Menace Mary in-studio Anthony Soto

I'm just a guy that wants to entertain people, that's what I mean. That's fair.

That's. Fair.

You know, music and comedy, That's pretty much the two things. That's fair, all right.

I'm looking good over there. I think.

I don't have any silly shit in front of me like water.

This is hard parking. Brought to you by right Honda

and right Toyota Scottsdale, AZ. I'm your host Jay Penney,

recording from my home studio in Gilbert, AZ Coming up on today's show, Anthony Soto, local musician, lead singer, local expel, PPF installer, gamer, streamer, 1.5 million followers

on TikTok. Today we get to learn his story

a little bit about him. Of course, I met him in the car

world. Shocker.

But this is a classic example of how cars can unite all of us.

But first, a little clean up from the prior episode.

I had asked about Tesla, actually a couple episodes ago, I asked about Tesla. So there's about roughly over

2,000,000 Teslas on the road. I don't know if any of you have

actually done the Tesla challenge.

Again, something I think I made-up, but see how far you can go in your area without seeing a Tesla.

When you get to a stop light, look around to see how many Teslas there are. There may be nobody stopped, but

at some point between that light going from red to green, you're probably going to see one depending on where you live in the United States. And also, I have had Tesla

owners reach out to me and say, yes, it's in the back of their mind of somebody just screwing up their car.

It's if they choose to not turn sentry mode on.

So I guess the cameras are only on if you activate them.

I kind of thought they'd be all the time, but maybe not.

Apparently not. But I think it's interesting

because it's the same deal as if let's say there's somebody on mass transit that let's say there's a mass transit serial killer in a city. How many city buses are there?

How many people ride the bus a day?

How many people are going to be riding that bus every single time in the back of their mind thinking, am I going to be next?

Is that person going to be on this bus?

Now, statistically, obviously, in one city, in one bus, there's not 2 million people riding. Actually, I don't know.

There could be 2 million people ride a bus today, but I doubt it, right? But it's still one of those

things that it wreaks havoc and it's always going to be in the back of your mind. So something to think about.

Very curious. It's a very curious thing, the

fear that people get over things.

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get your first month free, upgrade your tech and get back to business. Anthony Soto Hi Mr. Soto,

welcome to hard parking. Thank you for coming over and

spending time with me today of. Course, I'm happy to be here.

It's cool. We've talked about this for a

while, so if people think you look familiar, you probably do for any number of reasons. But as it relates to the things

that I've done, you know, we did the video of the NSX that took me 18 to 24 months. I have this, I, I have this,

this content and, and you're a major content creator and you do 1000 different things. We're going to get into it.

But I have it just sitting there sometimes.

And I have things that I recorded earlier this year.

I'm like, I got to get to that. I got to get to that.

And that video was one of them. So hopefully everyone's OK.

With I guess celebrating 2 birthdays by the time I.

Saw. Probably so.

Probably so. And so, you know, tell us a

little bit about yourself while you're here.

You know, I'm going to have some really light intro with the expel stuff and things like that.

But Mr. Soto, let's go. My name is Anthony I.

When I turned 18 I realized after a little bit of college that it just wasn't for me and I decided to just enter the workforce hard, pedal to the metal and just take it as far as I could. After working full time for

about 8 to 9 years, I realized that I kind of just, I like being my own boss. I encourage it for anyone that

wants to do it. Just take the leap, do it.

And so instead of sitting around and binge watching my favorite shows, which is still tempting, I decided to, you know, if I'm going to do something for fun like play video games in my free time, I might as well make something out of that, you know, make a video or live stream it or whatever.

And people seem to really like that.

And then I also realized I like singing to myself in the shower and I used to be in a band back then.

So why don't get into another one?

I've got some time now and it's just this is my band here.

I felt like I had to do a shameless plug today, but I started Menace Mary. Yep.

I started up the band from scratch with my rhythm guitarist and the people we've picked up on the way to fill the roles and the music that we're writing right now.

It's it's it, it became a lot more than what I expected.

I thought I was just going to do this for fun and it's getting to the point we have a producer behind us and some backing and I got to start taking this seriously.

It's getting pretty good. And you know, my time in the car

industry, while amazing and I've been able to meet a lot of great people out of it. I've realized that musics a bit

more what I was hoping to get into as an adult and now I am.

So we'll kind of see where that takes me.

Hopefully not. Hopefully I can get out of the

car industry because I do love it, but hopefully I can put a little bit more time into music. I want to.

I want to give people something to listen to instead of an invisible product they can't see.

Sure, you know what I mean? So.

So as it relates to the car industry, you know, tell us what you do and what your specialty is because you definitely have a specialty. Yeah, so I, I install paint

protection film. It's virtually invisible, helps

protect against rock chips and stuff.

And it's great. It's a product I really, really

stand behind. But you can't see it.

And I'm very much a person. I blame it on childhood trauma.

I'm very much a person. I want people to see what I

create and what I do. And I feel very, very confident.

You know, 11 years deep into installing paint protection film, I feel very confident. My ability and I've been able to

work with some of the biggest names in the car industry.

Luckily, thankfully, I just, I feel like, you know, there's a little bit more out there and paint protection film was something that would help someone keep the integrity of their vehicle as opposed to, you know, putting vinyl wrap on it and risking the paint. Vinyl wrap, something you have

to change very frequently. Window tints, cool, but at the

end of the day it's just windows.

So that's why I went into paint protection film because at least I'm working on the body of the car.

It can be part of that process. So would you consider yourself

maybe an independent contractor? Yeah, it picks up long.

Yeah, I started in the shop, you know, I started at one Armor.

Their crew trained me how to do it and then I kind of took over that department and trained my crew how to do it.

And that's where they're at right now is the crew that's at that shop is the crew that I trained.

And they're great, great kids doing really, really well.

And now I'm just doing it on my own.

I help out that shop still and. Whatever which and now is is

expel, yeah, expel up in Scottsdale when you do these so you take side gigs and do that with with you or do you just basically. OK Hugh, I'm at your disposal

and this is what I'm doing because I feel like you also help develop business form as well.

You're not just an installer, you're.

You're more. There's, it took a long time and

a lot of coaching from him to realize how important it was to not only put the thing on the car, but then how to talk to the person that owns the car. And so there's a lot of customer

service involved in that side of things.

And that comes into play when let's say we have a new dealership that opens up, they want to get into paint protection film. Well, if they send an installer

out there that doesn't say a word to them or is kind of an asshole, they're not going to want to work with that company.

So there's a lot of he's he was coached me a lot with how to talk to people and get on their good side without being a salesman. So I can I can do the technician

thing that no one really knows how that happens.

And then if they come up and ask a question during, they can be like, oh, I'm so glad you asked, by the way, this is what's happening. And they're like, oh, I'm

getting, you know, two sides of the coin here.

Now, see, I would guess that in my interactions with you, the few times I've been by the shop, exact opposite, because I would just guess that you were the one teaching everybody this stuff.

Because I, so you've had an issue before in the past and you've got some coaching to it. And that's how you are the way

you are today 'cause I, I feel like Anthony's great man.

Talk to talk to Anthony and customer service.

Great guy, you know. I, I went into it definitely

enjoying talking to people, but I didn't really know how to do it without seeming like a salesman and I, I.

It's a skill set I guess. No offense to any salesman, but

I do not like salesman simply for the field that there's so much stigma surrounding selling anything and I didn't want to do that. So my, my shtick was if I can

tell you all the facts, maybe we make a joke or two to break the ice and then just show you something that's really, really awesome. You'll kind of make your own

choice here. And that's that's how it was

when I first started at that shop.

I didn't want to talk to anyone because I'm a new guy and I just want to, I just want to touch the car.

Having worked with Hugh and a couple other people that worked at that shop, I realized it actually makes it more fun being able to explain what I'm doing while doing it.

And that's where the training came in.

I really enjoyed talking to people while I did it.

Let's get through all the boring car stuff, right?

I'm down. You're down.

All right. Let's do it.

