And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 249: Rick Beato | Songwriters Got Poorer. AI Is Next. So Where Is Music Going?

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Today's guest is a multi-instrumentalist, music educator, interviewer, producer, and songwriter. He is also one of the most influential independent music voices online. His real story isn't the channel he built after a 90-second video of his son's perfect pitch hit 80 million views overnight, it's his incredible value to the music community and the conversations he sparks online about the state of the music industry and his conversations with some of the biggest creators within it's orbit.This is one of the more unflinching conversations we've had about what's actually happening to music. Two musicians from different generations of the same fight, working it out in real time. Where do you stand when the rules of the music industry keep changing under your feet?And The Writer Is... Rick Beato!In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:How getting dropped in 1999 built a YouTube empire 16 years laterWhy Ringo would be a co-writer of every Beatles song in 2026The Eli Mercer experiment: building a fully fake AI artist with Claude — and what happened when he uploaded itThe NPR EDM stunt: 4 million monthly Spotify listeners, 6,300 followers, and what that math says about AIThe 90-second video of his son's perfect pitch that hit 3 million views by 10pm and 80 million total"There's no two current artists with the gravity of Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder" — and Ross's case for their modern counterpartsWho is the Michael Jordan of pop music? Queen at 3 billion streams enters the chatWhy Ross is still bullish on songwriting — and what the Music Modernization Act got right that the No Fakes Act needs to finishAnd much more...Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.Follow us on socials: @andthewriterisA special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers Association. Your support means the world to us.Chapters0:00 Intro2:14 The beginning of Rick Beato's music career3:11 The rollercoaster of an early music career5:32 The Napster era and the dawn of digital recording9:16 Producing Shinedown — and how "Simple Man" became the hit10:54 Why "Yellow Ledbetter" was a B-side — and why bonus tracks are back12:48 What country radio still gets right about hits14:54 Inside Nashville sessions and the number triangle17:28 The future of AI in music — and the No Fakes Act21:20 The future of prompting and curating music23:54 Would The Beatles be a four-way publishing split in 2026?25:39 The modern music economy: are album tracks worthless now?27:58 American writers are chasing global stars now34:30 The Eli Mercer experiment: a fake artist built with Claude36:52 The NPR EDM stunt and what it proved about AI on Spotify41:18 4M monthly listeners. 6,300 followers. AI is winning the algorithm.42:58 How Rick Beato built a YouTube empire45:22 The "What Makes This Song Great" era51:49 1984 vs now — and the search for a modern Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder54:18 Who is the Michael Jordan of pop music?55:51 Queen at 3 billion streams — what counts as "biggest"1:00:28 Golden, Blinding Lights, and what makes a 2020s standard1:06:53 Songwriter similarities and the lawsuits that never happened1:09:42 "Best era of pop music. Am I wrong?"1:13:56 1998: how Clear Channel and Cumulus consolidated radio1:20:14 The Music Modernization Act and what's actually next1:24:54 Is the future of songwriting still bullish?Credits:Hosted by Ross GolanProduced by Joe London & Jad SaadEdited by Jad SaadPost-Production VFX by Pratik Karki Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think we're in the best era of pop music. Am I wrong? You're wrong. Why? There will never be another Beatles again. Never. You spend your life being a musician. What was it like for you to have the biggest hit of your life be a YouTube channel? That was a big change in the industry then. Did that make music worse?

We're watching a Michael Jordan of pop music. I would argue that there are no two people that are current stars that could come out and have the gravity of who are those two people today. How did you get involved in YouTube? We make this one minute video and I put it on my Facebook page which had about 30 followers. Eventually that video got about 80 million views. The quantity of writers on songs is a conversation that you and I were talking about. You have to write more than two times the amount of hits to get paid. what you got on the first. You're getting $140,800 on a song that is a billion streams.

Yeah. Wild. Are you bullish on the future of the music business? This season is presented by NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association. Champions of songwriters and publishers everywhere. Welcome to And The Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. Today's guest is not just a producer. He's not just a songwriter and he's definitely not just a YouTuber. This legend is one of the most influential music educators of the modern era, a producer, multi-instrumentalist professor and content creator who's built a global audience by breaking down the art of science of music itself all the way from Atlanta. This man is leading the conversation about music and the writer is Rick Beato.

