EXPERIENCE 105 | A Brothers Fountain II - Fall Tour, Muscle Shoals, Business of Music, and Love of Community!
My guests on today’s episode were AJ and JJ Fountain, bandmates with locally-famous campfire folk music band A Brothers Fountain, and co-founders and partners of Stoked Ember Productions. This was the brothers’ 2nd time on the podcast, because I think they’re a lot of fun to be around, and they always share great stories!
The brothers and most of the band went on a 20-day, 18-show tour this fall, all across the midwest and southeast and points between. Followed shortly after that was a weeklong intensive recording session in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where they laid down their finest sounds so far - stay tuned for more on that!
In this episode, JJ shares an awesome story about going viral on the Jerry of the Day Instagram channel via a kayak on a ski slope! Always fun to spend time with these two, so I hope you’ll tune in for my conversation with AJ and JJ Fountain.
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/
Follow us to see what we're up to:
Facebook
Music By: A Brother's Fountain
My guests on today's episode were AJ and JJ Fountain Band mates with locally famous campfire folk music band, a brothers fountain, and co-founders and partners of Stoked Ember Productions. This was the brothers second time on the podcast because I think they're a lot of fun to be around and they're always sharing great stories. The brothers and most of the band went on a 20 day, 18 show tour this fall all across the Midwest and southeast and points in. If they were as old as I am, they would've killed them. Followed shortly after. That was a week long intensive recording session in Mussel SHOs, Alabama, where they laid down their finest sound so far. Stay tuned for more on that. JJ shares an awesome story about going viral on the Jerry of the Day Instagram channel via a kayak on a ski slope. Always fun to spend time with these two. So I hope you'll tune in for my conversation with AJ and JJ Fountain.
Curt:
Welcome back to The Local Experience Podcast. I'm here for the second time with the Brothers Fountain, AJ and JJ Fountain. Um, guys, thanks for being here. Woohoo. Yeah. Oh, it's good. Be here, man. So, uh, to set the stage for those that didn't get the first episode, episode 20, uh, you guys are partners and co-founders of Stoked Ember Productions, a video production company kind of specializing in the outdoor world and passion driven business stories, I suppose, and bands and all that kind of good stuff. Yes, sir. Well said. And, My favorite local band, uh, if Kent Oman isn't listening a Brothers Fountain, uh, featuring campfire folk music and can get your boogie on. Yes. And you guys just got back from a, like a for real recording studio? Yes. Like that you paid money for or did you get a win a prize or something? We
JJ:
we won the Prize of Life on that one.
AJ:
We signed a, a record deal, quote unquote. What? Yeah, so, so we, we gave away 50% of our masters, which is not something you, you love to do as a musician, but, uh, for us it provided a really, really unique, uh, opportunity. So
Curt:
Interesting. So even your old stuff, they, they've got rights to sign? No, no, no. Just the stuff that we recorded there. Yeah. Yeah. That's seems like, not that your royalties are huge on the old city Exactly. Yet, but Exactly. You know, it's like the Beatles, it'll be there someday. Hopefully. Hopefully. Even if you don't get to that level of success, it'll still be fun. Yeah, for sure. So, um, I guess, yeah, let's, uh, tell me about that experience. I guess let's just start there cuz this is gonna be a little different episode because we're not gonna tell the whole business journey. Although your story about cutting the head off a dead moose in the snow is still among the classic local experiences. Aj? Yes,
JJ:
that was, yeah. My
AJ:
shining moment. Yeah.
Curt:
That was the podcasts history. Yeah. Yeah. How many moments in podcast history have you had? Uh, just a couple. Yeah. it'll be hard to all paste that one anyway, so Yeah, it will. So yeah. Tell me about this, this label. Tell me about this experience. Like how did this Hal come together? When did you make that
AJ:
decision? Yeah, so it wasn't, it's not a record label. We haven't been signed by record label. It's, it was just a record deal in a very, uh, simple sense. So, um, we got connected with a guy, Steve Knight, who was. our knight in shining armor in a way. Um, he is in a, a really big band, and they're bigger internationally than they are nationally, but, uh, they're called flip side, F l i p s y d E. Okay. And, um, they'll go to India and play for shows of just thousands and thousands of people. It's just crazy. But, um, met him through. Young Life actually was playing music with a couple band mates at a young life camp. Mm-hmm. for, uh, one of their winter weekends. Okay. And, um, he just came up to me after one of our sets and was like, Hey man, I love your music, and yada yada. And we stayed in touch and got to learn more about him. He got to learn more about me and we just developed a friendship and he was like, Hey, I'd love to have a brother's Fountain come down to Muscles Shoals at Fame Studios one day. And I had no idea anything about Muscles Shoals, about fame studios. Right. Apparently it's a pretty famous place, um,
Curt:
that has, I've heard it before. Yeah. And I'm not really a music industry insider, so. Yeah.
AJ:
It's crazy, man. I, and like, um, Yeah. They, I mean, Aretha Franklin, Percy Sludge, like just these crazy huge names have recorded there and there's just a magic. They're in Muscle SHOs and at the, at that studio specifically,
Curt:
um, oh, so his Muscle Souls like a town, and then there's a number of studios in Muscle SHOs. Yes. And this is that one.
JJ:
Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So yeah, we found out, out all about this in our trip, but Mus SHOs is kind of a historic town in northern Alabama. Okay. There's a couple other towns around it, but, um, it's kind of right on the Tennessee River, and they say that the, the music comes out of the river there, and it's a really special place, historic place. Tiny little town. Yeah. But some of the greatest artists of all time. I mean, even Rolling Stones, um, I mean Bob Dylan. Yeah. All the endless, these endless list almost. Yeah. Endless list. So there's a really good documentary on, it's on YouTube. Highly recommend it. Muscle SHOs Sound or something like that. Yeah. We could link to that in the show notes even. Yeah. Yeah. But basically the founder of Muscle Shoals. Kind of sound is Rick Hall and his son, Rodney Hall is, is really good friends with Oh, our producer, Steve Knight. Okay. Shining armor. So Yeah, it was, it was a really good in for us. Um, we didn't have to pay for that historic studio space all week. Um, and we got linked up with some of the greatest sound engineers in the world. I mean, do you learn a lot? Oh
Curt:
my gosh. Were they abundant with you too? Like, hey, don't do it like you've been doing it, do it like this as they were doing it, or they just did the engineering for
JJ:
you? Yes and no. I mean, they worked so beautifully with us. It was such a cool collaboration. Yeah. I mean, they brought out us, our sound. Yeah. What we always knew we had, that you've been
Curt:
hoping to be able to do as you're hacking it away in your living room, making your first album or
AJ:
whatever. Yeah, it is exactly right. I mean, it was, it's just the, it's just such a whole nother level of quality that we were able to, to experience and capture at, at, uh, fame Studios. I mean years, I mean, decade now or more of me just doing the DIY thing in my room, in my, in like a freaking closet or wherever I can find a, like, record and do the thing and like, I'm trying to, you know, look up YouTubes as I'm like trying to record and like mix and master, right. I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I'm just trying to figure it out. And so I'm always, it just felt like I was always reaching for this, this sound and this quality that I never could really attain. And I, I would get kind of close to what I was hoping for, but you know, you can really hear it, you know, if you listen back to our stuff, it's like, it's pretty raw, it's pretty homemade, it's pretty diy. Yeah. And so once we release this stuff, which we're so pumped about, um, you'll really be able to tell like, wow, this is like, you would hear this on the radio. This is next level stuff. But, uh, but it was crazy cuz Steve was like, oh, I want to have you guys out to muscle SHOs and yada yada. And it never occurred to me. So I'm like, I didn't really do anything about it. None of us did. I mean, AJ might have mentioned like, Hey, I think that might be a pretty good opportunity, but it was kind of months and months and months that we were just like, oh, that sounds cool. I guess I don't really know what's going on there. Yeah. And then it clicked for me. Yeah. It was like, I, I can't remember how or why it clicked, but I mean, talk about like understanding opportunities as they come, you know, it's like, man, had we not taken this opportunity, we would've been fools. Um, so I'm so glad Eventually we kind of came to our senses and we're like, oh, hey Steve, by the way, yes, we want to do that. Where do, where do we sign
Curt:
Well, and I'm wondering, you know, aj, I think the last time we spent a long lunch together or something, we were brainstorming just around that very idea of like, okay, how. properly feed and nourish an eight or nine 10 person band. Mm-hmm. you know, because we just can't do it. Wandering around with a day job and local stuff. And, and that was one of the things we said, you just somehow gotta get really popular so that the expansive digital can take you a lot of different places.
AJ:
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. That's so true. In the music world, there's a threshold, um, that you have to punch through of like being kind of that diy, you know, grassroots band mm-hmm. into, into the greater masses. Yeah. Um, if you're not in the masses, you're not making money. Yeah.
JJ:
But a lot of the, a lot of the bands that you know and love started just grinding Oh yeah. DIY for sure. Almost all of them. Like 10 years. Right. Just like us. Um, but what was really cool about Muscle Shoals was we had all 10 of us for the first time. We have eight band mates here in Fort Collins, and then one drummer in that lives in San Antonio now and then Oh wow. A cousin. Um, who's been on some music documentaries like to South Africa with us. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, Chris Burkey, he lives in Philly,
Curt:
usually doesn't play with you, but when he can he does. Exactly. I assume you have a backup drummer too, or your scope of drummer list. Yeah, we had Row
JJ:
and ZB there, so right on two drummers there. Um, so all 10 of us in one kind of studio making music together. It
AJ:
was so special
JJ:
and it was insane. We were in the studio, I mean, every day, 15 hours. Wow. But we still for many days, for five days straight. Wow. We did, we did about one song every day. Wow. And uh, what was really cool, Kurt, is you'd appreciate this, is we still, we got up every morning and we did, um, we called him Our Little Quiet Times in the Mornings and we would get together and we would just kind of do a little, um, yeah. Just a meditation of some sort. Oh. Gratitude and kind of connect on a heart level first before every day. And we'd go into the office, quote unquote, and it was long days and, you know, with zero sleep. But it was just so cool the collaboration and the teamwork that transpired. It was super
Curt:
inspiring. So you've heard the output already, uh, of these, or is that Yes. So you did five songs, five songs full in five days. Is that gonna be, or you have another session before you get a full album, or how are you gonna do that? We,
AJ:
I'm actually flying back just for a day to help finish up some of the drum tracks and, and just tighten it up a little bit. Okay. Um, next week. But we're gonna probably just call it good as far as our contract is concerned with these five songs. Okay. Um, and see where that takes us. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it was so magical. We, we've never actually had, so there's 10 guys, like AJ said, that are all involved in a Brother's Fountain that would be considered band mates. Yeah. We've never had all of us together in the same room until, until this week recording at Fame Studios. And it was like so much fun. It, I, we didn't even know all the guys were gonna come. We basically were like, we sent out the message to the guys in the band. We said, Hey, W we can't afford to pay for everybody to be there Right. Literally, we couldn't. Right. We couldn't afford to fly them there or drive them there and let alone pay them. Um, and so we thought, oh, we might get four or five, six of us that might be willing to come and do this. Yeah. Yeah. They all. We're like, we're in We're totally in this is, this is a, an awesome opportunity. We wanna be a part of it. And so it's so cool. There's just so much buy-in. Yeah. From, from every single guy. Got day jobs and
Curt:
stuff, they all, they're taking week off to work and Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Leaving their, I assume you, I mean, did you take the ladies down with you mm-hmm. pretty much No time for them anyway. No. So what's the point? Right. And no
AJ:
room either. I mean, we, we had this massive Airbnb. Right. Shock
JJ:
packed to the girls. Stinky boys. Yeah. Yeah.
AJ:
But it was just rowdy man. I mean, even like, you could tell, like Rodney, the owner and the sound engineer and the staff there at the studio, they were just like kind of baffled by like our energy. They They were just like, holy cow, you guys are a force to be reckoned with Um, but in the best way, you know, we're just like, you know, so positive and hopeful and just excited every day we showed up so excited and, um, it, it was magic man. There, there really is. A thing to, um, recording. Like when you go to a studio as a musician, you want the vibe to be right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You want every, you want the flow of creative energy and ideas, um, to be there. You don't want, you know, people get having a chip on their shoulder or, or feeling, you know, like they got a big ego or whatever. Yeah. And that's the way it was, man. Everyone showed up with so much humility and we decided from the start, we set the intention, like, we're here to serve this song. Yeah. So whatever it means, whatever it takes to serve the song and, and create the groove and, and the sound that we want. Yeah.
Curt:
So it was, it was beautiful. Was there a lot of, like, I assume you already had the songs written and had performed them and stuff like that? Some so, or was there creative stuff happening even right there? Like even right there,
JJ:
new verses, new songs.
AJ:
Oh yeah, yeah. New, yeah, new ideas, new verses. Um, uh, AJ wrote a rap within like four hours, 3 8, 2 hours or something. Oh, that was stressful.