So I, I think I've kind of pulled this out and you mentioned it when we first started a little bit as well with the streaming. You are you, you're a Twitch

streamer. What kind of streaming do you

do? Because I have a feeling you've

been doing it for a while and you probably have a significant following. It's yeah, it's so I, I started

on TikTok actually just making some, some BS videos of just me either telling jokes or I make this little 15 seconds skit.

The whole point was to just make people laugh.

And I made a lot of them and I grew on the, the channel grew making these videos at the shop. So if a buddy of mine went to

the bathroom, I would sing to him through the bathroom door and then he would sing back while he's doing his business.

And that just kind of created this, this, this vibe, I guess, for the channel. And people really liked that.

And so I decided, you know, instead of I didn't really have a focus, I guess is what I'm trying to say for that Channel.

It was just my face doing something stupid.

Some people like it, some people laugh, move on.

But I couldn't say to anyone this is what my channel's about.

Sure, I have. Ones like hard parking.

It, you know, at the end of the day, entertainments, entertainment. So I feel I've always felt

strongly about it and doesn't have to really fit a niche.

You know, it can. It's just if it's going to make

someone interested, do it. But it was bothering me that I,

I, I grew to 1.5 million on TikTok and I couldn't

confidently tell any of them what the page was for.

I have no idea. It's not really a vlog.

It's not really a music channel, it's not a gaming channel, it's not a joke channel. Like, what is it?

It was just a mix of everything. And so that's when the streaming

came in because I like games. I love video games.

I noticed your pit boy immediately when I walked in.

Yes, let's. Go Actually, I was just at a

game store and I, I picked up Def Jam Fight for New York Complete Inbox. Like I, I, it's very much an

important part of my life, but I couldn't really put that in the TikTok channel because it was all this just being stupid.

The gaming I felt like was another entity and that's where the streaming came in. So I went on Twitch and YouTube,

made some videos, did some streams, picked up a little bit of a following using the pre-existing following.

And then that's how the gaming side of it has grown and it's going pretty well. I mean my YouTube channel, I

started it six months ago. Just six months ago.

Specifically for gaming and we're almost at 10K and people are really liking the variety because I don't stick to one thing. It's very, you know, Fortnite,

Sure, and and Call of Duty, yeah, if you want it.

But I like the weird ones, like the indie games no one talks about. Let's plug the channel really

quick. What's that?

Let's plug the channel really quick.

So well my YouTube channel is the same as my TikTok.

It's I am banned BANND all lowercase, no space, I am banned. And it was kind of a play on.

If you played this in front of your mom, she would not let you continue to watch me because I it's some of it's offensive, some of it's edgy, some of it's because I just, I don't care about any PC stuff. But yeah, I am banned.

There's a Discord server, there's a YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, TikTok, all that stuff.

I made a Facebook but kind of fell off of that just because I'm not comfortable with it. But the streaming side of it,

the YouTube side of it, that's gaming.

The TikTok and Instagram side of it, that's more like my personal life. That's kind of like you can see

me in action doing random stuff. How did you decide to pivot and

and decide to not do the gaming stuff on the TikTok?

Because I think that's where a lot of people may struggle because even though you, you you couldn't describe to your 1.5

million followers exactly what the page was, it sounds like they all kind of knew centralized because it's really you. It's like that guy, I forgot his

name. You would know him.

The the, the guy who doesn't say anything.

He just makes facial expressions.

And now he's like super famous. I think I saw him in a movie

recently and he's from like Nigeria or something.

Yeah, yeah. And you probably couldn't tell

what his page was about, but he's known for just not saying anything. Right, exactly.

I think the important thing that anyone needs to know going into social media of any kind and that's that's legacy platforms like YouTube that have been around since 2009 or it's new ones that have coming that have come out and there's still new ones coming out to this day. I think the thing that people

don't hear from these creators is 2 things actually.

The first one is find a niche. Find that thing.

For me, being specifically for gaming on some of these other platforms has helped because it helps me find that niche and and I play games very differently than most people.

I'm not in your face. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm going

to win this game. No, I know I'm going to lose

every game of Fortnite. I lose, but it's the build up to

that, you know, I'm going to lose, you know, the ending.

But what you're interested in is all the stuff I'm going to say leading up to that point, the screaming and the random breaking out into song and who's going to be in my stream that day? Is it going to be my wife

because she plays with me sometimes and people love her?

Is it going to be my crew that I'm that I usually play with?

Is it going to be a new guest? Who knows?

And I think that's my specific niche in terms of like the TikTok channel, I don't have a niche, but there's consistency.

It's always my face. It's never, it's hardly ever the

camera's not on me. So at least, you know, when you

click on my channel, all of the thumbnails for my TikTok channel, it's just all this ugly face, just making a stupid face at you. And you're like, OK, I know it's

going to be something else that's silly and ridiculous, but I know that that's what I can expect.

So find a niche if possible and stay with it if you don't post regularly. Unfortunately, and I hate to

break this to any new coming social media aspires, the lot the algorithm does exist. It's they put these algorithms

in place on these platforms so they don't have to sit there and hand feed content to each individual follower they have.

They have a an AI do it for them based on their search history and whatever the algorithm exists and you need to you need to post consistently to get on the radar.

Right. And it's algorithms on top of

algorithms. Oh yeah, because.

People think it's the like the new algorithm explained or new algorithm, you know, myths. I'm just like click bait, click

bait. Nobody knows for sure because

the consistent, the consistency seems to be the key, right?

And then engagement, obviously. Well, and it's the thing like if

you post 20 videos and you, you start at 0 and you post 20 videos and let's say it's on YouTube, for instance, and they're all, they're each 20 minutes long.

So they're a good lengthy video that you can really sit down and watch and eat lunch too or whatever.

And no one watches them. It's going to bum you out

because you put all this time into 20 videos.

Let's say it took you 2-3 months to make these things and post them. Video 21 could be the one.

It's a lot like fishing. If you give up an hour and of

course you're not going to catch anything.

If you stick with it, who knows? An hour and 5 minutes in, you've

got a video that has 20,000 views out of nowhere.

And that's what happened. I have two YouTube channels.

The gaming one is for gaming and then I wanted to put my my music stuff on another one. So Kaiju Studios was a studio

that I own and I made a YouTube channel for it because all this new music was coming out and I don't have the typical reaction to new music like other people do.

What genre is a genre specific you're you're talking about it?

Started off rock and metal and I'm trying to find ways of leaning into the more pop side because on top of working on cars and streaming and whatever, I'm also a producer at the studio that I own. So I have clients coming in

giving me their demos and I have to work with all different genres because all these clients are different.

So I wanted to take my knowledge of producing in sound engineering and combine it with my partner who's over there and knows a lot more about the sound engineering side of it than me.

And we kind of combined forces and created this channel to where we're reacting to new music that hits the market.

A lot of Linkin Park, a lot of Sleep Token, that kind of stuff.

But the thing that I found with that we have, we're just under 4000 Subs on that Channel, been around for about 9:00-ish months. And on average, each video can

get about 20,000 views on a channel with a following this big. It's not because of the

following, it's not because of how many likes we get.

It's because we're talking about relevant topics.

We're reacting to music that just got released.

Of course it's going to be hot right now.

And that's us. The music channel for me is kind

of my experiment of how can I, can I really ride the algorithms like a, like a, like a wild whale just out there.

Like I'm going to get that at some point.

And I got a hook in there and it's pulling me along.

I, I'm trying to see how far along it can take me to the point where we do build a consistent audience.

And then it doesn't matter because they're going to watch it regardless. Interesting point.

I've been saying that about things lately as well.

Yeah, once you build up that fandom there, it's like, it's like the amortization of paying something off, right?

At first you're paying nothing but interest and once you hit that middle mark, you're paying down the principal and the interest is little. So I think when you're building

a brand and I've learned this recently and I'm, you know, that's why I'm redoing it, one of my channels is eventually they come for the content you're doing.

At some point they stay for you. Exactly, exactly.

