Layto: Dropping Out Of College, Creating Core Creative Team, TikTok Triumphs, and alternative psycho

On this episode of Grounds For Success, which also happens to be our last episode for season 1, we have the artist Layto!

From almost becoming an English major with dreams of law school to successfully strumming his way into the music industry—this episode is packed with a real-world story of how surrounding yourself with the right team can change everything for you as a creative. Layto generously pulls back the curtain on his journey, sharing insights into his early creativity, his life-changing decision to become a full-time musician and a hilarious story that led to his first manager (who has since been replaced by Garrett Ream)

Both Layto and I delve into our experiences working with individuals who've had pivotal roles in our creative journeys, as well as how important the power of perseverance and hard work can be for your career. We will learn about Layto's album "alternative psycho," an album I mixed and mastered, and the rest of the team who worked on it, including my friend Inverness who executive produced the album, and my friend Brandyn Burnette, who wrote and sang on several of the songs.

Lastly, Layto shares how he tapped into the power of content creation, using platforms like TikTok to gain exposure, and how a single song opened the doors to thousands of YouTube views and unprecedented opportunities. In the world of music, success is far from guaranteed.  Layto's story shows, that with self-belief, the right team, and a touch of serendipity, it's possible.

WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/GqTTSg8wxRc

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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

LAYTO LINKS
All Links Here: https://linktr.ee/layto

Transcript

Austin Seltzer: 0:01

Welcome to the Grounds for Success podcast. I'm your host, austin Siltzer. 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 coffee drinkers, welcome to the Grounds for Success podcast. I'm Austin Siltzer and I'm a mixing and mastering engineer with over 10 years of experience in the music industry. This episode is the final episode in season one.

Austin Seltzer: 0:41

I honestly can't believe we're here. I, just like yesterday, this was an idea in my head and I was scrambling to get guests that were friends that I could reach out to, and creating this room, creating the idea of Grounds for Success, different names so many things went into making this thing a reality and I'm just, I'm so stoked we're here. I love how season one came out, but in season two I'm going to flip the script over. We are going to elevate the audio, the video, the social media. My guests are going to continue to shed light on what it took to become successful, but the little nuances of this podcast I'm going to continue to try and elevate for you guys to get the best material, best guests, best stories, best way to deliver everything to you, make it look and sound as good as possible. That's the goal, and thanks for sticking with me through season one. I can't wait to see what season two does.

Austin Seltzer: 1:54

So my guest today is the artist Lado. I've done a whole lot of mixing for him many, many singles, and then I did the entire album Alternative Psycho. I mixed and mastered the album and his producer for this was Inverness. He's the EP, over the whole record, and there were various other producers involved as well as great songwriters like my buddy, brandon Burnett. So you'll hear about that album, how it came to be, how he chose the team around him and just really how he vibed with the particular people that he knew could take him to where he wanted to go. Today we'll hear about his early life and how his parents instilled this thing in him that you have to work hard for what you want, nothing is given. So he has a very blue-collar mentality and that pure work and perseverance is what will get you to where you want to go, and that really shows through who he is and the music he puts out.

Austin Seltzer: 3:00

We learned how, at a young age, lado would listen to the radio and take very popular songs and rewrite the words to those songs. It just was like an early creative flex of the muscle of coming up with something unique, and I think that's fun because I kind of resonate with that as well. I did something very similar whenever I was younger, so I thought that was a fun little tidbit. We also hear about how Lado was studying to become an English major, probably going to go into law, but then he had a song pop off on some blogs and on YouTube and so he pursued music instead of those which you know. Law to music is quite a big switch, so that was interesting as well.

Austin Seltzer: 3:46

We hear about the story on how Lado met his first manager. It's a pretty funny story about how he came across this list of managers and how, ultimately, he pivoted from that manager to Garrett, who now manages him today. You'll also hear this funny story about how I came across Lado's music. This one particular song called Hounden, and it popped up in one of my playlists, and at the time I was making a playlist of artists that I wanted to mix, but you know I didn't have contacts too, but they were like people I wanted to work with. Lado was on there and it's pretty serendipitous that my good buddy boy, blue Sam, had just met him, had worked with him because Lado signed a position and then, without Sam knowing, he introduced me to Lado and from then on I've mixed his music. Alright, let's get caffeinated. My brother in coffee. Yes.

Austin Seltzer: 4:44

I'm rated Well, yeah. So I made him just my special coffee and I put a splash of oat milk. But the real love is in the coffee.

Layto: 4:53

Yeah, not a big oat milk guy, oat milk rather, but it's very good. I'm just a regular milk guy. I know I'm a traditionalist in that regard, but this is very good. Not too bold, but also not too. I like diner coffee. Okay, I really like shit coffee, like mug coffee.

Austin Seltzer: 5:18

No, I know what you mean. It's called functional coffee.

Layto: 5:20

Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 5:22

It gets you to where you need to go with no frills?

Layto: 5:25

Yeah, there's no qualms about it. My dad used to buy the grossest coffee growing up. That's why I think it's kind of nostalgic to me at this point. It's cheapy Maxwell, just for you guys listening and watching.

Austin Seltzer: 5:36

I just put so much love and effort into the coffee hand grinding it. I'm like it's decent, so much love into it. He's like fuck, I love diner coffee.

Layto: 5:46

No, it's very good. It's very good. It's definitely getting the job done too. I'm alert as fuck right now. This is like my fifth cup, by the way, I think it's got, oh shit.

Austin Seltzer: 5:55

Yeah it's good, though Damn. Okay, it's my third.

Layto: 6:01

I might have to throw like some booze in here to even me out shortly. We're good though.

Austin Seltzer: 6:06

That's funny. I should have bought full juice. Bring anybody who has Lado to their studio.

Layto: 6:12

Don't forget.

Austin Seltzer: 6:13

Diner coffee. Yeah, alright, let's get into it, bro Lado, thank you so much for coming. Cheers, it's so funny, I don't know, I just trained myself to say Lado. But, what do you go by Like if you're just like chilling with homies? My birth name Paul Paul yeah.

Layto: 6:32

No good.

Austin Seltzer: 6:34

But wait whenever you're out at an industry event. Lado.

Layto: 6:38

Cool, even like Garrett calls me Lado. Really. Yeah, I think it's just like you know, it's like the foundation of how they know me, Garrett?

Austin Seltzer: 6:46

do you even know his name's Paul?

Layto: 6:47

Yeah, he knows Actually my Shout out Garrett. Yeah, shout out Garrett. The tour manager for the tour that we were just on like found out my real name and he kept calling me Paul Because he thought it was funny. Like you know, he's like it's not very star-like.

Austin Seltzer: 7:03

What but Lado?

Layto: 7:06

Yeah, I think it's better than Paul.

Austin Seltzer: 7:11

Dude, I love that. Yeah, I got to see you recently play at the peppermint last day of the tour.

Layto: 7:17

Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 7:18

It was awesome. Thanks, man, we've been working together for so long on all these tracks and I mean I saw you at another event but like this, one is a tour. It was fucking awesome to see our tracks like played.

Layto: 7:29

I know, dude, I'm excited and, like in the fall, we're going to do like shows. I think we're going to headline some shows, select shows and we'll do the album, which is great, which you know. For those of you who don't know, he mixes my entire project, Matt Mix and Mastered Dude. I feel so fortunate.

Layto: 7:46

Yeah, dude, likewise you do a great job. I feel like it took the sound to another level, kind of the story of my life, like just finding the right people to kind of enhance whatever I'm doing. You know, I've just been very lucky in that regard.

Austin Seltzer: 8:00

I think that's one of the keys to success. That's kind of you know, obviously, what this podcast is about, but it's surrounding yourself with people who do whatever you want to do at a high level and help you get to that goal. Yeah, like aligning yourself with those people and getting away from people who are not moving you towards that. Yeah, 100%.

Layto: 8:18

I think, like I learned luckily, fortunately, and I think, just by happenstance, but I've been fortunate enough to kind of understand that at a young age. Like it's the people around you, you know, you can't do everything on your own, and especially in music, which you know, like there's so many moving parts where I'm like fuck, like it's almost overwhelming, like okay, who's going to do this, who's going to do this? And I think a lot of artists try to just delegate too much individually and it's like no, you kind of need like the right people to kind of propel whatever you're doing, because you're not going to be able to do certain things better than somebody that's like specifically niched for that thing, you know, yeah. And so, yeah, I've been lucky enough to just be able to focus on what I need to focus on, which is music and content and everything else, kind of I trust everybody else around me, you know. So that's been a huge bonus.

Austin Seltzer: 9:04

Yeah, we'll get into content creation and music creation and this, and that I want to hear so many answers to questions that I have. That I know will help people. But on the topic of finding people that are great at certain niches, there are so many producers in this industry that are so incredibly good Through the entire process. They can mix and master as well, but there's something to be said about just like being able to say this is done on production and passing it to somebody else Not because maybe I can do their job better, but I'm not as close to the music as they are, so I can maybe hear certain things that will elevate it.

Layto: 9:39

Yeah, definitely, and, like with our projects, I think that's been another huge addition, because, you know, we always like joke, we get mixeditis. But it's like if I have a producer, myself, garrett listening to a track and hiring it for a while, I don't even know if this is good, you know. So it's always great to have you in, and then you parse out some instruments and it's like, oh shit, it's almost a different record, but it's always better. Having somebody who specializes in just mixing and mastering is like, you know, you're not focused on the production and you just have that one thing that you do very well, which you know I love. I think it's so important, you know, and too many people wear too many hats with production. They do you know everything under the sun. It's like, how do you do anything so well if you're doing everything? You know? How could you do one thing great?

Austin Seltzer: 10:26

With that being said, the producer that you're working with a lot right now Inverness just dangerously good at pretty much everything. The.

Layto: 10:33

Wizard of Dawes I call him, I dubbed him that and that's going to stick.

Austin Seltzer: 10:38

Yeah, shout out, rob, I love you. Dude, you are a monster. Yeah, he's the best, yeah, you this. I guess he he EP the project, but I think he produced every single song on it with other people, right, yeah, every, every song, yeah, and it sounds so cohesive, so like that's a great body of work. Thank you. I can't believe you guys aren't calling it an album.

Layto: 11:01

I don't know where we are. We are, oh yeah, we did. It's seven, seven songs.

Layto: 11:05

Initially it was going to be five and then, yeah, we found out that, like it, there is a seven song thing with Spotify or whatever, with DSPs, and we just decided to put on an album, you know okay, and yeah, I don't know when something's called an album or an EP anymore it's it's so innocuous, but it is seven songs though, okay, yeah, no, it feels good though, and he was very instrumental and like sonically driving whatever we were trying to say, you know, with alternative psycho, which is the album, trying to kind of like blend the sonics with my lyrics, and every single song and every sound has like a cohesion, like you said, and it's fucking cool. It's like what I would listen to growing up, where I'm like, oh my God, like how do you make an album. It seems so daunting, you know.