JJ:
Um, but. We did in a way also rehearse and play these songs a ton. Cuz actually about a month ago in November, two months ago, we went on a three week tour and we played 18 shows in 20 days. Yeah. A show almost every day. And it was insane. And we played pretty much every one of these songs, um, every day. But like Justin said, when we got there, it was such a kind of open collaboration that like, uh, they were like, you know, I love your baseline there, aj, but let's do it, you know, on a lower register. Yeah. And, You know, I had been playing that and I, that's all I knew. So like, you have to learn on the spot. I mean, I thought, crap, my pants the first day it was, I mean, you're in a historic studio stretching where, you know, Aretha Franklin sat Yeah. Telling me to play this new baseline that I haven't been practicing. Uh, yeah. It was intense. So it was terrifying.
AJ:
It was intense. Yeah. We're stepping into a studio that like the greatest of the greats record in. Yeah. And, and the, the sound engineer, the owner Rodney, like everybody's used to an extraordinary level of talent and professionalism. And professionalism, your talent. And we're coming in like, sure. Like we got something going for us, like a brothers found has certain things going for it. For sure, for sure. But as far as like being technical musicians, some of us kind of have that, but most of us do not. Right.
JJ:
Last week before we were there, Steven Tyler was there. Before that it was Jack White, Alicia Keys, you know, that was all within the last three months. Demi Lovato, So like you're stars, like, what are we
AJ:
doing here? This is insane. But, but. What happened though was like, we, you know, we, we were shaking like, like leaves, uh, that first day, right? I mean, they had us come in and they were like, okay, we're gonna set you guys up, yada, yada. They didn't even give us a tour. We were just like looking around dumbfounded, like, you know, eyes wide and they're like, okay, we're gonna set the metronome to 132 meters per minute. And, uh, here you go. Like from the top. And like, we would go and then the sound engine would be like, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop, stop. You guys got off the metronome, like, we gotta do it again. Gotta do it again. And then we'd go and then he'd be Stop, stop, stop, stop. We never played with one of those. Yeah. Literally. We're like, we're like, oh gosh. Wow. This is intense. Um, but we, we sort it out. We found a good groove. Um, but like the energy, that's the thing is with music and with like any creative project in general is like the energy, but the energy, the vibe and the hum the humility space, the space and the humility that openness people bring. The
JJ:
openness. Well that's where the
Curt:
humility comes in, right? Like Yes. The humility, openness are kind of similar
AJ:
things. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, and so everybody, like within the first day, everybody including, you know, Rodney, the sound engineer, the, the guys that have seen just this extraordinary talent and are expecting that, um, they kind of like started catching on to the brothers fountain,
JJ:
sort of, they were digging the camp campfire folk music. Yeah.
AJ:
They were like, okay, I see what you guys are about. Like I see what's going on here. And like, and
Curt:
it was awesome, man. The, the first few hours we thought you were a bunch of hicks from Fort Collins and now we're starting to realize you actually might have something people wanna buy Exactly. Or something. Exactly. And so are they gonna be helping you like. Promote that and stuff. Is there a network like, yes, it's great to have really great music. Yeah. But if you spend all your money shouting from the rooftops, Hey, check out these new songs. Right. You know, that just
JJ:
doesn't No, yeah. That's, that's the real benefit that they're bringing us, I think in a lot of ways is Right. Steve Knight as our producer and, and Rodney Hall and, um, fame Studios and Muscle SHOs, like, they're gonna be batten for us because they, it's kinda a percentage, Hey, here we are
Curt:
introducing ABF to the
JJ:
world. Yes. And there's all kinds of big. Producers that they're involved with and know, cuz it's such a historic studio. And some of them were walking through while we were recording and we were just like, who are these guys? Oh my gosh, dude, this is spooky. Like they're, they're all dressed up suit. Yeah. You know, you know, they're a big wig.
AJ:
Yeah. Dude, these guys with suits would just come into the studio and like, we would be like working on stuff, we'd be goofing off or whatever, and then all of a sudden, like, like three guys in suits come, come walking into the engineering room. Right. And like, we all just straighten up and like, quiet down And they're like, let's hear what you guys have, let's hear it. And then like, so the engineer would play it back and we'd just stand there silently, like hoping that they like it and then they'd be like, all right, good job guys. It sounds good. And they'd move on. See you later. Yeah. Um, and, and I mean, it's, it felt like it was out of a movie. I mean, the, the studio itself is like a, a mo a movie set. I mean, it's, it feels like you go back in time about 50, 50, 60 years and, and you kind of do like, it's, it's all still. The way that it was 40, 50 years ago. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, but the, you know, the sound, I'm like, I asked the sound engineer after, like, these guys in suits came and le and went, and I was like, wait, are there always like these older dudes with suits, like coming into the studio, like, what's going on? Right? Like, no one's telling us like exactly who these people are or anything. And he's like, only when the vibe is right. And, and he gives me a wink, you know, like gives me the elbow and I'm like, okay, all right. We got maybe something good going here, that's cool. But the, the contract, so AJ kind of hit on this, but um, you know, like I said, as a musician you wanna be really careful and cautious not to sign over your masters. It's like, it's, it's this known thing in the music industry. Mm-hmm. and like Kanye West and I think Taylor Swift, these people are like on this mission to like, Get back the ownership of their masters. Right. Cuz these labels took a hundred percent of their masters, whatever it is. Um, but for us, like in the sp in the, the stage that we've been in, um, for Steve and Rodney to come to us and say, Hey, we want 50% of your masters and for that we will provide the studio space and the sound engineer and yada yada for you guys to record this real, this awesome high quality music. It was a no-brainer.
Curt:
Well, and connections and network and the
AJ:
con. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm heading at. There's now we are business partners with Steve Knight and Rodney Hall. Right. Because they are in, they are mutually incentivized to get our music to the masses.
Curt:
So where do you hope this goes? Like, is it like a dream to be full-time Brothers Fountain and like Fit Stoke Ember into the places where it. Doesn't overtake your lives if this thing would pop or what? Like what's the three year vision or dream on the music side? Uh, yeah. Are you in agreement on it? have you talked to your wife?
AJ:
Well, AJ's in an interesting position. I mean, I don't know how much you wanna reveal, but, um, you know, he's been married now for what, two, three years? Um, you know, five years older than me, but. And so he's kind of settling in maybe a little bit more into life. And so it's a little, it's an interesting time to be as stoked as I am about a brother's fountain. Mm-hmm. and wanting to push it as a full-time gig. Yeah. Um, because AJ's kind of in more of a, I need to settle back and think about having a baby. I'm thinking about having a kid, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. But, um, there's a ton of momentum for Brothers Fountain right now. I have stepped into a mostly full-time musician, um, yeah. Stage in life, which I'm really, really excited about playing solo shows and duo show. We got a duo show coming up this, this Friday. Um, and so, yeah, so I would love for Brothers Fountain to be the main thing. Yeah. I would love it. I'm, I'm pushing for that. I'm pulling for that, um, heading in that direction. And I think, um, I think these new, these new records are really gonna help with that.
JJ:
And for the record, I would also love that right. Especially if it's, if it's on our terms. Right. Yeah. Which is the funny thing about music is as you continue to get into the business side and you start to realize where the different revenue streams could be mm-hmm. mm-hmm. and of course it's great to diversify those, um, but there's sort of a traditional model which would would tell, tell you that you can't do it with a, you know, with a family. Uh, cuz you're gonna have to be on tour three times a year for four or five weeks. Um, but just talking as a band and I, I think we can do it in a really cool way on our terms if we continue to. press into the business side. Yeah. Into, um, different ways we can capitalize on our skills and talents as, as different
Curt:
band mates and well, JJ can continue to raise publicity and awareness of the brothers fountain on solos or even mm-hmm. take, take grammar running around a little bit if you're hanging out, you know mm-hmm. Exactly. That kind of stuff.
AJ:
Exactly. So, good. Shout out to Graham. Good. Uh, our banjo player and dear, dear friend, he also has his own music project. Graham Good. And the painters full-time musician, so, and there's another guy, Trevor Michael. Who's also a full-time musician. Oh, is that right? So, okay. I didn't realize that. So two of the 10 band mates are full-time musicians, which is helpful because they are easier to call up and say, Hey, do you want to, you want to do this week, two week, three week tour? Right. And, you know, we can pay you X for, for each show or whatever. And they're like, yeah, let's do it. I'm a full-time musician. This is what I do. Right,
Curt:
right. You know, so it's, it's easier to do. It's different than taking two weeks off your job. Exactly. You know, when you already burn your two weeks vacation. Exactly. Six weeks ago, Yes.
JJ:
Yeah. That's tricky. When only got two weeks pto.
Curt:
Well, let's talk about, uh, the, the mini tour, or not, not super mini, but a pretty aggressive 20 day tour. Uh, talk to me about that. Was that regional? Where, where did you go? Like, uh, oh my gosh,
JJ:
what was that one? It was one of the, it was one of the wildest things I ever done in my life. Kurt And Hardest. Yeah, it was difficult. Oh my gosh. We, we planned way too many shows. Um, so Justin has a big red truck. We affectionately call Little Blue and it's got five seats in it. We got all of our gear. All of our sound equipment. All of our backpacks. All of our instruments. And five dudes for I think 6,000 miles. Oh my. In little blue. Oh my. And we drove all across the country. You have a topper on that at least, right? Yeah, we did end up getting the top rock, cuz we needed that. And if you didn't pack the back of this thing perfectly, you had to repack the whole thing because it wouldn't fit the first four shows. It took us three, four hours to pack because we, we couldn't quite figure out the exact way cause it was so
Curt:
specific. maybe a little trailer next time. Yeah.
JJ:
And then, anyway, it's just tough cause you're coming, you're going into cities, into hours, try to park
Curt:
tight places. Yeah. Fair enough.
JJ:
But it was, it was insane. One of the coolest trips. I
Curt:
mean, so you remember most of. Locations or Sure. Like where did you go? How far away? What kind of clubs? Oh my gosh.
AJ:
Well, okay, so I could
JJ:
say'em real quick. Okay. Go ahead and memorized. It's, it was, uh, Lawrence St. Louis, Chicago. Indianapolis, just south of Cincinnati. Then we went out to, for Virginia for two shows. Okay. Uh, with, well, we went to Knoxville, sorry. Then Virginia for two shows, uh, Blacksburg and, um, Harrisonburg. Harrisonburg, two kind of college towns in Virginia. Okay. Such a great time. All the way down to Orlando. Then we went to Mobile. Wow. Alabama. And then we went to New Orleans. Then we went to, uh, San Antonio and New Brauns and up home.
AJ:
Nice. Here, here's the thing. We learned a lot. on this tour. I mean, it was by far the biggest, longest, most legit tour we've ever done. We've only ever done like four or five days max as far as like, okay, this is a tour. We have a show most nights of this tour, right? And then we just full sent it to this three week thing, and, and, uh, well, and
Curt:
you're basically like, get up way earlier than you want to after the show, so you can hit the road to get there just in freaking time to get your stuff set up for the next show.
AJ:
Dude, you hit the nail in the head, dude. That's the thing is we, for some crazy reason, we decided we wanted to just do this huge swath of the eastern, half of the whole contiguous United States, right? And it's like, dude, we could have just done that same three week tour within. Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. You know, like, why did we go all the way to Virginia and then down to Orlando? So we would, what would happen is these venues, a lot of times they, they want you to play like until the wee hours in the morning, which is so baffling to us. We're like, okay, this is crazy. Like, till you want us to play music till 1:00 AM it's just, it's just nuts. So, so sometimes we play till 11, 12 or 1:00 AM and then we have to tear everything down. Right? We gotta figure out where we're gonna go stay. So then we get to bed at 1, 2, 3 am You don't have the room booked yet, and then well who know? Depends sometimes. Depends. Sometimes. And then we gotta wake up a lot of times at 3, 4, 5 am to drive eight to 12 hours to the next For 11 at 5:00 PM Yeah. To the next show. And literally, Like load the truck, you know, go and arrive at the venue and then play that next show and then do the same thing. It was just absurd.
Curt:
We got to go to an actual cafe seven times though. Otherwise it was fast food cause we didn't have time to sit Exactly.
JJ:
Oh, that's it made me realize, I don't care if you're Taylor Swift, like if you're on the road touring, like so much respect to those performers. I mean a lot of'em are musicians, but also like any performer comedians, magicians like Jordan Peterson
Curt:
when he was doing some of his tours,
JJ:
speakers speaking all over those place. Yeah, serious, intense. Like it's a physical feat and like you have to prioritize um, kind of some self care in there somehow. And we did that really beautifully as a team, which I love that part of that story. But yeah.
AJ:
Tell me more. Morning
Curt:
meditations, same thing. So every trip
JJ:
mentioned already? Yeah, every trip we go on, ABF has a leadership model. Yeah. This is really cool. You can use that this here in your office if you want. Okay. But every day there is a TL or a trip leader. Okay. For that day. Yep. Then the trip leader elects their cabinet. Their cabinet includes a deputy, which is the second in charge. Okay. And, um, the chief movement maestro, which is Aus like office manager, mis like a, like a gym teacher, someone who's gonna get us moving that day. Yoga, yoga instructor you might say. Yeah. Yo. And then the last position is the high priest or high priestess, and they're the ones in charge of the quiet time in the morning. So it's kind of cool cuz you change the leadership structure every day and you get to, and you had a
Curt:
group of five different, so basically had three people doing something every time. Yeah, every day.