What's up, Ross, how are you? Yeah, we're doing it. So introduce yourself. I mean, you know, like people who don't know who you are. Like, well, then you're living under a rock. But who is Rick Biotto? So Rick Biotto is, I'm almost 64 years old. I've been doing music for my whole life.

I graduated from college with a master's degree in music. Actually, jazz studies from New England Conservatory back in the distant past of 1986. And then I was a college professor for five years. And then I got signed to a publishing deal with politics. Plygram publishing in 1992, a guy named John Tida, signed me to a publishing deal. S&P. Yes. Legend.

John was a legend. And he saw me play at CBGBs with a band. He's like, you got hit songs. I thought I was joking. Gives me his cards like John Tita. So I call my lawyer. I'm like, hey, this guy, John Tita says he wants to sign me to a publishing deal. Is he actually a real deal?

He's like, dude, he's one of the head guys at Polygram. Yeah. So I did that. I moved to Atlanta 94. I played in bands, got signed to a record deal with the band in 98, 98, 98, made a record. It was a disaster. And what was that? A band was called billionaire.

And we were signed to London Sire Records. We made a record with a producer that got fired. And I didn't know how to produce at the time. So we were out here in L.A. for like four months. We were at Royal Tone, at NRG. at, like we were doing the studio tour, paying two grand a day with a producer that didn't show up ever. So then the label came in one day. He was there on the day that they came in and they fired him.

And then they hired this guy, Kevin Shirley, to try and mix the record. And it was 48-track analog with no track sheets. It was a disaster. And then he cut all the, he cut the leader tape. He put it on so the time code wouldn't sink up. This is kind of right when Pro Tools, because it was 99. So it's basically when they didn't quite have the mixed systems out yet or anything where you could put it all in Pro Tools. Well, I think they did.

But anyway, so that's when I started producing. I was like, I'm never going to let that happen again. So I started hanging out with Kevin, who's now a really good friend of mine. And I started learning how to produce. And I started producing bands. And then that's what I did for. So our band got dropped when the first universal bought out polygram. And then all the bands got dropped about three weeks after our record came out.

What year was that? It was in 2009. You know, I was just telling a story. In 1999, this is what made me think about it, was I was watching one of your clips about, you know, thriller in 1983 when it came out. And one of my first jobs out here was being a runner for Michael Bautaker's studio. He's the guy who played since on all that Michael Jackson stuff.

you know and uh but 1999 was this time when thriller was only 16 years old right and so when we're talking right now we're talking about albums that came out in 2010 1990s like a bizarre time i will say i did record my first two albums also to tape and what you have to do is be rehearsed that's right you have to have played songs live and make mistakes and learn how you're supposed to record it yeah and then Sometimes you leave the mistakes just because you don't want to risk losing anything. But 99, that was Napster, came out June 99. That was the beginning of the end. I was at USC and USC was the first to sue Napster.

So you had this school, you had this music industry program. This is before there was a pop program where the kids are using reason on their computers. And the teachers are all trying to say like, ah, digital never work. You got to use analog. analog is everything. Analog is everything. Let's do Napster. And the kids are all like,

we're all using Napster in our rooms. And then we're, and we're using reason. Like, there's a disconnect here. Well, a lot of stuff, that particular year was a really pivotal year. It wasn't just Napster, but it was,

Digio Design put out this Digi-O-1, which was the first, you know, the first home recording thing that I think that, now obviously a lot of people use Ableton. use logic, things like that. But that really changed the music industry was that when people started, computers got fast enough, even though they were using the Scuzzy ports. I don't know if you remember those with the 10,000 RPM drives and stuff. But that was a big change in the industry then that basically is how you do records now. Did that make music worse? Not initially.

not initially. It was a, like I wouldn't be here talking to you today if it wasn't for the Digio 1 because one of the things that Universal did. So Universal dropped our band then re-signed us, but they didn't put our record out again. But they bought me a G3, a Mac G3 and a Digi-01 and a SM7 and a 57 and a 421. So that's how I learned how to do audio recording and producing. If it wasn't for that, then I wouldn't have been able to do the video stuff when I, uh, uh, when I started my YouTube channel in 2016. So this was all, so this is really related. And I'm friends with the guy Peter Gocher who started digit design back in 89. I think it was.

