi Jones: 1:28:23

I was fast, but I didn't know how to slow down, if that makes any kind of sense. When it was time to make a slow decision, I didn't know how, which is kind of funny. So there was this really long and he taught me. He just like break it down to its fundamental components and build it up from there. You have to learn how to go fast, but you also need to know how to improve from there, which can also be very challenging, in my opinion, cause it's like dude, like this is the quick way I do it, like if it's slow, it's like practicing fast and when you slow it down, you can't do it. I think it's like this really healthy medium of when, of how to execute quickly and how to practice slow. I think that's like the most important thing I learned Whoa, yeah, that's cool, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:29:01

One of I guess one of the last points that I want to ask you about. I want people who are listening and watching, who may not understand, or they want to get into being a producer Like this is their goal. I want them to understand two different things here. One, how many songs it takes, how many songs you write and produce, or just produce equal to how many get cut, then how many come out?

Midi Jones: 1:29:39

How many come?

Austin Seltzer: 1:29:40

out Sure. And then what standard production fees look like for different tiers of producers? Sure, and kind of like what it takes to get there. So let's start with generally, just for, like, a producer who's a professional, it doesn't have to be a top tier producer. We're talking about your working professional. Sure, sure, sure.

Midi Jones: 1:30:05

How many tracks If you're a mid tier producer. Everyone has a different number here, but I think for me at least, cause that's basically all I can really talk about I know some guys they'll do like two sessions a week and they'll try to like get that done. I know a lot of guys that will do like several sessions a day and shit like that. Where I'm at now, I try to finish around 150 to 250 demos a year with artists. Out of that. Like I usually do artist sessions, like I have very few pit sessions in my career.

Midi Jones: 1:30:35

Just because like the Say what that means. So a pit session would be like linking up with a bunch of writers and producers or whoever writing a song and then sending it to an artist to record it. Most of my sessions are with the actual artist in the room, being like what do you want to do today? Let's make a demo, and I try to get that pretty far close to done before I send it out. So basically I'm trying to finish that amount of songs. So I, within that, what that does is it basically gets me a ton of cuts and cuts being like songs where the artist is actually on the record. Cause until the artist is actually on the record, it's just like kind of potential Within that, like every year is different.

Midi Jones: 1:31:16

I've had certain years where, like, I'll have 60, 70 releases, which is like very abnormal, and then some years where I'll get like 10, which is closer to like normal. So it's just like it's a roller coaster. It ebbs and flows a lot. I think most people do that where it's like I'll write 250 songs to make a hundred demos, to get 25 cuts, to get 10 releases, and it's just, it's like concentrate. It's like how that kind of works and you better hope that you like the songs that you work on, cause those 10 that come out, like you know, you kind of never know what's going to come out and then what's going to work, you know. So it's like I saw I was listening to this podcast with like Ross Golan, like, and the writer is, and I think he was saying like even when those songs that do come out, then they have to be successful which is a completely different thing and it's one of those few jobs where you just go in and like pretty much expect for it not to work.

Midi Jones: 1:32:09

It's like like when it does work, like meaning it's a commercial success. In my opinion, he was saying that if you get one song a month that does well, that is successful, that's deemed successful, you're the biggest songwriter in the world. If you just do it once a month, you're the biggest songwriter that ever lived. Honestly.

Austin Seltzer: 1:32:27

What a crazy world. And at what point do you get paid?

Midi Jones: 1:32:31

Well, that's also like situation to situation. There's some gigs like usually if they're not on a label where at this point in my career I'm like I need half upfront if we're going to work on something on label stuff. And, funny enough, all my stuff before I met Spencer, none of it, except for a couple of things, were on a label. All of it was just indie stuff that I thought was cooler, like people were down to work on. After I met Spencer and we pretty much fully transitioned and this is when I was living at that studio to doing trying to just hit major label stuff.

Midi Jones: 1:33:04

I was lucky I was already homeless, because that would have been because it takes so long to get paid, as once you're in the system and stuff like that. Like there's stuff that I did that's been out for a year, that I haven't been paid for and it just takes time. Like it's just back and forth in negotiations, technicalities and like all the stuff that goes, but I'm owed so much money at any given time. It's like farming the same way. It's like the first year you start farming you have an empty field and seeds and you can't eat seeds, so you better have some food stock piled up and you just keep doing that Like I'm not. The session I had yesterday isn't for me to get paid this week, it's for me to get paid within the next year. You know, like I don't expect to see a dime from that, I had a song come out in Korea that I did three years ago, like like literally done three years ago just been sitting there.