And that's a lot of the comments section on not just the the TikTok side or whatever. It's it's in the music channel

too. This, this new venture that I'm

not even really like. I'm proud of what I'm putting

out, but it's also so amateur level compared to some of these other reaction channels. And people are just staying

because they like the facial expressions and they like the reactions and they, they, they to some degree, they like the, I guess you'd say the, the smarts that I bring to it because I have the background in music. I can pick apart a song and

they'll be like, oh, I, I never noticed that.

Well, thank God I watched your video because none of the other reactions I saw even mentioned that.

So I think it's, it is a lot of especially if you're doing face content, it's it's about you. If you're doing no face content,

it's about your voice, it's about what you say and how you play. Those are pretty much the only

two options at that point, face or no face.

Are you familiar with Alex Heffner?

So he's got a major reaction channel.

And I think he started, I think he built up his fandom or his crowd in music and then songs, and then he does movies.

But he's very visually expressive, Right?

Right. And this got to the point where

he could post any movie. Yeah.

And 400,000 views, you know, after a week, I'm like, holy shit, you know, And then and when you watch it, it's like this dude's all over the place. He's kind of annoying.

But. But because he can be.

No, I get it exactly. Yeah, well, he, he probably

didn't start off that way, but he may have, you know, but he can be. And he's like, he's like in that

perfect example of somebody who's crossed that rare threshold. But you can get there when you

do it. So with the like TikTok, because

in social media, popular popularity, you get a lot of followers. You can get a lot of positive

comments, but you get a lot of people behind the keyboards too.

So how do you, how have you managed or balanced that?

Because it one of my good friends, one of my best friends, I don't want to call them by name, but he knows what I'm talking about. You know, he posted a couple Tik

Toks and he has these glasses or a certain color and you know, they're not for everyone. So he's got some white glasses,

white sunglasses, and people either think that's cool or they think it's douchey AF, right? And so he had more views than he

normally would ever have, a lot of positive comments.

But the negative comments started to get into him a little bit, you know, and I had to talk.

And he understands how it goes. He's in the same space.

But man, sometimes it can be really hard to process.

Like, have you ever gotten to that point where you're like, I know it's not really real, but it still sucks?

There's I, I, I think it's safe to say speaking personally, in my case, I never want to pretend to speak for someone else because that's one way to get the comments in there, right?

I personally have two sides of a very sensitive emotional side that my wife sees. You know, I get done posting a

video and I'm reading the feedback and I'm just like, man, there's a couple people in here and they just do not like me.

And then she has to remind me they're here.

They are still watching it. So you got to, you know, in some

regard, just treated as engagement regardless because bad engagement is still engagement.

But then there's the other side of me where I almost look for reasons for people to pick it apart.

A perfect example. And I keep putting myself in

these situations sometimes. I've never done anything that

can cancel me. You know, I'm not cheating on my

wife for, you know, tax fraud or any of these stupid things that people are getting caught for. A lot of felony based stuff.

I'm not doing any of that. But I'll do small things that

normally irritate other people. I have a corgi because it's a

particular breed. I bought it from a breeder

through basically what the comments say, a puppy mill.

So it's your typical dog store in the mall.

But it was a corgi and I always wanted a corgi And I saw one sitting in the unfortunately glass case.

They're not treated the best there.

And I was like, oh, I, I have to, I have to get it.

I made AI made a tick tock about it.

The TikTok is sitting at like 30 million views and one point something million likes so enough people liked it.

And a lot of comments are like, Oh my God, he's adorable.

Whatever. About a third of those comments.

How could you not adopt? You shopped and didn't adopt

you. You went to a puppy mill and

didn't go to a a shelter. And I agree most of my dogs from

my childhood were all adopted. I I get it.

But in that situation, I knew what dog I wanted and I knew that you can never find them at shelters.

So I I shopped for one. But that situation created so

much temporary hatred towards me and my wife.

And then the dog grew up. People move past it because

nothing lasts on social media for longer than a week.

People move on. They forget.

Pretty much no matter what it is, right?

No matter what it is, it will go away.

And I haven't heard a single comment since for the last, you know, I got my dog six years ago.

I haven't heard a comment in five years.

And so I think, you know, I, I find myself in these little situations where I do something and people are like, Oh my God, how could you? Horrible, insane.

I'm not doing anything illegal. I'm not, I'm not intentionally

personally pissing someone off. I'm just living my life and

people are going to judge me for anything.

I got a new car a couple years ago and people judge me because they're like, oh, of course you got to showcase your new car.

You got to show off your money. Really.

Like, is that what's going to make you sleep better?

As you, you told me my $40,000 cars is definitely something I should be ashamed of. And so I, I think the sensitive

side of me doesn't like it. But the other side of me is

like, you know what? These guys, yeah, I'm do

whatever I want. It's my life.

People are interesting on social media for sure, yeah.

They just, I, I think, I think it's, it's like they need to get it out somehow and they can't say it to their boss to their face. They can't say it to their

significant other without risking breaking up or whatever.

So they just find people online and they, you know, talk shit about them. So you know, more power to them.

It hurts. But if I don't read too much

into it, it's fine. Let's get some menace, Mary.

But first, I have a question you may have told me before.

And I think like, you're not from here, right?

I was born here, but I lived in Idaho for.

Most Idaho's where it was. Yeah.

I knew you were somewhere else. So talk about Idaho.

And how long have you been here? Yeah, so I was born here, born

in Glendale, and when I was 10 my dad and his wife moved to Idaho and took me with and I lived there until I was 18.

So you said your dad and his wife?

My step mom. OK, Yeah.

If she sees this, she knows there's, there's been some drama in the past, but we, we lived there from for about 8 years.

So I was 10 and then 18. I moved back to Arizona, Idaho.

There's not a lot going on there.

You know, you don't go there with aspirations of making millions a year. It's it's farm town.

Essentially, yeah. And Micron, oddly enough, just

in the middle of everything, but it's a really, really clean, straightforward black and white state to live in.

You know, you work hard, you get money, you pay your taxes and you go to church. I mean, that's pretty much the

bread and butter of that state. And there's not a lot of room

for. Whereabouts in Idaho?

Nampa. So Boise's over on the east and

the Nampa's about 15 minutes West of that and there's only 1 freeway that connects them. So it's perfect.

But it's a great place to raise a kid.

It's a great place to live somewhere quietly if you're looking to get a piece of land and do a little bit of farming.

Great place for that. And it's so it's small town and

that bothers a lot of people, but it's small town in a good way. You go to church on Sunday, you

go to the grocery store on Tuesday.

I'll run into your pastor and I'll be like, oh, how you doing?

Great. Well, catch you later.

You want to come over to the house for dinner.

Like it's very, it's very refreshing in a society that's not really nice to each other right now.

But again, not a lot of money to be made.

It's a very cheap state. You know, milk is only so much,

gas is only so much. Your house is only worth so

much, but it's pretty build a house for cheap, you know, five bedroom, 3 bath for under 500K. Just don't expect it to go past

600K in, in the next 20 years. It's it's very, but it's pretty

and it has all Four Seasons, which is great.

I don't think I could live there as an adult.

I think I could live there when I retire or raise a kid.

So you were there till you were 18.

You've been here since And how old are you now?

3030 just turned 30 yeah. So 12 years of grinding the

Arizona stone and just trying to get one re acclimate to the weather because good God, 125° in the summer is insane.

But this city or this state, excuse me, there's so much to do. And we're close to everything.

We're close to everything. Yeah.

It's an hour in either direction.

Then you're somewhere fun, you know, and you could do anything.

Any career is available in this state.

It's incredible. It's it's insane.

I I, I plan to move at some point just to get different seasons, but for my you. Can go up to fucking Flagstaff I

guess, yeah. Yeah, I want some snow.

And go to Globe. Yeah, exactly.

So I mean, there's definitely something for everyone here and that's that's the main reason why I've stayed here.

I've I met my wife here and I've my every career has all been here. That sounds good.

I like it. Big state, still a little like

the car industry, for instance. For instance, it's still very

small. Community.