JJ:
Exactly. Yeah. So every day someone knew was leading the quiet time, someone knew, was leading kind of the, the little calisthenics throughout the day to keep our bodies moving. Um, someone was making the de the decisions on where to stop, which fast food restaurant it was and when Yeah. When we were getting up, when we were leav. It's such a relief for us just to kind of moving in and in and out of that position and otherwise
Curt:
see others. Everybody's thinking about all the things kind of. Exactly. Or not thinking about any, because it's just too much. Exactly. Narrow is on one guy to focus. Exactly. And and really blossom instead of like scattershot all the time. All day. Exactly. Hmm. Cool.
JJ:
And like, I
Curt:
like that. I mean this distributed leadership at its best really very simple for, for you small teams out there and things like that. Like this is a excellent useful tip for you. Huge.
JJ:
Oh my gosh. Huge. And in the studio, I mean, it was huge. We did the same thing. You know, if someone's like, win's lunch, or what are we gonna have? Well go ask the tl, go ask the trip leader right now, ju you know, and then it's not always Justin, so he can focus on the music. And of course he's gonna make, get tires. Should be in the decide on that side, all of'em. Right, right, right. And it's, I don't know, everyone should
Curt:
experienced McDonald's. Well we had McDonald's yesterday. Well then whatever you figure it out. Yeah. I don't care. a lot of
JJ:
those arguments for sure. Some of the guys loved McDonald's just cause it was, we had a per diem for every guy on tour.$25 per diem. Really, really, uh, stated, you know, a lot of money there. Right. So big bucks. It was, some of the guys was all about McDonald's. You go twice at McDonald's. Exactly. And then you're saving, no, you can get full twice for seven,$8 at McDonald's. You get the app, I guess you can get dollar sandwiches. Oh right. And like, yeah. So it was pretty funny cuz we were all super sick at McDonald's. But then there was like one guy that's What
Curt:
was your, what was your best show? Uh, and what was your worst show on this mini tour? Or this, I guess long mini tour, we'll call it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so about extended length mini
AJ:
tour. About half of the shows were. Uh, venues. Okay. Um, small venues like a, like a brewery or just a small little stage of a venue. Okay. Kind of divey stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other half were house shows. Oh, wow. So we took on a, a very, uh, well, I, I don't know that it's a unique, but we, we really emphasized the house show. Uh huh. Approach for this tour. We thought, Hey, let's play in people's family rooms. Let's play in people's basements. Wow. Let's play in people's backyards. And we took along with us, which is part, part of why it was so hard to pack the back of Little Blue. We took all the, all that we would need to set up our own sound. Wow. Basically, you know, our little festival like JAMA Land, right. It was like this traveling jam land. Honestly, it felt like a traveling circus, which just would have all this stuff, all the merch, all this speakers, all the, you know, and we're just like here to entertain everybody every night, you know? And. And so the house shows though, proved to be very, um, very lucrative and very successful. Comparatively. Comparatively. Yeah. Because we would cut the middleman, right. These, these venues would take a bunch of money and, um, and these house shows. It was just like a lot more intimate. It was a lot more personable. Well, and if
Curt:
somebody cared enough to book you for a house show, they already loved your music. Exactly. And so they would invite all their friends up to capacity. Mm-hmm. Exactly right. And the bars never really hurt of you. Nobody's really hurt of you. If they drop in on a Thursday night and it's good, well, That's fine, but it's too late to call their friends. That's
AJ:
exactly right. And, and that's, and that was a really huge part of, of how we were able to make it profitable. Because for a band like us at our, at our level, you don't go on a tour and expect a bunch of money. Right. You expect to
Curt:
lose money. Right. If you can break even that's, you know, if you can break even good for
AJ:
you, you did good.
JJ:
Yeah. Even if you're bigger than us, I'm telling you. Yeah, that's true. Like bands doubled five times. The size of us have a lot, a lot of trouble breaking even on tours. Yeah. And we,
Curt:
we came out, when you're playing for audiences of. A hundred. Yeah. And, and the house takes a cut there, there just isn't that much juice for it. My gosh. Especially, my gosh, for a 5, 6, 7, 8 person ban,
JJ:
right? Oh yeah.
AJ:
When you think about the expenses, food, gas, I mean travel, I mean, uh, hotels and everything else, it's, it's crazy. So we were able to make a profit, which was cool. Cool. And the reason is because of the house shows. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I, I don't know, I think that speaks to just thinking outside the box and almost thinking independently, right? Like the music industry has these, these normal flows and
Curt:
you could make part of your house show. You actually have to put the band up at your house too.
AJ:
And that would happen actually. They would, that would happen. That was a huge benefit to the house shows as well, was like, a lot of times they'd be like, oh yeah, why don't you guys just, you know, you could hear the basement. Just have the basement. Yeah. Sleep on the, on the floor in the family room. Like we, we had, you know, camping pads. We could do, we could set up any type of sleeping situation. So that was also super helpful. Um, so there was a couple house shows in Indiana where we grew up. Mm. Um, That we had, you
JJ:
know,
Curt:
you guys got a little clump of fan fandom over there because of your roots
AJ:
and stuff. Family and friends. That ended up being the most successful, um, as far as profit. Yeah. But we also got connected with, um, another, um, musician. His name is Sam Birchfield, and he tours with a band. Um, Go. They go by Sam Birchfield in the scoundrels. Hmm. Really trying to get up Jam Land this year. Yeah. Really good music. We'd love to have him at our, at our festival up in Red Feather. But, um, that for me, that would be my favorite, was opening for him cuz it was really, I love his music and it was really cool to meet him in the, in his band we opened for him in Virginia. Oh, cool. Um, and it was just a rowdy college crowd in this really divey venue. I like it. It was just really, it was really memorable. So that was my
Curt:
favorite. Yeah. A lot of people say divey as an insult, but I can tell that for you. It's actually a, like, it's just the way I like it. Yeah.
JJ:
those are more fun. Usually But the worst show is, this is great. This is a rite of passage for a musician. We played a show for an audience of two people. One was the bartender, one was a guy in the bar, and it was so humbling. uh, mobile, Alabama, downtown. What, you know, we're like, This, that town is can't go. Very interesting. Yeah. Um, I mean nice people, but it just seemed kind of like a ghost town and it was a Tuesday night or something like that. It was a Monday night,
AJ:
Monday night. It was
JJ:
bad and it was like, oh my gosh. Just such a funny experience. But honestly, I'm really proud of what we did that night cuz we played our freaking hearts out. We made sure the sound was good, you know, we didn't compromise and we still had fun. And in a lot of ways it was a super magical night and a kind of like a rite of passage. Like I said, for these
Curt:
issue to play. It'll never, like whatever bad show you have, whether you've. I mean, it sounds like you played killer, but you know, you get a crowd of 12 when you're hoping for a crowd of a hundred, and you're like, well, at least it's not mobile Exactly.
AJ:
At least it's not mobile, you know? Yeah. Alabama on a Monday night. Yeah, for sure. That was a total flop, man. I mean, talk about just like a, a humbling experience. A learning experience. It was really just a lack of foresight both on our parts and the venues part. Like the, the venue should have been like, ah, guys, I don't know if a Monday night here is gonna do well for you. It's not really but we also should have been like, ah, maybe we shouldn't do this on. You're
Curt:
like, well, it's halfway between freaking whatever, Virginia and whatever, you know, short, so we gotta Exactly. Stop
AJ:
somewhere near there. And it's such a dance between like us and the venue. Like, we didn't have, we didn't, obviously had never been to this venue before we booked the show. We, we've never, we had never been to Mobile Alabama. And so we're just thinking like, well hopefully this venue is booking us, knowing that they have a, a natural audience of people that will come in, you know, and just at least five people you know, five or 10,
Curt:
right. But there was one guy, there was one guy, was he tuned in? Was he 11 in Oh, actually, yeah, he did,
JJ:
he. He was so supportive and so was a bartender. I mean, she texted some friends and they came by, but yeah, that, that was humbling for sure. I, I loved it though. For me that was just like core memory in a lot of ways.
Curt:
So you were, uh, telling me before we started recording that you guys just signed up for our local, make your band smarter and better. The music district,
AJ:
the good old music district dude. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't know how many musicians listen to this podcast, but if you're a local musician in, in Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland, the music district is where it's at. Dude. They offer so many services for freaking 30 bucks a month, you become a member. Oh, wow. It's insane. That's cheap. Yeah. They've got these studios, they've got these conference rooms, they've got co-working space. They've got, you know, if you remember, you get free coffee and free seltzers and, and I'm like, this is a gold mine. Right. I saved
Curt:
60 bucks a month in coffee. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So is, is it, so like, like obviously you'd heard of the music district and stuff. Did you guys kind of assume it was. Kind of not so easy and just never
AJ:
looked into it. I, I assumed it was more expensive. I assumed it was not so easy. I, I didn't know what was going on in the music district, to be honest. So I don't know if that speaks to my just not being very like, locally in touch with what's going on or their lack of being able to like, express and, and advertise themselves. I don't know. Probably both, but yeah, probably. Um, But
Curt:
y yeah. I, I shame on you and shame on them probably. Well, who? Whatever. But you're excited to be there now. What? I'm excited
AJ:
to be there. I'm excited to be there. It's, it's in Sammy, and as they were like giving me the lowdown of like the tour and everything they offer, my mind was just blown. I was like, wait, what the heck? What is going on here? But I think also it was more recently that they really kind of buttoned up sort of their systems. Yeah.
Curt:
Um, which is also kind of productized their service a little more. Yeah. Yeah. They just made it a little more like, here's what you get for this. Here's the next, next level up if you want, and whatever. Exactly. They
AJ:
kind of just made some certain decisions that allowed for, for their systems to be more streamlined and, and to be kind of locked into what they do now. It's an amazing facility. I mean, it's an
Curt:
amazing facility. They used to have a lot of people in and tours and events there and stuff. And then I think Covid and then mm-hmm. you know, maybe they're starting to do that again and I'm just off that radar. Mm-hmm. or whatever, but yeah. Yeah.
AJ:
Co. Yeah. Covid definitely threw a wrench in their, in their vibe for sure. But yeah, I just signed up to become a member. Cool. And they offered this, um, sync licensing songwriter workout. Course, it's basically a class. They, they even call it like, you're gonna be here for a semester and their semester is like a month and a half. Okay. You show up every Monday for three hours and, um, you, you collaborate with other musicians and you so write and you learn about the world of, the world of sync licensing, which is Yeah. Music that would be, I dunno what that means really. So it's, it's, it's music that would be used for videos, advertisements, podcast, introduction songs, podcast introduction songs, Yes. Um, yeah. Any, anything where you see visual content along with, with music. Okay. Um, and so it's, it's fascinating. They, they educate you on that world of sync licensing, um, different ways that you can, you can make money through sync licensing and basically how to become a good sync licensing artist and songwriter to, to basically cater to that world because there's a lot of money in sync licensing Right. For a musician, especially to work remotely. Yeah. Um, to, to, to have added revenue to these things. Like,
Curt:
well, it sounds like you've got a number of. skills, like you can, as a solopreneur of sorts, virtually jj, you could play the drums, play the guitar vocals, write the song, and stitch together something that's licensable and useful Totally. Without the whole band and getting together a big series of practices before you have performance. Right, right. Very true. Just pump it out. Yeah, that's great. And then, then it's playing on the background for Chevy Trucks commercial
AJ:
Yeah. I would need, I would need some help from the band mates to make it a, a good enough song for a Chevy commercial, but fair. Um, but yeah, no, I've, I've got the jack, but
JJ:
theoretically you could, but for Ford or maybe, yeah, right, for
AJ:
sure. but yeah, no, I've got, I've got kind of that jack of, of many trades thing going on with the music, so Yeah. So I can, theoretically, I
Curt:
can hold my own here and there, create something good, or frankly have a bunch of people at the music district. available. Exactly. Chime in. And you don't need to pull five guys away from their work during a Tuesday to record a thing, because that's when you can get the studio time or whatever. Right. Not that I'm breaking up to Brothers Fountain, but we're trying to make sure he gets a sustainable living built out of this thing here. Well,
AJ:
both of us, but if, if possible, but yeah. No, no. That for sure. Well, and
Curt:
so not to shift back to the stoked Denver, but you were telling me you're gonna kind of, uh, brand update stoked Denver and, and a little bit shift the, the, maybe the focus as far as the clients on that and is that's kind of more your baby with, with Justin as a helper kind of a thing in some ways.