Midi Jones: 1:33:55

You just have to store it, like you just never know. So it's one thing to keep in mind when you transition. Sometimes it happens very naturally. But, like personally, I made the conscious decision, without any kind of real success there yet, to try to focus on major label stuff and almost wreck me.

Austin Seltzer: 1:34:10

Yeah, yeah, and you only get paid on songs that are released.

Midi Jones: 1:34:16

Not necessarily. Okay. Best piece of advice anyone's ever told me is that precedents are overrated. There's what you suggest and propose and there's something that people say yes or no to, and that's it. If you say yes to it, let's go. If you say no to it, let's figure out a middle. You know there are songs I've made six figures off of songs that never came out, never got teased, you know, never even wanted to mix. So it depends. And there's songs that have been out that I never got paid for it.

Midi Jones: 1:34:46

Truly, the precedent that is preferred is you can either do half upfront with a producer deck, which can be tricky sometimes because it'll tie up your song with that artist If you get paid before the song's come out. If the song doesn't come out and you don't get paid, you can do whatever you want with the song afterwards, as long as everyone is in agreement. But that's a good way. You can get half of your money upfront if you're willing to just like let the artist have the song effectively. So it can sometimes be you giving your song away for half the price. So you have to be aware of that. Depends on what your reach is, honestly, and your ability to pitch songs. But yeah, there is no real standard that actually exists in my opinion. There's like what you kind of set as a precedent. So when I met Spencer, my fee was like less than a thousand and I think the most I've made from a song is like $30,000 thanks to him. And then once you set that precedent like this is what I get paid, that can be your negotiating point.

Midi Jones: 1:35:40

Very few people have $30,000 to pay for a song. You know, especially like mid-level artists, but like you can use 30 in order to get 15. Like that's my half my rate, or even be like I'm giving you a super deal of 10. Or like you know my indie rate, because my label rate is 30, I can charge you 12 as an indie rate. You don't have 12, I can do 75. You know, like it's negotiating points. Yeah, sometimes we get way more than that.

Midi Jones: 1:36:06

So, yeah, it's literally just what you can get and what you can offer as a service to like I have a bit of a one-stop shop. You come to my studio, all you have to do is pay for your Uber. I have snacks, coffee, recording booth with a great mic. I have a telephone can mic with all the chain that you would get if you were going to like East West. I have the same thing. I have the great converters. We're not skimping. So within that, you save a lot of money by being able to have the luxury of trying whatever you want to try and then, when you're willing to commit, pay me my rate.

Midi Jones: 1:36:39

So, which is harder to negotiate, it's like, well, we want to pay you your rape. We had to, like you know, get a studio, we had to hire musicians and we had to do all this different stuff. You know. Whatever you, however, you can make your leverage. Leverage is the biggest thing. It's also just personal relationships. I don't charge artists for studio time directly because I want them to feel like they can come and not feel like they're on the clock. Yeah, so it depends on how you want to do it.

Austin Seltzer: 1:37:02

That was very eloquent. There are several huge takeaways. Wow, yeah, you said that so well. Thanks, yeah, I thank you for that.

Midi Jones: 1:37:13

Gotcha.

Austin Seltzer: 1:37:14

Let's move on to the second part of that question. We'll wrap up here the. I'd like to know different tiers of producers at what they can charge, which I know you just said it's all negotiable but like label versus indie, and I haven't really talked about this because I don't entirely know. But as far as mixing goes, you know it can vary from either a spec, yep, you want to work with somebody and we do this for free and if you like it, you pay. I don't know what the lowest tier mixers like, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:37:49

In the low hundreds.

Midi Jones: 1:37:50

I guess. Yeah, I've met people who do $50 mixes, okay so $50 mixes to last year, I think, before Spencer.

Austin Seltzer: 1:38:03

I think we are doing like five and $600 mixes. And this is where the value of one a career, that's one year later getting great projects. Yeah, the Maggie Lindemann project really just changed everything for me, Thanks to Cody. He, he was like dude, I think. You, you got to spec it. I really think that you could be the guy and we'd never worked together, we'd barely even hung out. I'm so glad that I got. She knows it. But now it's, it's sitting at pretty much 1500. And we can go down to a thousand. Sure, it's the same thing. Yeah, and major, we can generally get 2000. Yep, but I'll come down if necessary.

