Ep. 18: Insider Tips For Improving Your Stage Sound with Joey Vesuvius

[00:00:00] Stephen: Welcome back to secrets from the scene on today's episode. We have Joey Vesuvius. Joey works for the company wasted potential and has toured around the world as professional live sound engineer. He's mixed front of house for artists, such as JPEG mafia, Keshi, Mike stud, Danny Brown, emotional oranges, and more, and also at festivals like Coachella. He has a ton of knowledge and a lot of crazy tour stories. I'm excited to learn from him today and to pick his brain about all these experiences. Welcome Joey: Thank [00:01:00] you. Appreciate you, uh, having me out. I've been looking forward to it for, for quite a while. I'm glad we could finally make it work. Stephen: Me too, man. let's see. I think you're the first live sound engineer. So, this would be cool. I want to start with what you're up to today because you're working with some really cool artists. You just got off this tour with Keshi. why don't you start by kind of, talking a little bit about what you do, in broad terms and what you're up to now and what you're like looking forward to Joey: Sure. Yeah, so, I guess in layman's terms,Let's pretend that nobody has any idea what a front of house sound engineer does. let's say you go to see a show at XL Energy Center. Let's say Led Zeppelin's playing there, whomever. basically the sounds that are hitting your ears, in the way that they're hitting your ears, that's kind of my job. Kind of making everything in the moment blend together. making a cohesive sonic experience. that's basically what my, my job is, is to do. kind of lately this is an interesting time of year as we're kind of getting into the holidays and things as far as what I'm up to. not a lot. this is just kind of the slow time of year. it kind of [00:02:00] happens to everybody. Like nobody really tours over the holidays. and the new year, big tour season generally tends to be spring into late. mid fall. yeah, so like my last tour, which just wrapped up, I got back here to Minnesota on December 2nd. That's kind of probably going to be it for me, this year. Like I said, because it's a little bit slower and also because my wife and I are working on moving out to the Valley in LA, and kind of want to focus on that for a little bit, especially after a busy tour season, the wife needs some time with me as well. So Stephen: Yeah, I'm sure that balance is always a challenge. Joey: yeah. Stephen: So is Wasted Potential based out in California? Joey: yes it is. it started by, a good friend who's become kind of a good friend of mine over the last few years, was introduced to me by another Minnesota native, who's a lighting designer. it was started out in Los Angeles. they kind of base there. It's definitely a lot more of a tight knit group than I guess. You would think when looking at like the website or just kind of at the scale of [00:03:00] things that we tend to do. but it is relatively actually small. but yeah, they are also based out of LA. It's probably going to be the first time ever. I think that we'll have kind of all of our leads out there, whether that be myself with audio. lighting, video, and, you know, production management, things like that, all of our leads are going to kind of be centralized, which is going to be great because then we can spend less time on zoom calls and actually more time, in the office and like communicating with each other directly, which I'm really looking forward to. Stephen: So when you say leads, you know, all these other people that are running the other important parts of the show, how about a little explanation of what all those positions are that it takes to pull off a production like that? Because I think most people can pretty easily grasp like, yeah, you're the guy mixing the show. but there's a lot more to it to pull the whole show off besides the front of house. Joey: Right, so these things kind of really scale depending on obviously first and foremost the size of the venue, whether you're doing things from like a small, very small club level, like 200, 500 cap, [00:04:00] to like House of Blues size everywhere, basically like. 800 cap to like maybe 1500 to places where it's like a larger club space. For example, like, First Ave, which is kind of closer to 1500. those are kind of a lot of the places I've probably in total spent the most time in my career. just because, I'm still young myself. getting into those kind of bigger arenas is. Something that's over the last year or two recently started happening to me, which is great. so all these things kind of depend on that. how much budget is going towards the show, the scale of design, the instrumentation, whether or not it's a hip hop show, is there going to be a band, is there not going to be a Stephen: Mm hmm. Joey: so for example, I guess one of the artists that I most recently worked with, Keshi, I'll just talk about that, we were out in China, Obviously that's a pretty drastic change from touring in the states. so we tried to travel out there relatively light. But essentially what you're looking at for a scale show 10, 000 cap. So you have myself running front of house in the audio world. I have a tech, [00:05:00] so someone who kind of helps me get things set up is familiar with kind of my workflow and how I like those things to function, getting my desk set up, you know, basically all those little nitpicky things. Monitor engineer, the person responsible for making sure that the artists and the band members can hear everything appropriately. They also have their own tech. Tour manager, obviously responsible for just managing everything tour related, whether it be travel, artist needs, lodging, communicating with Live Nation, AEG, whoever's buying the show, production manager who kind of oversees, the entirety of the show and kind of has just a general knowledge, knows a little bit about audio, knows a little bit about lighting, a little bit about video, and they kind of just make sure everything is where it's supposed to be from like a broader, Stephen: Mm hmm. Joey: assistance for pretty much, you know, whoever may need them, things like that, photography, filmography, all of those types of things. but it also can be just boiled down to the very smallest portion of that. Like, I mean, [00:06:00] when I did this tour with JPEG and Danny Brown earlier this year, I mean, I was doing front of house monitors, production management. Playback and I designed with my counterpart in the lighting designer, pretty much the entire stage design. and we were doing, you know, club level stuff. So a lot of one to three K size rooms. So it can really vary a lot as far as budget, things like that. And, Yeah. What's great about the arena stuff is everything's very delegated, which is great. You know, I was out in China and I was like, wow, I show up, I plug in my flash drive, I load up my show file and I'm like, faders up. And I'm just, this is all I have to worry about, you know, which is great. while I do enjoy the production management, other stuff, that's just, you know, when you can just kind of be in the moment with it, it makes a huge difference, especially when you're on the road for a long time. So Stephen: Yeah. Well, besides, you touched on this, besides the front of the house mixing stuff, you also do, what were you saying it was, Joey: Stephen: production management, but the show design. Yeah. Talk about that. Joey: so, a lot of times, [00:07:00] especially during this time of year, like I said, because not a lot of people are tuing, but what a lot of people are doing is kind of getting geared up for next year's stuff. So, what comes with that is stage design. Meaning How an artist is going to kind of present themselves on whatever scale tour that they're doing. what lighting package are they going to use? How is it going to be kind of like arranged? Are there any set pieces? Things like that. like, you know, Taylor Swift's tour. Like, somebody designed how that was going to kind of flow. It's not just like, Taylor Swift's doing an arena tour. This is the arena tour thing that we use. Like, obviously not everybody uses the same stuff. There's a creative design