Very small community. Let's talk about Menace, Mary.

Yeah, that's a. Because every time I see you,

there's always a picture of you on Facebook and you're rocking the mic like you're you are in it.

I'm like, wow, I got to talk to that guy.

Wow, I got to talk to that guy. And then I did a post and you're

like, hey, aren't we supposed to do a podcast at some point?

I go, Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And you saw the note that I

wrote, I think it's on one of these.

Yeah, right here, Soto. Your your reminder to call me.

Yes, yes. If if anyone hasn't noticed

already, I talk a lot and so I wanted to take that and just, you know, maybe I should sing, let some of it out that way.

And I sing for this band. Like I said, I founded it with

my rhythm guitarist Dave David, and we kind of went into it just thinking. How many band members?

Right now we're at 55. OK, so a drummer, 2 guitarists,

a bassist in me and we started it off just like, you know, should we do a cover band thing? Should we try to write some

songs? I don't know, let's start with

the covers. And so we did like some

Metallica and Pantera and kind of this kind of 80s nineties Hard Rock metal just to get people out of their seats at some of these bars. Because we noticed thinking from

a, a businessman point of view, we noticed the the lack of enthusiasm in the bar scene, the the music bar scene.

A band would play at a bar, no one would look at them, maybe a light applause when they're done with a song.

And then the band would leave and nothing came of that.

And we're like, what happened to the good old days when bands.

That's interesting. You went to the bar to see the

band, right? You know, like Green Day used to

play here all the time when they were just a local band and they would play at some of these amazing places that don't exist anymore, like Joe's Grotto, unfortunately.

And Green Day got big because they became a local legend.

And so we realized, you know, I, I had a decent voice, Dave plays guitar pretty well. We found a good drummer,

bassist, etcetera. The pieces started to fit really

well. And we're like, what if we, what

if we made a solid 2 hour set, convinced one of these bars to let us headline for the night and just kind of see what happens. And that bar was Roadhouse up in

Cave Creek. And they host bike week and

stuff. So they do pull a crowd, a lot

of bikers, but the bikers like the metal.

The bikers like the metal. Yeah, so.

We played there a couple times and all of a sudden now we're their house band. They want us there all the time.

And we fill seats and, and I think people are starting to understand or they're starting to to remember what the vibe was like in the 90s when all these bands would just blow up the bar scene. And that that's where you wanted

to be on Friday nights and Saturday nights.

You wanted to be at this place because this band was playing there and oh, I can't make it to see them, but I know this band is playing here. And like you, you made it a

point not to just go out and drink.

You made it a point to be entertained.

And that's my whole everything. It's just I'm trying to be

entertaining. I want people to smile.

And so we really found a good facet there do.

You think it's a Phoenix problem?

I'm noticing it because we're friends with a couple other bands across the country, some bigger, some smaller, and I think it's kind of across the country.

No one's really. Everything is so computer

oriented nowadays. I could post a video of me and

my band playing an original song on TikTok and six out of 10 times it's going to blow up and then that's it.

So there's a lot of bands coming out on social media.

Check out our song. People love it and then the band

goes nowhere. And I think the reason is

because they don't build a loyal following.

There's no concrete foundation. Every band starts in their

hometown. Slipknot started in Iowa, bunch

of farmers. And this hardcore metal band

grew up to be blew up to be one of the biggest metal bands in the world. And they did that in a time

where technology wasn't really there and you had to call your friends on your house phone or you had that, you know what I mean? So like nowadays, everyone's

doing it the electronic way and no one's really taking advantage of the fact that bars are still full of people, actual people that want something new. 98 KPD is still a local radio station

and all the submissions they're getting for Palladium and stuff, it's all these guys that built their songs on a computer and hit send and not bands that actually plugged in a mic to each instrument work their asses off to get a single out or a demo or an EP or whatever. I mean, we found our producer,

he kind of found us and all of his equipment is still copper wires. And I think I think a lot can be

said for that and that that's what we're trying to capitalize on now. Now that we're about a year in,

we have a good local following. I really think that as we write

our first album, it's influenced what the first album is going to sound like. Very Soundgarden, Pearl Jam kind

of bare bones and roots sounding right and not this crazy process metal or rap metal or you know, insert genre here that's.

The good old days. Yeah, it's, I mean, I feel like

people miss it. In a sense, yeah.

I feel like, I mean, that's like our friend Randy, right?

Yeah, Randy Marchetti. They it's I want to say Echo

Vault. Yeah, yeah.

But they're they're cover, but they're seeing in the stuff that people look back and say, oh, those are the good old days.

And they're doing it. They're not to sound incentive.

They're raw dogging it. I mean, they plug directly into

the the house and they just play it.

Everything you hear on that stage is real.

There's nothing wrong with backing tracks and stuff, but like everything we're doing is real and you're going to walk in and get your eardrums blown out simply because of what we're doing, Not because they turned up the speakers in the bar.

No, it's because that's how we're playing.

We're, we're giving you what our goal is right now while we do covers, is that you would go and see Metallica or Alice In Chains or, or Corn even. And then you can turn around and

come see us and feel like you were just there and not be like, oh, it's just another cover band.

No, you. I really try to make people

understand that I love these artists and it is my job on stage to give you these artists in the best way I can.

And that's how Randy's band is too.

And it works. People love it man.

If you rock it, they will come. Exactly.

There's a band, I forgot their name.

When we go to New Orleans, we go to one of the because there's the, there's Bourbon Street, but then there's the name escapes me. There's another St.

It's not Bourbon Street and it's probably a 12 minute Uber ride away, but it's got more of the live bands and more of the mature stuff. But there's a bar we go to.

We go there on a specific night when we're in town to go look, to go listen to a specific band, and that place is rocking.

And before they get gone, you've probably seen this too.

There's really nobody there. But then nobody leaves until

they're done, you know? And so, you know, it's, I enjoy

live music. You know, I still need to get

out and probably check you guys out.

And I need to get out and, you know, and check Randy out.

Yeah. What is the craziest to date?

What is the craziest time you guys have had on stage where you just looked up and you'd be like, holy shit.

Is it like auction week or something?

Like why are there so many people in here?

So we did the biggest show we did, we opened for Warrant, She's My Cherry Pies. So they had a new singer, but

the band is still around. And so they they go around the

country and they do these festivals and stuff, kind of a nostalgia tour. But we opened for them.

We were right before them and they're great guys too by the way, if you ever get a chance to meet them.

Well, we started our set and there were 4 bands before us, you know, kind of while the sun was still out.

And then we started right as the sun fell behind the hill, and there was a good, you know, 200 people in the audience.

It was a festival, you know, a little bike festival and whatever, by our third song. So it was one Metallica song,

one Avenged Sevenfold song. By the time I started Evenflo by

Pearl Jam, there were no fewer than 1000 people ready to go.

Now they might have arrived at that point because they know Warrant was up next or whatever. Regardless, you look up and

there they. Are they're there and they're

cheering. They're not just standing there

on their phones or just kind of staring at you or eating their food and like, oh, this is awesome background music.

We just need to get our spots for warrant.

No, they're singing along and they're dancing and and that's something that one, you can never replace that.

And then two, that's why we make our set list the way that we do for the cover stuff. We want songs that people are

going to sing along to. That was the craziest because by

the time we finish the set, we had to get off stage.

The guy, you know, gave us the red light like you need to leave. It's warrant time.

And people were shouting encore, encore and one more song because they they really they liked it. And we have some good footage of

that night too. And it's there's there's it's a

really, really good feeling. But the craziest thing we that

ever happened. It happens on occasion.

We've seen a lot of people fall down and whatever in the in the crowd, but I was singing 45 by Shinedown.

It's very not happy song and there's three sets of couples in front of me grinding on each other.

Like why? This isn't the song for that.

Same thing happened during Jeremy.

It's like anytime our set slows down a little bit, these people feel the need to just let out all of their emotions and yeah, just start grinding on each other.

I I I still don't understand why, but that happens every single show. That's hilarious.

