Guitars, Gigs, and Gaming in the Evolution of Artistry with Singer-Songwriter Tonyboyy

Every musician remembers their first step onto a small stage, the kind like Tidballs, where the walls vibrate with the echoes of dreams and determination. Daniel and Jordan along side of Tonyboyy take a trip down memory lane, exploring the irreplaceable role these local venues play in shaping artists and communities alike. Join us as we share our hopes for the preservation of these intimate spaces, and how they continue to be the lifeblood for the next wave of musical pioneers.

When the conversation turns to the ebb and flow of creative life, Tony opens up about the artistic journey behind his latest music video "Counting Sheep" and the deeper, more introspective layers of his new album. We reflect on the metamorphosis from raucous live gigs to crafting songs that resonate with the soul's quiet corners. Then, we segue into the less glamorous, yet essential, side of content creation. We touch on the meticulous labor of editing and how our favorite video games aren't just a form of escape but a well of inspiration for our creative endeavors.

As the chords of our chat rise and fall, we ponder the philosophical underpinnings of art: intention, mindfulness, and the emotional landscapes we navigate as creators. We share a laugh over onstage blunders and the all-too-human side of performance anxiety, yet also confront the sobering balance between following our passions and paying the bills. Through stories and insights, this episode promises a rich tapestry of what it means to pursue artistic success, inviting you to find your own definition amid the symphony of life's quirks and quests.

Transcript

Daniel Lawson
Host
00:00
Hey everybody. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
00:01
I'm Daniel and I'm Jordan and I'm Tony and we're. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
00:05
Daniel and Jordan. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
00:07
And Tony. Thanks for coming on the show, dude, no problem. Yeah well, welcome back guys. This is a different atmosphere. We are not at the home base today. We're here at Tidballs. It's a local bar here in town and lots of memories and bands have been through here, and Mr Tony has played here many a times. And so, yeah, thanks for coming all the way from Nash Vegas, no worries. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
00:51
Yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
00:52
Well, good afternoon Jordan, I forgot you were even over there. Thank you, finally, the star. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
00:56
Yeah, yeah. What's going on, buddy? Oh, not much. I've played here as well, daniel. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:00
Oh nice. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:00
I don't know if you've known that or not, you could have mentioned me a little bit. But yeah, this place means a lot to a lot of people in this town. You know live music is getting lost a little bit right now. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:09
Yeah, for sure. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:10
Back in the day, bands get their start with local shows. 

01:14
That's how you got known from people, you impressed your peers and I think it was a cool way to really write your music and learn your music and progress your songs into like fuller, deeper sounds. And I think nowadays you know, we record it and then it's on paper and it's done. But it's a cool idea to write your music and play it live and have a venue where there's a community of people feeding off of each other. But yeah, I love this place and I'm glad it exists. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:39
Yeah, and it sucks because from what I heard, it was like going to shutting down and then they're not shutting down and hopefully they don't shut down because there's really no local places here. With you being from the area and us living here, I don't know of anywhere else to play other than your garage. You know what I mean. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:57
I think Donna's still has shows down the street. Donna's was after my time but I have friends who have played shows there nice, yeah, yeah, a little more dirty, there's still living rooms of the houses on kentucky street and chestnut. That's where I played in shows and house shows and some of those were like the best times for real yeah you know saint james apartments. I noticed that's still here. Yeah, played like my first house show there. I got shut down like after three songs. It was incredible. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
02:26
Yeah, incredible. Yeah, there's nothing like going to a house show. There's cars in the lawn. You got the guy on the guitar with his shirt off. I'm thinking of Wyatt, that's the first name that comes to my mind. I got a local guy here, yeah, yeah, and you, everybody's there to have fun and listen to music and you know, just blow your eardrums out. Yeah, I mean, that's what it feels like anyway in that tiny room and they're blasting, yeah, yeah there's. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
02:49
yeah, I think that that was a time that I hope kids come back around to find, because I think it's important space for young musicians to uh, to match up with other musicians in your area and to build a collaboration with each other and to learn each other's music interests and all that. And I think now it's so much on the internet that I hope local music stays alive. I hope it doesn't turn into just big venues for known artists, only that local music has a place to play. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
03:22
For sure. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
03:23
But who knows what the future is right. It might just be an old man thing to say what do you think? Do you think? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
03:28
local music dies. Do I think it dies? No, Um, because there's always going to be that nerd. He wants a tangible live show to play. I, I never get out to local shows. I mean, that's, it's just not what I do. Yeah, there was a time and a place and I overdid it for sure. But I had a buddy who came through Nashville and I told him that I'd go see his show and so I went on like a Tuesday night at 10 o'clock. 

03:54
I'm an old man and so I was like sitting at the bar with a Diet Coke watching it, and I was looking at all these punked all these you know punked out kids that are, you know, non-binary yeah yeah. 

04:06
And, like you know, with all different sorts of costume and makeup on, I was like, okay, somebody's carrying the torch yeah, it's not me, but it is there. Yeah, you know, I think that's what it is. You know that stuff is kind of for when you're trying to discover yourself and find yourself. Yeah, and you're right, it is on the phones now. But you know the way everybody, they always go back to old tech. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
04:26
They're going to go back to the old ways, I agree. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
04:28
Yeah, but you're right. I mean like playing live. You know we talked about comedy last time, but you know, comedians they get on stage and they try out material, whereas back in the day before there was, everybody had a laptop with GarageBand on it making demos. Yeah, you went and you played five songs live and whatever sucked. You're like let's try that again or not do that one next time. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
04:51
Yeah, and Donna's does have like that young greediness and I think it is just underground now. I think it is just like a phase that we're going through and I do think that, just like Analog you said, things are gonna come back around because the energy of local shows it's just going to be something people strive for, because not everyone can play Skypack or whatever you want to call it. Now I just hope that in this wave we don't see a large amount of like the cornerstones. But you know how things are, the cornerstones end up leaving the city's growing so much that someone comes in with money and they they soup it all up however they want it and stuff like that you know it's. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
05:30
It's now that I'm thinking about it. When I started in 2002, 2003, there was always this story of like well, you should have been here 10 years ago, that's when the bowling game music scene was really thriving. You'd be like, well, what bands? And they would say the government cheese or yada, yada, yada. 

05:45
And I was like I don't know any of these bands, you know government cheese but, like sounds like a bad name you'd come up with, I mean and tommy womack has gone through a lot of really cool things, but at the time it seemed like, well, son, you just missed the party. Yeah, the ship has sailed and we really, in 2003 and 2004, had to like find those avenues. We were too young to play tip balls. Tip balls was brand new, brand new, so it hadn't become a mainstay yet, and we played church basements. We played java house, which was now. I just drove by it. It's like a counseling place which is so wild to me. 

06:26
We need to go there after this java house was such a huge staple because they would have open mic nights. The first live show ever played was an open mic night at the java house. Someplace you just go, chain, smoke cigarettes and play board games and it's so cool yeah um, and I think that became rockies later on. 

06:42
But the point is is that there was never a great live scene. There might've been pockets of time where there were. So right now we're just talking about locally. That pocket of time may just be on the down curve. It might come back up. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
06:57
I think, and you can look at that as a opportunity. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
06:59
Yeah, I was going to say that would motivate me If someone was like. You missed the times. I'm going to be like my ass. I'm going to show you. You know what I mean. I'm going to bring something to the table. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
07:06
There was a time when I was a cocky teenager where Spencer's Coffeehouse they were throwing the best shows, the best shows. It was like the time when hardcore music was really in 270HXC. 