aspect that goes along with it. so that's something I've kind of recently sort of dabbling in over the last year, year and a half. and the first one that I toured with was with JPEG and Danny. So kind of like just basically designing the lighting, the set pieces on the stage and how they physically appear to the audience. Stephen: Nice. Is it basically just the visual elements or is it also the, the whole [00:08:00] act in terms of like, Joey: No, it's generally not the whole act. It can scale to that. But in this instance, it wasn't that it was kind of just building the stage and the artist was kind of dictating how they were going to approach it. There are a lot of tours and artists that Like to kind of dabble in those theatrical elements where there's more like movements and like setting the scene and things like that. But in this instance, the one that I'm talking about specifically, it was just kind of like a static build with truss lighting and a video wall, you know, so it was, but yeah, Stephen: Getting the basic layout Joey: exactly. Stephen: Yeah. That's cool. let's kind of work backwards now to how you got to this stage. take us through where you started, education wise, maybe, and how the sort of journey has been through the ranks to get to the point where you're, you know, now starting to mix stadiums, Joey: um, like a, like a lot of people that are in the industry, I started off like, you know, as a musician, which, you know, [00:09:00] I still play myself and, Stephen: what do you play? Joey: play drums and keys, but I've also just been like writing music and producing for a long time. That's ultimately how I ended up getting into this as my brother, you know, had like Pro Tools, whatever, negative 10, you know, like. a decade ago and I just saw him dabbling with like an APC and like, you know, creating music that way. And that ultimately got me into like the engineering aspect of things and like mixing and things like that. so it was pretty clear that that's kind of what I wanted to pursue out of the gate. pretty much starting in middle school and then high school and things like that. So when I decided I was going to go to college, it was a pretty easy choice. Honestly, I thought I was going to be doing studio work because that's originally what I was aiming to do. but I kind of got thrown and fell into mixing live a lot. And I think a big reason for that was just the spontaneity. But basically I went to school, at Hennepin Technical Institute for Audio Production Engineering, and they had this articulation program, where if you go to [00:10:00] Mankato State after getting your, associates, you can go to Mankato State for two years and get your bachelor's in music industry. So it's basically you get an associate's and a bachelor's for four years of school. I don't even think they do that anymore, but at the time it seemed like a good idea because when I. finished up tech school at Hennepin Tech, I didn't really know what I wanted to do yet. And I didn't really like have like a clear path. And I was like, I'm just gonna keep going down this road. And like, this is just like kind of an easy, you know, string to pull at. So let's let's just go down there. And I'm glad I did. I mean, I also ultimately ended up meeting my future wife and a lot of like, my closest friends. Yeah, so then went down there, finished, finished that, music industry degree. And then that's where things definitely got confusing. and there wasn't really a clear path anymore. so at that point. What I kind of did was look for internships that made sense. And honestly, a lot of internships that didn't make sense. I thought I might want to get into music supervision even, [00:11:00] and like working in like film and things like that, and kind of helping build, audio and film and things like that. at the time there was not really any studio jobs that were going to work for me, or I just wasn't able to get into them. so I kept. searching and searching and I thought I was going to move out to LA and then I didn't move out to LA. And then ultimately, like we talked about a little bit before this, I fell into getting my internship at ElectroVoice as a loudspeaker engineer and like tester. So basically working in the anechoic chamber, taking frequency response tests of upcoming, releases in their lineup, stress testing, things like that. So a lot of like technical work. That kind of put me back up here in the city with my wife, Sam. And then I was there for probably about a year and a half. throughout that time, though, I wasn't really making great money, obviously, as you can assume that being an internship, I was searching for something else to do. And so my dad actually was the one who suggested that I kind of start doing stage handwork. So then I [00:12:00] started doing stage handwork, working everywhere from Mystic Lake Casino to random corporate events at the convention center in downtown Minneapolis, and anything you could think of. And this was probably a few months I started doing this before we had the Superbowl, Stephen: Okay. Joey: was massive for, you know, events around the Twin Cities. corporate events all over the place and also like a lot of live events. So like, I forget what the, the place is called right off 94 there. It's I think I international market square. That's what it is. Yeah. Lionel Richie played there one night and, Migos played there the next night, and I was working there as a stagehand. And that's where, for the first time, who's now the lighting designer, the lead lighting designer at Wasted, I met my good friend Zach. And he was working for Allied Productions and Sales, which is based out of Mendota Heights. Stephen: So Allied Production is where you were doing your stage handwork through, Joey: They were, they were contracting people [00:13:00] that, or like, the guy that I worked for, who was basically like a stagehand management company, if you will. so they were kind of subcontracted through him. Stephen: Got it. Joey: Yeah, so that's ultimately where I met Zach and kind of got a feel for Allied Productions and I was like, I should apply to work for them. So then I did. And it timed out great because they weren't going to let me intern at EV anymore because I was You know, interning there for like a year and a half, and they were all very great, but ultimately at the end of the day, I did not have an electrical engineering degree. So it was like, you know, kind of a requirement, even though I was able to hold my own there, I suppose, to an extent. but yeah, ended up getting the job at Allied Productions, as a production coordinator. what that means, I really still don't fully understand. it was kind of, I feel like, just a job title slapped onto us. But we pretty much did anything and everything you could think of live event related like we ended up getting the contract at the armory When that first opened up as a live venue, so we spent a lot of time there A [00:14:00] lot of the production stuff that went on at the state fair things like that blah blah blah, right? so six months later Zach my good friend decides to leave because he's got a good idea about how he's going to get into the touring industry and kind of built some connections with some other friends that he has and we have ended up quitting and started going, private and eventually ended up moving out to LA. And I was like, well, I want to get into touring. And then six months after that, COVID hit then the world came back and then I got on touring and then I was pretty much doing that full time and then about a year and a half ago, I came on as the Wasted Audio Lead and now I kind of manage all the staff, audio related and kind of keep all that together. So, that was kind of a long winded explanation as far as how things came up, but Stephen: No, I think that's, I think it's helpful for people to hear that, you know, that there is sometimes there's just no predictable path. You just sort of jump in, take the next best thing you're offered. That's in front of [00:15:00] you. Make your connections, be a good employee, you know, take advantage of the people that are in your network and keep moving. Joey: Cause, yeah, I mean, you