Austin Seltzer: 11:51

I actually it sounds funny because I'm on the project, but this is the music that I would listen to. Cool. It really is like straight up. Especially what I feel like you guys honed in on these tracks is this thing where the final hook is like so fucking heavy. You go into like kind of a not an EDM drop, but it's like a drop. It's like it literally drops out a lead vocal and just goes hard.

Layto: 12:19

Yeah, it is like an EDM drop kind of, with like a scream vocal that we always kind of blend in and it becomes part of like a synth, which is cool, which is something we were like, oh, this is sick. This would be like a nice earmark for the album, which we don't feel like anyone's really doing, you know.

Austin Seltzer: 12:33

I haven't heard it and it's on almost every track. I feel like there's something like that, that I feel like if you're listening throughout the album one, it threads it all together, but I feel like, as a listener, you're also like, oh shit, that part's coming. Yeah. Like it's going to happen. I haven't heard this track yet, but I know it's coming.

Layto: 12:49

Yeah, honestly, in hindsight I was like this would be great for retention. Hopefully, if they know like, oh shit, there's a drop coming into like a different part of the record, you know that they can kind of look forward to, as opposed to like the same kind of like double chorus at the end of each song, you know which is kind of predictable. Switch it up a little bit anyways, yeah, I love that.

Austin Seltzer: 13:09

I love this album, dude. It'll be out whenever this podcast is out. So everything that the viewers either watching or listening this album is probably already out and you can go listen to exactly what we're talking about. But sitting here today we're anticipating this shit to fuck up Spotify and talk and fucking Pinterest, I love that.

Austin Seltzer: 13:31

So now let's go all the way back. I want to understand how you were brought up, kind of some about your parents, about early life. I want to learn what made you you, what made you want to get into music and all the things that I'm sure you gave up and things that could have been a part of your life, but this is what took over.

Layto: 13:56

Growing up middle class, lower middle class, tough kind of upbringing in the sense of, like, you know, kind of chaotic and but like good family, loving family, and my mother, my mother and my father worked exceedingly hard, like numerous jobs to both of them my entire life. So from a young age had a really good idea of what a work ethic is no complaining, no, you know, no bitching or moaning about you know putting in the work and just like a good foundation of you got to get shit done. You got to work hard. If you want something in life, you got to work hard at it, which you know now like is good for me to take into music, because I think a lot of people and you know, I think there's like two different types of people, especially now just kind of understanding the music industry there's people that get lucky, you know luck into something, have a viral hit, whatever it may be, and don't have the foundation maybe.

Layto: 14:51

Or they, you know they might make a little money and then they're like, okay, what's? You know they rest on their laurels. You know, for me it's like, and I don't know if this is a character fault or if this is a good thing, but I'm never satisfied in the sense of like it doesn't matter what it is and I think we talked about this earlier like what's next, you know? Like are you looking for the album coming out, like I should take a minute and enjoy what we did, but yeah, like my brain works in such a way, it's like I'm on to the next thing and I want to make sure I beat whatever we do here. You know, very competitive attitude in that regard.

Austin Seltzer: 15:21

It's very healthy to compete with yourself and not just look at others.

Layto: 15:26

Yeah, I mean, you know I've done that in the past, especially in the beginning of my career, where I'd be like why don't I have what the fuck they have? You know, it's like people like Garrett and people that are in my circle have done a good job of like you know I surround myself with people like minded people who you know are healthy for me to be around, that have instilled like a good, healthy outlook, got to stay level headed. But yeah, like my upbringing for sure is instill the really strong work ethic, at the very least. You know what I might lack in certain skills, or you know there's a million people that are probably more talented than I am but like they're certainly not going to out work me in my opinion, you know. So that's kind of how I have to operate.

Layto: 16:03

I always kind of operate from the standpoint of like I have to out work the competition because you know they might, they might have a leg up, a better voice or, you know, a better song, whatever it may be, and I like that, you know, I kind of like I don't know it gives me great, it puts me at ease, knowing that like at the end of the day, I can just focus on the work and not have to worry about results, because I feel like results will come, you know, given the amount of effort you put in always as long as it's efficient and smart and not just like aimlessly doing shit with no results. You know you got to be.

Layto: 16:38

Yeah, obviously intelligent about it. But yeah, definitely from a young age got that instilled in me and have taken that to my career.

Austin Seltzer: 16:47

I love that. I want to hear what are some of the jobs that your mom and your dad would have done, because it sounds like there are a lot of them, just whatever they need to do.

Layto: 16:57

Yeah, my mother was a well. First when I was younger she was a male woman. She like at a young age past the exam to become a male woman and that was like really impressive. She was like 18 and did that for like 10 years and then she had kids and then became we moved from like the city of Boston to like a suburb and she became a lunch woman. You know, throughout my childhood, actually at my school, and my father worked like three jobs. He worked as like a sales rep for a company, an asphalt company, pricing out driveways and shit like that, and then he was also a custodian at night, you know hustling.

Layto: 17:36

And then he started his own business when he was like 48, 50 and doing really well.

Layto: 17:43

Handyman stuff, awesome. Yeah, he's like a natural born salesman. That's another thing Like my mother's super creative and sweet. She's like total empath. My dad's a great guy like, but he's also like a shark. He's very, you know, hustler, like we'll find ways to make money, and I feel like I've gotten a good kind of scramble of the two of them. You know, I got my mom's kind of sensitive creativity at times and then I got my dad's business prowess.

Austin Seltzer: 18:07

Yeah, that's killer. That's a great concoction there.

Layto: 18:09

Yeah, lucky, lucky me and siblings, you know, beating the shit out of me at a young age and you know, toughening me up.

Layto: 18:16

Yeah, talk a little bit about them. They're great. Yeah, three siblings. I got an older brother, older sister and then a middle brother and, you know, very similar in the sense of tough-minded. You know what? What do they do? They're all so different. My brother was in the military for a while. Now he like does social work. My sister works for carecom. She's like one of the like Administration there. And my other brother owns like a detail company, like a car detailing company that him and I used to work Cool.

Austin Seltzer: 18:46

Yeah, so another entrepreneur, yeah.

Layto: 18:48

Yeah, exactly no one. And no one doing music or anything. That's just kind of me.

Austin Seltzer: 18:53

Yeah, I'm curious. So okay, that that's what your siblings are like and your parents, but what were some of the activities and things that you did early on in life that I'm guessing something flexed your creativity in some way?

Layto: 19:07

Yeah, um, I was actually always into sports Cool, Really really into sports at a young age, playing basketball and Uh, that's why you asked me about basketball.

Layto: 19:17

Yeah, I played. I played a lot of sports growing up, which I think was also good to kind of Learn how to work with others and, again, like the competition thing, you got to like you really have to work hard if you want to be on the team and you know be successful and you know self-responsibility, which is another thing that like I think like it's easy to kind of Especially in music, if shit's not going well, it's easy to point blame and be like well, the label is not doing this or my manager is not doing this, you know, and, like I've, I've been of the mind of like, what am I doing?

Layto: 19:47

What can I do? Don't fucking wallow, don't complain about what others are doing, just worry about what you can worry about. You know it's not, it's not always easy to do that, obviously, you know there's this shit that's not in our control, you know absolutely. But it's a good like paradigm to look, you know a good lens to look through, because then you're never really like Expecting anything from anyone else and you can just worry about what you can. And then when shit happens, you're like pleasantly surprised, you know. Um, yeah, I played a lot of sports. I was always into writing, though, you know, at a young age, poetry, and, like you know, I loved English, I loved writing, I loved reading. I still love reading, um, and so I think that kind of exercised my creative muscle To an extent. And then, yeah, I kind of got into music, like at a young age, but kind of floated around, wasn't super serious about it until maybe like 17, 18, was it like bands with friends or not, even not even just like.

Layto: 20:40

I loved listening to music and I would sing privately, but nothing like. I would never like sing in front of people or anything like that you know, you know, you know mainly hip-hop and rap and stuff. I would like I would take like songs that I heard and I would always like change the lyrics up. You know, in my own like I would like write new lyrics and that's, I guess, like that's like the beginning of being a lyricist.

Austin Seltzer: 21:01

That's cool. Yeah would you try and find like the, the karaoke version, or like the, just the instrumental on youtube, or anything, or not even like back?

Layto: 21:11

then I would just listen to them on the radio or like on a cd and then just fucking, like On the spot, rewrite lyrics. You know, but we didn't even like have. I mean it wasn't 1940, but like we didn't have. You know, you weren't downloading shit from youtube at that point.

Austin Seltzer: 21:24

We had lime wire? Yeah, absolutely no, it was a plenty of viruses from me too, yeah man.

Layto: 21:32

I don't want to ask kind of viruses.

Austin Seltzer: 21:37

Probably from like trying to get like drops that came out like leaks you know, Weeks, weeks ahead of time. I, I remember, I remember a couple times that like big albums leaked and do you know of each he he's levels. Well, yeah, I mean there were plenty of times that you would or like sandstorm or something, and it would just be like 10 tracks of sandstorm and you thought you had Downloaded the new, you know whatever Drake album or yeah something. But those aren't the viruses, you know.

Layto: 22:08

I would imagine something else.

Austin Seltzer: 22:10

That's funny. Um, okay, so Like 17, 18, why, why, like, what was the Feeling of? Like okay, I want to take this serious, like I want to do music, like in any capacity, not just rewriting lyrics.

Layto: 22:28

What was the?

Austin Seltzer: 22:28

impetus of that?

Layto: 22:29

I don't know to be honest, I like I was at college and we had a like a little booth that we could rent out. I was skipping class and like went to this little area just to, honestly, to sleep, and then I walked by this Little studio and I asked like one of the administrators, I'm like what is that? And I go, you can rent out a music room, like a little booth, to record in. And I was like I should probably try this, you know, and and so what I did was like I learned how to use logic and I went in there and I would just make like very rudimentary beats on the piano or some of my friends from my hometown had like little piano riffs, and then I would add like drum kicks and you know, just very like super stock bullshit from logic, and I'd start constructing songs. And then I I very quickly realized like okay, what's the next step? Like how do I, how do I eliminate my nonsense producing and get a real producer?

Layto: 23:16

I knew I knew at least you needed a producer, and so I reached out to a bunch of producers Again, had some like you know, very like C level stuff going on, but I was able to kind of like cut my teeth and learn, you know what a good producer is versus a bad producer, versus like my production, and then like all right, what else do we need? We need mixing, we need you know, so that that was good, like for me. That was like six months of me not releasing anything, just kind of learning, like how to do it. You know, I knew how to write a song, like I've always written, but I didn't know how to.

Layto: 23:46

You know I did not allay my vocals in or how my vocal personally would sound. You know which keys would work for me, and so that was like it was great. It was like a year and a half of just cutting my teeth and learning like shit records, million songs that stink, that would never get released. But it's like good for you to just build on, like you said, mixing a million sync records. It's like getting the 10,000 hours in, you know.