And Peter, we've talked, we talked a lot about this, about the development of pro tools. And he sold it to Avid in 2000. When you got into, uh, producing for other. artists. One, did it make you jealous? No. No, because I was about, I was, you know, when I started producing, I was 37 at the time. So I was kind of like, I don't really want to go around a tour. I don't want to do this. And, you know, I'd much rather work with, on multiple projects because you always, it's always something new, right? I mean, you do, you write all the time. It's always something different. Yeah. So to me, you know, I, one day I'd be working with a, you know,

alternative band, you know, kind of indie band. Next day I'm working with a new metal band. And it was all different genres and music. And I enjoy not only the producing part, but I enjoy the engineering and mixing. And I love tracking and stuff like that. I love recording drums. I'm into the engineering part of it. To me, that's, that's one of the most fun, fun parts of it. I know the answer to this, but for those who don't, what are some of the biggest bands you've worked with and what are some songs that people might know?

I don't know if people know many of the songs. I worked with a band called Shine Down on their first record in 2002, but I didn't really have any of the big singles. I don't know if they had. Their single that they had on there was a song that they recorded acoustically on a radio station that they added to the record. after that it was a cover.

It was a Leonard Skinner cover, Simple Man. And that was the massive hit on the record, and it wasn't even part of the record. But it was an era when you could reap the benefits of a hit song that wasn't yours. Yeah. So that was, but they did it at a radio station in Boston. And then the label's like, we need to add this to the record, which is kind of weird when you think about it, adding it to the record. Well, now you could do it.

Now you would just release it as a separate single. You know, you just put it up on Spotify or whatever. But then they had to actually repress the record. They're actually now, it's almost the opposite now. Because super fans are buying, want to own something tangible, that CDs and vinyl right now, the extra tracks that are added on, the bonus tracks are back to being cool, because there aren't a lot of things that labels can do to create exclusivity.

Yeah. So these bonus tracks are being released on reprints and repressings of these vinyl to create a lore amongst fan bases. So you're going to see more of the additional song becoming the single like it was 10 years ago and like it was 20 years ago. So it's actually coming back to. this because people are because people are starting to want vinyl.

You know, when I interviewed a couple of the guys in Pearl Jam, Mike McCready guitar player, their song Yellow Ledbetter was a B-side. And that's one of their biggest songs. I mean, I have my first number one songs, a country song that was B-side. And, you know, I've had

my first C-Lo single, that was a B-side. The lady in a Belem song, the Andy Grammer song that was a top 10 song that was B-Sides. Like the B-Sides, even then as the repackage, it's an opportunity to say like, hey, focus on this. But I think it got lost in streaming as like, this is the extra songs just so we can keep you longer, so we can, you know, benefit more on stream. So your album just becomes a longer playlist. But it didn't actually serve a purpose and now it's starting to serve a purpose again,

which is kind of cool. I had a song in 2007 that I wrote with the band. I was just talking about this, that this band called Parmali, Country Band. So I wrote this song with them called Carolina, 2007. And in 2013, and I forgot about it, honestly. In 2013, the singer Matt calls me, he's like, hey, we got signed, we're a country band now.

Do you remember this song, Carolina that we wrote together? I was like, yeah. And so I went back and listened to us. Oh, yeah, I remember that song. Well, it's going to be our next single, and we re-recorded. It's coming out in February. Okay, cool. I mean, how many times you?

We think it's going to be a big hit. You're making a video for it. Okay. Well, December of that year was number one for two weeks. So a song that was six years old that sat around on a hard drive forever. And, you know. It's also, you can't explain. Two weeks in the pop world is a different thing than two weeks in country.

Country has a tradition. of ringing the bell and then letting him go. That's right. You know, so a song that has two weeks at country radio, number one, has a lot of legs to it. Yeah. And that's a real hit. Yeah.