put all those things together, none of it really makes sense. I mean, honestly, Stephen: But that's the Joey: Yeah, it is. And, I mean, I think the main thing to take away from that, and I'm still trying to keep this in the back of my mind, now as, like, I'm, you know, getting older, Is to just pick something and just keep going. You know, I feel like it gets really enticing and easy to kind of just like stop. you know, I think it's good that people do because if everybody just kept going then there wouldn't be really any work for me. So, Yeah, just keeping going, whatever it is, like, if anything that's related to it, I mean, just expanding your network is just so massive. I saw one of your Instagram clips of the podcast recently, and you talked about it. It was just like, there are thousands of engineers that are objectively better. at what I do. But the main thing is just like, building the [00:16:00] connections with people being someone that can hang, you know, in whatever capacity that may mean, you know, sitting down having a beer relating not being, you know, an insane person to her. I mean, you're literally you're literally sharing a 50 by 10 house with 12 other people for months at a time like you can't, You just, you have to be able to hang and be chill, and kind of manage the mental ups and downs that is touring life, because it can be, a little bit crazy. Mostly crazy. Stephen: The amount of times I hear that from people on the road, especially with how important it is that the people you're traveling with are going to be easy to travel with. Cause if you have any sort of issue, it's a disqualifier immediately. and I just think that point is, is always worth, reemphasizing, which is the music industry. there's probably not. Any job in it that's going to be merit based, meaning you got the highest score in this, you know, like that's [00:17:00] never going to happen. You, so, you know, for people that are going to music school and all that kind of stuff, it's like, sure, do well at what you're doing there. Study hard. But at the same time, it doesn't matter at all. No, one cares. And Joey: asking, like, when I, when I'm going to work for an artist, nobody's asking for what my, like, educational history is. Stephen: yeah, Joey: they're not, they're not, they're not asking me that. They're asking me, who have I mixed for? That's it. Make a list. And like, the years that you did that. I don't need to see my bachelors. You know? Stephen: Show me your work. Show me your, Joey: What have you done lately? That's literally it. Stephen: you know, when it comes to applying for a studio or applying for a production company, or any of the other miscellaneous audio jobs, a lot of times like, yeah, resume. Sure. But on that resume, first and foremost is what is your portfolio look like period. And if you don't have anything on there, that's what you have to work at first. You have to take whatever's in front of you, get that down first. So if you start, like you did, starting local, this [00:18:00] is what I can do. I can be a stagehand at these local venues. And then I can get to the next step and the next step. You didn't go out and apply to mixed stadiums right away. It doesn't work Joey: No. No, and to be honest, I feel like this mentality is kind of, Shifting away, which is ultimately a positive thing, but, you know, when I was, however many years ago, when I was trying to kind of get more into the tech side and step away from the stagehand stuff, a lot of the quote unquote, like, veterans that were in the industry at the time are these, you know, older guys, you know, in their 50s or whatever. A lot of them are great, but there's also this kind of stigma. And this, like, snootiness that I experienced heavily with these guys. Like, against stagehands specifically. asking questions to, like, techs was just, like, a massive inconvenience for them. and I always hated that. you know, especially now that I'm in a position on, you know, on the other side of that coin. I'm trying to tell people [00:19:00] not to do like, I'll lose my mind on, like, text that I see acting that way towards stagehands because it's just like, you know, you do get some interesting characters. I'm not going to deny you that like that's 100 percent factual. There are some interesting characters. I mean, it's an interesting job. but I think ultimately just treating them with respect is so massive because they're literally doing all the All the stuff that you don't want to do. That's literally all the Like, I don't want to lift up my 200 pound console and put it on the desk. I'm gonna give four stagehands to do it. But I'm gonna say please. You know, like, I know it's not fun. So, I don't know. Stephen: Well, good on you for, you know, chain working to change that culture because clearly that's only for the benefit of Joey: Yeah. Stephen: and obviously there's times where, you know, if you are a stagehand or you're an intern somewhere or whatever, you have to be smart about. There are times that, you know, asking questions is not helpful, like, because maybe Joey: Reading the room. Stephen: yeah, reading the room, don't, don't distract people or take up time when there isn't time to be given. But, but obviously, if you are a [00:20:00] stagehand or an intern, that's what you're there to do is to learn as much as possible. So you should be asking questions. And it's just frustrating when Joey: It's really a talent to be asking them in like a right way, too. I think. You know, like approaching people as to not annoy them. Like, you want to be as in their face without annoying them as possible. And I think that just applies to any sort of job that you're applying for. When I started, when I tried to work for Allied Productions, like, I was on my email maybe once every third day, like, hitting them back, hitting them back, hitting them back, every time. If you're just sending in, like, resumes to places and then just, like, putting your hands up, like, oh, I didn't get it, yeah, no doubt you didn't get it. I believe you. you should be doing literally as much as you can without them wanting to file a restraining order against you if you want to work there. Sometimes it won't work. The places where it does work, You're going to really excel there because that's going to be something that they ultimately value. That tenacity, showing up at their office like, Hey, I sent in my resume two weeks ago. Just thought I'd come in and introduce myself in person. I bet you seven times out of 10, they will give you [00:21:00] an interview right there on the spot. I would not doubt it. Stephen: I agree. I love that you bring that up because it's so, so true. And I can think of the amount of times I get internship requests that just, they just get lost because I'm busy. And I got a lot of emails coming in that are, that are more pressing at the moment. A day goes by two days, lost it. Forgot about it. Wanted to respond. Just forgot. How many of them email me more than once? Like less than 5 Joey: That's crazy. Stephen: Yeah. But when you do get that, it's always like, Okay, they want this. I forgot about that. Oh Joey: guy, what's his resume again? You know, whatever, yeah, it's massive. Stephen: I just think that so many people have the attitude that It kind of goes back to that merit based thing, like, well, they probably looked at it and I probably wasn't qualified. Like everybody, it's just because of how we school, you know, like how we grew up thinking of like everybody gets a grade and it's ranked and stuff. And it's just not, that's not how the world works, especially in the audio industry. Joey: No. such an [00:22:00] outdated way to approach validating somebody, you know? Stephen: I think that it's still relevant in certain industries. Joey: yes, specifically with what we do for a living, absolutely not. I mean, it literally starts For what we were just talking about, if you follow up with your email, that means more to me, probably than 95 percent of the stuff that you have on your resume. The fact that you followed up, it's like, Oh, you're persistent. You actually care about this. Like, like we've been saying, it's like, that's