07:20
Right, I mean, I used I would write punk songs about hardcore, but the energy was still really cool, like, oh my God, that was killed. These kids are coming at a fucking coffee shop. That's, that's so neat. Um, and I remember there was this guy who hosted the shows and I was talking to him at the door and he's like maybe someday you guys will inherit this, and I said, or transcend it, he gave me the most like salty look and. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
07:48
But I like to go back and be like told you yeah, for sure, yeah, but. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
07:50
I mean, you know, if I was, you know a mid 20 something and some 17 year old kids, that to me I'd be like fuck you yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
07:56
Yeah, that is. It's good to zoom out of our own personal time and and see things through what the future can be. Just because it seems like we're headed, pop culture is headed in a direction. There's always cool people. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
08:12
Yeah, and also the old Jeff Goldblum quote from Jurassic Park life finds a way, yeah life finds a way. So if there's a group of kids who want to get sweaty in a basement and play electric guitar, those kids will always exist. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
08:22
I'm all about getting sweaty, but not in a basement. Well, electric guitar, those kids will always exist. I'm all about getting sweaty, but not in a basement. Well, guys, we usually kind of come into these episodes and kind of talking about our weeks, you know, and, uh, me and jordan live a very boring life. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
08:36
I mean, he just vacuums. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
08:36
I vacuumed again this week, yeah and I just work and do the honeydew list. You know it's, there's nothing fun about it, but tony over here, on the other hand, has had a pretty big week. Yeah, you know, with the new video that you released. And let us know about that, man you got questions about that. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
08:52
Oh yeah, with the song Counting Sheep, yeah yeah, actually, before I watched y'all's interview, I heard that song on your album and I was like I actually like this song a lot and I'm glad that you mentioned it and you have a video for it now and we were talking about it, so you have like the mannequin. I love the shot where it looks like it's you and then turns out it's the mannequin. Did you just filter like a blue screen of your? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
09:13
face over it. How did you? We were talking about it. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
09:16
And would you just sit still and you did it all. How'd you do that? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
09:26
much using your thing. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
09:26
Yeah, I just uh like set up a camera like that and stood set like this did the whole lyrics, and then I superimposed that face with a mask. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
09:30
Ah onto the mannequin applied some color grading, uh, some fusion effects, which, if you have da vinci resolve, you know what that is. Um, and yeah, made it look glow. And then I added the tv scan lines a little. You know, you know, flicker, fade. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
09:45
Yeah, it was very cool. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
09:47
I did go through a couple different ways. I did shoot me sitting down and then I actually projected it onto a wall and then shot that. I thought it would make it look more projected and it did, but I couldn't manipulate it like I wanted it to. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
10:00
Ah, I see what you're saying. I didn't use it. Yeah, yeah, and that song too. You did a really good job with the arrangement, where you leave a ton of space for the vocals to be just big and reverbed out at times. At the end you have that Weezer-like riff hammering down the big screams and all that. I love the grittiness of it. The rest of your album, I feel like it's kind of softer than your other stuff right. Do you find that? It's like old age, You've gotten a little softer? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
10:29
No, no, no, no, no, no Um no, I feel like it's nothing to do with old age, like I was running at such a high speed for so long that I felt like I was painting myself on a corner with that's the only thing people knew me as, and that's only a portion of my personality and it was the portion that got popular from anybody that remembers my old ass. So like I didn't want to come out and be like here's sleeper agent 2.0, right, I just wanted to be like all right, here's this part of me that was never exposed. And also like I don't know. I just want to make you know what I actually like. Actually like heard Cigarettes After Sex. You ever listen? 

11:06
to that band and I was like that's a really cool vocal style, Can I do something like that? And then I tried and failed, but I got pretty close. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
11:14
Well, yeah, I think that's how it starts, is just like a simple idea, like that, and then everyone reads it, just sounds so peaceful and I really wanted to like not be high up on this like jack white on cocaine energy. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
11:24
You know what I mean. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
11:25
So you know, that's exactly what I was gonna say is, when I heard sleeper agent the first time, my first thought was uh, was youthful jack white right? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
11:34
yeah, I mean, I got that a lot. I mean, ironically, I never listened to the white stripes. Yeah, I was actually referencing, more so the pixies with, like I hear that crackety jones and mr greaves and the him and jack, why I have a similar timbre. So but yeah, every time I, every time somebody saw my music videos or heard my song, they'd be like oh jack white and be like ah whatever, yeah, so anything to get away from that yeah nothing against jack, why I think he's made some incredible songs and have many amazing projects yeah, I mean yeah, obviously I agree as well. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
12:04
Um, yeah, you're you. At times I'm trying to think of some like the influences I heard. Do you listen to passion pit by any chance? No, but I mean, they have some great hits yeah yeah I, I've heard some like a little manchester orchestra kind of I don't know if, like, there's a lot of uh death cab. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
12:21
I felt like a little bit of just like I couldn't pinpoint a band you sounded like, which is, I think, a compliment, I mean, yeah, I mean I think it's like it can be a gift and a curse, because I I do feel like if you're just some tom dick or harry and you heard counting sheep, you'd be like that's my favorite fucking song of all time. Who was that guy? I was telling you I'm gonna go listen to his album. It's like there's nothing else on here. It sounds like yeah, and they're like fuck this guy. 

12:44
So, like I don't know it's good and it's bad. I feel like it's hurt me in the past many times because sleep rage and you heard like waves was our last song that was any somewhat relevant at all and I feel like people really resonated towards that song and I went to listen to the album and nothing else sounded like it. Yeah, so you know that song. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
13:03
I mean, we were listening to it the other day and, uh, I played it for my daughter, who's about to be 12, and she was like take a picture of it and send it to me because she, she enjoyed the song and it was that song on the radio, yeah, okay I thought so because I was showing whitney and I was like, do you not remember this song? 

13:18
like I remember hearing this on the radio and it first is that first guitar riff and then when um alex comes in with the vocals, you know it's just, it's so flowy and free. Um is the way that. It's something you can listen to 365 days throughout the year. There's not a season. You know certain songs you like to listen to during the winter or when it's raining, like that song. It fits all seasons for me and I feel like you could just roll down the window and drive and play that song and just feel the waves. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
13:50
You know yeah it was engineered to be that way, like that's what we were. That was a time in my life where I was really trying to win, as we call it, and I was really swinging for the fences to try to make a song that everybody could relate to. And I somewhat succeeded, because it did become our most popular song, but at the same time, there's still too much of me in it, so the lyrics are still too fucking weird and they're not relatable. And so if I just had, if I made it more like I don't know had a statement that was more catchy instead of being all this existential dread about California and New York and it all crumbling around you. 

14:28
You know if I made it like, hey, today's best day of our lives yeah, most of us don't read the lyrics. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
14:33
Yeah, I don't think so. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
14:34
I think a lot of it has to do american authors this is gonna be the best day of our lives, or whatever that people go. Oh, I know what that is. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
14:40
Yeah and then yeah yeah, I think a lot of it had to do with the tone, the tone of the guitar, the riff of the guitar, like that's what catches me immediately. I don't even know what she says at the beginning of the song, and it's not that I don't have a respect for the lyric or anything. It's simply like I get lost in that tone at that very second. As soon as that, as soon as the synth stops or whatever is in the beginning, it's like real, like light and free. And then all of a sudden that picking comes in, I'm like, oh yeah, let's go yeah, you know, that's what, that's what I get into. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
15:12
And there's actually our keyboard player who wrote that guitar lick and if you play anything around me I go I'm gonna use that, yeah. And so, yeah, I just took his little guitar lick and turned into a song. I I think he had the line. I think he used to say at least I got my way. I spit it back at you and I was like I'm going to use that and your guitar lick and write a whole song. And you know, he got paid a little extra because he had more contributions. That's cool. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
15:36
Well, you and I always when we wrote music like lyrics for the absolute last thing. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
15:50
We're just like say anything, say anything, as long as the melody and harmony is cool, that's all we want to have people here is the harmony and the, the main melody, and you usually we would be like he would write a verse or or a chorus, and then we would just build around that like, yeah, and it was like, you write the first verse, I'll write the second verse. Yeah, it was fun. I mean fun times. Um, so, with releasing that uh video this past friday right is that? When it dropped, what are what? What it's like your feelings now? Like with you being of, I say, old age I'm not calling you old at all, but being. 