JJ:
Is that right? Yeah, I And we're, we're pretty deep in cahoots on both things. On everything. Sure. we're tied as the hit, man. We are, we're better for worse. I love it. No, it's great. I love it. We, we, we do compliment each other really well, and I'm so blessed to, to work with you brother. Um, but yeah, the, the look of think tank chapter that I've recently joined Yeah. Has helped me in a lot of ways. Uh, rethink and restructure how we want to operate Stoke Denver. And uh, we ended up having a great, what was it, 2021 and a less great 2022. Okay. And kind of, you know, focusing on the music a little bit more and some other projects. But looking forward, I'm kind of like, you know, how do we wanna do this cuz something needs to shift and Yeah. Sort of realize our roots with Stoke Denver was outdoor focused films and videos and more narratives and, um, that are taking us outside to different locations. Um, we're great at filming indoors, but so are a lot of companies and I think when it comes to. filming. You know, we're, we're just, we're a step above because we know how to, to work with the lighting and the conditions really well. I mean, we have backgrounds as guides, so, um, it's been really fun. Yeah, just kind of restructuring the types of clients that we're going for. Even our, our branding, our logo, how we're looking, how our website, um, functions. So we've, we've redone the website. We're really excited about it. And, uh, looking forward to working with different folks, um, in the outdoor lifestyle world like Topo in town. We haven't been working with them yet, but they're target list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Topo also looking to, to kind of get in the,
Curt:
or like convention centers that wanna show off how beautiful their place. Not a convention center proper, but like Sky Corral. Yeah. Stuff in Risk Canyon or a place like that. Like
JJ:
a Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Event highlight reels from cool outdoor events or, um, working with, um, you know, local like, um, companies working on like, uh, fighting climate change and things like that, or nonprofits that are focused on out outdoor, um, initiatives of
AJ:
different sorts. So, and we, and we recently did, uh, a project with a local guiding company. Yeah,
Curt:
I was gonna say like, things like Outward Bound or Yeah. Oh yeah. Outward Bound. Yeah, for sure. Or even like such and such ranch where you can go shoot an elk. Yeah, for sure. You
AJ:
know, or whatever. Yeah. But, yeah, one thing that gives us a leg up when you, when you shoot outside, sometimes, like when we worked with this guiding company, it sometimes it just takes some grit. right. You know what I mean? Like, we went up, we went up to uh, 30, we went up to Rocking Mountain National Park, we woke up at like 3:00 AM tried to get up there at four 30 and it was freaking blizzarding and it was freezing cold. Yeah. And we're out there literally hiking up to, to, uh, bear Lake or something. Not Bear Lake. I can't remember. I don't know. Somewhere in Rocky Mountain. Yeah. Yeah. Some lake with a big hike up to it. And we're literally just trudging through snow on snowshoes, like hands freezing in the freezing cold. I mean, I was filming them like, you know, they're, they, they, they skinneded up this bowl and skinned down and I had to get some shots of'em, and I was so freaking cold.
Curt:
Right. Um, because you can't turn the camera off and on with your gloves on properly. Exactly.
AJ:
Exactly. You know, and, uh, but we had the grit to kind of go up there and we had, we were excited about it. And that same day we, you know, we went and filmed some rock climbing and some hiking and stuff, and just physically and just mentally, and it just takes some grit sometimes and stuff. Yeah.
Curt:
Is it about the business opportunity or is it more about. I want to be outside more doing stuff like this. I mean, or
JJ:
both? I think it's both, right? Because yeah, I mean we do want to be outside more, but I think also our clients are gonna be better served by us being in our natural habitat and filming where we know and love to be. And uh, like I said, I think we can really give any client that works with us a cut above the rest as far as, um, videos. If it's, if it's
Curt:
based around, would that include like music festivals and things like that? Like Oh yeah. You mentioned JAMA Land and, and wanting to have, uh, this, this birch virgin, I forget. Sand Birchfield birchfield, yeah. There for, for JAMA Land next year. And I think we might as well touch on that. Yeah. Like not have the mystery be there cuz I went to my second JAMA land this fall and had a, had a good time. Probably too fun. But, uh, I wasn't alone in that. Uh, but describe Jama land to, uh, the listener that has no idea what the heck we're talking about now.
JJ:
Oh man. We just did our sixth, sixth the year of JAMA Land. Uh, it's essentially an, uh, festival that we throw out in the woods, um, where people and community and music come together, um, just to hang out and camp. Yeah. And we'll makeshift of stage and Exactly pop up
Curt:
concerts. Bunch of campers. Bunch of
JJ:
tents. Yep. Four, four or five bands Friday, five or six bands Saturday. Uh, and everyone kind of brings something to share to jam land as well. So there's share rock where people will come and put different food items that they've brought to share. Some people will lead, um, you know, yoga in the mornings, somebody making donuts for folks. Yeah. Someone's, you know, making burgers at night. So it's, it's really a fun experience. You come and you just kind of, you're hanging out with all the musicians that are playing. We, we ask the musicians that come up to, to actually hang out and camp at least at night. Yeah. Cuz a, a big heart of Jamin is to give musicians also a place to. Retreat and meet other musicians and hear music. Yeah. And, and hang out. And, um, it's been so much fun. Every year it's just gotten even more and more epic. And do you pay them?
Curt:
We do. Yeah. Yeah, we do. They get paid. Cause it's like a donations kind of thing. Yep. Just for the whole thing. Right,
JJ:
right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. We'll split the, however much the donations are between all the bands. Yeah. Um, and it's never as much as we want to pay them. Right, right. We're still trying to figure out how to make a little more revenue from Jam, from Jamma land and pay the artists a little bit more. um,
Curt:
yeah. If you're a a, a landowner that, cuz that's kind of your, your size restricted a little bit, there just isn't room to park too much more and stuff like that up there. Right? Yeah. So if somebody's a landowner with an amazing property and a lot of privacy and, you know, a place to put a stage, that's what we really need is, is a, is a 400 person venue or 600 person venue for
AJ:
jamma land. Yeah. And you don't mind a bunch of mount rowdy mountain folk coming out drinking whiskey. Right, right. Chicken dirt on your
Curt:
legs. But we'll click, we'll clean up after ourselves pretty well. Of course, course we'll leave any lasting damage. Maybe leave it better than we found it. Oh no,
AJ:
absolutely. We do, we do actually add jamaya. We always leave it better than we find it. There's people that go up there, dude, where we typically will do jamian, which is at Lost Lake and Red for the lakes. Yeah. And just trash it man. Trash toilet paper, like stuff they leave behind and we We'll always clean it up.
Curt:
Yeah, we'll clean up. You clean it up before you get going and then again after you finish. Exactly. Probably
AJ:
Exactly. Um, but dude, jam Lane is absolutely magical. I mean, the words can't really describe Jam Lane fully Um, you have to, you have to just go and experience Dude
Curt:
Jam Land's gonna blow up this year with you being at the music district there and all those members of the district and them all sharing it with their friends and stuff like that. Like, Hey, we're gonna go up to JAMA Land this weekend, I hope. Yeah. So what's that? It's usually like the second, third, fourth. It's something like that. Weekend of September.
AJ:
Now we've locked it into being the last weekend in August.
Curt:
Last weekend in August. Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. before Labor Day. Yep.
JJ:
Okay. Yep. We'll be ready. That's, people are giving us too much crap about the cold up
AJ:
there, Yeah. Everyone's like, it is too cold. Couple years ago we had it in like mid to late October. You said that one.
JJ:
Yeah. That was awesome. That was wild.
AJ:
But then, you know, when it's, it's something like that where it's really cold or whatever conditions are inclement, then the people that are there are the people that really want to be there, And so it provides a unique
Curt:
experience. Fair enough, fair enough. So, uh, and we're, uh, hatching, uh, up some new plans here. I assume AJ has brought you up to speed on that, but third year. House Jam Matthew's House fundraiser coming up here. Yes. Just locked in on April 25th, which is the Tuesday before Foco mx. Fun. Nice. At odells. And so, uh, 200 people. We went there for a brothers fountain. And then, uh, my recent guest, uh, well, Kent Overman from the Blues Dogs. Oh yeah. So the blues dogs are gonna open for the brothers fountain with a short talk from Kurt and maybe somebody from the Matthews house in the middle. And, uh, we're gonna raise some money for the Matthews House. Again,
JJ:
my favorite nonprofit. My favorite brewery. My favorite bands. We love Kent. He's so cool. We did a 24 hour jam for the van, if you may re remember. Kurt. Yeah. I sang four years ago. Days. Oh, that's right. and Kent saved us. He, he helped us so much in that, uh, endeavor. We ended up raising$4,000, gave$2,000 to the rescue mission. paid$2,000 for an RV that Justin still lives in Right. And we took on tour So the jam for the van really worked, um, in a big way. And Kent was a huge part of that. He brought all these other musicians to that event and we literally played for 24 hours straight in the streets of Fort Collins, which was awesome. But
AJ:
yeah, I'm pumped for that event though, Kurt. Man, you always do such a good job putting those on. You do. And it's so cool that you do that, man. Cuz the Matthew's House is doing some epic stuff, dude. They are. They are such a world changing organization.
Curt:
Well, they're working on, they've been selected as the lead agency to buy a, to build a youth shelter in Loveland. I don't know if you've heard about that. Wow. So that'll be part of the call to action. And I, he probably missed your radar even, but you know, that trailer park that's behind the Community Life Center over on Lake Lane, um, that's where their headquarters is, is over there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. uh, Nicole Armstrong, it wasn't really the Matthew's house, but she formed a nonprofit to help the residents buy the park from. The owner. Oh, cool. So that they all control this. 270 families are all co-op ownership group of their own property, so they can't lose their affordable housing in Fort Collins. That's, wow. Yeah. Let's go. So cool. And it's all, you know. Clients and, and you know, they're, they're looking for a leg up and it's hard to get a leg up when your rent keeps going up fast. Yeah. Oh, big time. So, oh, that's awesome. They keep making a difference. It's pretty cool. I, I'm really inspired.
AJ:
Seriously. That's such cool news, man. Did you know Kurt, that AJ and I have helped guide backpacking trips, uh, through the Matthew's House Experiential Learning Program? No, I did not know that For the Matthew's house. Yeah.
Curt:
That's cool.
JJ:
Yeah, those were life changing. Light changing.
Curt:
Oh, maybe, maybe Stoked Ember, uh, should make a video about that time. That would be cool.
AJ:
I would think that's
Curt:
a great idea. I would consider, uh, I would even maybe put a light sponsorship in that or something like that as long as I get a shout out at the end. come on. So let's talk about it. Uh, Sean Keifer probably is your contact then.
AJ:
Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Love that guy. Shout out to Sean Keifer. He's been on some trips. Awesome. Local guy. Yep. He's been on a ton of those backpacking trips. He was in the
Curt:
studio with Jenny and Nicole, uh, for this podcast. Uh, maybe back in April or so. Awesome. Awesome. So pretty, pretty great to hear his story and all their stories really. Oh yeah, I bet. So, uh, yeah, so tune in, uh, for more on that topic and, and yeah, we, we need to spend more time together cuz we can collaborate ourselves into a way too much. Yeah. non-profit work probably, but Hey, I love the heart for that. Um, there was one other thing I wanted to make sure that we talked about. Um, No, not really. Actually I covered my whole must talk about list. What do you guys wanna talk about? Or should we actually, my beer's been empty for a little while. Do you wanna do a refill or? Sure. Get a freshie was gonna amazing. Okay, let's take a quick break. Let's do it. And we're back with a ba ba ba ba baba, baba
AJ:
ba ba ba.
Curt:
What are the words are, I dunno. No one even knows That's what's great about that. Oh, is that right? No one knows the words. Uh,
JJ:
it's still welcome back's, not
Curt:
everyone knows. That's right. Um, so we were like wondering what we should talk about next, uh, when we took off for the break and, and I think we're just gonna go ahead and transition into faith, family politics like we always talk about. Um, and what I was thinking, I do my best thinking. peeing, and sometimes not my best thinking, but I definitely have a lot of ideas. I come outta the bathroom with a fresh idea like four times a week for sure. That is awesome. That's all that is awesome. And I was thinking to myself, um, kind of what you guys are talking about with your, with your tour and recording and kind of the leadership ideas and intentional separation from the world and intentional coming together. You guys are doing a lot of ww JD stuff like with intention in the way that you are assembling your, your time. Thank you. Uh, how do you keep is, are, is your whole band is the brothers fountain, are they all Christians? Because we talked about your faith some No, they're, but they're spiritual and they're comfortable with. spent separating like that and stuff.
AJ:
Exactly, yeah. Okay. Everyone's just open and kind of down for the flow and yeah, everyone sort of is able to glean the good things to glean, you know, from, from different conversations and intentional things that we do, like meditations and stuff, so, yeah. Yeah,
JJ:
yeah. And we're, we're not a Christian band and No, you know, we're, we're open to, you know, what we can learn from other spiritualities and it's pretty cool. Different, the different ways that the, the guys, um, are, you know, how they're in different parts of their journey. So when you
Curt:
say you're a Christian, yes. I believe in Jesus, yes. I was part of young life and yes. I'm super curious about other faiths and ways of approaching God and stuff like that too. Is that a fair Yeah, just open, open to, to wisdom. It's not like a, like a, a picking sides. Yeah. Yeah. It's more of a, of a, of a way of life.