massive. Stephen: Yeah, and bonus points if they actually know something about what they're applying Joey: I mean, that's great. That's great. Stephen: it's not just a follow up, like automated, here's this again. It's like, Hey, I know what your company does. This is why I want to work there. And so on. Like all of that shows like, okay, this person really cares and wants to be Joey: they've done their research. You know, they've been on the website, you know, maybe. Yeah, exactly. Listen to the mixes, you know, whatever. Yeah. A hundred percent. I Stephen: Well, it sounds like that's worked for you then in terms of your. Joey: [00:23:00] Yeah, maybe a little bit to a fault sometimes, just because, I mean, my tenacity I think has gotten me in trouble sometimes, but, Stephen: I bet you come on the, on the positive side of that equation Joey: I, yeah, thankfully, I mean, I'm 29 I feel like I'm just starting to kind of find a balance on like kind of where to live with that. But that took, you know, 10 years of experimenting with how to like connect with people in a very general way, and then deciding how much I need to calibrate my innate personality in order for them to put up with me being around to where they still want to pay me and like enjoy me being around like, you know, there is a very strong bit of that at play, for sure. Stephen: I think that's common with, you know, younger, hungry you know, classic kind of interns that are just like way too gung ho and it's like, all right, chill out, man, we're going to, Joey: All right. Yeah, Stephen: but ultimately I'd still take that over the opposite of just not being,not being tenacious enough, not, not looking to [00:24:00] help, not looking to, to really pursue an opportunity to, do work that's not being asked for. Joey: Because it's weird. It's weird what we decided to do for a living, like on both sides, you know, studio work and in the live, like there's no guarantee. That, you know, you're going to, myself, like, there's no guarantee I'm going to go on another tour ever again. And, you know, there's not necessarily even a guarantee, I mean, maybe you have some people on the books, I'm sure you do, but like, you know what I mean? Like, there's no guarantee that a new client's just going to come walking through the door. Like, this is, Stephen: You're absolutely right. Joey: ourselves, our product that we individually create is our work. Like, there's no middleman, you know? Stephen: Yes, no one's gonna do it for you. You have to show up, and you have to be the one who's gonna go and create that work, create the demand for yourself. Joey: 100%. Stephen: Cool. Well, I want to circle back to your earlier days doing, doing live sound, because I think it would be really relevant for the local musicians listening here. I want to pick your [00:25:00] brain about local shows, meaning small shows, right? And you've got one sound guy that does everything right. cause I know you've done some of those shows in the past. Let's talk about what makes a show successful from the local sound engineer perspective, local band perspective. maybe let's start with, what are the things that go wrong the most? Joey: I think the biggest one and I feel like most people can probably attest to this is just, an improper mix on stage. Now what I mean by that is, let's say you're rocking a four piece band, you know, drums, bass, keys, guitar, and your wedge mix is just completely all over the place. The best way to negate those types of things is invest in your craft, especially in those smaller venues where there's only one sound guy and he can't hear what it sounds like up on stage. And obviously when you introduce 200 water bags into the room, when it's showtime, the acoustics of the space could change completely. So I think as early and [00:26:00] as quickly as you can get yourself used to utilizing in ear monitors, the better off that you are going to be because Those are not going to change based on what kind of room you were in. Obviously you're going to be on different wedges, different, make different model, you know, different everything from venue to venue. But if you show up with your in ears, you can replicate the same show, no matter where you are. Which is massive, especially in those early stages when you're trying to like You know, gain ahead of steam and also be comfortable on stage. Like if you're having to deal with stuff that's completely out of your control, like a terrible monitor mix, that's infuriating. And let's be honest, like I wasn't always like good at mixing. Like, you know, it takes, I mean, we're not even good. Like, I was adequate, but like, there's just, you learn, time goes by, you learn how to kind of like approach things. But a lot of people who are mixing in these venues, not all of them, but a lot of them are. Starting out or just not as experienced, or maybe they do it as a hobby. So they don't have that innate knowledge about how to approach these types of [00:27:00] things. So if you can show up with like a rack mounted mixer that already has your ear mixes programmed into it, massive, massive difference, because that can be the same show everywhere. Stephen: Agreed. Obviously that is what you aim for. I think, um,obviously if you have any monitors, that is ideal, but it's, it's going to be out of reach for a lot of people. And even when you do, there's a huge learning curve at getting those right. And how do they integrate with a really small system? Can they even integrate? Do they have that? Can they hook us up into this board? Can they not? So let's start with just the basics, you know, like, okay, there's no in ears. You're showing up. I have some thoughts on this, but I'm kind of curious what you think, but maybe I'll Joey: yeah, yeah, yeah. Stephen: I think the number one thing is first, you gotta be on time. You gotta be on time to sound check because that happens a lot. People aren't make sure you give yourself enough time to park, to figure that out, to figure out load in all that kind of stuff. If it's a new venue, especially because you might have a long haul [00:28:00] in and you just got to make sure you give yourself enough time so you can go through a full sound check. And then the second thing I think is be respectful no matter what. Sometimes people are grumpy. That's just going to be the case. You have to ignore it. And keep doing your thing, be respectful, and try to be as efficient as you can with your time. Don't waste time. Don't waste your sound engineer's time. I think those things go without saying. But I think one of the main tricks is and this can happen starting in your rehearsal spaces, is that you should set up to try to have your own stage mix working well enough. Now obviously this doesn't count towards vocals. Your amps. And drums, that stage sound should be as balanced as you can, and you can do things, especially when you're playing in smaller clubs where maybe you don't have that many wedges, you can tip up, set your amp farther away from you, tip it up towards your head so you can actually hear what's going on. The amount of times that people have amps cranked, like [00:29:00] so bright or so dark one way or another, because it's pointed at their feet, they can't actually hear what it Joey: sounds like. the amps and all these smaller venue are, they're gonna be louder than the actual pa. Stephen: Yeah, Joey: put your amp in front of you. Turn it around and face it towards the, towards yourself. use it as a monitor. Use it as a Stephen: Yeah, when I was playing more locally in past years, that was kind of a, a big thing for us. It was like how we set up was so important. We had amp stands, we, you know, everybody could angle an amp back towards the center of the stage so that our stage sound was balanced with no monitors on. Now again, it doesn't count for vocals, but what that allowed us to do was that the guitarist had his amp pointed at his head. He had plenty of guitar. He didn't have to put it in his wedge. And it was also pointed back towards the rest of the band, so we had quite a Joey: You could calibrate Stephen: We could calibrate, but it allowed them to be more vocal heavy in the wedges, which was good for everybody. Joey: Right. Because what's gonna win a guitar or a mic put up to a [00:30:00] guitar amp or a, or vocals trying to push that through Wedges. Yeah. I mean, the guitar's gonna win every single time. Stephen: And then the other big thing is keep your stage volume as low as you can. People have this stuff cranked up so much that it's louder than the actual PA system. And there's so many times I've seen where people. You know, can you turn this down and some, I have the mic off. You have to turn your amp down. Like you guys have to all play quieter because it's just too loud for this room. That's what it comes down to. You have to, I know it feels good to play really, really loud, but if you're struggling with being able to hear accurately on stage, a big piece of that is turn everybody Joey: compromises have to be made, always. Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've encountered that situation, wanting their stage volume. I mean, beyond belief, and especially when it comes to like, a lot of hip hop acts, when they're like a little bit, more naive, and they're not on in ears. you're trying to pump vocals through wedges hotter than you're pumping [00:31:00] tracks through. And they want the tracks blaring. So you're talking about something that's not going to produce any feedback versus something that is going to produce feedback. And it's just, it's, it's just a losing battle. Like it's, you're not going to win that. Stephen: So let's talk about the communication of soundcheck because I feel like if you're a band, you're being respectful, you know, how do you communicate to your sound engineer or how much should you communicate with your sound engineer during soundcheck So basically ask those kind of questions of like, Hey, do you need us to change anything up here? Because I feel like that conversation doesn't happen that often on a local level, you know, where the sound engineer says, all right, play, you play done next, you know, and maybe, and maybe that's all they needed. But sometimes I wonder if, man, if there was just a little bit more communication back and forth. Joey: I mean, the sound engineer may not always push for this because they don't care. Or. for whatever reason especially in these smaller spaces like you really don't know what you're gonna get but for me if I were, you know, a drummer showing up, you know, local space, whatever, start from the top of the input [00:32:00] list, work my way all the way down, you know, the band kick, snare, tom one, two, three, overheads, left, right, do the whole kit. All right, here we go. Bass, guitar. guitar, keys, check vocals. Alright, everybody's hearing it in their wedges. Everybody hears the stuff. Alright, now what do you want? Drummer, what do you want to hear? I just want, kick and snare and a little bit of overheads. Great, here's that. And then you go around to each individual person. What do they want? And then you say, okay. play one of your songs for about 30 seconds and tell me how this feels. Like a chorus, hopefully like a heavier part of a song or like, you know, vocal heavy, kind of a lot of, yeah. see how this feels. Play it back. Get feedback from every single person. Good. Were you good? Were you good? Were you good? No. Change this. Okay. Done. Always go back and have, the band play a portion of one of their songs. Because if you're just going one by one and then you're just done, like, that's completely pointless. they're not hearing what it sounds when they're all playing together. You're just ballparking a mix, which is great, but you're not taking the final step to put the period at the end of the sentence. So, [00:33:00] yeah, I mean, that's the big thing. And if the engineer's not proposing that, then you propose it. Like, hey, let's play like 30 seconds of this song and we'll tell you if we want anything changed. Easy. Stephen: Absolutely. Joey: And it doesn't take long. And it saves a lot of headache during the show. Stephen: Yeah. Do you think it's worthwhile letting the band sort of propose the question of like, Hey, do you, would it make your life easier if we change something up here? Joey: Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, that would throw me off guard, like, in a good way, you know, Stephen: Cause I could imagine like, yeah, actually, if you could make that guitar amp less bright, cause I've got it cranked way down or, or that turn that bass amp down a ways because I Joey: if you could flat flatten out your EQ on your guitar a little bit, it's just a little bit harsh and I'm having to do a whole lot up here. Stephen: I think it's worth trying. Joey: I would agree. Stephen: No, no harm Joey: not at all. And if they respond in a, whatever bitter way, I mean, that's ultimately their problem. And you're doing your best, but you, you, you want to, you want to do your best to present your arts to [00:34:00] people, because nobody else is gonna care about it more than you do. Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you just have to put up with whatever's there, do your best, put on a good performance, and move on. Everybody does. You're gonna play those kind of shows. It's just a part of it. Sometimes the venues The sound engineer might be the most talented sound engineer, but they're working with a half broken PA in a bad room. Joey: Yeah, they got three bands of EQ on each channel and they're trying to mix, you know, a five piece band with a horn or something. I don't know. a lot of the time the club owners or the venue owners just want you to go up there and make noise for the people who are drinking ultimately, you know? So, yeah, and I mean, that, that kind of brings me back to like investing in your craft. Obviously I realized that there's not a lot of, a lot of money in the, in the earlier stages or even a lot of the middle stages, you know? but whatever. Money you do have I think it's really important to kind of have a band fund You know if this is something that you're taking seriously and like you want to pursue this as a group Having a band fund I think is massive because you know [00:35:00] 50 bucks for a show here 100 bucks for a show there I mean that adds up. Okay now we can like even buy some stuff to make our lives easier on stage and have some consistency from show to show other than the actual like band equipment that we're carrying. Now maybe we can even have our own little like Little mixer like I said earlier for our in ear monitors or like even our stage monitors Just like a little rack that stuff means massive buying your own vocal mic buying your own Live drum mics and a little Pelican having those little things just bring elements of consistency to your performance I think Stephen: Absolutely. Joey: obviously, you know different for everybody how they kind of function with that and where the money is available Stephen: I think this whole breakdown of sort of the local level sound check is great. Let's just kind of recap it a little bit for everybody. I think it starts with how you practice in your rehearsals. Practice as quietly as you can. Your amps probably don't need to be as loud as they are. the next thing you do, if you, if you're not [00:36:00] already doing this, point your amps up towards your head, you'll actually hear what's coming out of it. they're very directional. If it's pointed at your feet. It's going to sound darker. So once you point it up at your ears, you're going to realize what the tone actually is. So therefore you can get a more balanced tone on stage, which means a more balanced tone coming to the engineer, which will help. Plus it'll be your monitor. You probably won't need any in your monitors if it's pointed at your head. It might mean that you need to, you know, set it a little bit further back in the stage. That's okay. Especially bass amps, the further away they are, the more you're actually going to hear them. try to rehearse at a quieter level than you currently are Joey: Drummers, buy hot rods. Stephen: Well, I mean, not necessarily for a live show, but yeah. Joey: no, no. No, but for the rehearsal space, you know? That way when you show up in a live venue and you have a proper, or hopefully a proper