16:18
You know where you are at musically in your life yeah the anticipation of a new video dropping like what does that feel like you? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
16:26
know what I mean. It's like, uh, usually it's getting everything set up to put to release it, and so it's not really any anticipation is making sure all your as I often say, all your eyes are crossed and your t's are dotted. You know um, which is a reverse. Yeah, yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
16:43
Yeah, there's nothing like posting a video which I've done it done it on after school with the Lawsons podcast. Something is spelt wrong at the top, like one of the handles to the awesome Lawsons is. It's like the dot is not there and I'm like, oh my, I'm not going to back and fixing this. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
16:59
You know, and you know there's some things you got to let go. Yeah, I'm not one of those people that can do that, though. I mean, I've been there like 3 am and I'm watching it for the hundredth time and like really watching it and I see one thing and I go, can I? Leave it alone and I go, I can't and I go, no. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
17:16
I can't. I feel it dude. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
17:17
Especially if it's a really effects type of video. It's like 11, 12 minutes per export every time. So he was like, oh, and I'd been up at like 3.30 in the morning and then it posted at like 8 am the next day. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
17:28
I had a very, very. I called him. I told him I was like dude, I was almost in tears. I was up till 5.30 editing vocals for a podcast and every time I got done it didn't line up. So somewhere along the line I was deleting instead of clipping and taking off the reverb like from, you know, other people's microphones. Dude, I was up, I did it two or three times. I was in tears. I had to be up at 7 15 to take my daughter to school. I didn't go to bed till six and I I was. I was pissed and I told Whitney I was like I couldn't stop because it needed to be done. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
18:09
Yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
18:10
And I just got to learn to when to put it down, cause I was aggravated the next day did the same thing that I thought, but you know it was, it worked and I'm like what the fuck was I doing wrong? You know, like I don't know if I was just so delusional because I was like lack of sleep. I mean these lights I told Jordan like one of them was like doing this. That's when you know it's too much, Like it's moving. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
18:34
Yeah, especially, I've learned this Like so were you editing your own face, were you? Staring at yourself. 

18:39
I think there's. Probably there needs to be a study, because when I'm making a video, I get so depressed. I think it's something about staring at yourself for so long and like, if you're staring at yourself, you're clearly picking at yourself. Oh, it looks stupid there. Why Nobody told me to look this dumb? How can I do that? I'm so ugly, you know. Even if none of those things are true, if you're staring at yourself for 10, 15, 20 hours, you're staring yourself for 10, 15, 20 hours. You're gonna pick apart yourself so much. Yeah, so that, plus fatigue and exhaustion and like the creative like, draining of like. Is this terrible or is this not what I want it to be? I think it's a really dreadful process to edit. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
19:17
Yeah yeah, well, don't take this the wrong way, but I think you're fucking beautiful it's the hair I wish I had it oh, that's funny. Um, well, tony boy here, I don't even know which camera to look at. This is a different setup, guys, so pardon us, but um, you know, tony boy was on after school with the lawson's. We talked about a lot of cool stuff, but one thing that stood out to you was the video games. Yeah, I was going to have to bring that up. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
19:45
What do you? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
19:46
play. What am I currently playing? The Tomb Raider remaster. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
19:50
Oh, wow. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
19:51
They just came out Are you familiar yeah. So they took all the old Tomb Raider games from when I was a kid and they put a fresh coat of paint on them. The controls still suck, but I mean. So I replayed that Tomb Raider game and now I'm just going through the entire series. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
20:05
We're talking about PlayStation Tomb Raider, right? Yeah, yeah, pc Tomb Raider. You're playing on PC, though. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
20:11
Prior to that, I don't know. Big single-player game yeah zero multiplayer, Like I don't want to so it's like a story I don't want to Well you know some games that I don't want to. Well, you know some games that I don't even play for the story. I mute and watch YouTube while I'm playing. Really. 

20:31
So like, um, like there's stuff that I feel like is too story driven and I just really want to get like the hit man series. Yeah, love it, cause I can just set out and do a mission. Yeah, I don't have to pay attention to the story. Sometimes I just want something to literally turn my brain off. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
20:43
Yeah, I found myself doing that too, because I played a lot of competitive shooter games for a while and at this point in my life I don't want to even talk to people. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
20:50
Exactly. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
20:51
I'd rather just sit in my room by myself. I'm playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake right now, okay, yeah. And I've found that to be, but I'm involved with the story at this point, but I found that that allows me to. Surprisingly, the story gets me out of my own head, and that's what I'm looking for. Is the story to put me somewhere besides right up here? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
21:10
I'm trying to think the last story-driven game that I really enjoyed was probably half-life alex oh yeah, oh, so you played vr yeah, well, I bought one for that um huge index or what'd you buy? No, I just got like that. The time was the oculus whatever rift the one with the the wall sensors. Yeah, later on I upgraded to the quest or whatever. Yeah, yeah, uh, I'm long since over vr though. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
21:33
Yeah, it's too casual, it's not very, it's not cool yeah, you was into it pretty hard when it first came out. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
21:38
There was a lot of possibilities for when it first came out and I feel like the triple a developers were really making cool, cool games for it, but then it just kind of fell off into this like really truncated experience yeah, yeah, like almost like mobile game feeling like there's just like very, it's not immersive. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
21:54
But wait, and I found the best. Games are like like there's a ping pong game, 11 ping pong, and it has the greatest, the best, like physics and everything feels like you're playing ping pong and you can play against your friend, who, my cousin, who lives in alabama, and it feels like we're playing ping pong. Or, uh, there's walkabout mini golf and all those things feel great because it doesn't need to be some grand story. Half-life alex was one of the few that was actually immersive in a fantasy world, with length and detail into a game and fun mechanics. That game was a blast. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
22:26
Yeah, half-life, alex, and before that I actually got Bone Labs. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
22:29
Yeah, what was it? Bone Labs. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
22:31
It was called something else Because Bone Labs is the new one. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
22:34
Bone something when they first started using the physics. Yeah, similar to like how Half-Life. So yeah, I got that one. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
22:45
I played that all the way through and then, uh, and then I was when I got, when I got to have live alex's. I was like, this isn't quite as as interesting because, like and that it's not bone lab, it's something, because they made. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
22:52
I know, I, I know exactly. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
22:53
Yeah, yeah, the same people made, yeah, right developers yeah so there's an x-rated film called bone lab yeah, we both played those. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
23:02
Daniel's played that yeah then, like I was just telling my buddy Scott we had dinner earlier I was telling him before I sold my Oculus because I was getting rid of a bunch of stuff, because I'm moving, figuring out what you don't want to take with you, and I was like I'm going to go see the Metaverse one more time to make sure I don't want to take it with me. And this has been my experience with the metaverse. Every time it's usually after a few drinks and I'm just like what is it all about? And I go in there and go, all right, never mind yeah, yeah, it's a bad. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
23:33
It's not a great experience. They haven't figured it out. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
23:36
Imagine like the nintendo wii meavers, but it's like, yeah, middle-aged adults all standing in a circle like talking about nothing, and then, if you want, you can go watch Imagine Dragons play live, or you can go watch an old NBA game from two weeks ago, and it's just weird, which I don't know what the games look like now. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
24:00
There used to be an app before Someone bought them out, someone big name but they would put out highlights of old NBA games and they had a deal with WWE and they actually even had old comedy shows. You could go in and you'd be sitting at a table and it'd be like watching a 3D person do comedy. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
24:16
Yeah, I mean they still kind of have stuff like that and that's interesting, but it's not sustainable enough to keep me coming back. It seems like it's still kind of like a proof of concept to me. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
24:25
Yeah, I feel like it's also just the comfort of the headset, because I like I had spent some time where I would kick back in my chair and I put it on and I go into masturbate. You've been waiting this whole time. And I get a big screen and then I'd put on. You know, I download like Tron legacy and watch it in 3d. Have you done that in? The theaters because it looks just like you're watching a 3d yeah, I've seen the movie. 

24:50
It is pretty sweet yeah, and it looks just like you're wear the glasses in theater and watch it. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
24:54
You can sit back and do that stuff and it's cool, but you're sweating 30 minutes into the movie, and that's not the funnest theater I feel it on my bridge of my nose too, like it's almost like painful over longevity, you know. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
25:05
Have you seen the Ray-Bans? Have you seen them? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
25:08
Yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
25:10
I saw a footage of what the video recording looks like from them, and it's really impressive actually yeah and they make them like transitional too, to really turn into shades and everything. I think that that's what's gonna like end up getting us off of our phones eventually, like it's just gonna end up being can you talk on those? Like is it bluetooth? I'm sure I don't know. Yet I'm sure that they're gonna add a microphone and they'll have little audio things by your ear um, but like the quest 2, does that right the audio comes out and it's actually really well done it was cool, yeah, but then, like you, people in the same room could hear what doing. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
25:43
Yeah, that's one thing that was cool about the original. One is it was all kind of an insulated experience. Yeah, yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
25:49
What was the game you used to play? It was almost kind of like Fortnite and you like got in these capsules and you shuttled down Population One. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
25:57
Yeah, yeah. It was like a three teams of three apex, uh, but you had a mechanic recline buildings. It was pretty cool. You could fly. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
26:07
Okay, you could steer and you had your little. It was arcadey shooting. Yeah, yeah, did you ever play that? No, but I just remembered bone works is what it was bone works, that's right, yeah, bone works um but just just so I don't seem like I'm just ancient playing tomb raider all the from games I played through in the past couple years elder ring I saw 200 hours on Elden Ring's, the best game I spent 200 hours on that game. It's the best single-player game I've ever played. 