AJ:
Yeah, totally. And just open to, to the wisdom that can be gleaned from other faiths, other, other religions, other perspectives. Yeah. Yeah. And, and open to and excited about, uh, conversations and, and collaborations that can happen in the spiritual world,
Curt:
realm and space and all that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I was, I was just reflecting on that notion that the way, right. Like that's an early kind of phrase of, of some of the like agnostics Christians and stuff. I think even actually, and it, it's so much less tribal sounding than I am this. Mm-hmm. Mm. You know, it's just like I do, this is the way I live my life. Mm-hmm. And you do you, mm-hmm. Yeah. In some ways, yeah. Rather than it standing for, you know, obviously if you're a Christian, you hate the gays, right. Or that kind of thing, right? Mm-hmm. and trying to reconcile all of those notions of what is a marriage, what is a. man, what is all that stuff? Right? Right. Anyway, how's that, how's that practically play out for you guys, like when you're on the road and stuff, especially, and do you have a, a home church that you attend regularly now, a little bit sometimes. Um, yeah, no,
AJ:
we do, we have a home church. It's, uh, previously known as Everyday Joe's. Oh yeah. A timber line.
Curt:
Oh, and they transferred it on to somebody else or something? Yeah, so Oh, it's those guys that I've met at Wild Boar. Uh
AJ:
oh. Yeah. Yeah. Who is it? Oh, the new church that took, yeah, I don't remember their name. Okay. The community or something. The, the common, the commonplace is now what our church is called, and it meets at the peak, I believe. Right.
Curt:
Oh. So every day, every day Joe's got moved out, the congregation got moved out to a different, right. Yep. Operator person.
AJ:
Okay. Yep. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the commonplace Yeah. Is our, is our church. Okay. Yeah. And where's that at? It's at the Peak, which is another church on Mulberry and Oh, peak Community
Curt:
Church. Yeah. Yeah. Great. They've been big supporters of the Matthew's House. Oh, cool. Like way back, like year two, year three peak has, so
AJ:
for what it's worth. But, but I mean, honestly like for us, it's, it's more than just the church we attend. I mean, it's just like, so much of it goes back to just our family and our upbringing and our parents. Right. And their ability to teach us to kind of create community, um, within the family and within your close circles of friends. Mm-hmm. So we grew, grew up, I mean, going down to Kentucky, Tennessee on houseboat trips and every morning. um, on those trips, you know, there was that quiet time that we now institute on our trips. Hmm. And someone knew would lead and we'd, it would often be more like Christian, you know, in the scripture and all that. And we do that on ours as well sometimes as well. But we kind of let everyone lead that. And if Right, if they're, you know, reading a Buddhist book and they want to talk about that, that's great. Okay. Yeah.
Curt:
That's part of the distributed Exactly. It's your turn to leave the quiet time. Exactly. Yeah. You don't have to exactly
AJ:
pull from the Bible, but Yeah. But then, you know, we do have, you know, other intentional spaces where we meet and we do, um, get in the Bible. So we have a Bible setting that we started with some other guys and it's been going for about three years now. Oh wow. Um, and we meet actually at Everyday Joe's every Tuesday. Yeah. This morning we met at 6 45. Yeah. Negative 15 degree weather. Luckily we're inside, but in the past we were in my garage, so this feels great being inside, but. You know, it's just, it's just about being curious, I think in a lot of ways, spirituality and faith and not necessarily trying to teach everyone or know everything, but like actually trying to figure out what the right questions are. Hmm. And who to ask those questions with and to create that safe space to explore them. Hmm. That's really well said. We're on the same page with everything he just said.
Curt:
We are,
AJ:
uh, he and
Curt:
I. Oh gosh. Yeah. I thought you were talking about you and like the person sitting on your shoulder or something. I don't know. Do you guys, uh, like spend a lot of time like in personal study and that's kind of an individual question. Mm-hmm. do you spend time, like when you're thinking about songwriting and stuff, do you have, because you're, when I listen to your verses, a lot of'em are, at least they're like sneaky, scripturally inspired. Yeah, yeah,
AJ:
yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. There's like a, there's kind of a overflow that happens there. Mm-hmm. You know, it's not like I'm like, Hmm. I want to incorporate this like, little scripture into this song.
Curt:
Right. You know, it's like Psalm 36 in my mind. Yeah. What can, how can I write a song about that? Yeah,
AJ:
exactly. Right. Or like, how do I make this song be about the Bible? I, you know, it's just more like, this is just genuinely what I've been meditating on and thinking about and feeling inspired by. Yeah. Um, and, and naturally it comes out through the songs that I write. So yeah. I do have a, I do try to get some time every morning, um, although the past couple years it's, it's been further, uh, in fewer between Yeah. Um, but I've been kind of kicking it back. Um, to be more consistent lately. There's a, there's a book I'm reading right now called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Hmm. Yeah. Have you
Curt:
read it? I've actually downloaded it, but I haven't listened to it yet. Oh my gosh. It's, I can't read anymore. My eyes are too weak. It's so good. Unless I wear my reading glasses, but that's Then I'll look old.
AJ:
No, you would look handsome in
Curt:
those reading books. I don't know. They're up there, Anyway, sorry. It's a, it's a book that
AJ:
just calls out basically the craziness and the absurdness and the unhealthiness of the world we live in with, with, uh, with our phones. With being busy. It's like, how you doing all the, the time. But I'm busy. It's like, who's not busy right now? Right. You know, and it's like, well, what's, you know, we kind of have this workaholism going on. Mm-hmm. in our world. and it did ha didn't always used to be this way. And it doesn't have to be this way now. Right. And, um, it's, it's really cool. It's a really impactful book. Um, I've only just scratched the surface mm-hmm. Um, but usually I'll try to get kind of a book going similar to that. That's sort of inspiring me in some sort of way. Yeah. Along with, you know, maybe popping into the Bible and, um, you know, reading some scripture. But, um, yeah.
Curt:
So it's, uh, almost like, I don't wanna say pop culture, but, but kind of new science, new thought about how to make your life better is part of the, a spiritual journey. Yeah. In some ways. And I, I would agree with that. Even if it's yoga. Yeah. You know, frankly, doing 20 minutes of yoga every morning will change your life. Oh. It's, if you haven't been doing nothing. Especially me, meditation. Meditation
AJ:
too, for sure. And the difference between meditation and prayer, it's like, wait, is there a difference?
Curt:
Not that I'm aware of. Really. You know,
AJ:
so why are some people saying meditation is. Yes. Buddhist, but prayer is Christian, you
Curt:
know, like Right. That's the same kind of Yeah. So I was just thinking to myself, imagining a, like somebody plowing a field behind an oxen or even driving a tractor and, and harvesting a field or this and that, you know, yes, you're working, but your mind, you know, you can be contemplating a, a conversation with a friend or a passage of scripture or something. If you're just walking behind an oxidant, your job is to hold the plow straight. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you know mm-hmm. And, but now, you know what we call a knowledge economy. It's like you can't be like, you're busy. Right. You know, you're too busy for that kind of thinking. Right. Or you're too distracted. Or distracted by your own, oh, I got five minutes. I better look at my Twitter. Yep. My Instagram. Yep.
AJ:
Totally.
Curt:
Yeah. That's sad. Yeah, it's true. Um, family. Uh, you're engaged to be married young man. I am engaged to be wed, oh wait, you remember last year's, uh, the, the, the Jam House Jam show at Sweetheart Winery, uh, when I talked to you outside and I was like, make sure you marry that girl. That's right. I remember that. Don't be dilly Dian. Yeah. Yep.
AJ:
He put a little fire under his ass,
Curt:
And it wasn't, it wasn't. Six months later I heard about the engagement. So congratulations when you get married. Uh, what's up Abigail? Yeah.
AJ:
Hey, shout out to my fiance, beautiful fiance, Abigail Scott. Soon to be Abigail Fountain. Um, we're gonna get married June 3rd in actually up in red Feathers. So we met at JAMA Land.
Curt:
Oh, is that right? I think I remember that. That's cool. She came up with a buddy or
AJ:
something. 20, 20 19 We met at JAMA Land. Yeah, through a mutual friend. She was invited. Um, we met there and then a few months later we went on our first date. Um, so it's so cool to have met there. And then there's also this other story where I took a, an old RV up to Red Feather, was aiming to just be there for a few days over a weekend. Ended up, got like snowed in, ended up being a few months, uh, throughout Covid and yeah, the, the RV broke down up there, but at, at the time, she was living in her van that she built out herself, which was really badass, right. Um, and she came up and she, she would come and hang out with me while I was up there. So I'd be, I'd be in the rv, she'd be in the van and we'd just hang out in Red Feather and it's Covid, so there's nothing going on. So we'd just literally were just up there like passing the time. It was the best, actually. It was the absolute best and it was the best way to spend Covid versus, you know, watching Netflix. So, right. Uh, a lot of stories that came from that, but Red Feather. So having met there, having spent. Three months of Covid there has become a really, really special place for us. Yeah. Cool. So we're gonna actually go get married right next to the, where we were hanging out. Oh,
Curt:
is that right? Yeah. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, I might, uh, my buddy's got a property up there so I might, uh, crash and see if I can find the fountain wedding if I don't get an invitation. Oh yeah. See come on up, So, um, you're excited about that. Is she excited about the band journey that you're kind of on? Well, she's kind of a no bad anyway, right? So like, she's capable of earning income when she's traveling around and she's a writer and a, she's a thinker and a doer and a van converter and all that. Yeah.
AJ:
Yeah. She's a brilliant writer. Um, she's a creative director for a, a nonprofit. Mm-hmm. out of, um, out of Denver called Mu Baa. Um, yeah, she does her own thing just like me. She's a, she's an entrepreneur. She's so smart, so talented. She's a photographer as well. Um, she's learning to become a videographer and video editor. Um, it's like, what can she not do? Um, so yeah, she's, she's really solid. She has a, a solid amount of independence, but at the same time, it's hard, you know, when I leave for these trips. Yeah. We'll go on a, you know, three plus week tour or some big, you know, film project or something, or we'll go on our, our little. Crafting trips where we'll go raft and, and songwriter around a campfire. Mm-hmm. And it's, it can be hard, it can be hard for her, um, to, she just wants to be involved. She wants to be there. Right. You know, she's like, this is a cool adventure. I wanna, it's
Curt:
not that she can't handle herself, but she's got FOMO going on. She,
AJ:
yeah. Maybe some little bit of fomo, a little bit of like, yeah, I just want to be there with you because it sounds fun. Um, but also, you know, there's just, there's stuff with, you know, the, the world of like trying to be a musician naturally, like I had mentioned before, to make money you have to breach into the masses and what that brings, which isn't what any of us are really seeking. and, and I can honestly say that, but it brings fame, right? It brings this, this, this, this clout of, of people that are like, oh, you're awesome. Right? You know? And so that brings a whole nother challenge to any relationship where it's like, I, you know, who knows what it'll end up looking like? But just imagine, you know, imagine like being the wife that has to stay at home, maybe with, even with a kid or a newborn. Yeah. And the husband is just off with his buddie. playing music for hundreds and thousands people. Yeah. And having, you know, probably having a really good time and getting all the praise and glory for like, oh, you're awesome. Your music's
Curt:
great. Well, and starry-eyed, cute girls. Like, oh, you're so dreamy. You know? And you've been gone a month.
AJ:
Exactly. So how fun does that sound to Abigail? Probably not the most fun, but she's, she sees us, she sees our heart, our mission, our community that we're trying to build. Yeah. She sees, um, the grind of it, you know, because a lot of times you, you as a fan, you, you just, you
Curt:
just see the glory, the show. Oh, it just looks fun, man. Like, play music for 90 minutes. You live
AJ:
the dream. Yeah. But like, there's a lot of grind behind it, so, yeah.
Curt:
Yeah. How's that for Lori? Because you've been married a couple years, almost three now, aj, is that right? Yeah, three and a half. Three and a half,
AJ:
okay. Yeah. Yeah. She's been incredibly supportive of the music journey for. I mean, how many wives? Yeah, we'll let you go on tour for three weeks and then the next month go to Alabama for a week. Record right? Next month's, another mini tour. So it's definitely a grind, as Justin said, for us and her, um, to be apart from each other, but she's so supportive of the journey and yeah, um, it's good, you know, to communicate through those things and to figure out what a good balance is. And it's cool just that our ability as a band to kind. Adapt to, to different, um, arrangements of Yeah. Of bandmates musicians. So if it's not appropriate for me to leave, you know, it could be just Justin Solo, or Justin and Graham or Andrews. Right, right. There's a number of combinations. Knowing,
Curt:
knowing that you don't always have to be there as part of what makes it comfortable. Right. More comfortable.
AJ:
Yeah. So it's a little more pressure for Justin, I think as the lead man. Right, right. Going forward in that regard, but fair enough.
