While We Wait at 808 Hosted by Man-Man & Ft. Interviews with Guests Okwa Andrews & JR Worldwide

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welcome to town hall meeting with the mayor i am your host eugene manman roberts and today we're going to talk about um something pretty cool because it's near and dear to my heart we're going to have a couple conversations with some really dope backline texts uh and uh this subject is really dear to me because i started in this industry as a drum tech and back on tech and stage manager um and you know it's it's a pretty important job and those who have a tech like you know like that's very something special that you have and someone special uh so we're gonna jump right into it with a person that grew up in my city philadelphia we grew up together technically and we used to jam out and we ended up going on a tour together and it's pretty amazing so give it up for my homeboy okwa

my good brother oakland what's going on man what's going on you know i won't complain you shouldn't hold on before we start let's see if we can figure this out how long have we known each other jeez um i date back

we was like 15 16. i date back to 16 that i like distinctively remember

but it could have been before that nah bro it was like yeah 15 14 ish 14 ish man 14. we won't count then we won't count the years yeah but that wasn't my time 14 years young here we go all right so people that was over 20 years anyway my bro it's amazing that we're here and we're like just what we love to do

so first of all man people i don't think you guys understand i don't think they really understand we used to like shed on drums back in the day like philly boys like that's just we did and then um fast forward and you didn't work with everybody in the game i don't work with a couple of people and i think it's pretty cool so let's talk about the transition of deciding to take the tech approach

um as far as working because like you know me i started as a tech as well but i knew where my mind was when i jumped in but like getting people like more of that approach of where your mind was um when i first uh let's be clear i did i wasn't i was a drummer first i was i was playing drums first um when i was um asked to tech i didn't know that was a job at all um you know my mentor one of my biggest mentors um or a couple of my biggest mentors always uh told me to experiment when i was playing drums experiment you know different sounds you know different scenarios what does that sound like why do you use this snare here why do you use these toms why are they deep watching this and they were like experiment so i would experiment rack systems i would just experiment because i'm like why do people use this stuff um and then and you know long behold i'm at nyu and i get a phone call like hey we have an opportunity for you and here we are and um i got my first techie i guess with john legend because you got promoted or whatever and um it was like okay cool to the drums make sure it's right every time no problem because this is what it's supposed to be right right right i mean we grew up as like anyway though so yeah we're geeking out so um but i mean i think as far as the approach to answer the question um i think that for being a tech for the job standpoint i think um it's just understanding the musician that you're working with right for me because i was a musician i was always able to meet them where they're at whether they're more skilled um than me or not didn't matter it's the same service right the team service you know so yeah um so what was your biggest

challenge or biggest thing like to adapt

to when i first started techie

all right it'll be a two-part when you first started and then like fast forward to maybe just a few years ago okay so for me uh the the adjustment when i first came into the game as a tech was dealing with personalities it wasn't a skill thing more than it was dealing with personalities thanks um because around that time it was so interesting yes i mean and now that we were all young we were we were young we were young like the band was young you know um but uh am i gonna be raw okay go ahead cool um but yeah don't no one really i mean it's a it's a business this is a business it's not you know uh it's all fun to you know when you're at church and you're playing conferences and things that nature or small bar gigs you know you play you do what you do get your money keep it going we're here it's it's a business and it's all about personalities how you fit in also that that's that's judged reality they don't want to talk about it but that's what it is so for me that was the biggest adjustment so much that after after john i left and went back to playing drums professionally for a good like a good while and then and then i had then i made a transition again say okay you know what i really do want the detecting part because i think this is more interesting to me than than actually playing but uh yeah it's all about the personality in any any no matter how you slice it whether it's being a musician or whether it's being a production manager whether it doesn't really matter right it's about personalities it's about blending it's about being able to come together with other people from different walks of life and and find a place and and and bring it together so it's a happy marriage right right right right so so fast forward what was the thing you had to adapt to once you once you left you came back and then now once you come back you're working on these way bigger gigs way bigger tours you're talking stadiums arenas like you know this mecca of touring so what was that next

level up mentality of adaptation

uh i think

this is gonna sound really uh generic but i think that um it's the same principles the only difference is um uh