Most of the time they're jumping and singing and dancing and then you get slower and it's a very PG13 in front of my eyes and I just, it's, I have to constantly not get distracted by what I'm seeing. But it's a fun time.

We play at a couple different places in around town and we have some connections in Vegas and California that want to get us out there. So when that time comes, we'll

be able to grow a little bit more.

Dude, that's got to be like a great feeling, though, because the big artists, just like a big comedian, they always want the best people to open for them because they're going to get the, you know, crowd hype and excited for them.

You know, they don't want to have to warm the crowd up.

You know, there's like that little balance, though, because if you're too good, you know, Warren could be like, damn, these guys are good, man. Yeah.

Damn. Now, now I don't want to follow

them. And we're the main, you know,

we're the main card on this lineup.

So, you know, I'm sure that's probably happened at some point during the journey. Yeah.

During during the journey. Dude, that's freaking awesome.

Let's talk about gaming. Yeah.

Always down and you say you also watch, you know, when you have time. Like what do you like to do with

your spare time that you really don't have?

If the only time that I'm not doing something is when the wife's already asleep and I'm trying to get myself to bed at 1:00 in the morning and I try to, I split it in two pieces.

One's only for me and the other one's a little bit for research.

I watch a couple of animes. What?

Are you into? I just finished the last or the

first season of the new Devil May Cry show on Netflix.

Really good. Evanescence kind of did the

soundtrack on that and they have a couple like Limp Bizkit and stuff in there and it's, it's really cool.

Yeah. But I watch, oddly enough, a lot

of animes. I, I, I started Inuyasha again.

I'm working on, oh, what is it called?

It's a show about a mercenary. It's very high contrast.

It's a new one that came out on Hulu and it's just a guy that's like emotionless and he's a mercenary.

But it's it's just these I keep finding, I keep getting drawn to these animes because it's such insane artistry.

And then the story's cool. It's got to be a combination of

both, right? Yeah.

And then some of them look so damn good.

Oh, yeah. It's like, how do we get here?

There's 1 and I haven't seen it. You've probably seen it.

Heard of it? I mean, it's really big on

reaction channels right now. Arcane, I think it's called

Arcane. Have you seen that?

Yep. Is it as good as it looks?

Cuz the reactions on it, there's a lot of numbers.

So I'm gonna be adding it to my list.

It's not just, it's a show about League of Legends, which is an enormous game that everyone knows about and it takes all the main characters from that game and it throws them in a show together and it changes. The story a little bit, yeah, I

would have known that because I remember League of Legends was, I don't know if it's still huge, but back in the day.

It was the following. Yeah, Yeah.

This show really helped amplify League of Legends again.

But it's not so much any of that.

The voice acting is great, whatever.

It's the way that they execute every single episode.

The artistry is incredible. The effects on top of that are

insane and it and it's 3D animation, which not a lot of people are down for, but it's it's so good and it's pretty Linkin Park does the soundtrack for most of the of the last season that just came out. They have a lot of bigger bands

like like one Republican stuff doing some of the songs and Imagine Dragons. So they've got big

entertainment. I think that's the secret sauce

in a lot of those things. Because on a different note,

like my wife, she loves seeing and seeing to, you know, in these Disney or Pixar ish movies.

And I'm watching them watch it and they're good movies.

But I'm like even trolls. Yeah, I'm like, you know why you

like it, right? Because they're using real

songs. Yeah, Justin Timberlake in there

of. Course from from yesteryear, you

know, that's that's why you really love it so much, because you're singing songs you literally grew up to.

But they arcane with the kind of the 3D animation style, you know, that's it looks like it's have you seen Transformers the War For Cybertron trilogy? Yeah, yeah.

The first episode I'm watching and I'm like, this is different, yeah. But by the time I get to the

second or third episode, I'm like, wow, this is great.

It's pretty great, yeah. It's great, but it always takes

a couple episodes you know, to to grow on.

What about other shows? Or is this right now just kind

of like an anime fix? It it's kind of, I'm kind of in

my anime era right now just because they keep coming out with new ones and they're also rebooting some older shows too, so. One of the bringing Macross I

think. Yeah, I something regardless.

Because I know, I know that Robotech is, it's streaming somewhere maybe. I think it's like Hulu actually.

Or Hulu Yeah but I think they're actually finally gonna do like the Macross and I don't really get involved in that stuff I think it's cool yeah you know the problem with Macross is there's like 5 different ones which is like the problem with DC over the years you. Know yeah, I think if they did

what Voltron did and Transformers did or whatever and and remade the main storyline, I I think it would go fine right.

I think it'd be OK because the new technology and new animation styles. They did it with Ghost in the

shell. They remade the 1999 movie and

it looks great. They remade Akira remastered and

it looks great. I think, I think they would do

it justice. I think that's also what people

need. There's so many new stories out

there. It's kind of hard to keep track

of all these characters. And again, not to sound

insensitive, I can't pronounce half their names.

Like I kind of want to stick to a couple shows I know like One Punch Man Favorite anime of all time.

No kidding. Can't get enough of it.

Love it. And finally coming out with a

new season, thank God. But when I'm not watching, when

I'm not binge watching shows, you know, binge watching all eight seasons of or all six seasons of Attack on Titan, it's watching other YouTube videos. And yeah, I watch my favourites,

right? But I'm watching them to see

what they're doing, kind of like.

Kind of scouting. Yeah.

What are their techniques? How do they edit?

You know, is this person editing for himself or did he hire someone? Is this person, you know, is he

layering audio the way that I would like?

Just little things like that. And it's it's really, really

helping, especially the reaction channel that I have, it's really helping that one gaming videos, you just throw some sound effects and words on there and people eat it up.

But the reaction side of it, your face is on there.

You got to be careful of copyrights.

You have to it's it's an insane process do.

You find it difficult or did you find it difficult to kind of release that control, you know, or I mean, do you have editors or you just do it all your own? Because I know you do edit

stuff. Yeah, I, I edit all of my videos

right now. When I very first started, I

needed to get off my high horse at the time because I was like, I've got a big following. I'm just going to hire an

editor, start a YouTube channel and kind of sure, let it just run itself, right? No, that's a horrible idea

because you find that they're never quite doing it how you want them to in terms of editing.

They're missing some jokes or whatever.

Right. It's frustrating.

And it's not their fault. It's just as a viewer, they

perceive it differently. And then I have to go in and be

like, hey, would you mind, you know, adding a caption to this or a picture here? You, it seems like you cut out

this section. I really liked that section.

And then it's just a lot of back and forth.

That's why I started editing everything for myself for the last year and a half. The really good ones, no,

though, especially if they have other clients.

But there's so many out there. I'm an editor.

I'm an editor. I'm an editor.

It's like, but are you though? Like, you know, you know, you

know how to kind of skirt around the legality of the copyright, but you kind of missed the biggest joke that people are watching this for. Like that's the one scene, you

know, It's like, it's like editing The Shining and forgetting to do the. Right, right.

Exactly. Not have that.

Right, right now I'm I'm I'm looking for an actually, I put out an ad for a full time editor just the other day and then couple of kids have hit me up and then I asked to show their work. Right.

Some of them can't, Some of them are like, oh, well, you know, I made, I made edits and cap cut and I'm like, I'm looking for someone who can take an hour of footage and make a good 10 to 20 minute video out of it. And it's, it's really hard to

find someone. It's weird.

Like all the, I feel like artists are hard to come by nowadays. Like you want someone to, I

don't know, paint you a picture for your house.

You got to really dig online for one.

And then when you finally find the one, they're on a waiting list or they can't take you on or their prices are hyperinflated and stuff. And it's like, I'm willing to

pay, but not that much. Jesus Christ.

It's a video on YouTube for Christ sakes.

But no, we're, we're getting there.

I'm actually teaching a good buddy of mine 'cause he's bored and needs a hobby. I'm teaching him how to edit.

But I do everything myself. And it's, I think it's actually

helping with creating the content when I hit record because I know how I'm going to edit it.

I can start emphasizing certain things that people liked.