Austin Seltzer: 24:09

Yeah, for those listening, we had a little conversation before this where, yeah, I worked for a company and between All of the albums that I mixed and then different custom tracks that were being pitched for things, and then just like random off tracks, like I, I think I mixed about 2000 tracks before Starting my own mixing business and I mean that's where I'd figured out what my sound was, my workflow, how to interact with somebody professionally, how to deal with notes, which is a whole, a whole thing, because I need to figure out how to decipher the notes. You know the whole thing.

Austin Seltzer: 24:46

But this is, this was your proving ground like yeah let me just figure out how to do this. Yeah, totally and where did you go to college, though? And? And what were you going to college for, like, if music wasn't a thing, what, what? Were you going to be English, really, yeah? Oh. I can see it.

Layto: 25:04

Maybe some glasses like English professor, I was thinking maybe like law. Down the line I was, I was just Because I'm an argumentative person, so I was like maybe this could be.

Austin Seltzer: 25:17

She's like smirking.

Layto: 25:21

I just wasn't even sure I was one of those kids. I went to school and there's so many people that were like I'm going for science, I'm going for engineering and I'm like I'm not very particularly good at anything, like I don't even quite know what I want to do, and especially at like 18. I was like I don't even want to go to school, like I have no idea what I want to do. I I just felt like it was a giant waste of time and I'm like I like to read and I like to write, so I'll go to school for that. But I floated around, I went to like three different schools and I went to community college and then transferred into a school in Massachusetts and I actually never finished because we had a song that did well like my senior year and I just I never finished. I'm like six credit shy. So give me my fucking honorary degree. Yeah right, um that's cool.

Austin Seltzer: 26:05

Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll. We'll get to that, because I want to. I want to hear A little bit more of how you went from renting this booth and doing some sessions here and there. Like. I'm guessing you locked in with somebody that you felt Could take you where you wanted to go, or at least somebody that you locked in with and felt good about.

Layto: 26:24

Bota, wow, matt Bota. I found him on sound better and, and believe it or not, so I worked with a couple people, like an x radio DJ from this small podong town that I lived in, which he was like 50 great guy but like, like he was using like gear from the 80s and I remember I did, I did like a song and I'm like what the fuck it? Like there has to be a much more seamless, like non antiquated way to do this, otherwise, like I might be out, yeah, and so then I went on sound better and I'm like, oh, what a great like wedge website to to find other producers and stuff. And then in the beginning with with bota, it was just like work for hire, didn't know him, obviously, I would like send in an idea. He would send an instrumental, I would lay over it and I think he thought like okay, this kid can write a song and I knew like his production was great, just because what he would send back.

Layto: 27:10

I'm like, holy fuck, like this is exactly what I wanted, but I would get a mix like every month, you know. And it was just like fuck, like I wish, slowly and surely, like we worked on a few songs and then got familiarized and got his number and then just kind of like the relationship evolved till where I could text them and but ironically, like the first song we ever did, um, I put out like a little e? P and it just kind of went bananas on youtube through. Uh, like those like curating companies, like cloud kid and strap nation really those ancillary.

Layto: 27:43

Yeah, like we hired a pr woman, I got a manager as a whole separate story.

Layto: 27:48

But I interned for a company Um actually here I won't say the name because I don't get in trouble but and they put me at the front desk and at the front desk I had like Not legal at all, but I had access to like all the managers of all the big artists and, uh, I like screenshot at all of them.

Layto: 28:06

And so when I, when I was done with my internship, I went home and I emailed all of them just demos of my shit, like literally like thousands of emails, and I got like three responses and then one of the three was this manager who became my initial manager, who kind of like maybe had heard something and like liked me and liked my tenacity, and he's like let's put out a project. And we put out a project. And then we hired this pr woman and she got all those like youtube uh Channels to post my shit and just went kind of fucking nuts. Like the first day it got like like 10 000 subs. Wow, it was crazy. It was a song called little poor me, which isn't even like my sound anymore, but for some reason, just by, like pure serendipity, it kind of did well, and and that's that is the moment where I was like okay, this could be, maybe it could be a career.

Austin Seltzer: 28:54

I didn't even know that that's that's so cool. Yeah, I feel like One thing I didn't tell you, but on this podcast I don't do research. Good.

Austin Seltzer: 29:03

I. I want to have a genuine conversation and not an interview. Yeah, cool and Pretty much. I have people on here I work with, so I know some you know, and we have good interaction, whatnot, but I don't do the deep digging that some other people do with interviews, and so that's really fucking cool to hear. So Matt made this track with you. Yeah, it's called little poor me. That's, that's awesome. Mm-hmm. Okay, so this thing pops and that's your senior year.

Layto: 29:29

Yeah wow.

Layto: 29:30

Yeah, that's cool, yeah, and uh, I was 2018, um, and then I, what happened was I put out some music that wasn't really aligned with that song. That was like the one track, the outlier track on the album, and then a lot of the shit was kind of like hip-hop, kind of EDM. It just like there was no cohesion. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. That didn't do so well, because I put out that song and I'm like this is gonna be fucking easy, like holy crap, I thought I had like the Midas touch, you know, and far from it.

Layto: 30:02

You know, um, and it took me like, and another thing, too, was I wasn't, I didn't have like the proper Uh, guidance in the sense that I understood like like this is where Garrett really like levels me up, because he understands like release scheduling and you know, like staying on content, staying on put out a song every month.

Layto: 30:21

You know, if you're not like at a certain level, like there's so many artists that are trying to clamor to the top, it's like if you're not front of mind, like you're falling back. So it's like a record every month type of thing, which, you know, took me a couple years to kind of like Get serious about to be honest and and get serious about my career and not be like just floating around like put out a song and go fuck off with my friends. And you know like I love writing music and and I found that to be like a really great outlet outlet. But I wasn't like super serious about my life and at that time I was kind of kind of fucking off a little bit and it's really tough, dude.

Austin Seltzer: 30:58

I mean, this is not a full-time job. It's like five, five people's worth of full-time job. It's, it's a lifestyle. It is you're really serious, like you have to give up everything.

Layto: 31:08

Yeah, I'm not yeah, and luckily, like you know, in that vein, having somebody like Garrett and, like you know, honestly, like even my content guy, Tommy, tommy, kelly, shout out to Tommy, like I feel like I got Four or five people and you included honestly, like where it's like 24-7, drop everything. We're doing. Like if something needs to get down, we get it done. Like employing ingenuity, constant phone calls it is like 24-7, you know which.

Layto: 31:38

I had to kind of get used to that and and I had a moment where I had to realize is this like what I want to do? I had a really bad show, like a couple years ago in Chicago and he kind of sat me down and was like dude, do you want to do this? And if so, like you need to get serious about your life. And from that point forward I was like all right, I'm moving to LA, I'm fucking, I'm not fucking around with friends anymore, I'm gonna get serious. You know, and that's one shit kind of like Not just resting on the laurels of old music was like, okay, let's put out some music that people will fuck with. And, you know, just keep trying to beat the record and not think about the song that we just put out. Move on to the next one. Beat the song you know keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. Yeah, it's been good um, Wait.

Austin Seltzer: 32:22

So where in the story did you meet Garrett? Because we'll talk about him a little bit. I mean like we were in 2017, 2018, just now, right.

Layto: 32:29

Yeah, yeah, I would say like 20. When do we meet him? Like 2020, like three, like three and a half years ago, at this point?

Austin Seltzer: 32:37

Okay, so I do that, you know maybe that skips forward a little bit.

Layto: 32:39

Yeah well, there was like a two-year period where I was with that other manager where, like I didn't really understand what I was doing. That wasn't a great fit. Um between him and I, we would kind of clash. I was super. Like you know, in hindsight I was kind of like pesty. I expected things and and now, like you know where, where I am now in the sense of like understanding that you don't just like, you're not just giving shit. I was kind of like impulsive with him, which I can imagine pro is so annoying to him. Like I didn't even like bring in any money for him and I was just like just badgering him.

Austin Seltzer: 33:09

I'm like we should get this, we should get this. Yeah, you know it's tough. It's tough because Not ever we don't see everything that managers do. Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 33:18

I mean, I had a conversation with mine just recently. Spencer, I fucking love him, he's amazing, but I don't see everything that he does behind the curtain, and I'm not a micro manager. But At a certain point you want to check in and you're like, hey, man, you know what's going on with this, that and the other, and we, we just don't know All that they do. And then, at the end of the day, if they're, if they're not making any money, they're working for free.

Layto: 33:42

Yeah, totally, you know totally well. Ironically, like with him I do see everything now, because him and I are like good friends at this point, like really good friends, and and like, so he, you know, I know like he'll, he clues me and we talk every day like and and by seeing how much he does, it gave me an appreciation of like okay, like, if he's working this hard, what the fuck am I doing? You know, I better work twice as hard, you know, um, but like, there was a two-year period where, uh, yeah, it wasn't, just wasn't a great fit.

Layto: 34:12

I parted ways with my other manager and I was kind of in transit and, uh, this kid from my hometown, who's like not at all related to music, and not somebody like that you would ever think would understand anything about music, hit me up and he's like you should reach out to this dude, garrett, who works at republic. And so I was like, and he's from the same area, like a town over. We actually live on the same road, like 10 minutes apart from each other. Wow, yeah, and I was like okay, and I and I knew like if I DM'd him and I mentioned where we lived, he would respond because it's such a small community and it's like fucking cool if someone's doing something from there. So totally yeah, he did, and and I met him like a day before covid in New York City, a day before everything got shut down which is ironic.

Austin Seltzer: 34:53

It hit hard, yeah, new.

Layto: 34:55

York, I wouldn't have been able to meet him, which is kind of also serendipitous. But yeah, we her and I drove my dad, remember my dad drove us down there and we had a dinner with him and another guy that was managing me at the time through republic um, his partner at the time.

Austin Seltzer: 35:10

And so you had a manager in between.

Layto: 35:12

No, I had. I had no managers. It was me, garrett, and another dude that worked at republic, steve, who initially was like co-managing, but now it's just garratt and I. But uh, yeah, just from the, just from the jump, like him and I just connected and and just slowly evolved into like friends and Uh, we just see eye to eye and a lot of things and and then, like musically, he has a really good ear, so he really a and r's records with me and it just Made shit like way more fun and easy in the sense of like creating you know, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 35:41

Yeah, I mean he as a manager not many managers like, give me pinpointed notes and he does, and because everybody knows, yeah, but I mean he, I like that, he has an opinion, yeah, and he's got taste, and you know I mean, and he can also talk More analytical. So it's not like this miscellaneous thing that I have to decipher, I mean, which some managers or some a and r's give you kind of things like that no, he's like this thing, you know, do this to that. Yeah, it's like I love that.

Layto: 36:16

That's great, I know elevates the record.

Layto: 36:18

Yeah, totally yeah, we do it with the notes with mixing, we do it with the notes with production and we do it with everything marketing plan, like.