it's just a lot more corporate you know it was a lot it's a lot more culturally political more political more yeah thank you for political it's more political than anything um and again it's it's about being thorough at what you do and understanding um i think it's preparation meeting opportunity it's it's knowing what you need to know about the business that you're in right and then then being on point so when the opportunity comes knowing how to navigate it in a way that's respectful and professional right right right yeah um i don't know if that answers the question though but that's no no no no that made sense that made sense because like you said in the beginning we were young so like there wer there were rules but it wasn't rules it was just like yo pack the truck let's just get out yeah you know there's no rhyme or reason yeah right yeah so then you fast forward to you know years later it's just like oh i gotta label my cases oh okay we have to pack the truck a certain way okay we i have i have help or okay i need to do this or like oh i can't oh i get to contact the company so we can order stuff for my band members oh okay like you know what i'm saying like or like the crew calls like your hotel you know it's just a lot of different things um so it's cool because this is the first time i'm like getting to do like the tech talk thing which is pretty cool and like i know being a tech a big part of it is like you have to make things work no matter what right so what was your biggest like damn like macgyver moment like you couldn't believe it worked we made it through the show and we was good

okay uh i'll the most recent one i could think of right if i say i know it's more than one like oh there's so many it is so ugly give me two because you got a good memory that's one thing about you whatever i'm an elephant whatever also so you know um brock if people don't know i'm i'm drunk check for brian frasier more on the last justin timberlake tour man of the woods tour incredible moment um for me um incredible point in my life so uh me me and brian had we're like we have a partnership i his tech but it's like a partnership but when we went through the motions of building the space the black spaceship coupe we talked about it we we make suggestions what do you like you like your stuff low cool i think this you like this color you like this wood you like this particular thing i think this what do you think whatever fast forward um one of the major things that was uh a point of contention on a lot of his other tours is that having backup gear so as a drummer um you think okay well i want a backup snare right cool so i have this dw edge uh you know maple six by 13. that's my main snare i want a hip hop gig i want a backup so i'm gonna have a six amp by 14 brass right absolutely not you know you have an actual double you want to have a double so so we had we we got backups and um i didn't really think it was necessary but i was like you know what it makes sense let's just do it because i've never had an issue with any of that kind of thing especially because you know when it comes to like uh snare wires specifically i use wire like like these wire snare wires so they they never come loose i mean not going never yeah nothing ever happens whatever um we did over a hundred plus days over the course of an 18-month period and um the snare never ever had an issue

ever until the second before the last show that never had an issue ever it's a second before last show for whatever reason the lug um the lug cracked or the um the throw off the what side of it cracked and um he's just like yo i'll have snares well i noticed it before he did because he's hit he was playing triggers and i'm like yo is that your snare is your snare on i even at that point i ran to the top of the deck because he's above me and uh swapped out snares and if it weren't for that particular situation having that snare ready to go tuned exactly like it would be for that scenario with a trigger on it

we would i would have been um in flames let's just say that much so people i i know somebody that messed up damn in the middle of a song that messed up on the tech job but they had the bass drum they had the extra bass drum pedal on the loading dock and that next to the drum kit

really can't say no names but that was a dumbest thing i've ever seen in my life as a tech you know i mean i'm no shade i'm just i don't whatever that's just don't do it it was one of the homies that we vouched for to get on the gig he do right he do right so let's talk tech how long well not how long what's something that exists now that you either always a wanted it to or b you just just it just blew you away that it could do that td50 i'm going to give you that and i and we ain't just saying it because of the where we at right now

what was your like it got me so oh man there's so many things

uh so you mean the reasons why that got me right yeah yeah yeah um the td 50 was it it won in my respects because of the individuals that i was working for it's all about the client um brian frasier moore at the time was using a z8 um from guys i don't know that's akai z8 yeah it's a sampler it's pretty much the npc uh i believe i want to say 3000 or 8000 don't quote me on that whatever but it's just a module um and

and he was using that as as a sampler or as a controller for that bad or the sampler sorry and then he had a controller and the controller was a drum cap and the reason they used the drum cad is because it had nine trigger inputs oh up until that point there was no one doing that um you have the roland spsx pad the only issue was the bit rate was different and it would and it had had two uh two outs that split into four but these were literally nine individual um so this particular machine not only did it did it cater to that particular aspect and it had the bit rate but you could load your own sounds in there and and you could do all the editing on the spot in the machine if you needed to right um i mean that's just that's just that's just a number of there's that's a beginning start to why it made sense it was reliable when you made your changes it was saved automatically you turn the machine off back on it's exactly where it needs to be um what's crazy is