Curt:
Yeah. And is Lori a, a career woman now? She's, what's she doing with her time? Yeah,
AJ:
she is. She's amazing as well. So talented. She's so good at fashion and design. She's working a lot with Sunday Supply and she's a local mm-hmm. company on college here, just down the road. Mm-hmm. um, who's also opening. kid's store right next door. Oh, is that right? Which is pretty exciting. Okay. Um, she's an amazing videographer, photographer. She works with Stoke
Curt:
Denver. Mm-hmm. so she does some freelancing. She's also an entrepreneur, basically. Mm-hmm. With some, with some kind of stable contracts that are kind of their main thing. Mm-hmm. Yes. And
AJ:
shout out to Lori and Abigail. They're stepping up huge with Stoke Denver right now. Working with us more. Helping us. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Becoming more of a, a full team with a, a diverse set of talents and Abigail's just done our whole. rebrand essentially. Okay. And redid our website for us as well. Oh, wow. Which is
Curt:
awesome. So part of letting Jacob have the space to be more full-time musician is Justin, you mean Justin? His middle name is Jacob. So that's cool that I don't know how you do that. No, I knew it was okay. Uh, I don't know why I said it, but I, I didn't know it. But yeah, part of like freeing up some space for, for Justin to be a mostly full-time musician is like Yeah. Having dependable and consistent help at Stoke Denver, that Ken Edit can do these things, knows how we approach that stuff. Yes, yes. And Justin can still be there trumping through the deep ass snow, getting the raw footage, but, Yeah, there's a lot of work to do after that. Whatever too. Right?
AJ:
Exactly. Exactly. So now it's really a
Curt:
family-owned, although Abigail be like, I want to go Trump through this time. Oh yeah, she was there. She was there, yeah. She took photos
AJ:
that that day. So that was, that was
Curt:
awesome to have her Lori's really sweet. But I'm pretty sure that Abigail could beat her up if it come right down too. I don't know.
AJ:
She's got seven or eight inches on her
Curt:
right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure Abigail could beat me up too. So that is not an insult, Lori. I'm just reflecting the truth. That's what we do. I love her. That's
AJ:
always, she's, yeah, man, she's pretty/=tall. I still, I still got her by a couple inches. Right. And uh, I'm also older than her by a month, so
Curt:
I'm like, but she's probably heavier. Just kidding. I'm sorry. She's not, she's not. Edit this out. Alma octopus is our safe word, but we don't always have to use it. That'll be good. That'll be good content. A Abigail will forgive me for that little bit of teasing. Jesus. Just strong, capable woman. Well, I was just saying how I was kind of skinny guy Justin was that we was the same height basically. Our shoulders are the same place, our hips. But I got the This is very tired. I I could go a few more days without food.
AJ:
are we gonna run the Steamboat relay this year? Yes.
Curt:
Are you running with me? I want to do it with you. Yeah. Okay. You're on it. I'm only doing it if you're doing it. Yeah, no, you can be on the team. Yeah. Do you wanna be on the team too? What is the Steamboat relay? So it's a, it's a relay race from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs, uh, team of 12. And you get three legs at six to eight miles each, or four to seven miles each.
AJ:
Something like that. So what does that end up being? Total? Uh,
Curt:
15 to 20 that you run, that you run. and then the total, you, you run overnight, go up over dead man pass, stay in Walden, and you get like one bus on for six and off.
AJ:
Ooh, hell no. I'll leave that to you guys.
Curt:
Abigail, if you're not scared, you can be on the team. Yeah, she she might actually, she might be keen on that. Love to have you. No, I'm a, I'm a whim dude, you guys, six of us now. Uh, Sixers maybe even seven so far. Cool. So I've just been talking to people, so yeah, that's the. Second weekend or first weekend in August. Yeah.
AJ:
Our friend Mandy just bought that. Yeah. Yeah. Race series. So I think it'd be fun to, it is
Curt:
exciting. I wanna get back in there. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm down local. Think tank's. Doing a team. I didn't know you're gonna be on my team, but love to have you. Cool. Well,
AJ:
AJ's a good addition man. He's done half Ironman's twice. Oh really? And he's swam across Horse tooth Reservoir. Oh wow. And seven kilometers. Kilometers was
Curt:
strong. I didn't
AJ:
10, but who's counting? Oh, 10, I'm sorry. It was actually more like 12 cuz I was doing zigzags the whole way.
Curt:
That's awesome man. I wanna do an Ironman, but like, I'm good at the bike. I'm pretty good at running and I expend like three times as much energy per meter as most swimmers. I just don't know how to grab the water. Like swimmers gotta learn how to do, you know? So I'm, yeah. I'm like, doggy paddle in here. Yep. And it just doesn't, it gets exhausting. Well, they just don't go anywhere. Right. You know, like I get tired of just like working so hard and then I see somebody else working half as hard, going twice as fast.
AJ:
Oh. I was like, yeah, no, you got that though. That's, that's the easiest thing to learn. I'll, we'll go out and swim a few times. All right. Don't you worry. We'll see. You might wanna start at like, Not quite the full iron man. Maybe like a shorter triathlon would be better, but
Curt:
we'll work our way out. Well, I'm gonna, do you wanna run the horse tooth half with me? That's coming up April 16th. Okay. And it's a beast, but I'm intrigued. Yeah. My brother-in-law's doing it. Oh, really? Okay. I, uh, my friend John da Vinci sign company has got a, a team or he is got a sponsorship and I think he might still have one more pass, so. Oh, cool. That'd be fun. Yeah. Alright, I'll check in with you on that after the, it's a big hill climb though, at the start. Heck yeah. No, it's a ridiculous, that was my first like run that I trained for. Hmm. Like, I'd done like two or three couch to five Ks before that. Mm-hmm. But you can't really do a couch to horse tooth half. So I trained and got better at it worked so I could actually run two miles without like dying. Mm-hmm. and uh, but that run is rough. It's like big hill come down a little ways Big hill. Think you're done. and then you got seven miles of flat Oh yeah. This is just rough. Yeah, that sounds fun though. Justin, you seem like you'd be built for running little skinny guy
AJ:
that you would think, man, you would think. But
Curt:
shoot, I got it built for me. I got too many back problems. Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot you've kind of been facing that. How is that going? You, it's okay. Yeah. Right. Are you doing your yoga and stuff? Oh yeah.
AJ:
Always. Always. The yoga, the stretching and trying to keep it strong and
Curt:
you get injured or is it just kind of the way
AJ:
God built you wasn't quite right. Accumulation of, of various things, but
Curt:
uh, too many snowboard jumps that didn't land Right. And stuff like that. Have you actually, yeah.
AJ:
Have you ever Jerry of the day? Have you ever heard of a th uh, Instagram page called Jerry of the Day?
Curt:
No, but
AJ:
right it down
Curt:
I've taken so many yard sales.
AJ:
I highly recommend following Jerry of the day if you like, kind of the epic sales yard sales kinda stuff. Yes. Okay. But it's one of my claim to FAEs. I can't remember if I said this last podcast. Mm-hmm. I'm having deja vu. I don't think so. Is getting featured on Jerry of the day. Oh, okay. Um, and millions and millions of people watched a video of me in a whitewater kayak sliding down a mountain. Up on, uh, independence pass of snow, um, taking a lip of a mountain or of a snowbank Oh, shit. And thinking that I would just pop up into the air like a few feet and come down the Yeah. Land nice and soft to this. No, I sent it probably 15, 20 feet into the air, landed flat.
Curt:
Meanwhile, the hill is going away from you. Yeah, yeah. Landed
AJ:
flat. Oh, yeah. Oh. If there was a couple inches of snow, but underneath those couple inches was concrete. Oh. And freaking com. It's so funny, the, the comments were like, though, this guy's gonna have back problems for live, like compression fracture, like, you know, whatever. They were a little too hard there, bro. Yeah. And they were right. Those
Curt:
comments were right. Dude, my high school friend, like, did that with a snowmobile where he was snowing a ditch and jumping approaches and went way too far and landed on another approach. So it like, landed this way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And same kind of a blow, just like. Boom. Compression fracture compression. Yeah,
AJ:
man. Oh man. Yeah, I was in a seated position. Just landed on my
Curt:
butt. Landed on my tail. Yeah. There's nothing to give, so
AJ:
that probably played
Curt:
out a pretty big role. Yeah, it's a, are you taking any stem cells or anything? No. Should I? You should. Yeah. From all the podcasts I listen to and stuff like get some, go to Mexico, get some stem shell shot on there and you'll be fine. You be good to go get back in there. You mean you might not be in for this year's Wild West Relay, but maybe next year
AJ:
go to Mexico, get a beach bungalow,
Curt:
a bio tequila. Right. Take a few shots. Yeah. Get a few shots in
AJ:
your back from a suss doctor and
Curt:
then you good as new. Yeah, exactly. I trust him
AJ:
more than I trust around here. At this point. I'm, I'm willing to try.
Curt:
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I hope it does continue to get better cuz you're, you know, young, at least you've found a girl now so that she can take care of when you back. It's all shriveled up and stuff in the future. That's I'm, I'm alright. I'm hanging in there. Oh, good, good. Well keep keep up with the yoga and stuff. Yeah. Um, anything else in the family topic that we should be talking about generally? Well, we were gonna ask you like, you gonna pull the goalie, get some kids out while before you, because you're, you're no spring chicken. Uh, cool. JJs already like 31. We don't need to lori's a little younger and stuff fingers, but if you guys are getting, Kurt is keeping
AJ:
it real, man. I respect it. I respect it. I love it. Yeah. So we are thinking about Yeah. Next steps to starting a family. Yeah. So it's exciting. It's definitely a bit terrifying, right? Trying to cherish these moments. Um, and you never know, you know, what God's got for us and how it'll go and all that, but, um,
Curt:
Yeah. I have a recommendation for if, if you're successful in that endeavor, but consider hosting exchange students. Oh yeah. Because they can't really have a job. They can't legally earn income, and so you could just have a 16 year old girl from Poland or. You know, Denmark or Brazil or something, or boy, yeah. Hey, me and the misses are going out. It's our Friday night date night. you're staying with our baby. You mind watching this
AJ:
infant welcome to
Curt:
America. Here's a Watch this infant built in babysitter. That's a good idea
AJ:
actually. I like that.
Curt:
Bad idea. And it was kinda like, what? What do they call the, uh, a pair, you know? But you have to pay an A pair. Mm-hmm. But if you just call yourself a host family exchange thing, then you just get a freebie. Yeah. You go
AJ:
Life
Curt:
hack. Life hack. Exactly. There you go. That one's free cells and free. That one's free. Yeah. Yes. Suss doctors in Mexico and Frio pairs. There you go. This is gonna be another podcast. Life Hacks with Kurt Barry. Yeah, Lori, I think very highly of you. um, you know AJ as well, so a hundred percent. You guys can talk about it later. fully goalie.
AJ:
Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to be an uncle, man. I think that's, I think that'll be fun.
Curt:
Are you Pressure? Yeah. I won't ask you yet. You're, you're, you're just getting married in June, so Yeah, no, we're
AJ:
gonna give it a few years. We got a good five year plan going on, right? Yeah. We got, we got X, y, and Z goals for now and five years
Curt:
from now. So you're 31, I think Abigail's a little younger than you, but I don't know. She's a
AJ:
month younger. Oh, wow, okay. Yep. Two inches shorter. One month younger So I'm, I'm
Curt:
well. So don't wait too long though. You know that 35, 36 zone, it's kind of the. Best of the, the end of the prime time. I,
AJ:
I do. Yeah. I do know that. I do know that. And maybe
Curt:
you guys don't want'em. I don't know. Who knows? I'm not here to talk about we're, we're a little
AJ:
uncertain on the
Curt:
kid thing. Well, it's weird. After you've been a, know about all your life and you hitchhike to Alaska and you go travel around South Africa and now you're Yeah. It's strange. Adapting to a different way of Yeah. Seeing the world and thinking. Right. Exactly.
AJ:
It's, it's a transition.
Curt:
So politics, um, should we talk about Twitter? Should we talk about vaccine sudden death syndrome? Should we talk about Europe? Russia, Ukraine, uh, what would we so many current events that we could potentially step on a landmine. Oh my goodness. But not as many as there was before. It seems like, like there's not nearly as many taboo subjects as there was even a year ago. Hmm. True. In some ways That's true. That's true.
AJ:
That's true. I've got a bone to pick with local Fort Collins politicians. Oh, let's hear it. Why? Are we one of the coolest towns in Colorado, yet? We only have six pickleball courts, in the entire city. I mean, are you kidding me? every town in northern Colorado, all these small towns. Yeah. Windsor ing. Yeah. They have more than us every, and like I'm a big pickleball guy and a little bit less of a politician guy, so that's why I brought it here. Yeah, I
Curt:
think that's good. Did you connect with, uh, with Kim, by the way, didn't I introduce you to Kim O'Neill because her husband's building a basketball court? Yeah, I
AJ:
did text her back and I think it was like, okay, we'll let you know if anything's happening or something like that. But,
Curt:
um, yeah, one of my, she was, she was a sympathetic ear. She was like, you know, it might make sense for us to build pickleball into the equation. Oh
AJ:
yeah. I think those two would work together brilliantly. I mean, you could share courts and so one of my goals this year is to get involved professionally in some way. With with
Curt:
pickleball. With making more pickleball happen. Yes. Whether it's, it's kinda like this place needs more cowbell. Yeah. We need a little
AJ:
more pickleball. This sport grew from 6 million to 36 million last year. What? Like last year? Last year. And one year. Six Xed. Like we could be the, the best city for pickleball in the state. Instead we're the worst. Right. Like I really think if the city prioritized making this, you know, making more pickleball courts what, or you know, fostering that in a better way. I think it really could make us a better
Curt:
city. And we need tax community. Yeah. Tax incentives, tax recruitment, financing to, that's
AJ:
insane. Building pickleball six x, that pickleball is just taking off like crazy. Oh, it's crazy. So yeah, we're trying to work with,
Curt:
yeah. Pickleball. So if you hear this and you want to help AJ's dreams of appropriate pickleball, court access. Yes. In Fort Collins come true. He's willing to help you out. He'll do a, he'll do a benefit concert. Yeah. My brother's fountain will, if you got a sweet
AJ:
place and a free fundraising video, Stoker.