So it was 43 weeks till it hit number one, 43 weeks on the charts. That's also another anecdote, which is you want, the song comes out and you hope that it goes to number one the next week. But in reality, what you really want is that it goes number one in 43 weeks. Because then you can, you get royalties as it grows. It builds a bigger fan. those songs that ring the bell and then disappear, those are far less valuable. What was interesting about it is that they went up and down around 40.

If you lose your bullet back then, it was pretty, you pretty much was over. So if you, you know, but, but they lost their bullet like four times and it came back. And I mean, that's pretty amazing. So good. Yeah. So, but that was, but I did a little stint in Nashville where I wrote with all the, top country writers in the end of 2013 into 2014 for probably about three months or so but then it's like i lived in alana it was tough to drive up my kids were young and uh and and it's funny because i'm

friends with all the people now because i know all the session players up there and everything but um but i was like yeah this is you got to live in nashville to to to really do that or you got to be committed to writing all the time but i was a track guy back before before. It's kind of like right when being a track guy. In pop music, there were track guys then, obviously, but, but in Nashville, you know, because I can play everything and I would do demos with, I'd program the drums. I'd play the bass, keyboards, banjo, mandolin, whatever it needed, you know, and I would come there with fully recorded songs and what do you think of this, what do you think of this? And then, you know, the best part of Nashville is you walk away

feeling like, man, I'm the best. And then nothing comes out, really. Like, all, the songs I've ever had come out that have done anything in Nashville were mostly written in LA and I've spent a lot of time in Nashville. I got married in Nashville. I love it so much, you know, but it's a, you know, different, it's a different thing. Like, you always leave and somebody who can come in with well-recorded tracks, they get, they get a lot of love. You just said that you, I asked before the cameras were rolling, I said, did you, you know, are you still producing? You said you had just gone to Nashville. What were you working on? No, I was, I wasn't, so, so when I went to Nashville, so I did a, I did a video with, uh, um,

Daniel Tashian, he wrote a song that, that, that I wouldn't say I produced this thing. I made a video where I'm theoretically the producer, but it's like, why weren't, why do you say that? Because the Nashville guys produce their, they do their own tracks. Tom Buchavec. So I called up, I was going to Nashville to do an interview. So I called up Tom Buchavex. So I called up Tom Bucco. who's a really good friend of him. I'm like, hey, Tom, let's get, I'm going to be up in Nashville. Why don't we get you and a couple other guys, different instruments to get together and we'll just kind of sit around and I'll interview you guys together. And he's like, why don't you just produce a track? And I said, well, who's track? He goes, let me find somebody with the song and I'll put

together a group. So he puts together a group. I knew about half the guys in the thing. and Daniel provided the song, and there's this singer Cecilia Castleman that was, she was a singer, and they tracked the song live. The vocals are live. Daniel's harmonizing at the same time, so we tracked it live and filmed it.

But it was three passes. And I was like, I said, did anyone make a mistake? And Todd Lombardo, the acoustic play, he's like, well, my fingernail buzzed on one chord. He's like, I can punch that, and it's like, okay, well, punch that. then Tom's like, I can double my solo.

I was like, okay, that'll be good. But the video's like nine minutes long. It's infuriating when you see it the first time. If you're in a, describe what a demo session is in Nashville. Guys come in, they do, you know, they do a take down of the chart. Whoever the session leader is, they'll write down the number chart. They'll pass it around. And then they play like two takes, maybe.

And they're all like talking and drinking coffee while this thing's playing. then they go and they nail it on the first try. First try. And what I said when you said, I said, well, that's just AI. AI.

Yes. What is the difference between AI and what you just did? Um, um, well, they don't, um, they don't own the rights to the,

they're not using the rights to other people's songs. Okay. What if it's licensed AI? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if,

what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if,

and it trained on license works, because there will be ethical AI. What's the difference then between producing a song using AI and producing something using other people's intelligence? Well, I mean, this is just like how do people feel about it. You know, my thing is like, people are going to use AI. That thing is long. Yeah, yeah.