that back in the day when rasheed first started with john and we like started getting into like triggering and stuff like that we figured out a backdoor way to do exactly what the td50 did oh tell me in 2010 this was 2009-ish we took a td20

i love that module by the way td20 know how many triggers that has yep we took that and we made it to a laptop with main stage and had battery kits midi so no whatever trigger you plugged into that td20 you hit it the cell light up drag the sound boom that's what we was doing in 2009 yo that's funny that's funny a little fun fact so i love battery and it's like the best kept secret um so there was a point where i played for chris at michelle and i was told before that i got the gig or if i took on the responsibility as i was asked for it they were like you need to learn these 36 songs in the next in the next pretty much day 24 hours and then not only do you learn the songs but all the transitions with those 36 songs and you know all the trigger sounds and place all of them where did you be so i had to do all that at the same time running sounds i didn't really know right battery saved my life this is before sp x it was just spds that's what i'm saying to the power book for all our mac guys out here uh i i did i hooked up to the power book and um it went from there it was it was a wrap mid i mean you know that that mayo cable before the mile cable came out it was something the usb to uh it's about the usb to midi yeah committee yes yeah yeah so we had interfaces oh yeah okay gotcha got you got your midi to the interface so we had separate outs for the drum suit so we had to eat keg and we just had like four electronic outs on the drums like we weren't really thinking far enough ahead to have backups like a and b's like you know what i'm saying just doing work you know i was in the budget neither but that's another discussion right right so the crazy thing is we had we had that laptop in the playback laptop on my riser and they were like together you know i'm saying all the interfaces was in one rack so the kick and snare of the electronic drums came out of the like the drum loop channels of playback too so it was like all coming from the same area like it was just like and it was solid and it worked like it never didn't work except for like one time and that was because somebody kicked the mic you know how you got a midi midi coupler and you extend too many cables somebody kicked a coupler was it outside that we was pretty solid like we had to worry about whenever it was a new song we just dragged the waves into the battery like it was so you know so so when people was like yeah

i'm not discrediting what you saying about the td 50 but the fact that now you can do that in that td 50 or the tm6 pro 2 like you could do it in there too but like before that was it we had to let you know that was when me and irv was like doing all this stuff so and herb was out with us like it was pretty crazy but yeah we had we had a tv 20 we had a td20 we midi that joined the battery and and that gave us the that gave us what we needed honestly

yeah but i think i think that one of the biggest and that's that's totally genius i think one of the biggest um uh hurdles that the td 50 got us over was the restart if something crashes for whatever reason you have to restart the computer that takes a moment that td50 you can literally count count to two three maybe if that you're up and running even if it's asking you the the normal stuff actually when it first starts you know about busting high it's still ready to go no matter what and it just goes i think that's that's been that's been like a new rolling thing overall like the startup time mm-hmm and pretty much all the newer products is like like that new jupiter is like the new phantom is way faster than a lot of other keyboards we know but i'm not saying any names because yeah i'm here for that chronos take a year oh lord oh i can't listen bro anyway