PA, and you pull your sticks out. You're just going to be that more elated and your, and your ears are going to be more adjusted to that lower volume anyway. So you're not going to need it as loud giving [00:37:00] the engineer an easier canvas to present to the audience and ultimately, you know, your music and, and such. Stephen: Yeah. And then, you know, show up on time, give yourself plenty of time to load in, factor that into how early you need to be and always, always be respectful no matter what somebody else is going through. You can't let that affect you. Just be respectful and try to communicate clearly. Going as far to even asking once you get through soundcheck, is there anything we can do to make your mix better? you might get an answer that could change the show for you guys because you don't know what the audience is hearing always. And then I guess the last piece of the of the recap is once you've gone individually through everybody's got their inputs, everything's working, make sure you play at least a bit of a full song where everybody's playing, everybody sings a moment so everything can get checked so everybody can understand what their monitor mix feels like and you can make adjustments before you get off stage. Joey: your I's cross your T's. Yep. Stephen: cause [00:38:00] you, you know, we, we both know that once a room fills up, the room can sound entirely different. So is there something that you can kind of predict in terms of changing? So if you're a band and it's, you know, Hey, this is going to sound different because it's going to be full of people. Therefore I probably want more of, Joey: yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is depending on the space, this is all very like subjective to the space, but, I think a big one that would affect them on stage is less about wanting more of this or that. But like, let's say in soundcheck, you're hearing a lot of slapback. You're doing a show and there's a concrete floor in front of you and there's no people in it. If you're expecting there to be, you know, call it a sold out or relatively full club space, you can expect that on stage a lot of that is going to go away. Because what's happening is that PA is slapping up against that concrete, hitting a brick wall somewhere, and coming back and hitting you in the ears. Well, that whole area is going to be filled up by essentially water, during showtime, and all that slapback that you're hearing is going to [00:39:00] go away. It's not something that can be just eliminated by the sound engineer, but something to keep in mind, depending on the space that you're in. especially with those high frequencies, obviously, Humans tend to soak up a lot of those high frequencies quite, quite well. that, and if you're the kind of person who's passionate about audio, but maybe not that educated or experienced, and you're like, you know, a lead singer or something, and you want to listen to how the band sounds, you're walking around out in front and you're hearing some like boominess, maybe a little bit of high mid harshness, things like that. A lot of the time, depending on the space, those things will get cleaned up, not solved, but cleaned up, just by having. people fill the space. it's like taking a hall reverb and turning it into a room reverb. it's not going to be that boomy. It's going to be like, more like this, you know, like it's just that transition. Maybe that's a poor explanation, but it's, you know, sonic physics for Stephen: Yeah. one last thing before we move on from this topic. Is there common Kind of everyday miscommunications that you see the most from bands of like, yeah, they're saying this, but they actually mean [00:40:00] this, anything that you would point out to people that's like, here's some just basic things that would be helpful to communicate to your sound engineer. Joey: yeah, don't use adjectives that you, have subjective explanations for. For example, I want it to be brighter. What that means to you and what that means to me is completely different. Whatever you're perceiving as bright versus whatever they may be perceiving as bright could be completely different. be as specific as possible. I would like to hear more top end of the guitar. Excellent. We know what that sounds like. It's all your high end frequencies. Let's boost that up a little bit. Fair enough. Let's get a little bit more of that in your monitors. don't put anything in your wedges that you don't need. It is not just a crapshoot. if you think you might not need it, you don't need it. Only put essential things in there. Stephen: For instance, in small clubs, you rarely need drums. Joey: Exactly. He's right there, and you're in like, a 50 by 20 space. Like, the only thing that I would put in the drummer's ears is honestly, if he, if they have like a nice little drum sub there, I'd give [00:41:00] him a little kick so he can feel the low end of the kick. That's great. I like that. I'm a drummer myself, so maybe that's a little bit biased. But anything that you think you may not need, like I said, you don't need it. You're eliminating stage noise by not having it in there, It's just unnecessary noise. It's just unnecessary noise. So yeah, I think that's a big thing. Stephen: it goes into that problem of making your overall stage volume so loud that you can hear nothing. It just becomes chaos. Joey: a lot of guys too. They want their they want they want it to sound on stage like it does out front Well, That's not really how this works. Stephen: Actually, talk about that a little bit. Joey: I mean, especially on a large scale, you're talking about a line array PA, you know, where you got like multi million dollar PA with, you know, 30 dual 18 inch subs out front. And then you're sitting on stage with your like 15 inch woofer wedges and you want it to sound like it does out front. I'm like. I, no, what do you turn the PA around? Like, what do you, this [00:42:00] is, this is not how this works. I can't tell you how many times I've had artists go out front and be like, I love how it sounds out here. I'm like, well, thank you very much. Can we make it sound like that on stage? No, that's just not how that works. Stephen: I love that you're bringing that up, actually, because I think that that's just a good perspective, like a good mindset that people have to remember that, no, it doesn't sound the same on stage. It's not the point. It can't. They're different speakers, different spaces, the whole thing. So you have to just think about your mixes. What do I need to perform my best? And then everything else should get cut. Joey: Yeah, exactly. Stephen: Cool. I have enjoyed this conversation very much, and before we wrap it up, I think everyone would be disappointed if you didn't tell me, uh, tell us all some really great, tour stories. Joey: want to hear the one the one the one from okay. Okay. All right. so I was on tour with an artist. This would have been spring 2022 North America tour doing some cool spots anywhere from like 2, 000 to [00:43:00] 3, 000 cap rooms. but we were on our way to Boston. Tour bus, everybody was, shared the same tour bus, just one trailer and a box truck with all of our production. we're on our way to Boston, and often when you're touring, you know, depending on routing and how things kind of work, you'll have an off day in a city that you're not even performing in. That gives the driver kind of a chance to sleep because having them, you know, drive for like 19 hours is insane and just not how things work. Yes. exactly. not in all countries though, fun fact. but anyway, yeah. so we get to Buffalo, New York. which because of this, I don't think I'll, I don't think I really need to go to Buffalo. I don't think really anybody needs to go to Buffalo. The Sabres are cool. We like the Buffalo Sabres, but nobody really needs to go to Buffalo. we're chilling on our bus. You know, it's, buses are 12 bunks traditionally. And then there's kind of a lounge towards the front and, usually a lounge in the back. But in this case, because we were all on one bus, the artist had the back lounge converted to like a bedroom, which is very common. So, we're all relaxing on the bus, probably