It was so far. Like, I don't, to me, it's not even, like, I don't even have the discussion. with it about it anymore. The labels own the the intellectual properties of the actual sound recordings. They own the sound recordings. The the artists theoretically own their voices or the voice print of their voices. They don't. They don't. The label does. The label does, but they own them. Sadly, you don't in the United States. Okay. First of all, you know, like, shout out to companies like Splice that have, that are training ethical models. on this like there is a world where this

I do believe that this will be helpful especially for songwriters who may not have the access okay wait so you're if you're signed to a deal then they will own your voice correct well and if you're not though this is the sad part

you don't even own your visual likeness in the United States so I saw the no fakes act is why we're trying to get that past as you know to get into some advocacy stuff supporting No Fakes Act is so the United States can protect people's likeness vocally, aesthetically, in other countries. In I believe it's maybe the Netherlands, you actually trademark your face and your voice, but in the United States, you cannot trademark your face or your voice, which is why you can sue AI models for training on existing works that they don't own, but you can't sue for using your voice.

So that, which is wild. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so wait, continue on with the, with the, with the thing about AI, what they're doing, the Nashville guys about, about how that is. I'm saying this in Jess. Look, man, I love instrumentalists. And I am, and, you know, they, using somebody's feel and whatnot and the

moment. I think there will be a giant push for analog performances, even if it's going to be DJs, the idea of living in the moment, live music, all these things are going to gain more and more value in a world where everyone has more and more access to create slop. So I support people who support real instrumentalists and real songwriters and real art. And if that means even while their training AI to support actual players is essential for having music that sounds like actual music. That's my sort of diatribe on it. But I think the idea of sitting at a computer and prompting it to perform instruments and arrangements in a certain way is not totally dissimilar to a producer in a room with the most skilled instrumentals in the world

and saying, hey, Kenny Arnoff, like, I want that drum fill. Hey, Leland Sclar, I want that bass fill. You know, I'm specifically speaking of an era that you're very familiar with, too, because there aren't a lot of studio musicians at all anymore in the pop world, but those guys played on everything in the 80s, you know? and we can go down the list of these guys where it's like, you know, the A-list people will continue to eat. But I think that the, I think that as models, as AI models improve people who know how to use it as a tool and can get the performances out of it like a good producer would is, you know, it's, I don't know, it creates, it creates an equity. amongst people who aren't in Los Angeles,

you know? So when I interviewed Steve Luketh, there is a dear friend of mine, and Steve played on a million records. He played on human nature, Michael Jackson on Thriller. Now, the muted guitar part and the arpeggio thing that he plays,

like nowadays, that would, you get songwriters credit. And a lot of the stuff that he does on all these famous songs, that he plays all these hook lines, he would get credit for it. Yeah. And how do you feel about that?

Well, I mean, I asked him how he feels about it. I'm not the one that played it. Right? And that was just understood that that was part of being a session guy that you just brought those ideas in and you did not get compensated for him. So all these Nashville guys, they've played on a million. Everybody that I had on my video has played on a million records. Anything that's trained on the records that they've done, which is a lot.

of them, it's just regurgitating their ideas and everything. But then again, if you have four chords that you're playing over, C, G, E minor, D, right? There's only so many things that people are going to play, the same person is going to play on these things. If you have a million songs written that way. Well, let's go back to, I think the quantity of writers on songs is a conversation that you and I were talking about as being something important to discuss. And one of the things Teter and I talked about, and you also spoke to Tether about, that 20 years ago, I think the average number of writers on a top 40 song was, I want to say, 3.4, and 20 years later, we're at 7.4. I will say anecdotally that I know that those splits are not necessarily equal splits, but for the sake of this conversation, let's round down to three writers and seven writers and just assume that. that they're equal splits.

So 20 years ago, you're a writer on a top 40 song. You have 33.3%. Somebody gets 33.34%. Yep. And now you're getting 14.28%, which means that you have to write more than two times the amount of hits to get paid what you got on the first, not including things like inflation and all the other.

Okay, can you give, Ross, can you give us some, instead of splits, like, give me, let's actually take money and let's do it. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to butcher this. So I'd have to look up what the actual numbers are. But, you know, I mean, it's easier to just think that. Let's say the song generates. Let's take that album track from 2002. That's probably a better thing.