26:27
By the time I finished it, I like angrily uninstalled it because I couldn't believe I wasted that much time and you're gonna play it again when the dlc comes, I'll tell you what. There was like a couple weeks last year where I had nothing going on, that I just. I started up a new game and it was too easy, so I'm like, all right, this isn't fun yeah because by the time that that game is all about like this is impossible. This is impossible then you beat it. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
26:49
Now your brain understands that it can be done so and not knowing the map early on, which I love the experience playing with my brother on discord and it was like we were finding these whole new areas that were way beyond where we're supposed to be and you don't, you couldn't tell how big the map was and you were finding yourself in a part that you were not even supposed to be near but you're, you know, sneaking around the enemies not even fighting anyone and when you know everything, at the second play it does ruin the experience. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
27:14
Every time there's a new boss, I was like there's no way in hell that this is the boss, this is. This is a joke they're gonna. Let me try from a different angle. Like no, this is it? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
27:23
yeah, you have to defeat this, yeah it's your greatest game of all time. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
27:27
Did you uh ever get into resident evil? I was just about to bring that up. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
27:31
Yes, huge resident evil fan uh, last year the re4 remake came out. Leading up to that, I replayed all of them, which I've done many times. I love the remakes. They're so cool like uh, talk about growing up with those games and just seeing them with a fresh coat of paint and just being like whoa, yeah, I remember when the first resident evil came out one. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
27:52
It was super scary. But when they redone it all I was like wow, this is like intense. The graphics were way more. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
28:00
That was like 20 2002 right, yeah yeah, um, I love that one. That was good too. Resident evil's great, um, I just remember this ties back in the oculus. I actually got the oculus quest to play resident evil VR. Yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
28:13
Yeah, yeah, actually, my first time playing Resident Evil 4 was on the Wii. Yeah, me too With the aim mechanic. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
28:19
It was the GameCube. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
28:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah and yeah, I like the. It seems like they treat those games with care, which you know they really do. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
28:28
Yeah, and I feel like Konami is attempting to do that with Silent Hill. Yeah. But, attempting to do that with Silent Hill? Yeah, but Konami historically doesn't give a shit about their IPs? Yeah, or the creators. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
28:39
Yeah, yeah, that's great to see, dan what's the? Last video game. Well, you play Fortnite yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
28:46
You know, I'm just not in the nerdy zone you know I'm more in the dirty zone. No, the only game other than Fortnite that I've played in a while is maybe Call of Duty. I did play the new Sonic here recently because my son said it. It's kind of hard for me, but I haven't played. 

29:06
Sonic in years I played Sonic on the PS5. The graphics are intense but it's so fast-paced and my brain is not built Like Sonic's fast. You know what I mean? It's in the name. He's fast as fuck boy and when he's going around them loops and the coins and you get hit and coins are going everywhere. It's like dude my brain. Oh my God, slow down. Like put this in slow motion for me for a minute, but it was. I mean, it's fun. It just brought back some memories of like Sega. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
29:34
Yeah, I prefer the 2D. Yeah honestly, the 3D is like where it's too much. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
29:38
It's too much, especially like when the river monsters are coming out at you and knocking down the rock walls. I'm sounding kind of nerdy right now. Congratulations, thanks. You crossed over, crossed over, but yeah, that's really all that I've played. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
29:52
That's really all that I've played. It's tough. I mean it's really tough. The only time I can really find a game is like 1 am. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
29:57
Yeah. And just find it on time. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
29:59
I know I just talked about Elden Ring doing that for 200 hours. That was like an event. Yeah. Oh yeah. I think everybody stopped what they were doing for like six months when that game came out. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
30:06
Deservingly so, which is nice to see that a their development get that much respect. Because I guess you worry like the way games are made, like monetization and everything of everything that you worry that it gets cheapened and that they're too much thinking about that and Elden Ring didn't seem like they yeah, somebody just comes to me like here's the game. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
30:27
Yeah, great, yeah, yeah and the DLC. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
30:30
Have you looked at it much? Nah, I'm going what does? Dlc stand for downloadable content, so extra right, but it's like 40 for the extra content for this game, so it's going to be like a whole actual the only kind of code I remember a code name, code talk was a map pack. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
30:46
Yeah, map pack is dlc. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
30:50
Yeah, and I wish call of duty brought that back, because that's one thing about them is they promise all these maps on the last one and then they don't bring it out. I'd rather pay $10 and get the maps. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
31:00
Just make them later. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
31:02
Then shove another game in my face a year later. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
31:04
I think the last game like that I played was Halo 4, when it just came out. And even then it was gotten so evolved and the people had gotten so, like you know, Twitch reflexes that I couldn't handle it, so I can't imagine where it's at now. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
31:19
Oh jesus, yeah, have you heard of escape from tarkov? It's like the game I'm super into, or was? It's like an ultra military sim. It's made by a russian company. It's like you go in, you load up your loot from your stash and you go in and if you die, you lose all of it and you can loot people and you go to extract and uh, it was uh, super, super intense. 

31:39
But the beauty of it, it came out at a time when I was like my late 20s and all the kids were playing fortnite and apex and have already ruined that game for me because it's, I just can't keep up with the reflex time and this game was a game that was like it had physics to where you couldn't even move fast if you wanted to, and uh, kind, of like gears of war. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
31:56
Gears of war was that way too yeah, you had. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
31:58
You had clunky mechanics to where it was harder to be more. But kids figure it out. Now kids just figure it out and, like their brains, work that rocket league I played rocket league. Still played it today that's intense. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
32:10
I can't score for shit. Have you ever played rocket? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
32:11
league. Yeah, when it first came out I played it and I was like this is terrible and never played at the end. I mean it seemed cool, I mean yeah I mean it's the. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
32:17
The concept is super cool, but it is super hard for me. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
32:21
I'm terrible the beauty of that game is it has simple mechanics to where you can. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
32:25
It's just soccer with cars right massive skill. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
32:27
Like a gap, though. Like for how simple the controls are. You know, you can be really easy to pick up hard to master exactly yeah, which is a beauty of a great game in my opinion. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
32:37
Well, I know we're talking a lot about um video games, which is totally cool, but I've we got off the oculus. Now I'm looping us back in. I got a cool story about the oculus real quick, um, so we ordered an oculus for cadence. It was like the two, was that the? 

32:54
quest two or something, um, so we ordered it. Well, we ordered it through walmart and evidently we got the email and it was like your delivery has been delivered. It was not at the front door, it was nowhere to be found, it wasn't at the next door. Neighbors, you know, there's something to get delivered. It might be around somewhere gone. So we email walmart and, um, they submit, like the, the refund requests and all this. We're like we'll just order a new one, whatever. Well, the next day it appears at the front door. Soon, they've processed the refund. So we got walmart if you're listening, don't bill me now but we got got a free Oculus and we got our money. 

33:37
I mean, we got our money back, wow, well, we didn't get two, we just got the one, but they did refund us. It was kind of cool. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
33:43
That's cool, and he just scammed them. Yeah, pretty much. He was the mastermind, though he just he just reaped the reward. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
33:49
This is his alibi the whole time. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
33:53
you'll never know which. This actually brings back to y'all's podcast. You mentioned you worked at the movie theater yeah and I actually worked at that movie theater for a short time myself okay and I have a short story. I worked there and I was on concessions and we had this guy come in in the middle of the day and he wanted a hot dog what year? Is this, by the way? 