about two in the morning, we're on crazy schedules because, you know, touring. all of a [00:44:00] sudden, what I found out later to be my, one of the merch guys, runs on the bus and says, Everybody needs to get the bleep off the bluh, off the, off the blus, off the bus, Stephen: You can swear. Joey: Okay, everybody needs to get the fuck off the bus! So we're all like, whoa, what's going on? I'm on my, I'm on FaceTime with my wife, you know, everybody's in like their underwear, and we're sprinting off the bus now, and Right before we get up out of bed, we, we feel a wham. We're like, what the heck? I mean, this is a long ass tour bus and they're big and bulky. And this thing is swaying. We're like, what the fuck is going on here? So we sprint off all grown men, probably 13 grown ass men running off the bus and our underwear in the middle of Buffalo and probably. April, so it's still pretty chilly and we're pretty far up north freezing our asses off. We turn around and look on the other side of the bus and there is a 18 wheeler semi truck sitting right in the side of our bus, sitting in a parking lot that just rammed into it. We're like, what, what is going on? We had an 18 wheeler, let me say that again, an [00:45:00] 18 wheeler rammed into the side of our tour bus. Now what we found out was that, the lady who stole this 18 Wheeler, again, 18 Wheeler, from like a milk factory or milk packaging plant or something as they were unloading it. She steals it and rams it in the side of our bus because she thought we were like surveillance or like hacking into people's phones and things. So, apparently the security guard, he told us this, our security guy, said that he had had a conversation with her before she did this. She's like, what are you guys doing? You look like you're hacking into things and blah, blah, just, you know, a bunch of outlandish, obviously not true things. She leaves. Security guard, I'm not even really sure what he thought of it. I wouldn't really thought anything of it. Maybe he was a little more concerned than the rest of us because he did continue to stay outside. But yeah, so she decided I'm gonna go steal this milk, this like 18 wheeler milk truck you know, the back doors are flapping open. She would have hit us a lot [00:46:00] harder if, one, she didn't have to navigate through this parking lot, and two, if these, like, you know, those cement parking lot divider things weren't there, because what happened was, is, she hit the bump right before she rammed into our bus, which was parked on the street, and landed down, snapped the driveshaft, and kind of continued to roll. Stephen: Whoa. Joey: So I think she probably hit us at about like 10 to 15 miles per hour, which is, you know, pretty good But we're in a big old tour bus So I think there's it's not like we're sitting in a honda civic or something But if she if she was going like 30 40, I mean semi truck she hit us right in the sleeping quarters, too, which is you know but anyway, so we didn't really know if the bus was going to be drivable. We had to do like, and we have to be in Boston the next day. The bus is about to take off maybe about two hours, you know, had to be in Boston the next day. We're having to talk, talk to cops. They ended up getting her, you know, our security guard pulled a gun on her and was like, you know, blah, blah, blah, crazy. Meanwhile, my wife is sitting on FaceTime still [00:47:00] open on the bus and I'm standing outside of my underwear, freezing my ass off with 13 other grown ass men. Yeah, so then we didn't know if the bus was going to be drivable, it looked like it got hit by like a meteor because there's this big dent in the side of it, like massive dent, 18 wheeler sized dent, believe it or not. and so yeah, we had to book flights right then and there because we didn't know if the bus was going to be drivable and essential crew, so like myself, the artist, tour manager, lighting designer, all got on a plane. And we flew to Boston and then did a Boston show. The bus ended up being okay, so the bus showed up that night. And then we had a show in New York City the next day. And then we had a show back in Boston. So there was just not a lot of sleep that happened over that three in a row show. but yeah, that was definitely a, that was definitely a trip. I haven't really had anything happen like that before. I mean, I don't think I really ever will. I don't think anyone really has. It's so, so weird. But we can laugh about it now. It was, you know, we all kind of share that. if you don't mind, I did kind of have something that I wanted to bring up. Um,and that [00:48:00] just kind of, involves this, over glorification of the industry, in respects to, in respect to like touring and things like that. Stephen: Okay. Joey: I think this kind of pertains a little bit more towards techs, or people who are like, kind of just starting to get into stage handwork. I have a lot of people in my life who have kind of articulated to me, it's like, oh wow, your job's so cool, your job's so cool. And don't get me wrong, I 1000 percent agree with you, I wouldn't change it for the world. Stephen: Mm hmm. Joey: But it seems like people only see what I like to call the Instagram version of what I do. Stephen: Right. Joey: And what I mean by that is like, you're seeing the highlights. You're seeing the cool moments that I was able to capture, or the cool moments that other people were able to capture that I was in, that I was tagged in on my Instagram feed or whatever. And don't get me wrong, there are very cool Moments and, you know, memories that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. But a very important thing to understand is you are not home for months at a time. [00:49:00] So, you know, whatever job you may do now, you go home at the end of the day. we don't go home, I'm not complaining. I'm just, I'm trying to articulate that it does take a very unique. First and foremost, partner, if you have a significant other, to put up with that kind of insanity, and also a very unique personality to Deal with that chaotic environment on a day to day basis, you know, and like I've talked about you're sharing a bus often with Anywhere between 6 to 12 other people on off days you get hotels, you know, but you're doing 20 shows and 30 days So that's 10 days in a hotel where you can maybe unwind if you're not sharing a room with somebody Stephen: Mm hmm. Joey: it's important to not glorify the situation more cause I'm not just, we're not just out there partying every night, while it is nice that you can like, you know, have a beer at front of house while you're mixing your show. But you know, when you go to a show and then you leave, well, [00:50:00] before I'm there for probably about eight to 10 hours and after I'm there for probably about four to six hours. So what is an hour and a half for you is about 18 hours for me. or us, rather. But yeah, if you're looking to get into the industry, specifically if you're on the tech side, because, you know, artists can just do whatever they want. That's just the beauty of being in the artist, more power to them, but understand that it is not all fun and games. There is, unique stress that I think accompanies it that people are not prepared for, and it does weed out a lot of people very, very quickly. Stephen: That on top of you also don't know when the next gig is gonna be. Joey: 100%. You are the business. You and your product and your ability to hang or not hang. Yep. It's massive stuff to keep in mind if you want to be successful. And just network your ass off. Stephen: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. And I think that's also kind of leads me to the, the last question I've been asking everybody is, you know, what, what is the secret that you would like to share with everybody it can be [00:51:00] specific to, to live audio, or it could just be music in general or really life in general, if there's something that you want to kind of impart on, on listeners, knowing that a lot of these listeners are people in local bands and that sort of thing, any tips or any advice. Joey: Yeah, I think, um, self talk. I think that's a massive one. I think having a quality