Midi Jones: 1:38:53

That's the game.

Austin Seltzer: 1:38:54

Yeah, that's my world. And then we've got like I think I think the standard pro pros are like three to three and a half. That's what it seems like. It's kind of like right around there.

Midi Jones: 1:39:05

Three to three and a half for all the guys who were doing like pretty damn good shit, and then the guys who were like okay, yeah, fuck, those dudes charge up to like six and seven.

Austin Seltzer: 1:39:12

Dude, yeah. But then you've got the serbians and mannies who are 10, eight and a half to 10.

Midi Jones: 1:39:16

Dude and that's a different kind of. I remember working with this girl who wanted certain. She wasn't very good, but she wanted serbians, so bad. And she had a pit of money and they offered Serbians. I think it was like 11K and like six points and he said no and I was like fuck that's sick.

Austin Seltzer: 1:39:30

Yeah, it's just such a different world. Yeah, you could take no fee and a weekend track and you'll make a bazillion more Also saw his Muzo.

Midi Jones: 1:39:37

He has like 400 billion streams yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:39:40

I mean, nobody will ever touch him. Yeah, it's just, we talked about it the other night, he just he came up in a different time. Yeah. Aligned with I mean definitely the most successful producer of all time.

Midi Jones: 1:39:51

Totally totally.

Austin Seltzer: 1:39:52

Yeah, max Martin, but so that's. I feel like that's the scale With mixers, of mixers.

Midi Jones: 1:40:00

So with producers and this is like not a route that everybody needs to take or should take. But this is usually like, in my opinion, lowest tier, too high as tier. You have the I just started out and I want to produce shit and that is basically you charge nothing and you split the master with whoever you're doing shit with. And the thing that's tough about the master these days is people have kind of wise enough that it can be worth something. So a lot of times, like it's hard for you even to get the actual master, you'll get what's called net receipts, which is you getting money after the song makes back the money that it's spent, so once it recoups and shit like that. So a lot of times you're effectively doing it for free because most songs don't recoup. I think I saw this thing that was like. It was like over 10,000 songs get uploaded to Spotify a day, every day, and 98% of songs on Spotify 100,000.

Midi Jones: 1:40:49

Is it 100? I think it's 100,000. A ridiculous amount of songs. And then 98% of the songs on Spotify have less than a thousand streams. So, and also, we all know what a thousand streams will make you on Spotify, which is less than like a fucking ham sandwich.

Midi Jones: 1:41:02

So it's just like you're never really gonna see any money from that at first. What you said about Maggie was a key point, and this is when you start charging more, which is you get a little bit of clout there. I put gigs into two categories personally, now money and later money. Now money is always like you know, it's about like what you expect to get. You know, I did a song.

Midi Jones: 1:41:25

If you're brand new, I got nothing, but then, oh shit, it's got to look on TikTok and the artist attached to it got to look on TikTok or something like that, or like it kind of is doing a thing on Spotify, even though I'm not getting paid for it. It got this cool, it got on like you know, lorem or some shit like that, but like we got some crazy stuff. Then bump it's like key moment bump. That's really, I think, important. It's important to move with the ebbs and flows of your career and with these moments and I think a lot of people put like a lot of it it's important to get paid. You have to pay for your bills and your gear and all this different stuff and I'm a big gearhead myself, you know. So I'm trying to buy shit, but the things that advance my career along aren't really usually the things that pay me the most, if that makes any kind of sense.

Midi Jones: 1:42:09

You know the first, like couple of things I did that did good shit. I don't have literally anything on, I just got the credit, which was usually spelled wrong, my name, like most of the time, and I still posted about it. Those posts and the validity of those posts really posts really helped me like grow and move on and move up, and move up and move up. Sometimes this people just taking a chance on you. A lot of times in my specific instance, which I don't recommend that people kind of felt like they could take advantage of me to a certain extent and I'm kind of okay with that Cause I got the things that I needed to move up and move on you know, my first major label cut really is what helped me be like, okay, this guy could do competitive work and people believe in that.