You know, an album that sold 2 million copies at 9.1 cents per song generates $1.8 million on that one song that was not a single. That was not a single. That you could make a living. You could make a great living by having album tracks. Right. So you get one third of those songs, and you're talking about a lot when you have seven songs on an album.

That's right. Or when you have two songs on an album. Yes. You know, those guys, we all know those guys that had the one song on, you know, the Britney Spears records or the Backstreet Boys records and 50-50 song on those was tremendously valuable when you're talking about 20 million albums worldwide. But now you're talking about album tracks are almost completely worthless. Right. So even if you have one seventh of an album track that has no worth. But if a song that is, you know, let's assume that has a billion

streams, which is a lot. Yep. There are only like a thousand songs that have reached a billion streams. So a billion creates one million in revenue from only from streaming on that one platform, but roughly a million, even a little bit less than that. So that million now you're only putting in, you're getting $142,800 on a song that is a billion streams. That is a bit of a travesty in and of itself. Absolutely. It's why I think also AI can be a huge advantage to songwriters who are not going to have to add in the instrumentalists who are demanding a share of publishing on a song they didn't write. That's an interesting take. I have to think about that. I like, I, I, I, I like that that's a, that you're taking this from the, perspective of the writer that it's actually helping the writer.

I mean, think about all the writers. Interesting. And how many times? I've not heard that before. That's kind of interesting. You haven't been on this podcast. Okay, wait. So when Ryan was on your podcast, he talked about the amount of songs that he, and I

talked to him a little bit about this, the amount of songs that it used to take. Well, he talked about a few different things about how many tracks you used to have to write versus, you know, pre-2017, I guess, versus now and kind of what the splits are and how much that they, how much a hit song is worth then versus now and that how dramatically different it is. Yeah, well, first of all, there were also a lot of artists, more artists that were willing to take outside songs. However, we're in a global economy now, and it's why I think the Grammys and other organizations should really reach out to Asia because I think a lot of American writers are aiming to write on the biggest artists outside of the United States because they're still willing to take outside songs.

And a lot of artists in the U.S. are encouraged to write even if they don't have the skill set to be a writer, which is a different conversation too. Let's go back to musicians that get writing credit on songs they didn't write. Right. You know, when we were trying to David Foster, I asked me, he was like, I didn't write the song. You know? And you're trying to, you know, one of the greatest ever to do it. Right.

Do you think that these guys should have gotten credit? Well, you have to, you have to understand. I come from that era, and that's just nothing that you even asked about. You would never dream to ask about it. You never dreamed to ask about it. You just assumed that when I played on records back then, and I played parts that somebody nowadays, well, that's the hook, the guitar part that you did there and everything,

it's like, you just never said anything. I never did when I was producing. I never said anything. Even if I changed melodies on stuff, it's like, I agree. I mean, I agree on a lot of it. I will say this. I think the order of process matters.

So if you're going to be a, If you're going to create the track in which the song wrote on, it's not dissimilar to, you know, uh, Lieber and Solar, one's sitting at the piano, one's writing lyrics. Like,

it's not dissimilar to like, if, if I'm going to be the track guy and I send it out and somebody writes to that track, I think the person who created the track is part of the songwriting process. I think if there's three, four, five, six, seven people in the room,

which, you know, I have a song that's top 15 at dance radio right now with Marshmallow, and there were a lot of people in the room. And we all contributed. And everyone is a writer on it. There are a lot of writers, but we knew what it was going into it. Okay. So how do you do the splits when you're doing this?

We just went into it knowing that it was going to be what it is. Yeah. Okay. It wasn't like, it wasn't like, hey, you contributed the pre-course. You have this. I don't really believe in that. Whenever I come across those artists, like the last time I'll work with that artist. But I think when you have seven people in a room, then yeah, it should be 14.28% or some version of that, whatever it is.

You know, like that's because that's everybody's contribution. Right. I don't think that people were writing songs with seven people in the room commonly before, but when you watch that Get Back video and you see somebody coming in and helping with some of the court structure for Paul McCartney when he's writing Let It Be, you know, in this era. I think it was Glenn Johns. Yeah, it might have been Glenn. And, you know, in that era, like, Paul McCartney's a writer. Everyone's there is in service of the song and helping out, but, you know, Ringo in the back, who's not really paying attention, isn't a writer.