Layto: 36:24

We get very granular with with everything we do, which you know, I'm not innately like that, I suppose, but he's kind of like, kind of made me like that in certain ways and I don't know, it's been good To to be able to look at things from like an analytical perspective. Plus, I think him coming from a label, he really has like a A leg up, knowing what's what's cutting edge and you know with the importance of tick tock and then how to like Look at those numbers and understand how it translates and not just like doing random shit but niching down and Just all sorts of random shit that really honestly matters when you're talking about promoting a record or, you know, building your, your brand as an artist. It's like I'm very fortunate honestly in that, in that regard to to have somebody like him to you know like propel what I'm doing in the right way, like we said earlier, working efficiently and that's it's awesome you know for sure.

Austin Seltzer: 37:18

Um, so what is? We talked about the track that had you leave college, but what is the the first track? I mean you probably made some decent money off that if it streamed well, or you made some money, but but but what was the first track that like like really popped off, hounding yeah and um, I mean I can tell my story about that because I I've never told you this. But I want to hear from you, like how, how did that track come about? And like what was the whole trajectory of from start to pop it off?

Layto: 37:55

I could imagine you maybe thought that that track was about a woman. I I didn't.

Austin Seltzer: 38:01

No, I didn't, like I'll. I'll be honest with you, I don't fucking hear words, man. Yeah, you're just so mix centric, it's. It's not even that I am so about the vibe. This sounds miscellaneous and goofy and probably people listen will be like Wait, dude, you are Editing and eqing and this and that like the vocal. But the thing is is I just I want the instrumental to feel Amazing and I want the vocal to feel amazing with that and I'll move together and I want you to be able to hear every word, but I can. Sometimes I don't even know what the words are saying.

Austin Seltzer: 38:41

It's interesting I mean until the record is done and I'm listening in my car and cruising around. Then I can listen to the words, but I'm focused on making it just feel a certain way. Do you have a hard time like listening to?

Layto: 38:51

what you mix. Like if you will, you listen back to a record that we worked on and you're like, oh fuck, I wish I Like are you able to listen to what you are gonna.

Austin Seltzer: 39:02

Yeah, uh, early on. I wasn't early on like whenever I, I don't know. I don't know, whenever I was just like putting out maybe the first like 100 or so tracks of, just like me, my mixing business not for the same company, but yeah, I definitely did I kept on hearing things that I could have done better. But then I guess I started seeing people really fucking resonating with the records Like I'd be out at you know wherever just to show out somewhere.

Austin Seltzer: 39:33

And then I'd bump into somebody dude, I love this so-and-so record. You, dude, you're mixed on it, holy crap, and I'm like oh man that's the one that I thought I could have done better. And then you realize nobody gives a fuck. No, I know that's the thing. If it sounds good, if there's like a certain threshold of good, that's what we're aiming for, it needs to feel great. It doesn't have to sonically be the fucking Mona Lisa.

Layto: 40:01

Well, that's with like hiring you. And how do we meet through Boy Blue?

Layto: 40:06

Yeah, which is a shout out to him, which I remember, when he kind of floated you and I'm like, yeah, maybe. And then, like we met and working with you initially, I was like I remember having a conversation with Garrett where I'm like, oh, we've crossed over into like this could be on the radio, Not saying it's going to be, but it's like sonically it could be and that's all I've ever wanted. It's like as long as I'm in the arena, like there's no eyes to be dotted or teeth to be crossed, it's there, and then it's up to other random fucking shit to happen, but it's like as long as it's there, it's just perfect, you know, and so that's I totally agree. And it's like now I can listen back to what we've and I can appreciate it, Whereas like some of my older shit, you know, sometimes I hear something I'm like, fuck, I wish I did something differently there.

Austin Seltzer: 40:48

You know, I think every track that I've worked on of yours could play on the radio. I really think that, like truthfully, but you know, then it's like up to the radio, gods.

Austin Seltzer: 41:00

Yeah the radio gods. But my story with Hounden funny enough, it came up on a playlist. I don't know which playlist, I mean it was too long ago at this point, but I put a little heart on it. You know, I liked it on Spotify. Oh, before you knew me. Yeah, oh, wow. And not just that. My previous managers had me do like this kind of homework thing where I would basically go and find artists that I wanted to work with, and Hounden and Lado was on that list.

Austin Seltzer: 41:32

No no shit, funny enough, and I just didn't have a way to reach you. I mean, you weren't with position, it was before that I had no way to reach you. And it's so funny because Sam didn't know that boy blue, but whenever he was like bro, I got to introduce you to Lado, he's looking for a mixer. I was like Lado, lado. And then I looked and I was like, oh fuck, hounden, wow, man, I love this track. That's crazy. And so now we're here.

Layto: 41:59

Wow, that's so weird. I didn't know that.

Austin Seltzer: 42:01

Yeah, we can. Even whenever we're done with this, we'll look on my Spotify and it's-.

Layto: 42:03

I believe you. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's so cool.

Austin Seltzer: 42:06

I loved that track. Like whenever I heard it I was like oh man, thank you, this is the real deal. So now I get to hear it. What is? What's the story?

Layto: 42:15

The story is that the manager that I, the initial manager that I had we had a falling out and I had like no money and I was working as a car detailer and I don't know how much I want to say about this, to be honest.

Layto: 42:31

But I was in a bit of a pinch and I was getting like kind of I was trying to get out of my sunset clause with him and I was kind of getting like you know getting shit from him and you know payouts and whatnot. I didn't have any contract with him. And I was starting to talk to Garrett and I was like fuck man, like this guy's asking me to pay him this much for these records and then all future records moving forward, which just like wasn't, wasn't appropriate, considering like I worked with him on like one project and I was just like fucking angry as hell and felt stuck and I had no money. I didn't realize like I signed like a deal with TrabNation for my first EP from that first record that I thought like was going to change my life and ended up, like you know, you get in advance for like X amount of dollars, which is really nothing, and then you owe the label so much money and incurred costs, you know, for five years or whatever. So I was like in the hole, essentially, had no money, working a shit job detailing cars in Massachusetts where it's cold, fucking eight and a half months out of the year, you know, and I was just so angry.

Layto: 43:38

He was like threatening legal action. I'm like what the fuck? I barely have like a pot to piss in, and that's. I literally wrote it on my lunch break on a little notepad. I wrote the whole thing in like five minutes. Crazy, just so, fucking angry, just you know. And I had already had an instrumental from Matt. That was really cool that I was kind of like sitting on and I had just watched the Elvis documentary, the Preacher, and so I had like Elvis kind of in my subconscious and that's where I got the you ain't nothing like kind of like Elvis growl, where I was like man. I'll put this in the record.

Austin Seltzer: 44:16

Hounden.

Layto: 44:16

Hounden. And then I called it Hounden and it was. Hounden, because I was being hounded by my previous manager.

Austin Seltzer: 44:22

So it just kind of and you ain't nothing but a hound dog.

Layto: 44:24

Yeah, you ain't nothing but a hound and ass bitch.

Layto: 44:26

For this one Right. But yeah, it was very kind of serendipitous, it felt right. It's one of those things where, like you know, I knew it was gonna do well. Even with I had Little Pormie that did well. I had some other records that like did well, this record beauty. So I had like a somewhat of an audience, nothing big at all, but like for me it was like holy shit, I have fans and I just knew zero promotion, zero marketing, zero exposure, zero profile. Wow, I just put it out and I'm like, oh, this is gonna fucking smoke. I don't know why. I just have a feeling intuitively put it out and it like did super well. For me it's all relative, obviously, but like for my 40 millions a lot.

Austin Seltzer: 45:06

I don't what's it out now on Spotify alone it's up there 40 million or so. Yeah, but the thing is is if we could use something like Muzo. Do you know Muzoai or Muzo?

Layto: 45:16

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 45:17

If you could check all socials or all platforms, I bet it's closer to 100 million.

Layto: 45:23

I think it is with like YouTube, with other channels reposting it and shit. Oh then, for sure.

Austin Seltzer: 45:28

I mean dude, that's a big sound.

Layto: 45:30

Yeah, I mean, and you know it was able to. You know it was kind of one of those things where it's like, oh okay, like I have another song now, where it's like now it's like a career, you know, it's not just like I had one song in 2018, you know, yeah, and it was personal. I think like ultimately, like with music and from what I've come to understand, is authenticity. That's sort of like. One of the things I knew was like like opening up the first hymn, like reading from it, which is kind of funny, but that's part of the irony. It's like it's not about a girl, it's about a fucking guy that used to manage me, you know.

Austin Seltzer: 46:28

Wow, yeah, we gotta push that little bit right there like on socials, because I mean that's cool, I like that. It could be taken many different ways.

Layto: 46:37

Yeah, it's very interpretive, which I think is good. I think all great art is.

Austin Seltzer: 46:41

Yeah, I agree yeah, but it's a superpower to be able to channel that anger into a pen on a paper Like that's very difficult to do.

Layto: 46:52

Yeah, I mean I don't know where it came from. To be honest, Like truly, I mean people have asked me that and I'm just like I don't know. Just kind of pour it out, to be honest. You know it's one of those things like every now and again you get a record. There's certain rights you have where it's like, oh, this is very productive, like okay, here's the formula, here's what we're gonna do. And then there's just those rights where it's just five minutes, everything from the heart. You don't change one lyric. You know that was one of those times. Don't know where it comes from. I love that.

Austin Seltzer: 47:20

Yeah, that's the way it's supposed to be. I don't think you're really supposed to know, though I did listen to a little. I need to go back and listen to more of it, but there was a podcast, the Zach Sang Show. Do you know? Have you heard of it?

Layto: 47:32

Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 47:33

Labyrinth was on there I mean just one of the greatest producers ever but he was talking about how he channels that feeling more often. I need to go back and listen more, but I think that he describes how he figures out how to channel that. It's like it's obviously the ability to get into flow state. That's what you know. It's like where you're not thinking, just doing, but being able to do it more often. With something like that, like I can get it in mixing, it takes me only five minutes once I sit down. I'm there Like nothing else matters in the world. But to be able to be a lightning rod for creativity, I think that that's a different. It's a different way of tapping into flow state. Yeah.

Layto: 48:17

It's like you gotta be able to.

Layto: 48:19

I think part of being a good artist is like taking dysfunction and I think like part of the reason why, like a lot of artists that you see, like before and even now, like a lot of them are fucked up and it's like they have an ability to like channel those fucked up experiences.

Layto: 48:35

I think you know, like I don't think there's a whole lot of like cookie cutter artists that do nine to fives. It's like you kind of need like that experiential knowledge, I think, and you're able to like I think the skill is like being able to channel those dysfunctional moments or trauma or whatever it is, into like a creative space, you know. But then you do need the discipline to like sit down and write, and you know there is a level of discipline that comes with writing. It's not all like you know writing in five minutes. Like there are rights that are more painstaking and you need to get through those as well. But yeah, I think it is like channeling a lot of those emotions that everybody has, but being able to like be a liaison between the emotions and a song, it's like you're kind of like facilitating it.