Midi Jones: 1:42:51

And I wrote those, that wheel of like I have a major label cut with a music legend, like I wrote that shit until the wheels fell off, dude. Like I used it with everything, like sometimes it could be even like, hey, I'm under this person, I'm working with this guy. Like, oh, you're working with him, you must be good For your working on that project, you must be good. And then you're like okay, now my rates 500 bucks and this many master points. And then you continue to do that, because that's what. My rate was a lot and I worked with a lot of indie people. And then I got the next big thing and then it was a thousand and then it was 2000. And then I met Spencer who started asking for numbers. That made me uncomfortable. And then you get people who were like okay, I see your growth, I see what you're doing. You have to have a product that backs this up, but you just have to move. With these little bumps, maggie, is the thing that really helped you go from three to four figures, which, the next thing will help you go from like double. That. It's always about these little moments of being like fucking great shit man. You know it's if you can be a part of the finding moments. That's what really makes you like a legend.

Midi Jones: 1:43:52

I was talking to like I don't know if you know who Omos Keith is. I don't. He effectively created Frank Ocean's whole like first album. He was the EP Okay, so I'm gonna have a party once and he's like a legend. I admire his work a lot and I asked him like what would you give advice wise to somebody like in my position, like an upcoming producer? And he had a great point which is like if you wake up today and you get Rihanna's next single, your life won't change. Your year will change, but your life won't change. If you create Rihanna, you are forever a legend Because he's like.

Midi Jones: 1:44:26

When you think of huge producers, specifically, and writers as well honestly, mixers too I think anybody in this industry really anybody attached to a big song gets a nod. But the greats are attached to stars. When I think of Quincy Jones who, like my name, is Midi Jones because of Quincy, I don't think of a particular song. I think of Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. When I think of Timbaland, I think Missy Elliott and JT. When I think of Omos, I think of Frank and like Caliuchis, and he said the coldest line anyone's ever said. He's like I don't really care about making hits, I make stars and I was like fuck.

Austin Seltzer: 1:44:58

Damn. Yeah, you had the pop mindset. I keep on coming back to that because it's just a different mindset, completely Like it's those short and sweet little tidbits like that that you're like oh fuck.

Midi Jones: 1:45:09

And it's the thing, oh damn. Do you see that video with? I think it was either Tyler the creator talking to Pharrell or vice versa.

Austin Seltzer: 1:45:16

Yeah, spencer made me take it down. I reposted it and it used the N word and I was like oh shit, that's funny.

Midi Jones: 1:45:21

I mean, that's him that you didn't say it, but it's a thing. When he said that, like Jimmy Iovine told Pharrell that, he said that Jimmy only works on house music, oh, oh, oh. This is a different one. This is amazing.

Midi Jones: 1:45:32

I was like I didn't see that one, there was another one though, when he said that he only works on house music and he was like what do you mean? He's like I work on music that'll buy me a house. Yes, for Anna. That is not everyone's goal. A lot of people that I know just want to make art that they personally resonate with and they feel like people resonate with. I know a lot of people that I don't want to say they want to be martyrs for their art, but they are down to like kind of like hustle until they're done for the art's sake.

Midi Jones: 1:45:56

But I don't know. I feel like the. I have this one guy I was a really huge fan of, who's now a good friend of mine. But a lot of people are like you should sign this kid to this guy who's not my friend. And he met with me kind of changed my perspective in a huge way. And I sat with him and he was like what do you want to do in this kind of career? What's like, what are your life goals? And I paused for like 10 seconds to think about it and he was like I'm going to stop you right there. You don't even have to play me anything, I'm not going to sign you. I was like, and I was like my heart likes that. I was like huge fan of this guy. I was like fuck, because I kind of ask why he's like, because you don't know what you want.

Midi Jones: 1:46:30

He was like I, he's like I implore you to go home and have that answer ready at all times and ask yourself that question, really what you want, and for some people it's like I want to make sure that truly makes me happy. I want to like go down this gear hole. I want to like mix for other people. I want to, like you know, be like the indie God. Some people want to do whatever, and I found that I want to make as many people here my music is humanly possible and resonate with as many people as humanly possible, which means getting on the radio. So that's my goal.

Austin Seltzer: 1:46:59

Yeah, yeah, damn. I love that story about not wanting to sign somebody off of that. Your goal is the exact goal of mine. I want to be one of the biggest mix engineers in the world. I don't have to be the biggest, I want to be one of the biggest. And how I define that is I want the music I work on to affect as many people as possible in a great way 100%.