hey i just said it it is i won't perform nor deny

but we both to the polls that is so funny hey yo remember that time was on tour and we was having a water fight and i pour ice water in your bunk for some strange reason i can't i can't confirm no deny i feel like i remember that i poured ice water in under you under your cover and poor ice water and you were really highly upset with me because because you had a long day at work that day back in the day when the band and crew rolled the same bus like that was a thing like that when you forgot what it meant to be a tech oh i'm sorry my bad i'm sorry my bad wrong wrong wrong conversation wrong day wrong no no no no go no no no i mean i mean wetting someone's bump that had a long day with ice in water listen you got a good memory i got a good memory too but i remember the reasons because we were having a water fight and i thought it was over i walked out of the venue and you threw a bucket of water on me and that was midday and i was tight about it and i got you back later that day i was the prankster though yo i got was you i don't know if you was always no you were not with when biscuit yo cause biscuits so i recorded him in his bunk and played it in the pa doing sound check one day you know he was so mad hey i'm sorry i'm telling stories yo he was so tight he was so excited so anyway fast forward he's an artist you got to be careful what you say now yeah i know we got like we got a song together we did a song for an artist that's about to come out too that's about to be crazy um who's about to say yo so tell everybody about your photography bro because i'm i'm like i'm just everywhere you everywhere i forgot about it like you're just everywhere so go there because you're having the dope shots and you and you and you still do your job talk about multitasking because some people be wanting to have their phones out and cameras out and they'd be dropping the ball on the real reason they there which is to be attacked or something i think first of all before you put your phone you pull your phone out you got to make sure that um management knows my fact not even knows make sure make sure you ask them is this okay a musician's a different discussion but like well ask the musicians too because i know a lot sometimes there'd be texts that like they just be like yo bro took some photos of you bro i didn't even care like bro i'm trying to learn this show bro like i'm not trying to care about no pictures or no videos but like that's not like my keyboard is not even the right height why are you giving me pictures can you fix that first shout out to this young woman named michaela she is the manager for she's a sister and manager for charlie puth she gave me my big break on uh show photography um she saw some of my work while i was on tour with um charlie poof and she gave me a chance to take pictures of the show she was like handle it can you handle because i at that that time i was only me um but the way the show was running i had spurts where i could take pictures or whatever and um on stage and um she looked out and um she allowed me to do that and it opened up a door and it was a whirlwind after that um but as far as photography i do photography and videography i've done some uh some stuff with brian frasier more promo stuff with him um i've done some stuff with national geographic also um and i do all types of photography modeling and mainly modeling photography subject photography specifically and um uh product photography because i've done stuff with roland too you took you took some um some of those dope phantom shots on the mary j tour right yeah we had those we had them we had got a chance to to demo them out before they actually hit the store it was amazing yeah thank you good too yeah so so well yeah it was a it was a blessing to be able to have that in the in the

man i like that new jupiter is a beast like i i've grown to love it um you know me i'm a gear here i'm a keyboard here so it's like i'm i'm able to have multiple ways of pulling up not in some way the same sounds and in some ways similar enough but different enough you know especially like you know me the xp80 the jv series like that's my thing you know what i'm saying so to be able to pull up the 5080 and the new jupiter to be able to bring up all the jv xp80 sounds and the new phantom and i got everything in the cloud it's like i'm winning like you know what i'm saying but i can't get away from using the real keyboard so like it's something about the output yeah the cards it's the cards right now like just even in my little temporary setup xp80 over here juno 60 i got my x7 i got a 106.

i got my v synth and then i got a phantom 7 gt or just the regular one gt

gt when you're done with that i'm never i'll never be spammed i i got that v synth i got that v synth when i was playing with kanye because it because of the vocal ordering nice can you i don't know if you have any pictures um um anymore but could you explain a little bit i'm gonna flip the questions for you for a second can you explain your setup for kanye because you were using guitar pills and all can you talk about that a little bit all right so that was phase one okay that was phase one so the glow-in-the-dark tour when we did it when it came when we did it we started in in europe and the stage was all plexi see-through right so i had a 4x8 riser that was see-through so i had a rack built with my v synth rack and i had it facing up so i could see it through my feet right and i've controlled it with with the x7 and then i had an x6 for talkbox and um the pedals was because i was i was just being really experimental with my sounds and it was kind of hard like to have the front of house person do exactly every effect and what i was trying to do so my actual talkbox mic was going through the pedal board so i was doing my own delays reverbs octaves distortions just like with certain stuff so i when i wasn't doing actual words i would be doing lines or like holding out notes and stuff and then having effects and just kind of playing it like another type of instrument so yeah that's why i had pedals it was pretty cool i feel like i feel like on the kanye uh

that that particular when you did that particularly i feel like pulled a different side of you out it pulled recorded it pulled it pulled a lot out of you you know it did because that was the first time i was like i i was fresh off of like teddy riley land like you know what i'm saying i was playing keys and i was teching with teddy and i i started playing talk box and vote quarter and then we started playing with like i started using it with t wise a little bit so then adam had hit me like yo