And now it would be hard to argue that Ringo didn't get something for being there. And certainly everyone else, everyone in that room and certainly anyone who contributed to chord structure while the song is being crafted would probably get published. change. Yeah, in the Beatles in 2026 is a four-way co-write. Yeah. I mean, probably. I think I just have, you know, my general thought is writers, and this is where the AI think can be really useful is, you know, I've learned to be a pretty good producer without AI. But with AI, I also can quickly check out what's the version of this song

this seven years old that that producer botched on a song that I thought was pretty good and similarly there are times where I'm like that production was really good but I think the song was even better and I run it through a bunch of things and like man this song's not good

and that guy saved it the only reason why I was any good is because the production was incredible I'm not saying that produced great producers shouldn't be tapped into either I just think there's opportunity for writers to work on showing the song in the best way they can. And essentially, you can, you know,

if people replay the parts, it's just what you're doing in Nashville. That's true. And that's a lot of things that are happening in Nashville now is that they are replaying parts of things that are generated on AI. I know that from telling people. It's real.

So when I first, I've been making videos about AI music since 2023. I did it, I testified on a Senate committee hearing and they did nine closed door hearings back in 2023. And I was on one of them. There were four, four senators there. There were 19 people on the, in the hearing I was in, people from Spotify, people from the Motion Picture Association. And one of the things, we all had to present papers and talk about them.

One of the things that I chimed in on when they asked me, I said that anything that's 100% generative should not be able to have a copyright on it. That was my contribution. And that's, well, it's interesting because then any, any of the AI music up until, I'd say probably a year ago, my kids, I've got three kids, my kids could tell instantly when something was AI, because of the artifacts, usually in the vocal reverbs. It took me a while to figure this out. I'd be I'd I would test it I'd bring my phone up to our kitchen I just start a song if somebody's like I think this is AI song I started and my son Dylan and my daughter Layla would be like why you listen to AI and I was like great and I said how do you know this they said can't you hear that buzzing and the vocal I was like what do you know so then I then I then I split the tracks on and you could hear artifacts and the vocal reverbs because of the way that the song is constructed with the layers and everything and then um so I made a video where where I, when this, what is it, velvet sundown or something, band came out.

And people were texting me, hey, I've heard this is AI. Can you tell if it is and everything? So I made this video. And then I made a video with a, lyrics suck. The lyrics sucked. That was one of the things.

That's a big identifier. Yeah. So then I was like, okay, I'm going to make a video with a fake artist. So I made up this artist, Eli Mercer. But I wrote the lyrics with Claude. Could Claude make, can write way better lyrics. then Soono's lyrics are terrible.

So I do the prompt and everything, and I write this song and make this video, and it was a really big video. So then I had people calling me, I did a CBS this morning thing where they did a piece, like a seven-minute piece where I wrote another song. They wanted me to basically remake my video,

and it made up this, Sadie Winters was the artist that they made up. She's like an indie pop. songwriter and the song came out great. And the people at Suno called me. I know people over there. They were like, did you sweeten the track or anything? I was like, what do you mean? It doesn't sound like it had a lot more reverb and everything. It's like, I didn't do anything to it. That's just the way it came out. Now, I did write the lyrics with Claude. And I think a lot of these models, the better the lyrics are. I think it has to do with the, about how the, the lyrical, kind of the rhythm of the lyrics will lend itself to the thing coming up with better ideas or something.

I'm not sure, but I didn't prompt it. I just prompted it one time. Does that deserve a copyright? Because it took a certain skill and taste to make that happen or no? I don't think so. No. It's fully generative. No, I don't think so.

Now they filmed it. So the guy sitting there, it was literally, it happened in, because when they called me, they said, how long will this take to make the song? I said, I don't know, like three minutes or so. It took about four seconds to do the lyrics. I typed out the prompt on the thing. I generated her picture first. Okay, her name's Sadie Winters.

So chat, GPT, generated her to picture. Then I wrote the lyrics with Claude. And then I had a more sophisticated prompt to write the lyrics. and then I put it in the Suno, it came out with the thing. And then people made AI videos of her singing this song. Yeah, it's crazy. Right. And then I did another thing for NPR where I wrote another song.