Austin Seltzer: 49:15

You know, Right, yeah, yeah, you are literally just channeling whatever that thing is. It's like, from what I've heard, you are just removing yourself from what's going on and you're allowing whatever the thing is to channel through you into the page that's interesting.

Layto: 49:32

It's a good way to look at it, I think, with writing too, like especially like when I got to LA, like, so before that I was always like writing alone you know solitary writing where it's like I don't want to show anybody until it's done.

Layto: 49:43

I'm kind of embarrassed to say this word, which is so weird to think, you know. But it's kind of like when you like a song that's kind of like corny and you get nervous about it and you think when you think about it like deeper, you're like why would I care what somebody thinks? What's going into my ears, like why is that embarrassing, you know.

Layto: 50:00

But, it's the same thing with like song writing, where it's kind of like it's vulnerable, you know. But one good thing from being in LA was like being able to try to channel those flow state moments with other people doing rights, like with, you know, with Sam and like Rob, and it's like it's so much more fun. But it takes a while to get to let your guard down and be like, okay, like I'm going on a writing session, I'm not going to be nervous to float a lyric or a line, you know. And once you get over that it's like, oh my God, this is way more collaborative. It's not so boring and scary, you know, and solitary. I think it's way more fun with other people. I don't even know if you asked a question about that, but I just went off on a fucking tangent. I love it it's good shit.

Austin Seltzer: 50:42

Now I think it would be good to talk about as long as it makes sense chronologically here how did position come about? Cause you're signed to them as an artist, you have your publishing with position and, for those of you listening and watching, position is or was known as pretty much one of the biggest sync publishers around. Then they started moving into just signing artists and producers and wanting to move forward in like the artist space, and I think that you are one of the first, and definitely one that they're pushing super hard. So, yeah, I want to hear how that came about and kind of how that changed. What's going on in your world?

Layto: 51:27

Yeah, it's all timing because I think initially after actually before I met Garrett, we were just talking online and he actually set up a meeting with me and Mark. I was going to fly out to LA and then the pandemic hit and that got squashed. But I signed a pub deal because of like previous catalog records and they thought like okay, like maybe he could make money on the writing side, but my artist profile wasn't quite as where it is now and so like initially I think like a year and a half before I signed as an artist and I don't even think they had a label at the time it was just purely like signing my pub to them and hopefully doing some rights and maybe some sync stuff and just another way to like have a career, so to speak.

Austin Seltzer: 52:11

Yeah, you can totally hear the cinematic sync quality and hounding. Let's just take that for instance.

Layto: 52:18

I mean, I can say that we sinkable yeah.

Layto: 52:22

I know and I wanted to do records like kind of like NF was kind of although I don't really listen to him as much Like I liked the idea of like big kind of like I listened to like a lot of scores Like that's what I'd like to listen to. So I was like, oh, would it be cool of like incorporating like orchestral scory type shit but with like hip hop 808s and like poppy lyrics and like dark kind of fucked up lyrics, swearing and stuff like that. I'm like that's kind of an interesting juxtaposition. That was like another thing. Like at school, being like this would be cool I don't think anyone's doing this Just like planting seeds of like oh my God, I could do something different. But yeah, like he set up the writing session and I had the meeting with Mark. It fell through but we kept like a line of communication open. Then they signed me to a pub deal deal, like a year later maybe I think a year and a half before I signed as a label artist.

Layto: 53:13

And then came about them, you know, starting their own label service and at that point we had already scaled quite a bit, me and Garrett and I, through just more songs in the catalog. Some shit did. Well, we were able to, like you know, scale the Spotify numbers, just perfect storm. Then they signed, you know, and here we are, you know, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 53:34

I wanna clarify for people because maybe some people don't know what sync is. But sync synchronization basically adds trailers, promos in show anything with video. You have that company licensing music from a publisher, like position, and you can make a nice upfront fee and sometimes, if it's not a buyout, which means that you get only a one time fee, you get royalties on the backend whenever it plays. So amazing thing for artists or writers or artists that wanna do a side project that doesn't like interfere with their artist work to make money. So position is like really that's their thing. So yeah, I totally yeah, I get how unfortunately, the pandemic would throw a curve ball there. But so things have, I mean they seemingly are great. You have, I think. Did you say Mike? Yeah, mike Torres set you up with Mike Torres and A&R at position. Set you up with Rob who's Inverness right, sam?

Layto: 54:41

Rob, I think.

Austin Seltzer: 54:41

Brandon's everybody.

Layto: 54:43

Yeah, he's fucking great, oh, Brandon.

Austin Seltzer: 54:45

Brandon yeah.

Layto: 54:46

Brandon co-wrote a lot of the records on the album. Yeah, Brandon, love you buddy, he's the best. I mean he honestly might be the best songwriter I've worked with. Really, yeah, he's great. And just quick fucking flows. He's just so creative. You know, learned a lot from him.

Austin Seltzer: 55:00

That's awesome. Yeah, I love him as a person. Of course, I haven't been in a room with him, but I mean I hear all the stuff he's on and it's always great yeah it's funny.

Layto: 55:08

I mean it's like a lot of it's so much as chemistry, you know, but it seems like you know, inverness me, him, have a good connection for whatever reason. We just kind of it's like that flow state thing. It just feels right, you know, and it seems like every time we get in a session we get, you know, one or two records that we're like, oh fuck, this is this is gonna be a bigger song.

Layto: 55:26

You know you, you, what a feeling. It's such a feeling. But, like also with the pandemic although it threw a curveball as you were saying that, I was just thinking like such a blessing because actually you know, garrett, who was in New York City, like came back to Massachusetts and then I was in Massachusetts. We spent so much time together, like every day, curating the sound. You know him kicking my ass into making more music and content and just thinking about the future.

Layto: 55:54

It was like two years of that which was such a fucking in hindsight was like so important for us to get familiarized with each other and to like for me to learn how to work properly and have a good work ethic. It was like boot camp, you know. So it kind of led to this, which is like I feel like everything really does happen for a reason. You know, had that not happened, like I wouldn't have been able to spend time with him, wouldn't have been as close, wouldn't have been able to, you know, make records together, many A&Rs, like every record you know, so I think perfect timing with everything to be honest.

Austin Seltzer: 56:30

For sure. Yeah, I think a lot of the people I've talked to it like we have to say like obviously financially. I know that COVID heard a lot of people.

Layto: 56:40

Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 56:40

There were a lot of deaths terrible things that came with it, but a lot of the people that I've talked to not just on this podcast but just in general, utilized that time so efficiently. A lot of the people that I work with popped off during the pandemic because they didn't sit down and take it easy. That was like turbo. Yeah, I mean yeah, they just utilized the time well, like you did.

Layto: 57:05

Yeah, and I mean, like you said, like obviously, like we're fortunate enough to be able to just like make music in our home, or, you know, it's like there's so many jobs that like you couldn't get into work or whatever, so like I'm fully aware that, like we're very fortunate in that regard. But yeah, I mean, we actually renovated my house. I had like a little room that we turned into a studio, just cut records, you know, could work remotely, it was fine. Nothing fucking changed. Yeah, you know, if anything, it was like more efficient because I was home. It wasn't like I'll have to drive to a studio. Well, which I prefer. You know, I don't want to do stuff at home, I'd rather have that be like a reprieve. But it was great, you know.

Austin Seltzer: 57:43

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was working at a studio before the pandemic and whenever the pandemic hit I brought all that home and I never went back.

Layto: 57:53

I get a six studio. Thank you.

Austin Seltzer: 57:55

Yeah, I mean it's, I guess, out of the house. Like I have to actually physically walk out of the house. It does feel like I'm going somewhere.

Layto: 58:02

Yeah, but like if you need At least you had to put pants on.

Austin Seltzer: 58:04

Exactly, but if somebody needs notes, there's not like a 20 minute drive. Mm-hmm.

Austin Seltzer: 58:11

You know. So, yeah, one thing I'm thinking here is I want I want people listening to this to understand what it feels like to lock in with a producer and really be on the same page creatively. All of that and what I'm leading to here is like I love Rob and Vanessa is a good I mean not only a good friend, but I collaborate with him all the time. I get to mix all sorts of stuff with him and, yeah, I want people to understand what that feels like whenever you just click with somebody and maybe to help people listening understand if somebody is right or wrong to produce their record and especially to EP their record.

Layto: 58:59

Yeah, I think. Well, I guess I want to be clear, like I guess you don't personally need to like somebody to do good work with them. You know, like you could ostensibly like hate your producer's guts, but if he does a great, he or she does a great job.

Layto: 59:13

It's like, and it works, it works you know, because it's like you can separate music from personality or from friendship, although, like it is. I think it is like such a vibe thing with working with people, and most people are not going to work with you if you're an asshole, if they don't get along Cause there's just so many people to work with, like why would you work with somebody that you don't get along with? Yeah.

Layto: 59:33

You know, but I think at like the higher levels, that I don't think that matters as much. It's like whatever I get. I think it's not dissimilar from like when you meet somebody that you're like. You know this is going to sound weird, like if you're going on a date with somebody or if it's like you know a romantic relationship. It's like when you click with somebody, it just feels right, you don't think about time, you don't think about, you're not worried about what you're saying, it just feels right and you kind of know. And it's like not dissimilar from a producer or a writer where it's just like you just click intellectually and you're kind of speaking the same language and it's flow state. Like you said, it just feels good. If you're like, you get a warm feeling. You know it's basically that, but like without the romantic aspect of it. It's like a platonic version of that where, or like a good friend that you make when you're younger, where you just feel you just click, you know.

Layto: 1:00:27

That's very much how it is in my opinion.

Austin Seltzer: 1:00:30

You know I mean, I can't speak for others, but Do you know that, from the first session though, With him.

Layto: 1:00:35

I did With Andradez. What did I do with him? Yeah, I did a freak out and save yourself with him, like first day, and with Bren, and same thing was like Same vibe. You know, like he would. He would see, would hum a melody and then I would add on it and he'd be like, oh, that's fucking sick. And then this lyric and I'm like, oh, let's add this. And then, like it was like 10 minutes and I think I was texting her. I'm like this guy's a fucking man.

Layto: 1:01:01

You know, and it just felt like, felt good, felt right, you know. And then, after you break the ice in that regard, it's like smooth sailing, you know, because you know you're speaking the same language. Rob like could hear what I wanted to do, would add to it has his own ideas, implements them. They're always sick. He like hums melodies. He's like what do you think about this? We did bed with a psycho. He had like the starter. It was just like he's literally humming something. He's like Psycho. I'm like what was that? That with a psycho could be a sick title. And he's like, oh, and if you did this? And he's like, let's get sexy with it, let's get fucking weird. And I'm like, yeah, let's get weird with it. So it's just like we get along, we laugh and shit, we like we fuck around with each other, and then it turns into something like bigger. It's like, oh shit, let's actually do a record like this.

