Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of Tri-Cities. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Tri-Cities, Tennessee.
Is your business serving the residents of Tri-Cities? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpTri-Cities.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 28: From Garage Gigs to Studio Success: Matt Smile's Journey with Audioasis
What makes Matt Smile with Audioasis a good neighbor?
What does it take to transform from a band member recording demos at home to owning a full-service music production business? We’re thrilled to bring you Matt Smile from Audioasis, who shares his fascinating journey from garage gigs to running a multi-faceted studio that offers everything from recording sessions to videography. If you’ve ever wondered about the behind-the-scenes magic needed to elevate a musician's career, you’ll find Matt’s story both enlightening and inspiring.
But it’s not just about the business; we also get a glimpse into Matt’s life outside the studio. He talks about the delight of raising his two-month-old son, Jasper, and the adventures he undertakes with his wife. Matt sheds light on misconceptions in the recording industry, provides valuable tips for aspiring artists, and discusses how he balances his passion for music with his family life. Whether you’re an artist looking to break through or an arts enthusiast, this episode promises a wealth of insights and heartwarming moments. Tune in for a captivating conversation that’s sure to inspire.
To learn more about Audioasis go to:
Audioasis
423-383-7773
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.
Speaker 2:All right. Welcome everybody to the Good Neighbor Podcast. If you're like me and you're a fan of the arts, music, videography, a fan of any of that, you're in luck today because we've got a very special guest. It's my pleasure to introduce your neighbor, mr Matt Smile, with Audio Oasis. Welcome to the show, matt.
Speaker 3:Thank you, skip. It's an honor to be here, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, we're honored to have you. So I know I'm excited and I'm a musician, but I'm sure a lot of our listeners are just as excited to learn about you and your business. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about what you do?
Speaker 3:So we are a one stop shop for musicians. We offer recording sessions, we co-write songs, we mix and master on the spot, so you leave with the finished product the day of recording, assuming we finish the song. We do videography, we do photography, we help people design their websites, we help them strategize for their next release, we we basically do anything that we're able to do to help artists launch themselves to the next level.
Speaker 2:Wow that's impressive, man. How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:So I started like most producers. I was in a band, I recorded in all kinds of studios and it was just the best feeling in the world leaving the studio and hearing the song on the way home. Sometimes it was a rough mix, not ready to go, but we still loved it. Just the experience was incredible. And we got to the point to where we didn't want to spend an ungodly amount of money traveling to record every time we had an idea. So what I did was bought some entry-level gear and we started recording some demos at our house. Those demos ended up sounding better than some of the recordings we paid big money for. And next thing, you know, my friend or one of my friends says hey, I would love for you to record my band, which turns into hey, I heard you recorded this guy's band, Will you record my band? Which ended up being I have a full schedule and now I'm quitting my other job constantly recording a band.
Speaker 3:So it just kind of accidentally fell into place, but it felt so natural that I definitely wasn't going to stop the train.
Speaker 2:Wow, very cool, very, very cool. Are there any myths or misconceptions in the recording industry that you can think of?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, there's so many. One of the biggest ones that I can think of is I'm sure everyone's seen the movie Walk the Line with Johnny Cash. So it's like in the movie. They make it seem like you play a song on the spot and your band joins in and then next thing you know you're on the radio and you have a hit song. You're a star five minutes later. It's like back in the day it was a lot simpler to get a recording as, as from the engineer's perspective, Although musicianship was a lot higher, I feel like people would play things collectively, no-transcript, a song on the spot and kind of let it all flow. So I think one of the misconceptions is the time. You know it's something that really takes time to dial in that right sound, especially to keep up with the modern sounds and, you know, up to the standard of the of the mainstream artists. To get that sound it takes a lot of a long time a lot of time, a lot of work yes sir, um outside of work, what do you do for?
Speaker 3:fun. I right now I'm raising my son. That's the most fun thing that I've ever done. If I'm being honest, I just had-month, or he's two months old now. His name is Jasper. My wife, which is my business partner we just brought him into the world and just exploring with him is so fun. And before he came along, one of my favorite things to do is travel and just see the world. My wife and I would always travel to beautiful places and we would save our money and not spend it as much on things, but it's on experiences and with him we're taking baby steps and we plan on traveling a lot with him when he's old enough. But last weekend we went to a water park which was interesting. He didn't really do much, you know, he kind of sat around and drank some milk and, you know, had us change some diapers, but baby steps were working on it.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go. Oh yeah, trust me, when he's walking you're gonna go. Oh my gosh, stop. Slow down, slow down. So let's change gears. Can you describe a hardship in your life or a life challenge that you rose above and can now say because of it, you're better or stronger?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. There are so many times where I didn't see a way out and, first of all, I don't want to get too religious, but I do want to say I believe God has saved me many times along this journey. One in particular is when we opened this particular studio. We opened Audio Asus in 2019.
Speaker 3:When I met my wife, I had a studio that was in a residential neighborhood and we managed to get a lot of really good clientele and stay constantly booked, and my wife and I decided to partner on a new spot in downtown Bristol, which is the birthplace of country music. But the year and the month we decided was the same month we got married. Same year we got married 2019, september, and about four months later the pandemic was full swing. So you know, we put all of our life savings into getting married at this fancy resort and buying it. Well, we didn't buy yet. We were renting this storefront. We put everything we had into repurposing it. It was a nail salon, so we had to remodel the whole place, soundproof it, buy equipment. We had to just retrofit this place that looked like the inside of a Neapolitan ice cream box.