kanye want a band and he wants somebody to play talk box and vote quarter like also teddy he said like teddy raleigh so i thought they saw he hit me like i know you working teddy you gotta be the next best thing so they hired me and i thought i was only coming to play three songs like i just knew i was doing good life stronger and and workout playing i just knew those was the only three songs i needed to learn i learned them three songs i was like oh you sound great i want you to do all the hooks on every song i'm like oh my god so that's when i started playing like on all the other songs like you know um and it was cool because it was the first time well not the first time i had kind of started mentally grasping being able to adapt to each gig with my roles i was playing so john i'm playing mains i'm programming then then guy in black street i'm playing aux all arcs never like no mains then i'll go to kanye i'm only playing talkbox in vote quarter then i go to j cole i'm playing mainly synth bass in a little bit of ox stuff you know what i'm saying then i'll go to snoop and then i'm playing mains like you know what i'm saying then i go to wiz i'm playing maze then i come back to john and i'm doing everything you know what i'm saying so it's just you know then i'll go to a ro james then it's a little bit of well i'm playing vocal just on that song then i'm playing bass on it and it just kind of started making me start perform differently like you know like especially if it's a track a gig that's like track heavy and you know it's programming it's like i'm putting the bass in the track and have fun playing vocoder or i'm gonna put you know everything in the track and i'm gonna play the bass live because the bass needs to be free enough to move with the drummer or you know it was just like making me like approach shows differently you know what i'm saying some people they they play one lane like this is all they have you know and you know us growing up like especially in philly like there's so many so many musicians it's like what's gonna separate us what's gonna make us different like people don't probably people probably wouldn't believe me but like i was using stacks in two thousand and

one two like you know what i'm saying like he was definitely was you know what i'm saying everybody should be like yo you got all them broke drones i'm like oh man that john sounds like a clap to me and like i used to have the small little stack and i had like a 16-inch stack with a 14-inch a custom uh crash on top i know i still have those stacks so like that's how i know exactly i'll still record with some of them to this day so it's like all the stacks and like we've been doing that we've been using top boxes and vote quarters and we was using programming with t-wise in two thousand five six when we was doing all them cafes and i had a uh i had my 1680 my vsc running playback out of there yeah when the ipod came out well we was using an ipod first panning the click to the left and right music to the right we started that way then when i got a 1880 or 1680 um that's when we started using multiple outs for the track and we was like we was doing that when we was teenagers man so like to be doing it now it's just like this is just second nature for us you know what i'm saying so i think we we we kind of prepared ourselves like you know what i mean like we didn't know what text was then we you know by no text we just we just knew we just knew we were working we used to take our gear apart to make it work because we was breaking it but you know what i'm saying so we we kind of got trained into being techs you know so for those who are out there that like are trying to be techs or wondering how we became texas kind of like you gotta like you said like you it's trial and error you gotta figure it out like you gotta figure out what makes you different we can make the person you working for sound better play better look better um you know because like even me as a musician like i love a tech that's smarter than me like to be totally honest like shout out to thunder yo i probably got the best tech there he been in the game for almost probably 40 years like you know what i'm saying but he's always like hey you know we can do this for real when that come out like because he be on it like while we rehearse and we doing all that if you're tech not researching a playing bnc for your rig or not trying to figure out like like i said what's gonna make it better and easier on you like yo man i figure out a certain way to put the drum thrown so it makes you back better like anything like that you know what i'm saying like those are the things you have to do what's what's your piece of advice i think it's just again a mind is centered around one doing your research two making sure that you understand who are the players of the game you can't be in a game and not know who's who's hiring that's like me saying i'm a pharmacist and go you know but i don't know who's i'm going to wawa to get a job no like you got to innovate so it's the same thing knowing the players um and i think that's also understanding the personalities you know understanding who you are knowing who you are and knowing what you bring to the table so you can fit into that puzzle in a way that's it's it's conducive for everybody period those three things will take you so so we'll take you far for sure because there's a lot of individuals that get in the game that don't know who they are um don't know how to navigate personalities that's huge and don't want to do research i don't know how many people that call me don't get it twisted i love to help and i love to be i'm an asset to anybody that calls me let me let me say it for you let me say it for you you're about to go with that let me say it for you i love you but can you check youtube or like do the 101 things first before you call me because if you call me about midi and you just didn't plug the n to the out and you did it backwards don't like no if you didn't restart your computer first and go through that process don't call me yet but go ahead what you got to say i'll