Austin Seltzer: 1:01:46

Such a chemistry thing, in my opinion, yeah you know yeah, I that I can, because I know both of you I can totally see well, actually all three of you I can totally see how that that went down, like in my head at least. Yeah, I hope I hope people listening to that Take away that. I really do think that probably on the first session you can feel if this is a great match or not. Actually, probably within like the first sentence, or sitting down, like immediately, the vibe is either there or not, yeah, and I know that somebody may have had a bad day, something terrible happened and they're in this session and I get you. Sometimes you just got to excuse life. But I Still think that there's probably some things that you could pick up on. Like man, I really love this person's energy, what they're bringing to the table, how I lyrically match with him, like with Brandon, yeah, yeah, and then.

Austin Seltzer: 1:02:44

You just double down on it, you just keep on going back to them. Yeah. I think that that's the way, that maybe the first record is not the best and maybe the second's not, but you know it's there. Yeah if you just keep on going and don't give up on that person or that, that relationship, I think you can make some really good stuff.

Layto: 1:03:02

Yeah, I agree and, and I think another thing too was it's like the mixing 2000 songs thing. Like I came out here for one summer and I was in a session like every day with different producers, and I think part of the reason they did that was for that exact point was to Kind of like weed out who I maybe don't work well with, who I work well with, you know. And Mike said that he's like find the you know three or four people that you really fuck with, which was good, because I needed, like a barometer, you know, I needed to know what the measuring stick was, you know. And so At the end of the session, at the end of the Two months, it was like yep, white, blue and very nice, cool Brandon Burnett, like this is who I want to work with.

Layto: 1:03:43

You know, there's like four or five people out of like the 40, but I mean it sounds like crazy, but it's like obviously everybody at this level is competent and can do a record, but it's so much like has to be the vibe. I have to understand what you want to do. It's just everybody's so different, you know. Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:04:02

Yeah, that's a perfect way to put it. Hmm, okay, oh cool. Now I'm curious. Wait, I gotta. I just limits Like fear are often an illusion. That's what you wrote up on the the chart board. I want to. Why is that what you chose of all things to write?

Layto: 1:04:21

We were just talking about this, I was like I should get this tattooed on me. I'm a huge hoop fan. This is a Michael Jordan quote, okay, from his enshrinement, his hall of fame enshrinement, and I always liked that quote because it resonates with me, because it's like I Think for me feeling like kind of like an outsider, like I didn't grow up in music and you know a small town, it's like it can be kind of daunting to think like how am I gonna make it?

Layto: 1:04:49

you know, and I kind of live by those, that type of sentiment where it's it's all just relative and it's all in your head like you can do anything you want. I really believe that you know within reason and you know granted, you're healthy and shit, which I've been fortunate enough to be but, like, with all of those parameters set, I really believe you can do anything you want. It's not like something I just say and wish for, like I truly firmly believe that and so I. I love that quote.

Austin Seltzer: 1:05:19

I mean it's great. It's great. How, with that quote in mind, like how do you go about Acknowledging a limit like a current limit, a mental limit, and how do you go about like breaking it? Because I feel like, if, if we could, if we could help people figure that out I mean myself included that's a, that's a cheat code for life.

Layto: 1:05:45

Yeah, well, I think, knowing what you're good at like we said earlier, like employing the right people in my life, that you know, am I gonna be a great manager, as good as my manager? No, am I gonna do Mixing and mastering? No, but like what I can do, what I'm good at, like, do it to the best of my abilities and don't get caught up in other people doing it. You know, oh, my god, this person's so far ahead of me, it's like it doesn't matter. You know, don't be, don't operate in fear, don't, don't not do something because you're worried about failing. You know, rather, do something because it could succeed.

Layto: 1:06:25

It's kind of how I have trained myself to think and, like you know, I wasn't and I still have my moments, but like I Used to operate in fear and shit wouldn't happen. And now I'm, and I've just kind of like trained myself to be like it will happen if I put in the adequate amount of time and even if it doesn't happen, like something else will happen. You know, along the way, given you know the proficient work that you put in. So I just like to remind myself Of shit like that, you know, kind of daily, and I'm not one of these people that reads quotes on Facebook. But it's like there's certain little like axioms that I kind of try to live my life by, you know, and and not straight too far from.

Austin Seltzer: 1:07:08

Yeah, I love that. I guess something kind of just like dovetailing off of that. Recently you I mean you're tearing up tiktok. It's like really popping off and I I want us to dissect that a little bit, and Probably there's a lot that we can't dissect because it's really just a crap shoot. You know, it's just like tossing a coin up there. But Did, did you recently start a new tiktok, or what, what? Yeah, what's going down with that?

Layto: 1:07:39

I have started Probably 25 pages. This is my 25th page. Oh shit. I had a bunch of like meme pages that did well, like during the Johnny Depp trial I would cut up like parts of the trial and put my music to it at key moments and dude, like I would spend hours doing this and it would be like funny videos and it would get like seven million views with my song and I would like I'd be elated. But every comment would be like go, johnny, team, johnny, nothing music related, like no spike in stream. So I quickly realized I'm like okay, this isn't, this isn't gonna work.

Austin Seltzer: 1:08:18

I'm sorry to interrupt but hilariously I just had baby you in bed with the psycho and like Johnny Depp, like like, oh my god, that's so perfect I know probably would work, that's.

Layto: 1:08:30

I'm like actually hilarious. I'm like so afraid to like stray from anything that I've been doing now because I'm like I'm not fucking this algorithm on.

Austin Seltzer: 1:08:37

No, you sure let's. I want to get into that because you are tearing it up, but that just hit me. That's hilarious because Obviously, yeah, that's kind of what it's all about.

Layto: 1:08:45

Yeah, I mean it was fun and, honestly, it was good for me to like. I Was basically like, like you said earlier, like I was creating sync and on tiktok is what I was initially doing, because I'm like, oh, I would use other people's videos and put my song to it and cleverly cut it, but ultimately, tiktok is so like a great Exploratory tool for for new fans and they want to like sink their teeth into like you as an artist, not just like some passive fucking video With your song in the background. That's something that I've learned. I Found also very serendipitously. I was like I'm gonna need to learn how to edit Much like music, unlike music, rather, where I was like, okay, like I have people and key people that do what they do perfectly. Content is just too like expensive and Difficult, where it's like I can't hire somebody to do that every day, especially with tiktok, where you got to get like two content pieces out every single day. Yeah, so I'm like, fuck, what am I gonna do? So I was like learning how to edit on Final Cut, getting fairly proficient with it, but like the videos that I would do would be like these ridiculously long, like super high brown nonsense, like I'm a superhero and I'm using like FX and I'm like, why did I just fucking do this for like seven days? But good for me to learn and and Learning this like VFX shit.

Layto: 1:10:06

I saw this channel on YouTube and I saw these like young kids and I saw palm trees in the background. These like 18 year olds that I'm like, oh shit, like they're. These kids are awesome at what they do reached out to them. I'm like at the time I was in LA. This is like four months ago. I'm like, fuck, I hope these dudes are in LA and and they do. This name is Zach. He got back to me. He's like I'm in San Diego. Man, like sorry, but I have a buddy who is going to school at Los Angeles. You should link up with him.

Layto: 1:10:32

And I texted this dude and we were texting back and forth. We ended up meeting and we just he's like he's 19. He's super hungry, but more than that, he's like super precocious and understands like when he wants to be in 10 years, which is such a like smart, like beyond his years thing. To be thinking at his age, you know, which is very like to me was very alluring. I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting. Like he's very like precocious for a young kid, yeah, and he just liked the music. He just believed in what I was saying and I was like, dude, I believe if I get good content like that you can't do on your phone, we could scale this. I'm like I have no followers on tiktok, but you got to trust me, I know we can do this. He liked the numbers on Spotify, believed in the music and like most importantly was like I really love your music, man, and I'm like, oh, let's try a few things, came and shot some stuff.

Layto: 1:11:27

For like two months we were kind of peering. We would see like little to no results, although I would see more likes and more people being like this is a great song, what is this? So there was like a little encouragement, but it was like very much like no results whatsoever. And then randomly, like two months ago, shit just started to like slowly grow and grow and grow and then on tour, like we're talking like three weeks ago, like just fucking, shit kind of went nuts. We got some like viral posts and we're able to niche down. I think one of the biggest things is like having a niche, with tiktok not being super wide and Passive, but like knowing what your audience is for music especially. And like with my music it's very like alti, kind of like dark, disenfranchised people tend to like it. So it's like we were able to like get a lot of people coming from there and Dude, what an exposure tool. Like no joke on this tour, 10 to 15 people a night from tiktok, it's like crazy. You know, that's awesome.

Austin Seltzer: 1:12:29

Yeah, it's what would you call the, the niche of your videos, though, like they're so specific, alt alt tiktok.

Layto: 1:12:40

Like these are my tags songwriter, psycho, nightmare, intrusive thoughts, because, like so, much of the music is like kind of dark and brooding and it's like you know, anxiety. It's testimony lyrics, obviously. That's kind of what I would try to, that's what I try to like, tailor towards and then hopefully, like it scales up, you know. I mean who fucking knows. But yeah, it's been great as of late, do you?

Austin Seltzer: 1:13:07

have any idea why the first one popped off.

Layto: 1:13:14

The. So the first one that popped off was one I did with my phone, but it was like if you like NF M&M 21 pilots, then you might like me. And it had hounding in the background and, ironically enough, like so many people that I think, found me on YouTube. Those initial songs like 2018. We're like holy fuck, I know you, I listen to your music. I got a million comments of like, oh my god, that's you, you sang that song, you sang that song and it's like Great. Now they have a face like whereas I think a lot of people maybe have listened on Spotify I would like any, we all do this. It's like who is that artist? I know that song. I don't know who the?

Layto: 1:13:53

fuck that artist is. It's cuz of playlists, cuz a playlist, and you too playlists and it's like, okay, now they were able to put a face to me like boom, couple thousand followers, and it's like whatever. Like those are 2,000 hardcore fans that are now from YouTube, now on tiktok. Yeah, you found them found them brought them over.

Layto: 1:14:09

Yeah, so that I think, very luckily and much to my like, career has been a lot of luck. It's like I had a head start with a lot of dudes starting tiktok pages in the sense of like I already have like fans from other Platforms that just came over like 5,000 fans initially that like found me on tiktok. They're legit fans. You know, it's not just like oh, we put up a random video and I might like that song. So I think, like they reward you for that, maybe like the algorithm, and then just slowly scaling, like making sure we spend hours on Editing the right video.

Layto: 1:14:42

I mean, it's not like we don't just throw shit at the wall, like we spend hours editing Tommy, does you know? I mean Garrett like filming it, shooting it, blocking it out. It's like a fucking music video and you got to do it every day. It's like. But it goes to like you can either complain or you can accept that this is the new paradigm. You know you got to have content every day. It's just the way it is short form content every day.