Midi Jones: 1:47:23

That's it, dude. I remember the first time I used to have a sound cloud. I remember the first time I got like a hundred hits on a song. I was like, fuck, a hundred people are my shit. Yeah.

Midi Jones: 1:47:31

And I think I had to take a moment the other day because I like get those music, music notifications. I was like you just passed a billion streams on Spotify and I was like, oh, that's neat. And I was like, damn, I reacted so much better when there were six less zeros on this, no, like seven. And I was like I had to take a moment to like you have to keep your goals and your dreams and perspective, because it's so easy, even especially once you start getting shit, to become complacent and jaded and it turns into a business and a job that you don't necessarily enjoy. Yeah, so keeping your goals in the forefront of your mind. I had a ponytail a shitty ponytail too for like seven years because I hated my hair, but the whole point of it was I wasn't going to cut my hair until I hit these goals, because I'm going to do something that every time I look in the mirror it's going to remind me what I'm doing every single day.

Austin Seltzer: 1:48:16

Oh, shit, I had no idea. I love that, that's why I had that yeah. So cool. I actually love that, dude. You're just dropping the fucking nuggets. Wait, I got two more questions now because I can't. I can't let you stand up without giving it all.

Midi Jones: 1:48:28

I got you.

Austin Seltzer: 1:48:30

Yeah, I have to ask a question for myself, because I do turn to you for advice. I think that that's what's special Like if people don't realize watching or listening to this, that you are pretty much the dude that I go to for solid advice outside of Spencer of course, and friends, but of course I do have to be a part of cultural changing events.

Austin Seltzer: 1:48:59

But what is going to take me from the level I'm at right now, which I think 99.999% of people would like to be where I'm at, and I am so fucking thankful I get to mix and do what I do, but I'm at, like, the 1.5 to two area and everything's not about money. But the projects that I want to be working on do have a higher budget and they go to people that are in the three to three and a half range. That's just the way. It is 100% or realistically. They go to Serban, Spike and Manny. Yeah Right, that's what all mixers are chasing is those cool projects Totally. What is going to take me from the 1.5 to two-ish area to the three to 3.5 area in your opinion?

Midi Jones: 1:49:45

In my opinion, one of two things or both the next Maggie project, where everyone's like, fuck, this is really cool, who worked on this? Or just like mega smash. I mean like a big hit, like a hit, like something that goes on the radio, something that people are consistent with, like this is getting a lot of looks, but that's like the now versus later money conversation, like that one cut you were telling me about, with the big producer who we're not going to mention the name, like that coming out bumpy shit, like that's sick. So you work on cool shit. The funny thing about big stuff and this is funny a lot of big stuff is deemed culturally kind of corny, which I'm not mad at. I'm a corny motherfucker personally.

Midi Jones: 1:50:26

I super don't mind that. I love like, call me maybe is my jam dude, I love that shit. But I also like my favorite artist right now is probably Dejan. You know what I mean. I would do pretty much anything for any kind of money to work with the people that I truly, truly think are cool. You know what I mean. Those are usually the things that get you like the next bag. In my opinion, all my homies like came up. It wasn't doing. It's what we were talking about before with the Rihanna thing. It wasn't doing really big shit. It was doing cool shit that popped. Being a party shit that pops is infinitely cooler. It's like, dude, no matter what, if you and I tomorrow like I produced Beyonce's next single and you mixed it and it's literally you and I and Beyonce on the credits, that literally doesn't do that much for our lives, because Beyonce's Beyonce. People are gonna be like of course it's Beyonce, but, dude, you like the next thing. Holy shit, dude.

Austin Seltzer: 1:51:19

Yeah, what an interesting perspective that. I love that. It will make your year, but it won't make your life 100%, because it is true, that is a thing.

Midi Jones: 1:51:27

It was like, oh man, good for him that he got on that project, versus like, dude, he did that shit. My homies that develop shit, dude, it's great, like you know. I know like Jared Solomon Afonik and Remy Wolfe who like came up together and did all this shit together. Those guys are disgusting with it, and they were before they had any kind of real success and they were great and they had this synergy and then they popped off together. You know and like all my favorite artists.

Midi Jones: 1:51:52

Favorite artists is like Remy and like that's all the shit that Jared did, you know. So it's like those guys did it the right way and they just focused on what they had to focus on.