Curt:
Right. And maybe a bass, uh, funding level. get you covered.
AJ:
So there's actually, it's called Chicken and waffle based outta Texas in there. Um, um, it's, it's really cool concept. It's like a bar and a restaurant, fried chicken pickles. There's also a bunch of pickleball courts, indoor outdoor. Okay. And then they have a stage. So I'm trying to talk to them and say, Hey, let me help you get a franchise started up here. Yeah. Yeah. And uh,
Curt:
that could be a really cool thing. I had a cool experience last weekend. That was it, pod Fest in Orlando. And I played ping pong a little bit with Wally Green, and he's like a professional ping pong. And he is got a couple of nightclubs in New York that are ping pong and, and disco or, and e electronic dance music and stuff like that, basically. But, uh, he told his story as our keynote for the pod fest. And this kid like, grew up in the projects and his stepdad was abusive to him and his mom. And like, I can't share his story in the same way that he did, but it blew me away with his authenticity and the realness of it. And, uh, you know, ping pong saved his life. He ended up like, he stumbled into a pool hall and ping pong place, and the guy started paying him 20 bucks an hour to play ping pong with him. Mm. And then four months later, sent him to Germany to learn how to play ping pong a pro. That's cool. Wow. And he just, he swooped him up off the streets and turned him into a professional ping pong player. Hmm. Wow. I mean, he did, he turned himself into it. but only because that somebody believed in him for the first time in his life, pretty much. Wow. When he was 16 or 15 or, I don't know what. That's awesome. Anyway, that's cool. Check out Wally Green if you guys are listening. Uh, he's got an Instagram or a TikTok and, uh, just a really cool guy, so That's amazing. That's my ran is like intentionally try to make somebody's life better once in a while. Yeah. Uh, come on. Would probably be a good political line that you guys would buy into. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. for sure. Justin, what do you wanna talk about in politics? Uh, Are we in world Wari? Are we in the early start of World War iii?
AJ:
I'll be honest, Kurt, I you don't pay attention to that kind of stuff.
Curt:
I don't even know where Good vibes, only baby good vibes only. I just
AJ:
would not know where to begin. And that's just me being honest. I mean, I, I probably should stay better up to date with current events and in politics and everything. I admit it. Yeah, but it, you think so? It just feels like, man, I'm just doing my best to, to stay on top of life, you know, and, and make a career out of, uh, playing music, so, yeah. Um, so I don't know. What do you don't have anything on politics? What, what's on your mind in politics?
Curt:
Oh, God. There's too much. I got into Twitter again a couple months ago. I'm all about the free speech. You know, Elon I love one of, well, I love a lot of Ellan Musk tweets, but like a few months, a couple months ago, probably six weeks ago, he tweeted, uh, in 2020 I was. The man of the year, you know, and like everybody hates him now because he is a free speech warrior and he is releasing files that make Pfizer look terrible, and, Hmm, the government look terrible and the FBI look terrible and hmm, yada, yada yada. And you probably haven't been paying attention. Um, but there's a lot of no good nicks out there in the world that are twisting the narrative to their own causes. Mm-hmm. just be thoughtful. Remember, a tinfoil hat protects you more than a cloth mask.
AJ:
All right. All right. I mean, let's be thankful that we live in this country where we can call out some of the BS in a way. Like, I know that there's plenty of government censorship happening in this way, and that subtly, but comparatively to every other country in the. Right. We're freaking, I mean, this isn't
Curt:
stuff like that without somebody coming knocking on my door. Exactly.
AJ:
I feel like we heard this, thank you're lucky stars that we can speak our minds and like, I'm so thankful for this country and, and this state of Colorado and this city of Fort Collins. As much as I give crap to the politicians for not having pickleball courts the way that this town supports music, this, this state supports the outdoors, you know, on this country, just supports dreams, I think is beautiful. Yeah.
Curt:
I, I, uh, so I, I retweeted somebody's quote earlier today and it was, uh, an elephant is a mouse built to government specifications when they always overdo the solution. Mm-hmm. So like, if they did a pickleball court, it would probably be like 32 courts of which only. 10 would ever be used at the same time and everybody in the city would have to, even if they don't care about pickleball, would have to pay, you know,$200 a year to cover the cost of maintaining the pickleball course for everybody.
AJ:
we'll use all 32 and we do the year$200
Curt:
we'll take all 32 and your$200. Thank You're a socialist, aren't you? Little bit. Little bit. Communitarian. I thought I coined that term a while back communitarian, but as it turns out, it's basically a old branch of socialism, so I probably stopped using that Um, so I know that you guys, cuz when last time you were on, you each had your own local experience, um, together it was, uh, jumping off a big waterfall. Yours was your trip to Alaska, JJ. AJ has already mentioned you cut the head off of a dead standing moose up in the steamboat and took it home with you. Great memory Yeah. Wow. And uh, so, but I know that like you guys have got more local experiences than that. What are, what are, let's go solos. We don't need to have the pressure of doing a, even though you're kind of semi joined at the hip sometimes, but what's a, what's a local experience of, of your life or even, maybe even in the past 24 months? I think it's about done that long since I had you on
AJ:
and help us again. What, how do you crazy
Curt:
say experienced. Okay. A crazy experience from your
AJ:
lifetime, but like two minutes, right? Or
Curt:
something quick, whatever. Two to four minutes. You know, it could be a, a day, a week, a minute. Could be the, could be the Muscle Shoals recording session week. I don't know. You know, that's a pretty crazy experience. It seems like that could be your shared one. I don't know. What do you think Jesse got one. Got any near death experiences? Yeah, those are always good. I mean, the kayak thing like suggests to me that there's some crazy stuff out there. Mm-hmm. Oh, you know what, before we do this, I noticed my camera quit recording. Yeah. I wonder if in case I wanna do a loco experience like compilation episode sometime. I should probably grab that. Okay. Okay. No problem. All right, we're back. So the local experiences. Yeah.
AJ:
So, um, once upon a time, myself, aj, and two other band mates, Christopher Burke, holder and Chris Moore decided that we wanted to go somewhere outside of the United States and travel only by the means of music. Yeah. And so we would not bring any extra food or money to start that journey. We would start that journey. From scratch, essentially being homeless and helpless.
Curt:
This is kind of a next phase of the first year trip to Alaska that you described last time. Exactly, exactly. The only music. Yep.
AJ:
It's, it's, it's chapter two of the only music projects. Um, and so we got into, into a room together and we thought, okay, where could we go? Uh, Costa Rica, Canada,
Curt:
Europe, all of those sound pretty easy comparatively
AJ:
South Africa. And for some reason, all of us were really stoked on going to South Africa except for aj. What? Call me out. AJ did not want to go to
Curt:
South Africa. Well, and he's historically like your main logistics guy and stuff too, right? Yeah. Book booking guy, just
AJ:
overall planner and, and right. Organized guy and whatnot. Smart, organized, cautious guy. And he, he was like, guys,
Curt:
like, have you heard about the political
AJ:
situation? Exactly. South Africa. Exactly. He was like, guys, I don't know man.
Curt:
Well, for what it's worth, my, my brother has imported now two South Africans to work on his farm. Oh wow. Cool. And like they have to go home. a couple months every year or something like that as part of their visa. Mm-hmm. Hmm. And they're usually just a little bit scared that they might not come back. Mm. Because like farmers in South Africa, white farmers in South Africa are under very heavy oppression and their family is like, no, you get out of here.
AJ:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a lot going on with South Africa. Yeah.
Curt:
Um, but there's a good reason to bring music to them and Exactly. Bring people together.
AJ:
Totally. Exactly. Yeah. So we all just, were just so locked in on South Africa. Eventually we convinced AJ that we were gonna go there, and so we booked the flights and uh, we shipped out to South Africa and we had a bunch of, we had collected a bunch of snacks from the plane ride, like little, little, you know, freaking crackers and breads and
Curt:
chocolates and things. You're like talking nice to the flight attendants and stuff. Oh yeah. We got little,
AJ:
like, little whiskey things, you know? And. And then we arrive at the airport in Durban, south, South Africa. Um, with our goal of making it to Cape Town from Durban, which is a little over a thousand
Curt:
miles. Is this the east coast of Africa? Is that right?
AJ:
It's like over here, specifically South Coast. Southern Coast,
Curt:
okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So like across from the Durban to Cape Town. From the west to the east. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. No, east to the west. Yeah, east to the west. So, starting over here and then coming back this way. Mm-hmm.
AJ:
Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we, we arrived at the Durban Airport and, um, we're like, okay, yada, yada, yada. Here we go. Let's eat as much of these snacks as we can right now, and the rest we're gonna throw away. We did, and we stepped foot out onto the. Outside of the entrance and started playing music. And about what, 10, 5, 10 minutes later some uh, airport official comes up to us and says, do you guys have a permit to play here?
Curt:
She's like, no, we don't have a permit to play. I said, anywhere.
AJ:
He said, no, we do not. And they were like, you, you can't play music here So we were like, what? How
Curt:
are we gonna get a ride to our next destination? What I
AJ:
do, And so, honestly it was an absolute miracle. Like they like made an exception for us. It kind of took a bit of a run around and they're like, whatever fun you can play. And so we kept playing music and we met this, this guy, this local guy
Curt:
during like we got an open guitar case there, like hoping to get Cab fair.
AJ:
Yep. Yep. Oh yeah. Yep. We're trying to chat up people and say, but it's not just
Curt:
a cab cuz you got five or six of you right? Yeah.
AJ:
Or something. Yeah, there's four of us. Four ya. Okay. And uh, but we met this really nice, um, Paige's like,
Curt:
I can't really believe we were, but I can't
AJ:
believe we did that. Yeah. Yeah. Met this really nice, you know, Indian, south African, um mm-hmm. who, who really just took us under his wing and he, he, oh God. Bought us a meal and he said, you know what guys? Like, I, I think I can fit you guys in my little tiny little compact car. And we, we literally piled on top of each other with our gear and, and you can't have a instrument
Curt:
like a, like a bongo drum or something because you can't have a real drum set or anything like that. Yeah. It's all kind of travel once you ukulele, cuz you can't really Regal guitar. Yeah. Mini guitar
AJ:
ukulele, like yeah. Little makeshift stuff going on. And uh, and um, it was just insane. I mean, we. Uh, I can't even describe it. It, it just was nuts. Every, every interaction relationally, um, felt miraculous. Mm-hmm. every person that took us under their wing, that took us into their home, that offered us a gig that even just dropped in a few bucks. Yeah. It was like, this is incredible. Like it was a gift from God, you know? Well,
Curt:
you like a group of street walkers basically out of your circum. Mm-hmm. but at least you can play music. Yeah.
AJ:
Mm-hmm. And I mean, you know, a lot of nights we didn't know where we were gonna sleep. We didn't know where, what we were gonna do. Like, we would run out of money and then we'd run out of food, and then we'd ha you know, we'd try to play music, but it's like, where do we go to play music? We can't travel to go anywhere where we should play music and could play music. Um, and nights where, you know, Or mornings where we were like, well, we just spent the last of our money on this campground that we just, you know, stayed in our tent at, and now we have nothing. Mm-hmm. let's just walk down the street, in the direction we're going toward Cape Town, towards Cape Town, and, uh, and try to find a spot in, in this next town that we can bus and play music, um, and see what happens. So there was just a, it was a series, honestly. Every day there was just a miracle, uh, uh,
Curt:
just a well, and God provided just in time inventory of, uh, opportunities and resources it sounds like.