add there's nothing wrong i mean i do classes on this all the time i've been doing it all through quarantine like you know uh where i just sit down i break down how how i make my templates like in like like my play because i do playback also so like what what's your what's your template for um ableton when you do playback i have like six to eight of them like you know like i have the same thing for my td50 i have templates for everything so it's just like my thing is going back to the tech thing if you're gonna come into the game and you want help there's nothing wrong with um asking for help but you should be able to tell me what you've done so far um i can't get this triggered to work right i went through this a b c and d and these are the things i thought i should be going through am i missing something question mark a lot of individuals don't want to do the research a lot of individuals do not want to read a manual and i'm telling you you're not less of a tech for reading a manual the td 50 when i first got it i had to read the manual so i could understand how it works considering it's a new it's a new product all together the drum cat i had to do the same thing did i have some kind of help along the way with the with the drum cat not really uh i mean i did with initially with brian and stuff like that but other than that i had to learn on my own i had to read the manual i had to figure it out i had to call chris oxen i had to reach out to the people that would be able to help me but before i did it i had to have some kind of foundation um exhausted you exhausted all your options yes yes and i'm gonna say there's one thing just to wrap this up um i don't like to you know uh i don't need to get into my personal business like this but i'll be keeping 100 to see you know like what mike's not struggle but my journey was when i got called cause i was working a little bit but when i got called to sub in for um jr um uh j his name is james newkirk but they call him jr in um in the industry he's he's doing viva currently right now but he was the original drum tech for justin timberlake before i came on and i think he was out with uh with bieber funny enough on the lat the tour before previous and um i got called to sub in initially and when i came in i think one of the biggest things that i learned um coming after individual like that is how much you just have to you have to do research so what did i do on my first gig i took my first check for my first gig it was like a i think it was a lot in london it was like four days i took my first check and what did i do i bought a z8 and i bought a cat

i spent my whole check buying the gear that i know i was going to use for the person i knew i was going to be subbing or subbing or that we was going to be working for that case bfm for the next couple months because it was an investment why because i wanted to be better at it when i got my td50 i bought it fresh my own money from tour money from gig money yes i was broke for a little bit but i learned every aspect of it and because of that i am where i am i'm not i mean i mean i'm not no rocket science i mean i'm a scientist or whatever but i think that if you put in the work and you and you prepare that preparation like you said in investment you use that opportunity it's done you're in there and it's it's about personality after that personality and being lovable and being able to flow and be able to adjust and and check your attitude and be self-critical and that's a whole nother therapy um session but we'll talk about that later we're gonna get ready to get out of here because i think we should do a tech panel we're gonna do a tech panel i think we're gonna do i want to do that let me see if i talk there's some good ones out here and yeah when we get off this you gotta give me some more i want i got i gotta do a couple more of these like

yeah um who else um what's my man name that worked with stevie um lamar lamar mitchell oh wow yeah yeah yeah oh geez we gonna bring them all on out here but all right okay my brother thank you so much for your time man thanks for chopping it up definitely man you one of those individuals we could keep going on and on about stories and sharing at three in the morning getting my head chopped off and then without custom snares you know saying we have a customs yeah i still got the uh antifreeze green joe yeah with the black hardware yeah yeah still got that no no no no the one with the lime green hardware no the snare was lime green and the hardware was black exactly you're talking about then i had to fire one with the gold with the gold nah nah that's okay the one with the lime green the lime green one you get the hydraulic head on it before people were using hydraulic heads on snares man i might i might have been doing some things before people but i'm not going for that another therapy session again another therapy session all right y'all we are out of here we are here good people all right holla hopefully you guys learned something about the importance of being a tech and just how you just approach it mentally because it's not your normal everyday job or road job it's really particular and um next person up we kind of mentioned his greatness in uh our conversation myself in oakwood um man this guy's a trailblazer he he's come up with some of the most craziest setups especially on the drum side of things for brian fraser moore devin stix taylor i mean and many more so give it up for my homeboy big homie mr jr worldwide jr new kirk hey

uh my big bro everybody's big um you know i said jr worldwide what's up with you brother what's up man how you doing man i'm good i'm uh i've been enjoying getting to check in on my folks doing this and you know see what everybody got going on like we all we all travel we work for this person work for that person but we always got our own thing going tonight that's right my focus is like what do we got going on personally so yeah you man we met a long time ago