I can catch myself while I'm stuttering more often and not have to sit there and worry about it during editing because I know that I had just had to do that a couple days ago.

But it's definitely eating up most of the time.

It's always editing. Do you have to review your own

content then? The amount of times I've heard

my own voice just in the last. Year it's important.

It's important because people will say, well, I don't like the sound of my own voice or, you know, or this person just likes to hear themselves talk or that person is like, man, you.

I, I've, I've gotten into the habit now and this is like borderline psycho mode because I send voice notes all the time.

I think we may have send voice notes.

I always go back and hit play. Yep.

I'm like, OK, oh, I didn't mean to say that.

But the difference is you get the inflection of the voice and everything, which you don't get when you're typing shit out of here. And then you kind of critique

yourself, especially as a, as a podcaster dude, right?

You know, I my earlier podcast, I'm like, OK, I'm too.

Right, very monotone. And people like, oh, I like your

podcast. Yeah.

My wife likes to listen to it at night.

Helps you go to sleep. I'm like, you're like, thank

you. But now I'm not like, yeah, the

apple fell from the tree. I don't have to be like the

apple fell from the tree, right? You know, it's almost like

you're reading a story to to somebody.

Exactly. Inflections.

Everything. Yeah, and, and I think you like

entertaining people at the end of the day.

I love it. I mean that's you're an

entertainer. Yeah, The thing is you got to be

very careful with the greatest artist in the world will always, you know what, what could you say to a young aspiring artist?

Oh, just do it for you. Do what you think is funny.

Do what you think is a good song.

You know, make a song that you want to listen to.

Write a joke that you think is funny.

You got to be a little careful with that because it can be very misleading at first when you're starting out.

You do what you want, but you got to remember you are appealing to an audience that's constantly evolving over time.

A 15 year old kid that comes across my Fortnite video is going to think it's funny right now, but in three years when his sense of humor changes, is he going to unsubscribe for me because I'm just not doing it for him anymore?

That's how it was for me and PewDiePie as a, you know, as a young teenager, I'm like, oh, this guy's hilarious.

I'm never going to stop following him.

And now as an adult, I'm like, he doesn't really do anything I'm interested in. Great content creator.

But you know, so I think, I think that plays a lot into it.

Playing back your stuff gets a lot easier when you add inflection for sure. I started the gaming thing not

necessarily because I wanted to play games, but because I was in other people's videos doing impressions and singing and screaming and I was cameoing and everyone was like, Who's?

That guy. You should make your own stuff,

and now that I'm making my own stuff, I can translate it from there to there, but I have to keep the same energy.

I can't. I don't have the following just

yet for the long term, long form stuff to talk normally like we're talking now. No one cares right about my

voice in this inflection. They want the streaming.

Yeah, not yet in the crazy, so. That was that whole thing

earlier, you know, the interest versus the principal.

We're still working with the interest payments, yeah, and really big ones right now. I say I say screw it, sell out

in the beginning if you see that millions of people like this one video. Yeah.

Recycle that type of content, get the following and then you can be like, hey guys, today I'm just going to show you how to make a pot roast and people will watch it.

Yeah, because. They got they know you now so.

It's, and you're right, it's, it's just, it's this weird algorithm because you could say it's not you and then it sometimes it isn't you and sometimes it is.

But if people have a higher retention than those algorithms are going to grab and float you to the top just like everything we're talking about. Yeah, you can make killer

videos. You can do the whole drop 20

videos at once. And it's not necessarily a

recipe for success, because if they all suck, you're going to fall down and you're never going to dig yourself out of the hole, ever. Even if your 21st video would

have normally rocked right, The algorithm doesn't know you, doesn't trust you, and no one in no one on the planet's ever going to see that. Exactly.

Look at Chapel Rome. She released Pink Pony Club,

which is a giant song right now, four years ago, but no one knows that. They know it now.

Four years for someone, the algorithms or just a producer with a good marketing team. It took someone four years to

realize that that was a banger. She released it in 2021.

Now in 2025, people can't stop singing it.

There's T-shirt. I have a pink Pony Club T-shirt

at home. I love Chapel Roan now.

I didn't know her. I didn't know about her until

two months ago. Right.

And it's not necessarily like going back to the first thing, the 20 videos and then 21 might nail it.

There could be gold in the 1st 20.

Probably is. Probably is, especially if

you're just starting out. You got that drive and

motivation, but you have to, one of them has to kind of spark the fire. And then much like a fire, it'll

eventually grow not just forwards but backwards.

People will start to realize, oh, he had other content before this, Let me watch that. Oh, this one's awesome.

I'm going to share it. And that's how it goes.

Pewdiepie's first video was him playing Minecraft.

Right now, that video sits in the 10s of millions of views.

When he released it, 2000 views, right within a year, right?

You know, no one knew about it. But now that he's big now that

video is paying him a lot of money.

So there's there's always something hidden.

So with the delay and success, because that made me think and there's so many people call them one hit wonders, but there's times when once a song charts, the band is already broken up.

They've been broken up for like 2 years.

What's your guys plan? So I would be lying if I said

that we haven't had our internal drama already.

Personal life gets in the way. Writing differences.

Insert problem here. No drugs, thank God between any

of the band members. But we're this band is menace.

Mary is a band that's trying to do all the things right that a lot of other bands did wrong. A prime example, I'm sure you

remember Headstrong. Back off, We'll take you on.

That band does not exist except the lead singer.

He's the only person from original Trapped, the band that that exists. And the reason is because they

made that one song and then they did another album and a lot of people listen to it, but they kept fighting and then they broke up and now trap. No one remembers the name of the

band. They just remember that one

song. And if you only remember the

song and that that song's rights are already sold off to multiple labels later because it's music's always changing hands.

The lead singer for Trapped is just kind of getting by doing whatever he's doing because he kept fighting with everyone and when it mattered most, he couldn't keep the band together.

We're kind of sort of doing that right now before we before we really dig deep in the studio and start recording our first album. We're getting all of our shit

taken care of now, you know? Are you going to be able to make

it if we fly to Vegas? Are you going to be able to stay

for the writing session until 2:00 in the morning?

Are you going to be able to make a promotional video?

Because we do all of our own promotional stuff.

Are you going to be able to make a promotional video?

You're going to be able to put the T-shirt order in.

It's a lot of responsibility split among these five guys, and we're getting all the stress out now.

That way when we write the album, we have someone interested in pushing it, which means at least a couple 1000 streams per song, which for a band that's never released anything, that's a blessing. And we have a producer with good

connections to very, very, very, very high up people.

We need to get all this the bullshit done now, right?

That way when we write, in theory, it's smooth sailing from there. We don't want to break up after

that because that's the worst thing you can do.

Yeah, they say winning here's all of that, but that's when a lot of bands break up when they start winning too, because then ego start getting in the way and stuff.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I hope, obviously

hope for the best. You know, it sounds like you

guys are are are on that ride right now, you know?

Yeah, yeah, we're getting all the, we're getting like, I don't like performing live, oddly enough, but we're doing it all now to kind of get it out of our system.

And then ideally we go from doing a show twice a month to doing a show once a month at bigger venues and then a show twice or every two months at even bigger venues.

So we can focus more on the writing side of it.

We're kind of going through the the entry stages of being a band now so we don't run into these problems later.

And I mean, everyone's on the same page.

Everyone's really tight knit. My, my studio partner Tommy is

my lead guitarist in this band and we write very, very well together. We click and that's that type of

chemistry. It's just like a relationship

you get. If you got something good, you

can look past some of the little tiny details that you might not agree with. You just you need to make the

baby good, make a good baby. And then once that thing grows

up and becomes successful, you can look back on it and be proud. What's next for you?

Because it sounds like you're in kind of a transitional period right now as it relates to the car stuff, right?

All the editing, producing menace, Mary.

So my wife is happy for me because she thinks that I have a lot of talents and I'm pursuing all of them, which she thinks is great. The problem is that I'm I'm kind

of doing a Jack of all trade type things.