self talk, and I'll kind of elaborate on that further, is I Is the difference between whatever you consider making it and not. And that goes for both, you know, musicians and engineers. For both of us, in live, in live production specifically, everything is being consumed as it's presented in the moment. specifically with audio and the musicians on stage. You play a G chord on your guitar, they hear it right there. That's it. That just happened. You fuck up a G chord, they hear it right there. That just happened. I forget to unmute something for a particular song. It's right now. it's live, it's live. Like, this is not pre recorded, you know, So, [00:52:00] what that ends up kind of doing is, you're wearing your product on your sleeve. In each and every given moment, constantly when you're doing a performance Stephen: Mm Joey: and that can come with a lot of self doubt. And if you've made it far enough where you have like texts and like you're doing. Relatively large scale shows. You know what I'm talking about. honestly, this applies even more to the people who are doing shows in smaller spaces, like getting down on yourself. Oh, I played so bad tonight. Oh, I, my mix sounded like shit tonight. I didn't do it in the way I wanted to. That's fine. Those are good feelings to have. I think those are really, really important feelings to have, but what's even more important is getting to the next phase and the next phase is reflection. Okay. Why? Why didn't I like what I did there? Especially if this is like, you're doing the same set list, you know, for multiple nights or whatever, for the foreseeable future, if it's a tour, whatever, what can I fix? [00:53:00] How can I make sure that doesn't happen again? Like for me personally, from like an audio perspective, it's like, damn it. What's his face? His guitar solo wasn't where I want it to be tonight. We were in a bigger space and his guitar patch was a little bit washy. I'm going to ask him to pull back on the reverb a little bit so I can bring out some more. enunciation, I guess, on his guitar. Because we're doing big rooms, or whatever. Reflect. be hard on yourself. But don't let it last too long, because you can spiral down. Stephen: Mm. Joey: So, having that self talk where you're like Damn, that was shitty. Why was it shitty? It's not gonna be shitty next time. the way I handle it might be kind of unhealthy to be honest with you. So I think like it's important to take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. But like, for me, how I tend to approach this is I'm really, really hard on myself with these types of things, like really hard. And, to be honest with you, oftentimes when I'm the hardest on myself is when people think that it sounded the best, which doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Maybe it's because I'm asking how it sounded more during those moments, [00:54:00] probably. ultimately you have to think that you're the best at what you're doing. And I'm not saying that in like an egotistical way, and I'm not even saying that you share that with other people. This all comes back to the self talk that I've been just trying to reiterate. I'm here for a reason, I'm the best, nobody can mix this better than I can. Even if it's not true, it doesn't matter. Stephen: Okay, yeah. I would just say that in a slightly different way. It's just no one can mix it like you. Joey: Yeah, yeah, that's probably better. Probably the more healthy way that I was talking Stephen: You know? Because that is true. That your unique perspective is worthy. And how you do it, or perform it, whether you're the engineer or the artist, it's what you bring. And people are there for you. You're there because you were hired, Joey: Finding the confidence in those moments where you feel like you did a terrible job is really, really difficult sometimes. Stephen: it's a balance. But I think you, I think the way you laid it out makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of artists on both sides of the mic, or both sides of the stage. Have those kind of [00:55:00] thoughts often of, Hey, this didn't go the way I wanted it to go. And that can range in severity from I'm worthless. I'm terrible at this to just. Oh, I need to fix that. what matters is that It's okay to be honest with yourself and have critiques. You just got to work to the solution. If you're not working towards, okay, now, what am I going to do about it? Then it's just damaging. Then you're just spiraling. It's nothing. Everything has to be a lesson. If you can frame everything as what can I learn from this? You'll be okay. Everything can be a lesson, If you stop looking for the lesson, then it will just be damaging, and it will just waste your time and energy. Joey: Yep, exactly. And ultimately, damage your career if you can't find your, you know, way out of it to the next step. Stephen: Sure. Joey: I can promise you this. The big thing that, every artist that I've worked with. have in common is That they've all dealt with this every engineer that I've worked with Every lighting designer every tour manager [00:56:00] every artist. That is one thing all of us share We have those moments where it was just like oh Gosh, I just want to forget that show So, you know, it kind of puts you on an even playing field, in that respect. And it's kind of humbling, too, at the same time, to know that, like, you know, the person you're trying to make sound good on stage can have shitty nights, too, and it's not just always, you know. Yeah, Stephen: Yeah, everyone does. Cause, even if you're at the top of your game, like you're one of the most sought after, live engineers. You're just recalibrating how you feel about yourself, right? Now your own expectations are that much higher. you know, a few episodes ago we had Lane Peterson on, who's the drummer for Dillinger 4, and he made a really cool point. It was just like. Listen, train wrecks happen, like, on stage, they happen. like, the worst possible thing you can do is like, sulk, and let everyone know that that was such a disaster, because it's like, so much, people don't even notice. They don't notice. It's [00:57:00] more of your own thing. Joey: a thing that I like to say, from like a technical perspective on that it's, you know, because technology, right? In one way or another, more than likely things are bound to fail at some point on a tour or whatever. And whatever that may be, like an XLR cable goes bad, a microphone goes bad mid show, whatever. But it's not about whether or not something goes wrong, because it probably will. It's about what you do when it does. And your ability to kind of recover or pivot in those situations is massive. ultimately what I do for a living during the show is troubleshoot. Why does that sound bad? Cause this, okay. You know, I mean, that's the simplest way to put it. We're just glorified troubleshooters. Stephen: Yeah. How do we make the best of what we've got? And I think artists are dealing with that all the time, all the time. How do we make this the best show we can given these circumstances? And if you can have some poise and keep a positive attitude and just think of what can be learned for next [00:58:00] time, you'll be all right. Joey: Yeah. Stephen: Well, thanks so much for being here, man. Soul Conversation's been great. If people wanted to reach out or connect with you, is there, do you want to give them any, like, socials or Joey: Yeah. I just changed it cause I used to have it as at audio files are hot, but trying to articulate that to people in loud clubs is 10 tends to be challenging. So it's just at Joey dot Vesuvius if, you have any questions or want to reach out on Instagram. Stephen: I'll put that link in our show notes. And anything else that you want to send people to? Joey: no, I mean, that's pretty much all I got. Yeah. Stephen: Thanks again, man. I really appreciate it. And, I wish you the best on the next tour. And we'll have to do this again. Joey: Yeah, yearly recap maybe. I'll see if I can get some better stories for next Stephen: Well, hopefully not too much better than that one. Joey: No more milk trucks. Stephen: All right, man, until next time. Joey: Thank you. [00:59:00]