but i i know one of our coolest times was when we was out with whiz together okay which was it was pretty cool what was your take on that because like you know that was a good time that was good times right there brother definitely yeah yeah we had a ball of people we had a ball but man so if you don't know you're perceived as one of the dopest techs and uh engineers like just possible so what was your thought process into it wanting to not only just do it but like make it your your business make it like your your source of like just revenue and just you know your mental space of what got you there yeah man this is uh it's what i really really wanted to do you know i really i really wanted to do it it was some other things that interest me but this is what i wanted to do this is where my heart was at so i was just willing to do whatever it took to do it you know and um i just did whatever i needed to do so for somebody to notice it like i really work hard you know so i just you know i just that was it was just in me you know i just really wanted to see you know um in that field you know yeah so what was like some of your most memorable moments like when you first dove into it what was the first thing you had to get acclimated to like what did you have to like just really you know what i mean like get used to because you know us growing up in church growing up in different areas and like you know around the way it's like we operate a certain way but crossing this professional side of it what were like some of the things you had to get accustomed to oh you just got being really been accountable you know um you got to be accountable because you you're away from home so ain't nobody gonna wake you up yeah you know ain't nobody gonna tell you to do your job you know so you just really gotta be accountable you know um so that that really that right there in itself was just you know that that takes it from the road to back home anything you know anything just a life theory you know just being accountable you know just being responsible so so i know some people know but i know and we're going to tell the world this is one of the dudes that came up with some of the dopest setups you've ever seen because like you like the the macgyver to make mr make it happen where it's like yo i really wish i could have an eight inch tom right here and you'd be like oh all right no i don't worry about it i'll cut this like make that make that happen so what's your theory on it i mean i know the theory is like to make make the artist or the musician you're working for comfortable but what's your thought process when it's like when you're coming up with some of the designs of the setups man it was just being young you know watching on like the magazines and stuff that used to come out back in the days just now it's crazy setups and stuff and it's like you know now i'm in it it's like man i can actually do this stuff now yeah and you know so uh so i could figure it out trial and error or just whatever my mind takes me it's like i want to figure it out i want i wanted to do this so i wanted to look like this you know what was your like craziest your craziest scenario of like macgyver make this happen like you don't say it like oh man man it's i don't you know it's been it's been a few of them you know you'd be you know you get put on the spot a lot you know yeah right the right back line ain't there yeah yeah so you know i don't know i've been doing a lot of powder coating and stuff like that so um just even just figuring that out taking stuff just way apart from scratch and you know um i think that was i think doing that kind of stuff man it really like takes you there you know yeah because it's like the drums are supposed to be black and the hardware was supposed to be black somebody messed up the order i'm sorry we got chrome hardware like yeah you know um so just customizing stuff on the spot you know um changing the color snare drums on the spot you know um you know just stuff like that man cuz you know cutting actually cutting hardware you know to make something custom fit you know yeah yeah for sure building racks and stuff there is a right and wrong way to do that

you know hey but we all creative so you know right right right you know you know so yeah it's definitely fun man it's enjoyable to be creative and to do things or work with an artist and they tell you they vision you know um you know different musicians tell you that vision you know what makes them comfortable yeah um you know what they see in a vision and you can actually bring it to life with them you know it's a good feeling so like me when i kind of you know i started in the industry i was a drum tech first in the stage manager and i kind of was taking the stage like even with john like that's how i started so yeah me my thought process and you can back me up on this possibly but my thought process was always to be ahead of with the musicians like literally like if i know something new is out let me learn that just in case they want to switch over to that exactly yeah you know so talk about that being ahead of the curve and how you like to uh because like you you're a studier so you you know the ins and outs um of every product every machine every drone heads mics like so talk about that knowledge in and having that self that that self knowledge and wanting to go study it well yeah you know you have to because it's definitely something new coming out um and you don't want to get caught out there if you if you can you know you definitely don't want to get caught out there you and you and you want to be able to you know that musician you work for show them the next thing you know um you want to be able to do that or if a problem comes you want to be able to fix it or at least uh come close to when you know uh when you read that book you know that manual it kind of makes more sense now you know yeah um so it's definitely a good thing to say but you know uh but you know you know the curve you know you got to you know um it just it definitely helps it definitely helps because it's definitely something that was coming for sure so you you want to be you want to be caught up with a you know ahead of the game for sure right indeed do you have like is this a funny question actually do you have like a uh not a diary but like do you have like like a a space that you just literally save all of your information for tech jobs like from the beginning like even just like even if you ever had to go back and work with a person from years ago like i actually feel fools like