34:12
tony probably fired you well, I didn't know to call no show is what happened, uh, when the ninja newest ninja turtles like the first wave of uh, michael bay ninja turtles came out, so 2014 yeah, that's really nice. Wow, I was 20. No way I was 24 working there. Maybe that's a chance, um, but I wanted a hot dog and I don't know if it was like this when you were there, but the hot dogs were like never. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
34:35
We have hot dogs, oh okay, we have pretzel bites and nachos. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
34:39
So we had hot dogs but they you don't cook them because they just waste mmm. So we just keep them cold. But you put them on that little roller right and it takes like 15 minutes. It took an hour and he was like I'll wait for it but he was was pissed. Oh yeah, he was pissed and it got ready and I picked up and I dropped it on the ground. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
34:58
So you only did one hot dog. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
34:59
No wonder you didn't show up to work the next day, only one hot dog was on the thing and I told the manager, like you have to go tell him. I can't tell him myself. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
35:12
That is like a nihil the conversation. You watching the rolling hot dog, thinking about other things. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
35:19
Very falling. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
35:20
The very end falls on the ground. That was genius. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
35:24
And not just falls. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
35:25
It's dramatic and slow and it just rotates as it falls. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
35:30
Yeah, I used to take home a trash bag full of popcorn and me and my brother would just let it stale over a week and eat it and watch movies. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
35:38
I do vaguely remember that. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
35:39
A trash bag, clearly, yeah. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
35:42
Because we didn't recycle popcorn. Yeah, they don't recycle popcorn. No, they don't. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
35:46
It's probably best that they don't, at least not the Great Escape franchise. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
35:48
Yeah, Well, that brings us to our favorite time of the show. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
35:53
Daniel, yes, my best friend, you know the one that has the greatest looks. You know abs of steel. I mean you can wash clothes on these things. But hey, don't take my word for it. Check them out yourself. On his only fan page. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
36:11
Mr Jordan Hunter. All right, today's word of the week is intentional. I think when you do everything with intention, you find that you can create your own mindsets. If you want to become a more grateful person, you have to set out with the intention to be a grateful person Like we were talking about two weeks ago with gratitude, to spend time in the morning thinking about how grateful you are for things. And these things seep in and they come into your subconscious and you cultivate a life that just inhabits gratefulness. 

36:47
And there's other things you would like in your life as well, and you have to do it with intention. You have to have mindfulness to push your life in that direction, and you'll find that when you push yourself in a direction with intention, you have to have mindfulness to, uh, to push your life in that direction, and you'll find that when you push yourself in a direction with intention, you might end up at the destination you want to be at. And that brings me to your art. I find. I think you find intentional art to be very important. Is that what would be accurate? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
37:09
Yeah, I mean, I do everything with intention. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
37:11
Yeah, exactly, and I think it's. It comes through to me at least when I hear your stuff and I think Daniel mentioned your like record what it's made out of. Is it that like plays into something with your graphic art? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
37:21
Yeah, well, I mean. So a cool thing artists do is that when they press the record on a color, they give it like a snazzy name. Like I bought an album from a band called be your own pet and their record was called like zombie slime green. Is that a real color? No, but they call it that. So since I do have like I have forget me nots on on the cover of my album, which is a type of flower, um, I called my color pollen yellow. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
37:49
Yeah, forget me, nots uh. Why that flower? What's uh I? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
37:53
mean, see, when you break it down like this, my cover arc, it's very literal. So I mean, the forget me nots are coming out of a of a coffin, forget me not yeah yeah, yeah and then, and that was doll me up and I know the line in that. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
38:07
You're gonna have to remind me because I'm horrible with lyrics, but the doll me up line is is like when I go don't doll me up, that's something. Um, that's a very told you yeah, don't doll me up when I take my bow, when I take my bow, yeah yeah, uh, yeah, and so I I see all those intentions and, and I think a lot of people would just overlook it like oh, that's a cool album art. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
38:28
It's all there. It's all if you are, you know, if you want to get like, you know, as we talk about the charlie day meme yeah, it's all there, yeah the thing is. It's like. I know I don't, my platform isn't massive and I know people aren't chomping at the bit to find out about me, but it's my intention to be like if you are curious enough, you do want to know me better. 

38:49
You know you can lock the code yeah, well, yeah, otherwise it's just shallow right well it's uh, you know, in your day-to-day life you might have relations with people who never get to know you. And I have those relationships because you know I'm professional and I can't be like, well, you know, I have all these feelings and so I know I need to get my job done, you know. So I feel like everybody has many sides to them. You got each other's sides you show to each other and you have sides you don't show. And so with my art is a very specific side of myself that I don't show to anybody. Maybe it's something I can't even really put in words, so maybe it needs to be packaged with some obscure art and obscure ideas and obscure themes. And just I'm like do you, do you get this? Cause? This is me. I don't get it, but I'm maybe seeing if you can crack the code. Yeah. 

39:40
But yeah, I mean, I think sometimes I've had friends who've said maybe I've been a little, a little too coded, you know, but it's like a mystery yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
39:50
It. Yeah, I think, when you know it comes down to intention, that you you can develop an idea that's beyond, like base level, where if you're wanting someone to feel a complicated feeling, each thing you do with the arrangement of the song, with how much space you leave in it, with how much you fill it up. Yeah. 

40:09
If you're intentionally choosing to do that, to evoke a feeling you can you have so much more you can. You can you have just a bigger range of emotions you can create into someone and, uh, if you, if you're not being intentional with every detail, it's just going to end up being a. You know, it could be a party song or something which is great. Party songs are great. I love. That's all I listened to when I was younger mostly. But I think as you grow as an artist and you want to, you know, make a connection with someone, you have things have to be thought out. We see facades too easily and, uh, or just like you know someone who's just showing you the base level, and I think that your intentions behind it um, I just think it's a better way to communicate is to have everything behind it, to be intentional and to be offered. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
40:56
I think better, yes, effective, no, yeah, maybe it's better to just be straight up with somebody, but it's a lot more fun to give somebody like a treasure map, and I think one of the things I've done with all of my output throughout the years is put in so many Easter eggs for for people who might be eager to find those things. Uh, I don't know. When I was, when I was a kid, I loved reading about movie trivia and like did you know here and this and here. So I've carried that with me into my own art. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
41:28
Yeah, video games used to do it all the time with Easter eggs. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
41:31
Love it yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
41:32
Love it Intention. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
41:36
What does it mean to you, daniel? I'm gonna be honest with you, I was waiting for this day. Since we started the podcast, jordan comes up with these great words, you know, and usually I have a cool little saying behind them. But today, my friends, I'm not your guy, it's okay. I truly you know it is, it's intentional. I don't even understand it, so let's talk about it. Okay, so it's your intentions to doing something Right. You know. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
42:02
I think so, like in like normal day of life, if you were intentionally trying to be grateful, you might be more grateful in the future, you know, but otherwise you might be a little bit more prisoner of the moment or your feelings might take over and that might you know, you're just kind of like lost in the waves of life. 

42:21
But I think one of the only ways to really have control over where you're headed in your mindset is to kind of intentionally choose which path you're taking, choosing like I want to be a more grateful person, therefore I'm going to do these things to be a grateful person. I want to be a more grateful person, therefore I'm going to do these things to be a grateful person. I think that cultivates in your life to become those things. 

42:41
And just you know like we just kind of feel like we're always tossed at the waves of life of like emotions, heightened emotions, and you're swinging one way and another. I think that the only real way to get out of it sometimes is to intentionally choose. I think you nailed it Well. I hope so, Tony did. Thank you nailed it well. I hope so, tony did. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
42:57
I don't know. Tony's the smartest one in the room. We need his confirmation. Yeah, oh, okay. Well, I mean to simplify it for you. Uh, intention is what is your motivation behind this action? So if you intentionally hit somebody, you were motivated to cause them harm. So that's the way I see intention. So what is your motivation for doing anything? What's your intention? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
43:21
they nailed it. I mean, I know what intention is Like. It's my intention to, like you said, hurt somebody or, you know, blow something up. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
43:34
You brought up blowing things up, I think, two times in a two times in a podcast, two, two podcasts in a row? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
43:39
Yeah, I mean, I get it, uh, but explaining it as hard for me, like it's my intention to love my wife, like right, you know what I mean stuff like that, what I'm saying. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
43:49
You can break it down like what is your motivation? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
43:52
what motivates? Me to love my wife right getting laid. Yeah, I mean, let's keep it simple no, I mean she takes great care of my family. She's a good mom, she's a good wife, she you could care she nurtures, you know what? 