Austin Seltzer: 1:15:07

Yeah, I mean you, you're really talking to me right now like I'm learning stuff, because with this podcast I'm gonna do the same. I have a social media manager that I've hired and we're gonna do two posts a day on all platforms, and I mean I don't have a tiktok page or any of that yet, so it'll be just starting it out, but I Mean that's a lot of work. I understand I'm not even doing it, but I understand how much work that is and yeah, I mean it's just. It seems like just continuously doing it, don't stop. But then, if you figure out what's working, just hammer that home.

Layto: 1:15:42

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then I think part of it, too, might be introducing new things, like because you, you know, like with promoting a song, it's like I have a certain concept. I've been doing these ones where I walk and I track my head. It's like, at a certain time, like that might get stale. So it's like learning how to introduce new kind of things within the algorithm so that you're not, you know, fucked randomly like a month later and you're not getting any views. It's like I don't know.

Layto: 1:16:10

I think that is like the formula on TikTok, as of now anyways, is to just continuing to be like you know, to have a niche which this definitely will, you know, like interview style podcast. People love that shit. And it's like going to be so highly produced with the cameras and the audio and I'm sure the mix will be great, but it's like no one can do that. I always try to think like, all right, what can't be done on your phone, you know, because like, then you're cutting above.

Layto: 1:16:38

It's like music. It's like you can have anybody can put a song out, but like who's paying for mixes and masters and who's paying for production costs and making sure that it's like 99% cut above everybody else and then you're only dealing with 1% of competition. It's like I don't think it's dissimilar. On content either. You know it's like I try to like any money I make I put back into my career, you know, which is like cinematography, mixing, mastering. It's like you got to, unfortunately, like this shit costs money and you know you got to fucking grind and even when, like I didn't have wasn't making money on music, like I was making money on another job, like a normal paycheck, and putting it all towards music, you know you got to like believe in yourself, I think.

Austin Seltzer: 1:17:25

Absolutely I. Do that resonate so deep with me. I mean a ton of the money that I make. When into my studio and into this room, it's like this is my passion and I'm going to do it the best I can. Money putting your money back into your craft matters so much.

Layto: 1:17:43

Yeah, this is sick room, by the way. Thank you, did you design this?

Austin Seltzer: 1:17:46

Me and my friend Ashley, so I told her what I was looking for and she helped me bring it to life.

Layto: 1:17:53

Yeah, it's dope.

Austin Seltzer: 1:17:55

So now it's been it's been many months and I'm just curious like you can flex real quick. How many followers have you gotten on the TikTok?

Layto: 1:18:08

I think we're at like 60,000, 65,000 almost 65,000.

Austin Seltzer: 1:18:12

And how many months? Like two months? Yeah, I mean, that's crazy, dude, I'm so happy.

Layto: 1:18:20

No, thank you. I mean, like you know, I ultimately don't know how the fuck shit happens. You know, I just try to like if I see something working, it's like okay, let's work harder, let's keep doing what we're doing. You know, like I don't ultimately know why shit works and some posts I post don't do as well and it's like so much of it is very like influx, like I don't think we really know. But I mean it's fun putting the work in and seeing results. You know it's a good feeling.

Austin Seltzer: 1:18:48

Yeah, but I think, much like songs, you never know which one will pop, except for Hounden. I know that you said that you knew that, but you don't know which ones are going to go. But you know, if you don't put the love and care, time, effort and money into these things, your chances are significantly smaller that something will happen.

Layto: 1:19:09

Yeah it's all about just increasing your odds, you know, but it's a lot easier to say that when you have a foundation and fans. It's like, you know, like, I guess, for anybody listening, it's like I tried 25 pages. I had no results and I was sitting with my cinematographer like with the same belief and fortitude that I have now. Like this will work. This will work, you know, like, with zero followers, zero views, stuck at like 150 views a post with 10 likes. You know, it's like I just think if you believe in something and you do it right and you put the adequate amount of time in it, it'll work. With videos, though, like there are certain videos that I post that I'm like, oh, it's going to go. There is like a weird intuitive feeling that I have, and sometimes they do rip. I'm like, holy shit.

Austin Seltzer: 1:19:57

I think that's you doing the lightning rod You're channeling. You know, maybe? I think that that's part of the flow state. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I think you're just in more in tune with that. But wait, I'm curious, why did you? Why did you delete all these other pages and start a new one?

Layto: 1:20:14

Oh gosh. Well, I don't want to fuck up my algorithm, but I had like these mean pages. And then I did a page where I was like, did doja cat steal my song? And it was hounding and because she did that record for the and obviously like it was tongue in cheek and like I knew she didn't stand my song. But, dude, I got so much flack for that Like you wouldn't believe the shit that I got for that, like I became a meme, like so many people were reposting and do adding it, and I did it like in front of my bathroom.

Layto: 1:20:46

I was like did doja cats steal my song? And then, like all these fucking people would be like, did doja cats steal my song? They would, they would like imitate what I was doing. And it was actually hilarious, it was fucking funny. But it was untenable after a while and I was like, dude, I can't respond to these people anymore. And then I was like initially it was really funny. And then I'm like this is not. This is not resulting in streams. This is, if anything, hurting my brand. No one knows that I'm an artist. They just think I'm an asshole. Who's like accusing doja cat of stealing your song?

Layto: 1:21:14

And that's their favorite artist, of course.

Austin Seltzer: 1:21:17

And so I was like we got to switch it up.

Layto: 1:21:20

Yeah, we have to switch it up and we did, thankfully.

Austin Seltzer: 1:21:25

That makes sense. I get it. Yeah, I was wondering like why? Why so many pages? I guess, since the algorithm has already kind of labeled your meme pages as meme pages, probably you can't use that one. I get it. Whatever you did, you did it right and I hope that people listening and watching kind of pick up on. I mean, you got to put love, time and effort and a lot of the times, money, into creating content. Unless you can do all of that, but then it's going back to there's no way that you can do a craft at the top level and have time to do all these other things.

Layto: 1:22:00

Yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:22:01

Like, if you don't have the money, maybe find a bunch of friends who want to rise up with you and you somehow compensate them in other ways. Yeah, but you need people who are really great at their craft to play at the top level. Yeah.

Layto: 1:22:16

Totally, and I guess it's not to say like a songwriter can't, like I guess for me it's like I'm not good enough to play guitar, to play piano, to sing acapella in front of my phone with zero production, zero like mixing to cut through.

Layto: 1:22:33

But there I have seen like many artists that are fucking awesome, that have dope voices, that write like acoustic songs, like there is like there is no, not not just one way to do something, but I've always operated in like I'm going to outwork someone, I'm going to have the best production that I can have, I need to process my vocals, I need to have six cinematography, because it's like I don't, I don't feel like I have like a great enough voice to just stand out. You know it's not being humble, it's just the truth. You know it's like I guess like what I would say is the best aspect of my music is the songwriting. And then it's like all these little things like the mix and you know Matt's vocals. It's like it all helps, you know, build something to where it can be, but I need a lot of people involved, you know, rather than just like singing in a fucking parking lot and it sounds unbelievable.

Austin Seltzer: 1:23:22

Yeah that makes sense, Okay. So understanding what you bring to the table and just filling in the gaps, yeah, Sweet. Well then I want to pivot to, kind of, the main question of this podcast, although I you know whenever I say that really the point is this great conversation and there's so many nuggets along the way, but I'm really curious what? What does success mean to you?

Layto: 1:23:49

I think, ultimately, it's like being able to have freedom of time. You know it's like what can I do? That I can kind of have my own schedule Again, I always talk about this with with Garrett but it's like being able to not answer to someone, to do something that you're passionate about and to kind of make your own hours and like feel like you can just operate in flow state and not feel like you're working, and then to be able to do things that you want in life, rather than being like, fuck, I got a little work, which you know there. There's like a lot of valor in that and you know, to each zone and there's plenty of people that love their jobs. But like I value my time, like I don't want to work for somebody. I could never do it. I just not wired that way where I could follow orders and be a good employee, like personally.

Austin Seltzer: 1:24:39

Yeah, very much same.

Layto: 1:24:40

I think a lot of creative people are very much like that. I value my time, you know, and being able to call my own shots. So like once I got to that level where I was like had my own hours, like to me that's success. And then it's, and then it's not resting on the laurels of that and being like how do I keep building and continue sustaining a career. And then you just your goals constantly shift and change. You know. You know initially it's like I want to get signed. Then you get signed, you're like this isn't shit, like what's next? Like I want to be the bigger, a bigger artist. I want to. You know I want to have a song that passes X amount of streams. Then you do that and you're like what's next? I think it's healthy to do that within reason and not but not get like caught up in it, but to have goalposts. You know milestones that you want to hit, but I like to just set goals and try to achieve them.

Layto: 1:25:31

Like to me that's so gratifying you know, I like to be goal centric and, like once we hit marks, it's like it's a initial feeling of like wow, this is great, we did this. What's next? You know? So keep you going.

Austin Seltzer: 1:25:46

But like to distill down what you feel like success is is the ability to have and make your own schedule, have time and make your own schedule and not have to answer I guess not have to run your answers through somebody else's filter Like you want to be able to create and do what you do on your own time, I mean yeah, like I guess I get so subjective and it's like success and what capacity?

Layto: 1:26:14

like I want to have a successful relationship. You know, I want to have a successful like life it's outside of music, but like for what I do in a career, like I want my success to be, yeah, to afford me my, my own time, which I guess, like not having money is not having time because you need to put in time to work and to make money, and like you're not on your own schedule. It's like I often think, like what is the amount of money that it would take for me to just be like okay, I don't need to do anything anymore, like that amount of money would be.

Layto: 1:26:50

I wouldn't need anything more than that. You know, I would just need whatever could afford me to like not have to answer to a boss or whatever, which seems like super privilege and shit. But it's like I just want to work towards that. It's not like I have that, it's just. You know, I want to work hard to be lucky enough to have that.

Austin Seltzer: 1:27:07

Yeah, I understand that. Yeah, yeah, well, to pivot off of that, let's I kind of one of the last questions I'd like to explore is what, what do you think that you've done along the way throughout your career or life that have brought you to this point where you're signed as an artist? A pub deal you are, you are doing music for a living? I'd like to maybe like distill down to a couple of bullet points for people watching and listening, like what can they do to have similar success that you've had?

Layto: 1:27:50

I think we got to work hard, obviously, but more than working hard, you kind of have to work creatively and kind of think outside the box. For me, initially, it was finding ways to email managers, which I knew people weren't doing. They're just like putting their shit on SoundCloud or putting their shit on Spotify, and I'm like that doesn't work. I'm going to go directly to a manager, sell the manager, then the manager will sell me, so it's like I try to employ ingenuity.