Speaker 3:It was pink, brown and yellow, it was ugly we had to make it look like a studio, but also a functional studio, and open our doors.
Speaker 3:And it took us a whole year of spending everything. So come september, when it's time to open, we finally get the ball rolling, we're getting a little bit of this debt paid off, and then the pandemic shuts everything down and at the time we weren't working with some big artists, we were mostly working with servers and you know know, just people, the everyday working man, because it was mostly a local based studio. So we, we went from having a bunch of clientele to having absolutely nothing. Every state street was like a ghost town and bills were due. The banks weren't saying, you know, don't worry about this month's payment. No, that they still wanted their money. And we'd maxed out our credit cards, taken out loans, spent all of our life savings, took a loan against our house. We'd done everything to make this happen and it looked like it was over.
Speaker 3:And then a rapper, a local rapper, hits me up and says hey, I really am in a pinch and I need to book 30 straight days. Is that possible? And I said, you know, I couldn't seem to death. So I said, hey, let me, uh, let me check and work some things out and I'll call you right back. So I'm just like doing a celebration dance and I call back and say I think I got it figured out, but I'm going to need 8,000 up front. And I did that. He brought me the cash. It saved us, got us out of that spot.
Speaker 3:We were in and then in that 30 days of working with this guy, I just kept booking dates further out and further out, slowly but surely, and ever since then we've not had a single problem staying constantly loaded for months at a time. So it's been.
Speaker 3:It's been crazy to see all, and that's just one of many blessings, one of many times um since we got started that you know, we've been saved Like there was a month where I lost my grandmother and my uncle, back to back, and I was here when it happened and I remember I'd been giving so many hours to the studio that I didn't get to spend nearly as much of their last year of life with him because I was putting everything I had into this. And as soon as I'm leaving my uncle's funeral I get a call from my buddy, dave egar. He's a cellist, an incredible human too. He said we've got an opportunity to work for Lewis Capaldi and he's one of my favorite artists and it's just like the timing of things happening, like losing them and then gaining this insanely amazing job.
Speaker 3:It obviously didn't fix the pain that I was going through, but it gave me something to look forward to in life. It gave me something to cling to in such a desperate time. That just made me push through a little further. And here we are. It's been years later. That album has gone four times platinum to date, the one we got to work on. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, and I once again, I believe God did that for us and it got us through that terrible chapter.
Speaker 3:Absolutely there's too many to tell you, to be honest, there's so many we would. We would take up the whole day just telling you all the times that we barely pushed through but somehow miraculously, miraculously came out better than we were going into it. So it's just incredible. We never stop. That's one thing, that's for sure. We might get hit with some obstacles, but we were too stubborn to stop.
Speaker 2:So there you go. That's a good quality. I started to say you were saved by rap, but I like God better. I like the grace of God and rap Absolutely yeah. So what's the one thing? If you could pick one thing that you would want our listeners to remember about Audio Oasis, what would that be?
Speaker 3:I think Audio Oasis is well. One of the things I love about Audio Oasis is that we're a place where people come together and we help each other. There's not competition here, it's just cooperation. We all want to see each other succeed. So I think, if you're listening right now, take this moment to build one of your friends up, to give them a little bit of encouragement, help them Share their stuff you know, if they're starting a business and you see them struggling, even if you can't buy their product or support their service, somehow share a post on Facebook, do something Like when our artists drop a song, like we have people that used to consider themselves competition like rap is one of the most common examples of a competitively driven market.
Speaker 3:But these rappers that are supposed to be competitors realize that. You know this hometown isn't. You know as big as our competition is going to get. First of all, our only competition is ourself, but I think that we're all stronger when we share each other's music, when we, you know, come to each other's shows, when we buy each other's products or do whatever we can. So I think the main thing is to do what our artists have done and just help each other. That's really. That's everything, in a nutshell, that I try to do here that's everything, in a nutshell, that I try to do here.
Speaker 3:Awesome, that's awesome man, Great philosophy dude. So how can our learners learn more about Audio Oasis? We have a website called audioasisonline. We also have Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. If you go to audioasisbristol, that's A-U-D-I-o-a-s-i-s. It's like audio and oasis, but they share the o. So audioasis bristol is our social media tags and our website has a list of our services and you know projects that we've worked on things like that and I also have a personal page, matt smile music and my wife has one, Kayla Samantha Smile, and she's our photographer and one of our cinematographers here at Audio Oasis and she helped me build this whole place. She's my partner, so we both are equally in this thing. I do most of the music production, but she still listens to all the tracks after and gives me her critique. So, yeah, we're very much involved so yeah, we're very much involved.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, matt you don't know how much I appreciate you taking time.
Speaker 2:I know time is precious and and uh appreciate you taking time to be on the show. I'm sure our listeners are just as thrilled to have you and uh. We wish you and audio oasis and your wife and your new baby all the best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, skip, and I really appreciate you doing what you're doing, so I will be happy to check out some more of your other shows. I listen to a couple, but I'm going to be diving deep into this podcast because I love what you're doing. So keep fighting the good fight, and thank you again for giving us this opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir. Thank you so much, matt. Nice to meet you, man. Absolutely, we'll have you back.
Speaker 3:Sounds like a plan.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.