44:05
I mean even say love it could be that simple, yeah love yeah, you know, love of getting laid so yeah, um, but you know, you know what pisses me off, guys. There's a lot of things. I think we can all relate to this, but do you know what just makes me want to shave my head? You know, take a skateboard to the shin. Or in other words, we like to say you know what twists my nips, guys, what daniel and y'all can relate to this. Tony's, like why did I do this podcast? 

44:43
Like what the hell was that Popping that G string? And I'm not talking about panties, okay, I'm talking about on the guitar. Nothing like breaking a good old G string, because I feel like the G string puts the icing on the cake for many chords, for me anyway. And when you don't have that, you suffer. Yeah, have you ever had the g string pop? I? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
45:09
haven't, but I've had the g string. Uh, it's been one of the biggest battles of my entire life keeping that thing in tune really oh my god. Yeah, it's. To me it is the, uh, most frustrating string to tune. I wonder why, I don know, I always have to tune a little flat to make it sound right, like heavily used string, maybe, I don't know. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
45:30
I think it is heavily used, I mean for me anyway. Well, the G, now the string, right, we're talking about that can make things minor and major, right? So I would assume that it's just really noticeable when it's out. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
45:43
Oh just really noticeable when it's out, because, oh yeah, it's definitely not the root and then you got. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
45:46
You know you're talking about the. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
45:46
It's like the middle part of that chord, a little bit of the sugar, yeah, yeah. So I do like like five, ten cents flat and it sounds fine. But if I tune it exactly on, it doesn't sound right. I don't know if that's like my guitars aren't set up properly, but I've had many guitars and it's always we were playing a show at bulldogs cafe in louisville. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
46:03
It was a hardcore venue and that night there was a lot of pop punk bands there and some hardcore kids came and were heavily disappointed. They would walk up to the stage as the pop punk bands would play. They would start the song and they would hear, like the, you could just tell if it's pop punk or not, and for one it wasn't in drop D or drop C, right, and so then they would start the song and then these like little hardcore kids would walk off stage. But anyways, long story short, my G string broke and Jordan had to save the show with. I don't know if he saved it or made it worse, to be honest with you, yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
46:41
But you told a couple of jokes, you know or at least a joke. Oh God, I can only imagine. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
46:46
But if you're playing pop punk. Couldn't you feasibly have just survived with? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
46:51
the first three strings. Yeah, we did a lot of octaves. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
46:57
Octaves yeah, and that G string is vital. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
47:01
And it just sounded shitty when it popped. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
47:03
I guess we probably weren't even in it. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
47:04
I don't even think we had the other strings out of tune. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
47:07
Yeah, I don't think we even had tuning pedals at that time. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
47:09
No. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
47:10
We were just straight up With the clip on. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
47:14
We would actually tune, you know, like the old school way of tuning, as long as you get your E string you know you can tune the rest of your guitar. So we tuned it to whatever the E string was tuned to, yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
47:24
By ear. Yeah, even to this day, I don't trust my ear At times. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
47:28
It's funny, but have you ever had a string break while playing or anything like that? 

Jordan Hunter
Host
47:34
What's like a disaster you had on. I don't hate to bring it up, but what's a disaster? You had on live show. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
47:38
There's this little show called Jimmy Fallon, okay. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
47:45
What's the full title? I think I played that live tonight with jimmy yeah something aired all over the world, I imagine yeah yeah. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
47:51
So if there was a time for something to go wrong with my guitar, it shouldn't have been that time but it did uh. 

47:58
So when you were on this little tv show called jimmy fallon, they give you a few run-throughs before you play and every run-through we did of the song went perfect. It was fine. Also, new York City is unionized in the entertainment. I don't quite understand it, but you're not allowed to touch your own gear. When you roll up to NBC the guys who were there to load and unload only they can touch it and you tell them where to move it, which is great, because you're like I don't want to touch that stuff anyway, you know what if it has to do with like liability, like if you were to trip and fall while you're on set? 

48:33
I think it's something I mean I don't really quite understand. I like to touch my own gear I know it's something to do with, you know, making sure that the people have the, are paid to do the work, do the work, and that way they continue to have jobs, and I guess that's the point. I'm not quite sure, but, um, yeah, so they bound you, they start, started up and they had I don't know, they had like they have people in like a cage around you. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
49:01
That was neat but like up top yeah, I don't remember. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
49:04
It's all kind of fuzzy now, but uh so, but yeah, immediately nothing came out of my guitar and it's live tv or it's not live, like first strike stroke of the song. Yeah, the whole thing like I think it was kind of going out, um, but I can't be like jimmy hold on you should have. 

49:24
Yo, jimmy, we got. We got to troubleshoot these guitar issues, and so I kind of made a very quick decision in that moment to just be like, well, we're faking it, because I think flailing on on live tv would be immensely worse than your guitar so this is a conversation going on in your head, I mean, or you just fuck you just conversation in the most like uh, yeah, primal way cool, oh shit, yeah, and I think I did kind of like knock it a few times and hear it crackle, come, come in. 

49:59
But yeah, I mean so, whatever, whatever, like peak of my career that was. It was immediately like crushed. Um, do you have anxiety? Oh, you know, back then I think it was just regular anxiety. Um, in my early 30s it got to be real anxiety and like got diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and I'm definitely over the hump of that. I can manage a lot better now, but no, back then, like I think I was just like medicated on so much beer. 

50:33
I didn't really care um, you know, that's an age, when you're like early 20s, to where your whole diet can be beer and you're totally fine. I, you know, weighed like 155 and looked fine, so yeah but no, and like we had, there was beer backstage, so I think it was just one of those things was like oh shit, this sucks. Yeah, this is a bummer I mean, I had like you know, butterflies. But butterflies. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
50:57
That seems like a downplay of playing jimmy isn't that a song butterflies? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
51:02
I'm sure city yeah yeah, yeah, but also around that time I was. I was still smoking cigarettes around that time, but I was trying to quit during that time. I just turned 25 and I remember I like I really wanted to quit smoking by the age of 25. So I turned 25 on the road and quit smoking on my birthday and we went to like a samuel adams brewery. So what's the first thing you want to do when you're drinking? You want to smoke cigarette. So that was brutal. And then I remember like just I don't have my little handicap, crutch my cigarettes. Then I'm about to go on jimmy fallon. 

51:40
So the whole day was kind of a disaster, but that was my biggest like upset, for sure. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
51:45
Yeah, like, but you know, you wouldn't know it. I mean, I mean, what year was? 

Jordan Hunter
Host
51:48
that 2011 or 12, 12 maybe I can only imagine, because, like that sounds like, such like a top of the mountain to me. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
51:55
Yeah, yeah and it was like it was ruined immediately, you know, because, whatever, if, even if somebody was like that was the best thing I've ever seen, it was incredible. You guys like cured my cancer, whatever. I would have been like, oh, it sucked for me, though. Yeah because, I like, I essentially pantomimed on stage. You know, like what song did you play? 

52:12
do you remember it was called get burned, yeah, I remember, yeah, yeah, and that's pretty guitar heavy like lee yeah, I mean luckily, like josh, the lead guitarist, and I do somewhat the same thing okay uh he just does like a more articulate version of what I do, but at the same time it's supposed to be kind of powerful and you need two guitars to get that power then I, I still say I, I sang half the vocals on that song, so I still had something to do. But did y'all play letterman as well? We did, yeah, we actually um played letterman at the very end of our career, um, and we, we did waves on Letterman. And that was the opposite. It went so well, it went incredibly well. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
52:50
That's the one I like. Listening to the live version of waves. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
52:55
That was such a great experience and that was kind of like vindication Nice. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
52:59
Was that before or after Fallon? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
53:03
It was after it was two years after Kimmel right, I think that was no. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
53:08
Fallon was first and then, oh, you played Fallon, we did Fallon. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
53:10
Fallon okay, have I been saying. Kimmel. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
53:12
I don't know. No, no, no. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
53:14
I was just thinking it. Probably he's dreaming yeah, sorry but yeah so we yeah, it's the hair. Letterman. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
53:19
I definitely um, I felt a lot better about that. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
53:23
Yeah. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
53:23
That's cool. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's a dream and during that era too, where, like late-night Letterman, yeah, and that was his last year and I remember thinking very lucky to do that, and I was outside still smoking a cigarette at this era of my life Some guy came up to me and he's like you're playing the Ed Sullivan Theater tonight. I'm like yep. And he's like you know, that's where the Beatles played. And I was like oh shit this is serious. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
53:50
Well, thanks for that, yeah did um when you were on Fallon, did he have the roots back then? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
53:57
yeah, that's cool it was cool cause, like I'm sitting there and when you do something like that, your whole team is there to support you and also drive you crazy. Yeah, so you've got your manager, your label, booking agent, whoever, and those places, those studios, like NBC Studios, are much smaller than you think. They are Really. 