Layto: 1:28:20

I think, at the crux of it, though, you need to have a lot of fortitude and self-belief and not just feigning it, but you have to really believe in it, because if you don't believe in yourself, nobody else is going to believe in you, and you won't be able to exemplify that and articulate that to other people that matter in the industry, because they can very quickly see that you're insecure or you don't believe in what you're doing. And if you have a vision, you need a clear, concise vision of what you want to do, and then you just work towards it. And if you put in the amount of time and don't waver and you really love what you do and I think you do need to love what you do, because shit is hard as fuck, especially trying to cut through in the music industry. It's like you will have so many bumps in the road and if you don't like what you're doing or love what you're doing, you're going to give up. That's just like anything in life If you don't really care about it when shit gets tough, you will give up the other million jobs that I've had where I'm like fuck this, I don't want to do this.

Layto: 1:29:23

So you need to be unwaveringly focused and you need to really like what you're doing and work towards it. And if you keep doing that over time, from my own experience, I just feel like you'll be successful in one way or another and maybe other opportunities will arise. Maybe it's not what you thought it would be initially, but you'll make connections. And maybe you're still in the industry, but you're in a different capacity. But I do think that that shit irons itself out. Yeah, yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:29:55

So I guess, to distill that down, you dropped out of college because you felt this was the right time. You had a track that popped some. I'm sure it popped really well but couldn't afford you life forever. But it made you feel like I can do this and you acted on that. That's a strong. Whenever we were talking I was like that is that's the essence of someone who will make it, just believing in something like a little pad on the back like you can do this, and then you just run.

Layto: 1:30:27

Yeah, it's like a little win. I think a lot of people have misconstrued what making it is, but it's like grinding, like for six or seven years doing music. It's like these little wins that you have. That, like you said, like that initial onslaught of success for me, and it's like I'm detailing cars. But I would be like I'd have my headphones in, I'd be like, and I would just have such a feeling of joy Like holy fuck, we can do this. Like if I just, if I just save my money and I'm like planning out what I'm going to do and I'm not bothered by the shit work that I'm doing, because I know that I'm going to go to the studio in a week and record another song. It's like keeps you going, you know, and then just slowly compounds, I think, as long as you keep working at it.

Austin Seltzer: 1:31:10

Yeah, yeah. The last point whenever you're talking, you were saying the mental fortitude and a couple of the guests I've had we've talked about and I talk about this kind of often with people but I think that you have to be obsessed with whatever it is you're trying to do. Obsessed gets a bad rap, but I think you have to be obsessed and delusional kind of, to just keep on getting punched in the face and just keep going forward. And from music I mean, you really need that. That's the mental fortitude. It's like how many times can I get punched and just keep going? You have to be obsessed to the point where your friends invite you to this, or you have this going on over here, or you want to watch that TV show and you're like no, I got to sit here and get this thing done because this is what's going to get me to where I want to go.

Layto: 1:32:01

Totally. And I think, like for anybody who doesn't do that, I think once you start training your brain to do that, once you go through like the hard times, you actually appreciate it. It feels good to do it and even in the moment, because you're like okay, like and and and I'm like we're tore, like I'm like okay, in a month I'm going to be relaxing, like this is going to be so worth it. I'm going to appreciate my relaxing times because it's earned, you know. It's like everything needs to be earned, in my opinion, to really like, have a sense of value. Otherwise, what are you doing? And you don't really understand what you're doing because you didn't earn it, you know. But I definitely like with the delusional thing. Like in the beginning I was very much delusional as to what I could do and I had no experiential knowledge, no barometer. But that was like you said, it was like I needed that because if I knew what I knew now but the industry, I would never start Same.

Austin Seltzer: 1:32:52

Absolutely same. I was actually thinking about that in the shower today.

Austin Seltzer: 1:32:56

Really I was like man. If I would have known all the shit that I'm going to get drug through. I was just looking back throughout, like my time in music, and I was like man. If I could actually really paint this in somebody's mind, I think that I would turn them away from doing this. But the one way I can get away from that is just saying you got to be delusional If you just look through our lens, just get drugged through the shit and like have fun, pretend like it's a slip slide, slip inside, yeah.

Layto: 1:33:26

Slip inside of shit. Yeah, no, that's true. I definitely feel that you got to be kind of crazy in your own head. Also weirdly feel like if you really believe in that like shit weirdly does like whether you're like a tune to it. I kind of do believe that, though, like the serendipity of people being kind of thrust into your life like yourself, and it's like you told me that story about hounding today. It's like I didn't know that. I had no idea that you knew that song With my cinematographer. He has like a crazy story where he like went to his grandfather's grave and like want he's like please give me some success or something. And then, like that day we linked up, like I hit him up on the phone and we had a meeting. It's like it's just so weird. You know how that shit works, but I do kind of believe in that To be honest, I do too.

Austin Seltzer: 1:34:18

Yeah, as an atheist, I was very into science, which I still am and while that's not science, I can see how many times something has worked. And then at that point you're just kind of silly if you don't see that or at least I would have been silly if I didn't see that. You know, yeah.

Layto: 1:34:35

I think, like you and I probably align more than we might think on that. It's like an energy thing, like an energy field that might not be like apparent but to your naked eye, but there is something there, I feel you know, like you said, it's like too many. That would be far too many coincidences. And so many people have the same story where it's like yeah, like 50 different things happened to me that led me here. It's like what you know? Yeah, just seems so planned. Almost it's crazy Hell yeah, no.

Layto: 1:35:06

It's a fun ride.

Austin Seltzer: 1:35:07

It is a fun ride that we are on together, alternative Psycho.

Layto: 1:35:11

It was out the 9th of June and hopefully you've already been listening to a lot of the records on it, and you, boy, mixed and mastered the entire album, and great job, man. Thank you, man.

Austin Seltzer: 1:35:21

Dude, we killed it together.

Layto: 1:35:22

You, the man.

Austin Seltzer: 1:35:23

Yeah, please go stream that it's. I mean, it's an incredible body of work, thank you. I really love it from start to finish.

Layto: 1:35:30

Yeah, me too, and you know we'll be continue to be a big part of my career. So I appreciate you, bro. Thanks, man.

Austin Seltzer: 1:35:38

And maybe by the time that this is coming out, there will be some other releases to TBA.

Layto: 1:35:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, just follow me on TikTok.

Austin Seltzer: 1:35:47

Exactly. By that time you might have 100, 100,000 followers. Yeah, who knows? Hell. Yeah, dude. Thanks for coming on, man.

Layto: 1:35:53

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. Oh yeah.

Austin Seltzer: 1:36:01

All right. So now that you've heard the final episode of season one with Lado, I'm sure that you have a much better glimpse of who he is, how he develops a team around him. You know, like the relationships involved in making music, how his work ethic has gotten him to where he is now. You know he has tried so many different things with different social platforms, with music, with careers, that he's honed in who he really is, and I think that that's super admirable and I'm sure you learned a lot of things from him. I wanted to start out on the key points of what he wrote on the chalkboard. It was a Michael Jordan quote and it says limits, like fears, are often an illusion. I mean, of course, I love this quote because I feel, like everything in music and everything creatively and everything that you have to think outside of the box, fear is something that we constantly run into. We're so ingrained in like a particular way of living life that's easy and comfortable, because I think humans like comfort. Of course, fear is just a constant thing that we're having to break down, and so this quote touches home. But then how he elaborated on it. I think his superpower is that he surrounds himself with people that complete what he lacks. So Lado talks about his strengths in this episode and he also talks about things that he's not great at. He doesn't play instruments. He didn't want to take the time to learn how to be able to produce a track, like get the perfect idea and sound out of his head into a song. He wanted to find producers that he could work with that could understand him and complete what he's lacking and, as a result, he has actually gotten music out that sounds incredible and it's authentic because he's able to resonate through the people he is around. What he wants and why this breaks down fear is that somebody could sit there and analysis, paralysis, like thinking, oh, I have to learn how to produce, I have to learn how to write, I have to learn how to sing, I have to like all these things, and never actually get moving. But in this scenario, lado knew where he wanted to go, he knew what he brought to the table and he found people to surround himself with to take him there. So he broke down that fear wall of getting moving and that's why he's getting a lot of TikTok followers and plays and he signed as an artist and he signed a pub deal. So huge key for the final episode here. Another huge key.

Austin Seltzer: 1:38:48

I love this and we all understand that we have to continue to move forward and persevere through hard times. Right, like that's just. That's like the essence of what makes somebody successful is their ability to keep on getting hit in the face and continue to move forward. But Lado said that he had somewhere around 25 TikTok channels. I find this crazy that he tried different niches, tried different avenues, tried to find different fans over and over and over until finally something stuck. And once he found that niche, that people really resonated with his music, his vibe, his look, his everything. He just started hammering that home and I find so much admiration in that Like to be able to quote, unquote, fail that many times but just continue to move forward because you know what you're offering the world. You just have to find the people that that little story was pretty awesome. Go follow him on TikTok and you'll see, like his vibe on there and how well his videos are doing.

Austin Seltzer: 1:40:00

Lastly, I want this to be the last key point of season one because it's so truthful, it's so real, it is the essence of what it takes to be somebody in music and I wrote this down and I'm going to read it straight from here instead of trying to. You know, remember from memory here If I could paint into your mind how tough it was going to be getting into the music industry and all of the shit that you would have to go through at any point in time to get any sort of success success to the point where you're actually able to live off the income from music alone I would definitely go on record and say that 99.99% of people would not even try. It is so painfully tough to make it in music, to make it in any creative field. So the point here that I would like to make is that you have to be incredibly delusional, almost to the point where you find fun and you get like this sense of joy and a spark of life every time you walk through, swim through shit. It's going to be tough. People around you are not going to help you until you are able to help them. You are going to continuously hear nos. You're going to run into financial trouble, stress troubles, maybe health troubles, because you are working yourself to death. None of this sounds good and it's probably not healthy, but it's reality.

Austin Seltzer: 1:41:41

And those that are able to just continue forward with this delusion that one day it's all going to be worth it, you're going to make it and you never stop. You might doubt yourself at times, but as long as you keep moving forward and you find fun and you make a game out of it and you just continue forward, you will have a breakthrough. It will happen. You just have to keep going. You have to keep going, keep your goal in mind and just keep moving.

Austin Seltzer: 1:42:13

It will be incredibly tough and if I could somehow take my head and my heart and my body and everything that I've gone through and I made somebody feel what I have had to go through to get here, I am certain that nearly every single person would just quit immediately. I would too. We talk about it on this podcast. I would quit, probably knowing all of this. But the reason I didn't is because I had fun in the challenge and I'm not to where I want to go one day. I want to be somewhere further along and doing music that touches more lives. But sitting here today I am so stoked on where I am and the only reason I'm here is because I found fun in continuing on and my delusion is so high that I never really thought that I wouldn't make it, and I still don't. I am like a little kid in a sandbox just having a great time, and I think that that is really the essence of what it takes to keep going and having any sort of success where you can live off of music. So hopefully season one has impacted your life in such a way that you feel more equipped to go after this career in music and I hope next season we just keep on building on that.

Austin Seltzer: 1:43:42

So thanks so much for listening. This means the world to me and I'll catch you on next season. 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 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.