I would like the music to become the top priority because that's what I enjoy doing the most. And I like to think I I hesitate

to call these talents. I like to think of all the

talents, I think the music one probably shows the most promise.

Anyone can put out a gaming video.

Anyone can stream on Twitch, anyone.

It's easy too. It's it's fair.

Once you build it. And anyone can, you know, for

lack of better phrasing, installing paint protection film isn't rocket science. Anyone can do it.

And I know that there are plenty of installers on the West side of the United States that are my skill lover or better.

I know there's definitely at least two in Arizona that I know of that I work with very closely.

And so I think with the music side of it, yes, there are obviously going to be better singers than me, but only I can put out what I'm trying to put out.

Paint, protection, film, A lot of other guys can make it look like that streaming. A lot of other people can do the

exact same thing. But with the music, that's the

one area of life individuality really shines.

And assuming enough people hear it, I think I could actually, you know, potentially change lives in terms of someone's having a bad day and they turn on the radio at the right time.

And I made them consider some things because I write a lot about pain and a lot about personal struggle and and stuff that I've dealt with in the past and loss and all this stuff.

And I think that's something we're not getting right now.

A lot of these, Sabrina Carpenter and Chapel Roan and insert pop artist here, they're not the writing about getting drunk at the club and going home with a guy, right?

And it's fun. It's a fun song, but it's not

really. Just to just to be clear, you're

not getting drunk and going home with a guy, Yes.

I can confidently say that OK, but even if I did.

Even if you did, I wouldn't. Write about that.

Yeah. Because everyone writes about

that, right? Every every hip hop artist,

within reason, writes about how they're the coolest.

Person, don't even get me started on that.

With all the money in the world and all the bitches, yeah, no one cares. I got what you don't.

Right. People want to hear that a human

being is going through the same thing, and they just happen to put it into music really well. And I want to listen to it.

Yeah, that's, that's what I hope to bring to the table.

So it's a form of entertainment that doesn't necessarily make someone smile, but it makes them go, fuck, you're right.

And then all the funny stuff can stay on the Internet, where it kind of belongs. So you've made two references

now to your past, some past traumas.

Want to get into it in into any of it?

Yeah, I mean, I've talked about most of this to a professional, so I think I'm in a good spot now.

No, the the childhood, it was split family right from the get go, right. A mom had me way too young.

Is she just out of the picture? No mom, Mom is very much in my

life. I mean, she just put together

mine and my sister's birthday party a couple weeks ago.

Nice. We we had a fun time.

No mom's really good. She goes to all my shows.

Great mom when I was a baby, You know, her being so young, there is maybe a lack of maturity necessary to raise a child.

Sure. And she reflects on that in her

own way and. Right.

I mean, you guys are right now so right, which is great.

Father was also very young, only a year above her.

She had me when she was 18 and he was 19 when I was born, so they're very young shit. They're old by today's man you.

Know. And so I mean in terms of

immediate family, I'm fine, but it doesn't come without its losses. And death is a natural thing.

And unfortunately, one of my family members in particular, he was my brother. He took his life.

I'm way too young. Not.

Not that there's ever an acceptable age.

No, I get it. Yeah.

But he had just turned 21, had his whole life ahead of him and just he, he, he gave up. Younger or older?

Younger. He's, yeah, he's younger than I

am. But that, while traumatic, has

really helped mine and my sister's relationship grow.

We've gotten closer from that. It's helped my writing because

it helps me express just kind of what I keep bottled in.

My grandfather raised me when I was a kid and then you know, for lack of better phrasing, mom got her shit together and grew up and met a man and they started a family and they welcomed me in and a full blown parent mode on me.

But prior to that, my grandpa was.

Blown parent. Mode, yeah, but prior to that my

grandpa was the. One with your mouth open like

that. Oh yeah, I got this.

All that kind of stuff. But grandpa raised me from when

I was very, very young and he passed from lung cancer when I was just getting into my teenage years.

So when you lose a close family member as a child, you never fully process it, right? And he was the foundation of a

big part of the foundation of who I am now based on how he treated people. Very loving, very, very generous

and very he just, he listened, man.

So I try to try to reflect some of that into this.

And so I've written some things about him.

A little bit of emotional abuse over the years that nothing that couldn't be talked out to again, a professional or even some close friends that's come out in some of the songs.

Some physical abuse from a past relationship that came out in one of the songs. So I think the music's really

helping me get out of that. Sure, yeah.

And then the it's. A good outlet.

And then the gaming in the in the comedy side of it is just me not coping, but I don't like being sad.

So this is me kind of forcing myself to get out of the little bouts of depression that I fall into from memories.

And I just go full blown, you know, crazy on these streams and videos and people love it. And so I have, I have an outlet

in that regard to and then if I want to be sad, I can listen to my own songs and go back into that.

Or listen to this podcast. Do you fall asleep?

I That's insane. What keeps you up at night?

Oh man, death. Honestly, it's just replaying my

life. That's pretty much the main

focus of my thoughts is did I do something right?

Did I do something wrong? What put you at ease?

It's got to be something. It's honestly, I mean, I mean.

Counting the legs on a millipede, you know, it's got to be something. You know, calming my brain down

a lot of the time and it sounds really cliche, but it's it's it's feeling my wife next to me. She's here asleep, snoring, but

that's where I'm at right now. I'm.

Troubled for calling her out for.

Snoring. You probably, you know, she

snores louder than me, so I say she says the opposite, But no, remembering that she's here. Remembering that there are kids

out there that are going through a rough time and they've seen something of mine and it's helped them knowing that there's kids, you know, in this Discord server that I have that are just anxiously waiting for the next live stream that are excited to comment something. You know, knowing that I have a

band that's hasn't fallen apart yet and I'm able, I have the ability to write music, which I didn't really have that ability before because I had no way of putting it out.

And now I do. I'm working on recording it and

actually getting it out now. Having, you know, a little bit

of financial stability is always nice.

And so I think, I think overthinking my life and running through the past and then overthinking what I have now kind of cancels each other out. And then I can pay attention to

One Punch Man again and just fall asleep.

Sure. Or the entire Devil May Cry

timeline start to finish. Two hour 40 minute video that I

fall asleep to. Sounds like I need to check up

on some of those things, those titles and stuff.

There's just, there's so much stuff out there.

And it's just you, you make a list and then by the time you get done making the list, before you even start it, there's six more things, lists of things out there.

And it's just you never have time to, to get to them.

But that's not a bad thing, right?

Yeah. But I feel like you have to make

the time so that you can have those times, you know, laying next to the wife while she's snoring.

That's. How it is with music too, man,

music is super over saturated right now.

Not in a bad way, but it's like, like I just realize that I like Sleep Token. There's another metal band that

just came out and now they're making waves on the Internet called Autumn Academy, and now I have to start liking them.

I'm like, I just got into this son of all right, I guess.

Yeah, it's, it's across the board, man.

It's crazy. How can people keep up with you?

Social media, it's all pretty much the same thing.

I am banned IA MB ANND menace Mary has a has an Instagram page. If they're interested, they

could check it out. I will be honest, I'm not

professional about any of it. I don't care to be professional

about any of it because I don't have a front.

It's like if I feel like posting a picture of a hamster one day on my Instagram, that's what you're getting.

I just, you know, I just I don't, you know, it doesn't have to be weird like that. So yeah, that's, that's where

I'm at. I didn't think I'd share that

much today. That's what we do.

So hard parking. What is the turning a background

on you? What's the what's the, what's

the vibe? Because it seems to be a little

bit of everything, a lot of car. Industry, but you know, I used

to market it as and I guess some people used to do is the non automotive automotive podcast. But the problem with that, and

this is kind of getting back to our YouTube discussion, right?

The problem with that is the car people want more Car Talk, the non car people no matter how little cars you talk.

They're like, oh boy, here we go again.

I. Think I don't know what that

means. I don't you know, I don't know

what it means when you when you say your tires are going bald on your car. You know, like no one's that

dumb, right? But I think the people who love

it love it, the people who kind of dip their toe into it.