54:20
You know, if you go to the studio where SNL is made, it's like maybe two of these rooms you know, with us um, and so we're sitting in the hall because you know our green room's small and there's so many people spilling out of it and I just see questlove walking down the hallway and everybody just kind of stops what they're doing and just looks at questlove and he just kind of like starts laughing walking down the hall and anything is like what is this soul train? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
54:45
he's like why is everybody like lined up looking at me? That's hysterical, I love that. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
54:51
So what's you know before we end? Um, what's next for tony boy? Like you know, now's your chance to tell the world what you got going on, and when I say the world, I mean all 46 of you listening um no, but seriously like what is next for you? Do you plan to release more music, create more music videos? You know what's your end goal here well, I don't. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
55:18
I don't have a goal. It's just right now, at this point in my life. It's a compulsion. Why do you do this? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
55:27
I want to get rich. I love it. I have a passion in it. It's something I enjoy. I guess it would be the same for you. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
55:34
Yeah, it's a compulsion. I don't feel correct if I don't do it. I feel off and I feel like something's weird. It does cause some anxiety if I'm just sitting around here not doing it. But all that to say, I've got a whole other album written. Um, just gonna do that awesome. Moving to jersey, gonna make my jersey album just made my nashville album make a jersey album cool, what uh? 

Jordan Hunter
Host
55:55
do you have any aesthetics that you're kind of thinking about? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
56:00
yeah, just uh, two guitars, bass drums yeah just no, maybe some piano, but just straight back to basics, okay cool. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
56:07
Yeah, because you used quite a bit of piano and synths on this. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
56:09
Yeah, I mean originally it was going to be all synths, and then I was like oh. I might as well, yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
56:15
What's a little guitar Well. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
56:17
I got into like I was pretty much held in on just doing synths and like acoustic. And then I doing synths and like acoustic and then, um, I got one guitar pedal which became another amp, which became a whole room of amps, which became, you know, an obsession. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
56:32
I wasted money. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
56:32
If you don't put it on the yeah, and then it's you buy all this stuff and then you feel like you have to use it, and then you don't end up using any of it and you sell it. So it's kind of the musician's cycle of life. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
56:44
Yeah, yeah, yeah well, I think what you do and I said it on after school with the Lawsons, I'll say it on Daniel and Jordan I think what you do is great. I think you're great at what you do. Sorry about my voice, I hit puberty yesterday, yeah, but I think you're great. You know, especially, the whole mindset behind the art and just the mysteriousness of it. 

57:08
From the album cover, just, it's not just a yellow record, you know, there's a story behind it, there's a story behind the coffin, there's a story behind the flower and for you to just think that deep in it, you know that's a very special thinker, it's a very special person that, um, you know, causes your brain to work in that way and I think a lot of it is released through your music and you can tell, um, and not just your music but your production as well, your videos, and you know it's just the circle, it creates that circle and I think you're very talented for music, creating the art, album art, and then releasing the production aspect of it. Um, you know, keep doing what you're doing. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
57:52
Yeah, I mean what I'm trying to say. Nobody else wants to do it for you unless you pay them a lot of money. That's the truth, yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
57:58
And I and I really respect a lot of uh, your mindset behind your work. I really uh, you know there's not a lot of people who put that much effort without money being a motivator and it's nice to see that, for the love of the art, that you respect it and you love it, and it's like there's just no argument to be made that you're not an artist. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
58:18
Yeah Well, thank you, I appreciate that. I did my taxes back in January. I did my taxes back in January, so I got to see how much money I spent doing the whole thing promoting it, pressing it, recording it versus how much I made, and it's hilarious. So it's definitely not a good business decision to make your own albums Well you can write it off. I totally did. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
58:44
That's my man, because, yeah, I paid really well for writing, yeah but yeah, I really, I really do uh appreciate having people like you. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
58:53
Uh, I think that older generations need to pass that on to younger as well the one thing the one through line I've seen throughout my entire like career as musician is that there are certain types of musicians and artists who there's an expectation they have out of making their art and I feel like that sets them up for failure, whether the motivation is money or you know, any sort of fame that might come from an indie musician, whatever admiration and I see a lot of talented people become really depressed drunks or become really depressed angry people or really resentful or cynical people because they feel like their art wasn't validated. Uh, and I think at like a fundamental level, they set themselves up for that just because they had that expectation. Your motivation should just be to make it, make art, make music. Um, I never made a cent off my music, even when I, even when I was on Letterman, I wasn't making any money. 

59:59
Now, everything in my fiber of my being should say all right, that's a a terrible idea. Don't do that ever again. Go be a lawyer or something. I'm just not wired that way. And the only reason I ever got as far as it is because I just kept doing it. So what I would tell any kid or adult? It's just, you only fail if you quit doing it. Yeah, you know that's the only way you fail. Because if you quit doing it yeah, you know that's the only way you fail. Because if you keep doing it to the day you die, nobody can say you failed Like oh, he was still doing it. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:00:31
Yeah, we were talking about that last episode about what defines success for you. You know what I mean, and I think it kind of wraps in like you define your success. You know, if you feel like what you're doing is to the best of your potential, then you're successful at what you do. Yeah, does that link up with anything? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:00:53
there's a great there's this very philosophical quote from this incredible movie called bridesmaids at some point the uh, the love interest guy. He's's Australian. He's hilarious. I can't remember his name, but he's like trying to get Kristen Wiig to start baking again. This is a subplot of the movie. Have you guys seen Bridesmaids? Oh yeah. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:01:16
Okay. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:01:17
Well, I got a wife. Let me break down the plot for Bridesmaids real quick. Kristen Wiig used to be this incredible baker went. She co-owned this bakery with her husband. 

01:01:33
They got divorced, it fell apart. She quit baking, okay, but even though she was really talented, this cop who pulls her over, recognizes her, be like oh, you used to make those amazing cakes. What happened? She's like well, life kind of hit me and, you know, business fell apart, got divorced anyway. He's like egging her on being like you should really quit, start begging. And she gets really resentful about it and she's like who the fuck do you think you are? I'm not gonna bake cakes anymore. Yeah, fuck that. And then, like you know, he's like hey, just because you didn't make money at it doesn't mean you failed at it, and that hits home with me. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:02:00
Yeah for sure me too. Uh, we're trying, like what? Measuring success and it sucks that at this point in my life it's like we're trying this and and you know, if we're being honest, we I need to make money Like you have to make money, and that's the sad thing that artists are thrown into. Is this, this conundrum where what, what do you choose, and then what's the line of sellout, what's that? Complicates everything that's playing in your head and it does cite that deep down the truth. I think we all know that it is about the art, and selling out is just not going to give you really any satisfaction. Now I'd like to be able to afford a house and to support my family, but I'm jealous of a person who finds this content and works whatever job they can to pay for that, and then the art is, it's like pure, almost by being left out of that realm, and I'm just so jealous of that contentment. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:03:01
Here. I mean this is more advice I would give to anybody who makes art. Get a job, get that off the table. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:03:10
I already hate this advice. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:03:13
Do not make your income based around your art, you will hate your art, you'll resent your art, you won't love it anymore and your art will suffer because of it. Get a job, even if you hate it. It whether it's sweeping or, you know, plumbing, whatever. But the moment that your art doesn't define your finances is the moment you're free to make whatever you want. But if somebody's like, hey, well, you know, uh, you don't quite sound like billy eilish, enough, so we're not going to pay you a million dollars, then you don't go in that like conundrum of like well, do I tailor my art to sound more like billy eilish or do I not give a fuck and just keep being me? You know, yeah, um, I think people get really tied up because, yeah, you want a house so is there a I guess beyond I guess. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:03:59
So we're just talking about unless you're extremely talented and you can just do that and everything's great is there a way, tony? Yeah is there a way to to marry the two and let like to not go through the conundrum of wanting to sound like billy eilish and all that and just be like I am going to continuously make my music? Do you think that there is a route of success as a full-time without? Is that only reserved for the ultra talented? I mean like that is. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:04:26
That's the Holy grail. Right, right, right. I mean, if somebody came tomorrow and said hey, I want you to spend every you know moment of your waking life making music or videos or art, and I'm going to pay you handsomely for it, then shit, yeah, let's do that. But I yeah, I would say there's the cream of the crop. Even the people that we think are like, they won in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're still, you know, falling in and out of relevancy thousand dollars a year and they have to tour and touring sucks. 