i actually do man i actually do i keep up with everything um just sets even from set list that i wrote notes on those set lists for that artist i mean i i save it all because you never know and then if you go back to that artist two or three years down the line you know you kind of you know you have something to refer back to yeah it's kind of like a musician if they calling you back that's what they remember how you worked and what you had to do and they don't want it to be like oh come on man back in the day better than this what happened exactly exactly so you know that that's another thing of uh stand up you know above and you know in front of the curve you know you got to um just keeping that stuff steady you know sometimes you just go back and look at it you know that way you know because uh some stuff you might get to the new stuff but then some artists might like to use the older stuff and you ain't worked on it in a while and it's like ah so you know yeah you know you know the new stuff is cool but the old stuff you gotta think yeah it's kind of like it's like that thought process of like you're not replacing you're adding to exactly you're remembering your database of exactly exactly for sure let's let's fast forward to now to the factory that the people need to know that you know even before the pandemic that you got a dope spot down in raleigh and like let's talk about that the jr worldwide the headquarters let's talk about what's going on down here man i got the headquarters uh raleigh north carolina where i was born and raised i moved back home and uh i started a dream spot you know for myself and in the community and musicians and texts in the area and you know whoever can get to us you know um it's just a good you know it's just a fun house man we work hard we learn you know we teach you know um so we do a little everything we have a back line have a backline company you show the people that's right one of them runs down one of them that's that's the studio one of the studios yeah this is one of the studios here so you can come have a little fun do a little tracking and uh and we have another room out here take you out too and we actually have a good friend in town recording right now mike's i see a lot of drum mics who using a lot of drum mics who that who's losing jonathan banks

hey ladies and gentlemen devin taylor he'll he'll be on a good episode with us we're going to talk talk we're going to talk drums and bieber's and what's happening what's up you know what i'm saying but we're telling him about unk spot down there how he got it going to pull up they got to come through oh yeah man i gotta come check i'm spat up man rollywood studios man out here in raleigh north carolina you dig what i'm saying it's crazy i'm shooting a lot of videos here i do a lot of recording here you feel me man you you people yeah of course it's a dope spot though to come record come do your videos whatever you need you feel what i'm saying like this fight is crazy right yeah hey i was just telling the people how how j.r is one of the dopest texts literally in the world and he makes dreams come true as far as like being the brains behind like yo crazy set ups brian like even if y'all just like i want to eat his time right here and it's like right right

so talk about how how it is working with him oh man it's amazing working with uh man like he could be hard on you at times because he want everything right you feel me not playing no games you feel me any hear about his business too so but besides that man he is great working with uh man it's crazy right oh you don't got to worry about nothing you feel what i'm saying whatever you want to do he's going to make it happen even if he don't want to make it happen he'd be like it's impossible for us to do that like you see what i'm saying hold on but look he'll say that you'll come back in like an hour or two and it's done yeah yeah yeah you be like okay now oh man what but i mean it's great working with him and he's the easiest man he's the easiest guy to get along with too and outside of that like we got a relationship outside of just me and him working together so it make it easy for us to work together you feel what i'm saying like we can go kick it go get some food you know what i mean like whatever like and it's not always just let's talk about drunks drunk drunk drunk so yeah

oh yeah for sure definitely definitely all right people we ain't gonna talk too much to this one all right right here

people this is that this is riley's finest you see him saying it's a great location got all the big got the big dogs recording and shooting video and content so looking forward to some of that stuff we're gonna show y'all some of that and drop all the socials and where to reach out to j.r and get it going but bro i know y'all got great get that shoe set up so i'm gonna let you tell everybody to do it my brother thank you for jumping on man i want to do a tech talk type thing with

thank you for your time i know you guys are ready much much love man you always gonna be family and i can't wait to get down there we're gonna do something cool man much respect man yes sir love you bro yes sir got out the jr and the pop-up by mr devin stix taylor um i have an episode coming out with him pretty soon um where we talk drums we talk bieber we talk all of the gigs he's done and just he he's just a young up-and-coming innovator like he's already been in it for a while but when you know the history of things though like he's out here changing the game um so give it up for my little bro devin stix teller so gotta be coming up um well let's get ready to get into these rolling at home videos because people have been at home of course being creative and hashtagging that hashtag rolling at home so let's see what y'all got this week hey

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those amazing people on the rolling at home videos you yes you watching this could be on here if you just post your content use the hashtag roll it at home and then i'll feature it on here and then you know who knows get a little one-on-one talk and tell the people what you're working on hey can we do that yeah all right so before i get out of here of course i want to thank rolling live studios i want to thank roland nelly joel kristen bryant igor carrie brown uh josie

shout out to everybody shout out to all my people that make this happen every week so um i think that's it guess we're out of here eugene man roberts aka the mayor town hall meeting with the mayor at eight awaits while you wait and we are out of here

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