Austin Seltzer: 1:52:00

You know, yeah, mitty. Thank you so much, dude. Thanks for having me, buddy, all right. So now that you've listened to this podcast, just like me, I'm sure that Mitty is one of your favorite people now. Dude has so much knowledge. He's young, but just through sheer determination and meeting people and going through bouts of homelessness and tough times and the highs and the lows, he's learned so much, and I really hope that you are able to learn a couple of really great things from this podcast, some that I took away from it. Of course, he is a hustler. He makes it happen.

Austin Seltzer: 1:52:47

I wrote down, you know, that he not only donated blood, he had three hour train rides just to get to sessions. He dealt with bouts of homelessness, staying at bus stops and train stations, and none of this made him give up on his dream. Whenever producing went from a hobby to how he was paying bills, he did whatever it took to make it to sessions, to give the best work possible, to continue moving forward, and I know that that's why he's having the huge success he's having. I thought another great point was figure out what kind of producer you want to be. Do you wanna be a producer working on really big pop songs big hits, or do you wanna be working on cultural shifting music that may be much more indie or alternative or something that's not so structured Like? Figure that out. And then the little sentence that he was told I mean it's pretty powerful is "'If you wanna make Jimi Hendrix shit, do that on your own time. I'm here to make money'". Now that might not align with you, but the principle makes sense. If you are trying to make big hits, come ready to write those type of tracks, come ready to deliver on that. And if you're trying to deliver the greatest alt record that really shapes the underground, then go into that session with that mentality of you're gonna cultivate something special and it doesn't need to fit inside of a box, but really come to the table with your head on straight as to what you wanna make happen.

Austin Seltzer: 1:54:38

No one will ever hire you because you're sick at what you do. They'll hire you because of how awesome you are as a person. I truly I know that that's the case. If you're able to be a great hang and people like being around you, then of course, yes, you need to be great at what you do, but you don't have to be the very best. You have to be somebody that people like spending time with and they know that they can trust you to do a great job. But if you are not an awesome person to be around, it makes it so simple for people to go to somebody else that they trust more. Somebody that they knew does better work, somebody that they know that that's just going to be. They're gonna be able to be around that person for long periods of time.

Austin Seltzer: 1:55:23

Music isn't made instantaneously. It's something that you have to sit down and work at with somebody for a while. It might be revisions, it might be just the creation process. Whatever it is, if you're easy to be around and an awesome hang, you're going to get hired. You're going to continue to get hired. So be an awesome person to be around.

Austin Seltzer: 1:55:48

The last two points here kind of run together and I do think that they might be the most important thing to take away from this podcast. One create a group of friends in your city or on the internet or whatever, who all have the same goal of making great music. They don't have to be the exact same genre. They need to be like I want to be at this level of work. I want to be working with this level of artists, whatever it is. You need to want to elevate your craft and then come up with some kind of game where you guys have to deliver tax amount of tracks in a week, or you have to set a timer and create a track in under an hour and then share with your friends what you come up with. It's going to continue to raise this bar for you guys as to like how good your work is and how quickly you can get to that idea and then, ultimately, please take this away. I'm telling you that this makes a huge difference, a huge difference.

Austin Seltzer: 1:56:53

Stop giving disclaimers. Whenever you play somebody, your music, okay, for multiple reasons, it's going to make the other person think negatively immediately about the track you're about to show them, even if it's not mixed, even if it's not finished, no matter what. Just show people the music and don't tell them it's not mixed, it's not done. We're going to do this. I'm going to add that Let them come to their own conclusion. Most people in music already can tell if something is finished or not, and maybe they will like the things that you think that you need to fix. So whenever you give a disclaimer, somebody immediately on the other side of that disclaimer already thinks negatively about your music. So stop giving disclaimers. I promise it's going to be the greatest thing that you've ever done.

Austin Seltzer: 1:57:43

All right, so hope you love this episode. Hope you love MIDI like I do, and I'll catch you on the next one. Thanks for listening to the Grounds for Success podcast. I want to thank all of the people who work on this podcast and help me out. My team is everything to me, and without them, I couldn't bring these to you every single week, I couldn't post on social media with all of the clips that we have, and so I thank you guys so much. I want to also thank all of my clients on the Mixing and Mastering side, because without you, I could not have Grounds for Success. So thank you so much. If you're enjoying the Grounds for Success podcast, please follow, like and subscribe on whichever platform you're listening or watching on. It helps us out a ton and I want to keep getting this content to you in whichever way you listen or watch.