01:04:58
I don't care what anybody says. It's not fun like. It sounds like fun when you're younger, you know getting in a van with your friends and going on country, but when you're younger it sucks. It's only fun when you're younger, you know getting in a van with your friends and going country, but when you're younger it sucks. It's only fun if you've got cushy ass tour managers and everything's. You know we were talking about weezer earlier. I did a lot of shows with weezer. Those shows were fun because they had catering and everybody got their own dressing room and they had signs like spinal tap showing you where to go. You know that sounds pretty sweet but that's still the top. 

01:05:27
So that's the top, that's. And what you have to look forward to at that point is like every arena looks the same and that becomes your life. I've had musicians like call it groundhog day because every day is the same. Um, I don't know, man, I just there's no answer. Just find, find your what makes you happy. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:05:47
I think I've learned a lot. It is. It's nice to hear a mindset of someone who's been there. Um, and really jealous. That's all. Weezer follows your sleeper agent account. Do that on Instagram. I mean, that's a big deal to me. That's cool. So have you talked to rivers? 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:06:06
No, no, I mean, it was, I was, I was around, you know, I was orbiting around rivers, for you know, a few times and I heard I'm not one of those people that goes, hey, what's up, and he's not that guy, probably no, he's definitely not the guy all I ever really see him do was dribble soccer balls really yeah, so he would just take the space outside the stage and kind of dribble a soccer ball. Um scott shrined to the bass player. He was very, very talkative, cool. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:06:30
Yeah that's pretty sweet yeah, I don't. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:06:33
Also, I'm not one of those people that really wanted to meet my idols too much. Yeah, like wilco is one of my favorite bands of all time and there was there was a couple shows when we like radio festivals that we were on where we shared the stage and I would just be like, all right, I'm going to leave this area until I know they're no longer near me. I love Jeff Tweedy Like I've read all of his books and it's like I don't want to shatter this idea in my mind of Jeff Tweedy, but if I go and he like soft handshakes me, limp fists me, I'm going to be like like Fuck Jeff. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:07:04
Tweedy, you hear that, jeff, yeah. Like, I don't Like little Tweedy handshakes. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:07:12
He hits you there. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:07:12
Let me preserve Jeff Tweedy. I don't wanna talk to Jeff Tweedy. I wanna listen to Jeff Tweedy Sing beautiful songs. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:07:17
Yeah yeah, yankee Hotel Foxtrot was. My brother just Grew me up on that Very influential for me. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:07:23
To piggyback off of what tony said as far as the being successful and making money off what you do and what you love, just like I. I kind of broke down on our podcast last episode and regardless of if we make a cent from this like this has helped me as a person. I know it's funny and fun and games and we talk about you know sex with men but I mean it's comical, it's funny, we have a great time. 

01:07:55
This is my best friend and the most powerful part of it is the word of the week for me and how we talk about focus and trajectory and judgment and what was the big word today? Intention, Intention and just. There's so many powerful words and you don't take the time to think of those words until someone's like hey, let's talk about focus or let's talk about gratitude. What are you thankful for? And you don't set aside time to do those things because we're so busy working the nine to five or shuttling kids to practice or cooking dinner for the family or making sure I'm loving my wife. But for that hour that we sit down once a week on Sunday, it's so special to me and know I, I fucking love it. And if I don't make a penny from here, that alone is powerful for me, Like that is success to me. You know it's making me a better person. You know what I mean. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:08:55
I think of it as our agnostic Bible study. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:08:58
Yeah. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:08:58
So, uh, it's just a time to actually what's that word mean? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:09:03
Glad? That's not the word of the week. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:09:07
It's good Cause because you know, like we were talking, just introspection, something that you know, I think it separates people. So there's a lot of people in the world you just don't do enough introspection, um, to figure yourself out and uh, to like just learn about yourself and to know what motivates you, know, what your intentions are. Yeah, yeah, I think this is a great time for us to do that and, yeah, it's always something we've gained from it yeah, and we're 33. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:09:30
It's like I feel like I started to mature and you know, right around 30 for me, um, and really kind of this year is just really kind of like hit me upside the head and I don't know if it was, you know, my daughter's too. A lot of it kind of happened when she was born head, and I don't know if it was you know, my daughter's two. A lot of it kind of happened when she was born. Maybe she has something to do with that, but you know, I don't know what it is. I just feel like we're getting old man, I'm ready to go sit at the Waffle House, drink some coffee and talk about life. You know, and I've made so many mistakes through my life and, um, all the things that I kind of know now are built around those mistakes and I just feel like this is just made, making me a better person at the end of the day. I'm not perfect, but I'm far better this week than I was six months ago you know, I mean yeah, I would say, though you, you're just beginning. 

01:10:21
I mean talking about some wisdom coming up, you know, yeah oh yeah, this is just this is just like phase two okay sweet yeah bring it on. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:10:33
I was, yeah, I was kind of hoping we were going into retirement too, like I think we figured life out. Can we just kind of you know? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:10:39
you know, moving to the old folks home see my mom smoke a joint. But yeah, man, uh, thanks so much for coming down. Um, super excited to see your next album uh, come out. You know, just even talking about it's kind of getting me the oh jitters. Um, awesome with the video. I think it's super cool. Um, yeah, I'm excited for you and I'm excited to see more art and try to unlock those little easter eggs, yeah cool. I probably won't, because I'm not that smart clearly, but it's cool to think about. 

01:11:11
I'm going to be looking at it being like what the hell is he trying to tell me? 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:11:17
Yeah, and if you ever need anything, you're always welcome back on the show or anything like that. 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:11:22
You got anything else, my man. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:11:23
I think that's going to wrap it up for me Tony anything. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:11:28
Still got some signed copies of the LP on sale at noirandcolorcreativecom slash store. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:11:35
Nice, get them. Yeah, we'll put the link in there. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:11:37
Stream it on Spotify and Apple Music. 

Jordan Hunter
Host
01:11:39
Yeah, put that shit on silent and on the web. Tony Boy 2i, 2i. What's the decision behind that? Real quick, there's already a Tony Boy. Well, that's good enough for me Also. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:11:49
I mean, like you mentioned waves earlier, there's waves and there's all waves and there's churches. One of the deciding factors of band names for me in the MySpace era was doing myspacecom slash, my band name idea. Oh, it's already taken. So you know, yeah, now there's like everything's taken, so let's just okay yeah, weird way. This is true and also what? What can I add? That's extra. That won't change the phonetic sound of it, right? 

Daniel Lawson
Host
01:12:16
yeah, yeah, tony boy, look me up check it out, yeah yep, thank you. 

01:12:21
Thanks, guys. Uh, we'll see you next time. If you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoyed the music talk and the discussion, the word of the week, the comedy behind it, send it to somebody. That's all we ask. You know, we benefit from it individually and we would hope that you benefit from it as well. But, mostly important, just send it to somebody who needs a good laugh, you know, because we may not be that smart, but we're damn funny. Until next time, I'm Daniel, I smart, but we're damn funny. Until next time I'm Daniel, I'm Jordan and we're Daniel and. 

01:12:49
Jordan, we'll see you next time. Oh, and that's Tony, by the way. 

Tonyboyy
Guest
01:12:54
I won't be here next time.