It depends on what episode who the guest is, right?

I think that it being non centralized at times hurts because it's hard for an algorithm, right?

But one thing I've committed to this year is doing more.

I wouldn't say interviews because I always do interviews.

It's not an interview driven show, right, right.

But getting out there more and taking the show on the road, you know, So I've paid more attention to making sure because I've always had these two cameras.

I just never taken them out of this fucking studio, right?

Right until this year. And you know, kind of going to

where people are AT. And then to me, that's putting

me in that another space that I'm not as comfortable with just because I'm not used to it, right?

Right. It's like when I do these

speaking engagements, when I go to like, you know, Barrett Jackson and I'm working the future collective car show as EMC or something, people are like, oh, it's easy for you, You're a podcast, you do this. And I mean, you already know how

it is, right? It's just like.

Yeah, but I'm now standing on stage in front of all these random people walking around. I can't edit anything that comes

out of my mouth. I'm going to say something that

doesn't even. I'm going to make up words on.

Accident, right? Right.

You know, and, and, and it's like you don't really control that space. And so with me kind of getting

out there more, I can still be me, but trying, I'm still trying to learn. OK, what equipment do I need to

bring? What, you know, what equipment

can I leave at home? Do I want to bring the

microphones because they look better, they're more professional and they have a cleaner sound, right?

Or do I want to do what everybody else is doing these days and just wear wearable mics?

And, you know, they got the big square sitting right here and it's just like, I, I hate seeing it.

Yeah, but that's what people do. I mean, we did it when we shot

that video, but of course we weren't going to bring these.

It's. It's not the right you're.

Supposed to have a wireless. Mic on, especially touring

around a vehicle, yeah. We're not going to sit down in

the car with these mics, yeah. But I mean, it's doing what I

want it to do in a sense to where people appreciate it for what it is. You know, they know when it

comes to it, it's not even, it's not political.

But I'm not afraid to go there if my guests want to go there.

And I think people appreciate that.

I, I embrace the conversation. I will see both sides of

everything. You know, I'll play my hand if

I'm forced to. Yeah, you know, and you're not

going to normally get that with any car podcast.

Sure, you know, I can have a car guest.

You could be the the if you're a very car specific guest, we're going to talk a lot more cars. Right, obviously.

But I'm going to try to pool who you are out of that because I've had people like I've had Adam Corolla on the show before.

You know, he called from his phone, you know, through a friend and a friend. And then, you know, he's, he's a

big car person and most people wouldn't know that, right?

But I had Ralph Gills, which is the lead designer of Stalantis.

He was on. And so obviously that episode

was more Stalantis in cars, but I was able to still pull out information from him that nobody else had ever asked.

Maybe ask him like oh what do you usually plug into the CD player when you? Right.

Or, you know, he's, he's lived in Detroit for 20-30 forty years. It's like, hey man, how have you

seen Detroit change? Yeah, you know, because.

Which of all the cities in America that's one of the most changeable cities? Absolutely.

And he's like, I appreciate you asking me that.

And I know that no one's ever asked him that question because he's so used to all these red carpet questions, these car questions, because that's, you know, the automotive journalism, right? And so I try to not be that, but

just sprinkle it just enough because if I could, the evolution of hard parking, when you look at the logo behind me or behind you, that's the modernized most current logo.

Yeah. Originally it had two intersex's

kind of backed up to each other and it looked like a no.

Park the little like explosion thing between them I think is what it was. No, just to kind of look like

that, that it just, it just had the weird shape of an explosion.

It was just two intersex's kind of parked like this, right?

And then the next version that had my Infinity that's parked out front upside down on top of me because I wanted to get away from branding, right? Just in case.

Yeah, Yeah. You know, because it's not an

accurate, it's not a Honda podcast and I don't want to get in trouble for that, right. And so I started steering away

from that and we're now it's just a dude in a microphone or if it's or it's just the word hard parking with a microphone.

Yeah, yeah, I mean the color scheme is too cool too, with the red and the blue. Yeah, thanks.

And you got America's colors in there, so yeah.

That was that was not a conscious thing.

But yeah, there it is. But you know, it's it's it's

hard to grab. You want to get people's

attention to the podcast. And if they say hard, you know,

hard parking, it's got a car on there.

They're going to automatically assume it's cars.

They're not going to tune in, right.

And so I want people to know it's more of a society and culture with a touch of cars when there's time.

And so that's kind of what the construct of hard parking.

Is I mean it's 2 human beings they're talking about, much like how most podcasts should be. I've seen a lot of forced

conversations on a lot of these podcasts.

Can't stand it, just it. Keeps getting drawn back to

like, the whole talk to a that bullshit.

I mean, Haley Welch was constantly trying to steer the conversation back into yeah, So that meme that I did, it's like, why don't you talk about what they're up to, you know, talk about. I don't know, how is glass made?

Just something, you know, stupid.

Just something to get the conversation going.

There are some one thing I refuse to do, maybe because I'm an old man, but I refuse to go after the viral clip.

Right. You know, so I even.

If you force it, it's. Really hard.

It's important what you say. Yeah.

But if you just don't give a fuck, which I admire people at times that don't give a fuck, sure, that's what it takes at times. But I mean, I'm the president of

the NSX Club of America. You know, I get employed as a

contractor sometimes from Bear Jackson.

You know, you got your family, your friends, you know, I have my professional life. I have this.

And so to me, I I'm always very careful with the things I say.

I think it was Ronan remake movie and one of the things that Robert De Niro's character told the lady when he was hiding a gun behind a brick when they went in the back door.

He goes, lady, I never walk into a place I don't know how to walk out of, right. So it's kind of the same way

when I talk, you know, I try to think about, OK, I don't say stuff for shock value, but I'm careful about the things that I say, right? Because we we're both mature

enough to know that everything is digital.

Hell, there's people that are in Congress and all that shit and people run for office and people are digging up shit that they said 20 years ago and it's like. These are 70 year old men.

In theory you would think they're untouchable at this point who cares what they said, but 30 years ago so.

You got to be careful in the things you say and tweet.

So I refuse to be that, you know, I'm, you know, you got like Theo Von, which is funny. I don't really watch him, but

I've seen his clips, some of them.

He was a funny guy, but he's got this point just going back to the equity, you know, interest rate payment type of deal.

He can do whatever he wants. Yeah, at this point, yeah.

Yeah, at this point, but. It's kind of, I mean, I'm a huge

fan of comedians and that's kind of, I've seen people like Bill Burr get into that. He's in that era now where he, I

mean, before it was Bill Burr's an asshole.

And he'll flip you off to your face, he'll flip you off on stage, he'll tell you to leave the show.

He doesn't care. He just wants to say his shit

and get off the stage. And if you like it, great.

If you don't, whatever. But that was his shtick.

You know, you can like it, great.

If you don't, whatever is such a vague way of going about it and it works when you have an established audience.

But in reality, that was specifically his.

That's why it worked. And now that he's here, you

know, at this successful stage of his career, I mean, he still keeps that because that's what the fans like.

But he's a lot more careful about what he says.

And people are noticing it and they're commenting that kind of stuff like, oh, Bill Burr 10 years ago wouldn't have agreed with this point. And it's like, give him a little

bit of leniency, but I also see where you're coming from.

Yeah, yeah, he's, you know, and it's unfortunately it's going away, but it's like the whole cancel culture basically cancel, you know, comedy. And now it's kind of, you know,

the woke agenda is kind of falling off a little bit, but.

I think it was a phase like most.

We have to be careful swinging so hard with one thing and then so hard to the other. The overcorrecting, Right,

right. It it could be a danger, but I

appreciate you coming over and jumping on the pod.

Yeah, of course. Way, way overdue.

Yeah, I know. I've been meaning to just kind

of sit and chat with you just in general.

Yeah, Mr. Soto, thank you for stopping by.

It's a pleasure, man. Hey guys, I want to thank you

for stopping by the podcast. If you like what you saw today,

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Now it's stripping time. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Shut. Up.

Menace Mary in-studio Anthony Soto

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