AJ:
Yeah. Oh, it was insane. It was nuts. I
Curt:
like to say we have a time machine at Loko think Tank, uh, just in time machine and God does that too a little bit. Yes. You know, and or the universe or life or whatever. Like people are generous, especially when. See you giving off good vibes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I dig it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Aj, what do you got? You want to, uh,
AJ:
you have to put yourself in those situations to, to see God's providence. Oh yeah. So like it's pretty easy. A lot of us call it Providence
Curt:
actually. Yeah. Sorry. It's cool. There you go. Yeah. Sorry. But it, but it sounds a lot or it looks a lot more like provide Right. But
AJ:
like that's not what he does exactly. You know, it's just, it's just interesting cuz my day-to-day isn't like, it wasn't South Africa, right. So I don't quite to see God quite as much. But we can still do that in little ways in our day-to-day, obviously. And one thing that's really cool is we got to partner with Ovation guitars, LP percussion. They gave us all these cool instruments that we took and played along the way. And then at the end we gave them to a music school. kind of run down township area where they didn't have many instruments Yeah. For the kids to play. And so we donated a saxophone and all these percussion instruments That's, that's so cool. Mini guitars that we used to get down the coast in Cape Town to these, to these kids. So that was really sweet at the end to do that. But my story of the local experience, um, it's a little, it's a little less epic as far as being international trip and all that, but I thought about our trip last year. We took to Bozeman, Montana and we did a little mini tour up there and it was a lot of work. I mean, we played a show Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday night, but in the middle of our show Saturday night, this was on, on, uh, red Lodge. At Red Lodge Mountain in Red Lodge, Montana. Great little ski hill there. We played right on the ski hill. The fireworks were going off. But I got a note as I'm playing Midsong and on the note I look and it says, come talk to me. I need to talk to you, And I like look up. This is Midsong like in the middle of a set, like I'm stopping my bass and the guy's like, and I'm like, okay, can I finish the song? We finish the song, all right, I'll walk out to this guy and he goes, I want to know how much is it, what it costs. We need to get you guys out to our, our ranch and play after this again. Oh,
Curt:
okay. Like right after this? Yes. Right
AJ:
after this, we just played three shows in a row. This would be our fourth and three days. We were exhausted. Blizzard out, figured out a
Curt:
d y. Now let's do it. Yeah, let's go play acoustic.
AJ:
So we take the van out with the trailer and all the instruments to this random house. And of course they're pretty rich, focused. Yeah. Yeah. And as we're driving out, we're like, where is this
Curt:
place? Did, did you ask for enough money? Yeah, I did. I did. I should ask for, I shouldn't asked for more though. Fair. But it was still twice what you'd normally got paid, at least. Exactly. Yeah.
AJ:
So, so, um, we're driving out in the snowstorm and we're like, where is this place in? Of course the van slides into a ditch, but it's great. All six, you know, we got six, seven burley bandits. You can push
Curt:
a van. Everyone's pushing and
AJ:
laughing. We get back in, we get down, and then we're at the house and it's all closed up and we're like, what the heck? I remember walking up and I knocked on the garage and they open it up and it's like, All these, you know, like rich old white guys sitting in their lazy boys in this like finished garage, smoking cigars, drinking fine bourbons and
Curt:
like, finally you boys showed up. Let's get this thing on the road. We're
AJ:
like, oh my God, who are these guys? We unload. And they're like, come on, we got, we got dinner for you guys. We have a chef. They had like a personal chef. It was like the C C O O for the San Francisco 49ers. Oh, really? Was one of these guys and,
Curt:
and some other rich people that Yeah. Some other rich you might know. Might know. Yeah, exactly.
AJ:
And uh, they fed us a delicious meal. We had some really fancy, nice wines and played an acoustic show for him with our voices all ho and, but they loved it. We had an
Curt:
absolute blast. Blast. What a cool thing.
AJ:
And, and that was, that was just a kind of a wild experience that we took advantage of. Got stuck in the snow on the way out. Had to push the, push the car outta the snow.
Curt:
Well, it, it's such a praise thing though, like, I don't know how to say it. Like, N nothing feels better than knowing somebody that A, that just appre appreciates you for what you're doing and, and does it quickly. Mm-hmm. Like that guy probably never heard of you guys before in his whole life. Never saw you perform, never saw any, your videos, never saw nothing. Sure. Yeah. And said, you know what? I got my annual cigar smoking and barbecue tomorrow, and it would be cool to have these guys out there. Yeah. So if it wasn't
AJ:
tomorrow, it was
Curt:
tonight, right? Oh, tonight, whatever. Right after this.
AJ:
Right. It was a magical moment, man. It was really cool. And they were really impacted. I mean, they were kind of, you know, broy old, rich, white guys, and they had their wives there, which were so, their wives were so sweet, but. they were impacted by our music and you know, our music, like you said, it's a little bit spiritual and it's a little bit different, you know, so like, it's just cool to get to interact with these people that, um, you know, you wouldn't think would be in your circle or,
Curt:
well, for them it was probably a respite from the normal. Well, yeah, right. They spend every day just driving and pushing and getting the bottom line. Yeah. Figuring out the big decisions, all that kind of stuff. And just to take a step back and be like, gonna hang out and listen to these kids play music in our garage.
AJ:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Can I share one snippet of our trip in South Africa? Of course. Um, so one specific thing that happened as we traveled we're white. you know, there's a lot of polarization in South Africa between white and black people. Sure. And there's, there's, even, as you know, I'll use their words, there's the white folks, there's the black folks, and there's the colored folks. So there's kind of like an in between, um, population. Well, and you
Curt:
mentioned a South African Indian mm-hmm. person that picked you up. There's a
AJ:
ton. There's a huge Indian population for sure. Huge. Um, so yeah, there's a ton of diversity. Right. So naturally a lot of the white folk, the, the local South African white folks would kind of, you know, come to us and, and offer, you know, a meal or to host us. Um, and we slowly, as we traveled, would kind of pick up on just like that, that polarization. Hmm. And just how polarized it really is, and just that political tension and everything going on over there. And we had some unfortunate encounters with. Some racism, some just flat out blatant
Curt:
racism, like white people being like, why were you even wasting your time talking to that black person? Or things like that. Absolutely dumb. Things
AJ:
like that. Things like that. More than that. More than that. Where there was a, there was an encounter and it, and it was just weird, man. Like just, isn't it
Curt:
weird when you see it and you're just, Like you, it's, yeah. You don't really think it really exists. And that, I've had a couple examples of that myself lately. Totally. You just, you
AJ:
just hope the best in people. Right. You do wish for the best in people. And, and, and you know, for us, we wished and hoped for the best story for South Africa and everyone that we encountered. Right. But like, there was this, this owner of this bar who we were in cahoots with. I mean, we'd met him, he had us over at his house. Yeah. Stayed the night there a couple nights. And there was one night, I think it was the last night we were with him, um, we're playing music at his bar. And this, this, this black guy comes up and he's vibing with our music and we're vibing with him. We're like, yeah dude. And we're trying to show this guy at this bar of, of. Mostly white people, which we have to assume
Curt:
that he's awesome too. And we would love him for being
AJ:
there. Yeah, exactly. We're at this bar with, with, with these, these, these white South Africans that are likely leaning towards like just being racist, white South Africans. And we're like trying to express to this guy that like, Hey, we're, we're 40, you, we we're, you know, we're like, we love you, man. Like, come jam with us. Here's a shaker. We gave him a shaker. He starts playing the shaker with us. Yeah. And we're just having a good time. We learned that later on that night, the owner of the bar, who again hosted us, who we knew personally. Right. Um, Had some words for this guy and met him in the bathroom, like cornered him while he went to the bathroom. Wow. And beat the shit out of him. What? Beat the shit out of him for
Curt:
like, putting himself in display in front of his place there and Exactly. For, for, for taking a place of honor almost with your band and stuff.
AJ:
Exactly. Oh, we were torn up about it, dude. We were like, dude, what we are, we total idiots for this. Like, what do we do wrong? Like, what is going on? It was just so, it what's our part? That exactly what's our part? Like shoot, man. Like we just like, did I
Curt:
just get that I beat up. Exactly.
AJ:
Exactly. So there's stuff like that going on, right? Yeah. And so, but throughout our journey we're hearing about you gotta stay away from the townships. Hmm. Stay away from the townships because that's the
Curt:
outskirts, that's where the last the are
AJ:
outskits almost basically the ghetto. It's the, it's what you know in South Africa, it's the third term for basically the ghetto. Yeah. Stay out of the townships. Don't go near the townships. Be careful if you're near the townships. Right. All that type of stuff. Well, it's fear
Curt:
talk exactly like we see all across our media, whether it's. jabs or no jabs, totally. This or that, or Ukraine and Russia and blah, blah, blah. Totally. It's like fear mongering. So
AJ:
we finally make it to Cape Town, and we got in touch with this local guy who was with, um, this nonprofit that we got in touch with. We ended up donating our, our instruments too. Yeah. And, uh, he was black. Mm-hmm. and I, I mentioned to the guys a few days before the trip was over, um, Hey, I want, I know that the townships are intense and maybe, you know, there's a lot of fear there. There's
Curt:
a chance we might not come
AJ:
home. But I think that, I think that this is the missing piece. We need to go into a township. Yeah. Yeah. We need to take our music into a township. And I didn't know how it would look, how it would happen, but we get in touch with this, this guy in Cape Town, um, local guy. He's got connections everywhere. Really good dude. Um, Sibu, SI, Buso. Mm-hmm. Um, and he was like, Hey guys, do you guys want to go into a township? and we were like, yes, this is our opportunity. Um, we're like, absolutely we do. So he takes us into this township. We start driving around and it's rundown, man. I mean, it's like Shaqs and we're
Curt:
deep. We're not gonna make too much money here cuz we got more money than everybody here. And he
AJ:
Yeah, man. And he's, he's telling us these, these statistics, like this is the murder capital of the south, like of South Africa and yada yada. Um, but here's the township and he takes us to this Campina, which is like this little local township bar place to get alcohol. Okay. Yeah. And uh, we step out of the car and uh, a few moments after we show up, we're like, Hey, I wonder if we should grab our instruments and play some music here. I wonder if this is our opportunity to bring our music. Yeah. So we did. So we grab our instrument. We, we sort of post up in this township and we're feeling awkward, right? We're like, dude, we are white as the freaking snow and we clearly don't belong here. We have American accents and we just don't know what's going on, right? We're just following this local guy around, um, sort of feeling sheepish, and we take our instruments out. We start playing in this cantina and there's a few people there, and there's not a white person in sight. 0, 0, 0, 0. And they're, while we're feeling sheepish, they're also looking at us thinking, what the heck is going on? What are you guys doing here? This, they're, they're, you can just see it in their eyes, the way they're looking at us. They're like, what do you, what the heck are you doing here? And so we start playing our music very like awkwardly and like weirdly in this place.
Curt:
They're not quite in flow state
AJ:
yet, and No exactly. Sitting on crates. Yeah. And slowly but surely, There was a few, 3, 4, 5 people in the, in the general vicinity. They start vibing, they start grooving. They start coming closer to us, coming closer to us. And then the 3, 4, 5 people turn into eight people. The eight people turn into 12 people. The 12 people turn into like 20 or 30 people, including a gang of, of 15 kids under the age of seven. right under the age of 10 or whatever.
Curt:
And uh, also not big
AJ:
spenders, probably literally everyone just starts gathering and, and conversing, communing, and, um, I mean, I had a guy, it was just a such a beautiful moment. Like this guy was sitting next to me as I'm jamming and we start handing, you know, handing out instruments and just, we just start talking. Yeah. And he's, and he's telling me, just expressing this like gratitude to me. Yeah. And he holds my hand in our culture, we don't hold hands, but in their culture and in other cultures in the world, they'll hold hands man to man. That's awesome. So he grabs my hand just like this. I love it. And he looks deep into my face and he is like, man, no white people ever come here, but you are welcome here. I'm so glad that you are here. If you need a place to stay, if you need food, if you need water drink, I would host you in a heartbeat. You know, and he's telling me this in his, in his. Accent. And, um, I'm, I'm having a hard time understanding what he's saying, whatever, but, but there was just such a beautiful, amazing moment and it was, it was the pinnacle. You can't hear the words, but you know what he means. Exactly. It was the pinnacle of the whole trip to South Africa of what we were seeking after. What is the power of music? What can only music do to provide for us, to help us connect with people on a, on a deep spiritual, relational level? And it was the pinnacle, it was the, it was the la one of the last days we were there, it was in that township with those South Africans. Um, and it was absolutely beautiful. That's
Curt:
awesome. I really like that. I'm really glad you came back in to share that. Yeah, that's, that's a great story. Um, it got me emotional remember too. Yeah. I can see you're listening. Um, you guys, I think it's, that's a good place to stop. Mm-hmm. Um, when is your new music gonna be out with the Muscle Shoals thing and stuff? We don't know,
AJ:
man. There's a bit of a run around with, uh, promoting it and, and pitching it to different labels and whatever else.
Curt:
Signed it on a brothers felton.com or something. Yeah,
AJ:
you can look up, yeah, look up a, a brothers fountain.com. We'll show you. You click on our shows tab, it'll show you all the shows we've got coming up and you can just, you know, show up to any show, obviously, and, and come by about with us. Um, we're on all the social media, Spotify, uh, you know, freaking Amazon Music, apple Music, whatever platform you prefer. We're on it. Mm-hmm. um, this album though, that we recorded at Muscle SHOs, it's gonna be a minute, it might be six to 12 months before it's actually released to the public. Okay.
Curt:
And soak Denver if people wanna get some outdoor videography kind of stuff done. It's just, Is it Stoke denver.com? Stoked denver
AJ:
productions.com. Oh yeah. Stoked denver productions.com. Yeah, we'd love to chat and just thank you so much, Kurt, for having us on this Yes. Local experience. It's such a amazing podcast and, and we just believe in you and love you so much and believe in this, this kind of form of community that you're promoting here, of just talking to people about what they're passionate about and sharing that with the world and your audience. So thanks for doing that and having us.
Curt:
Thanks for that. And yeah, cheers. Check it out. Cheers. Cheers. Bye guys. Thanks.
The Top Episodes
Start Here