But this was like a dance. This was like an EDM song. And this was really, I thought, a good song. And it was another female artist. And so I was playing it in the car for my daughter, Lela. She was coming back from Taekwondo. And she's like, is this AI? and I said, can you tell?

She goes, well, the song seems really good, but I think it could be AI. I said, it is AI. She's like, can you isolate the tracks? I said, yeah, there's a stem, when they came out with a stem splitter in Sunno. So I came home, we go down the studio, isolate the tracks.

She goes, let me hear the voice by itself. So I play the voice, and she says, wow, that's really good. The vocals now are incredible. incredible and I said and I said you know to get a vocal because of the range was really the range was like Kelly Clarkson 2004 you know a vocal take that you would work on for three days or something to get and uh it was so with a demo singer you'd have to pay 1200 bucks that's right so it was it was amazing and she's like wow that's really good oh yeah and uh yeah i think this what's

really important, and I was on a text chain late last night with some strong visionaries of the next generation who are trying to demand, you know, the DSPs to take down fully generated songs, which AI generated songs, which is unlikely to happen. But I do think that one of the things they're really honing in on is making sure that DSPs identify songs that are AI generated. So there's not a question. you know, you can like, you know, cartoons that are hand-drawn or done by computer or done by AI, but you generally know which one is which, depending on the house that creates it. Yeah.

And in this, in this world, it's so important. I don't think it's realistic to assume that DSPs are going to take down any fully, because they don't want you to leave. No. But I do think it's not worse for them to at least identify whether it's AI. And if you have a toggle switch that would say, I don't want to listen to AI music, then it would remove it from your algorithm. Absolutely. But it wouldn't prevent someone else who doesn't care from listening to it.

And if the reality is that I don't know what the point is if there's no commercialization. them around it. You know, here's some advice for those of you who are savvy. Listen to that fully AI generated hit and steal every part of it. Sample it, interpolate it, make your own hit out of it, and they can't do shit because they have no copyright protection, which is what you testified on. Yeah. So like if you really want to be savvy, find all that AI slop that's doing pretty well and steal all of it. And because you also won't own that section, but you'll own the rest of it.

And the original people, it'll just be like, you can go pillage their quote, you know, AI art. So I just think if you're going to, if this is the bed that they're making, then as songwriters, sleep in it, man. Go take it. Go do what you want.

You know, some people got mad at me when I was, did these when I demonstrated how Suno works and stuff. And it's like, I'm just demonstrating it to show people, because a lot of people watch my videos to show them how, how the thing works. Because otherwise, you're,

there's a lot of non-musicians, mostly non-musicians and watch my channel. And I think it's instructive to know about what these programs can do. Now, I just did a video where I talked about a particular AI artist that's on Spotify. This unidentified is that. And I, I said, this is a way to tell if

something is, is fully generative. Go to their Instagram, see what is created. So this one, this one had four million monthly listeners on Spotify. Wow. And, but yet the biggest song had nine million plays. So there's, it's, no one has four million monthly listeners has, their biggest song has 9 million plays and they had 6300 Spotify listeners. I mean, Instagram followers. People are just looking, you know, when they have those followers, it's because right now it's a gimmick. So people are checking it out. They listen to half a song and nobody wants to listen to it twice because they're like, well, this is embarrassing. Well, I don't even think that they're listening. I think those are bots that are following. Either way. It still is like non, it's non-repeat

customers. That's right. You know, NMPA is our lead sponsor yet again. What is the National Music Publishers Association. What do publishers have to do with songwriters anyway? Well, unlike artists who can be unsigned artists, there is no such thing as an unsigned writer. You can be a self-published, a co-publisher, a published writer. Publishers only make money if songwriters make money. So, NMPA goes and fights for you. They go to Congress, they go and support the community, they fight DSPs to get you paid more. That's what they do. They fight for you, and they fight for this podcast. So thank you for fighting for songwriters NMPA.

Thank you for fighting for us too. I want to talk about, you know, you keep mentioning your channel, and it's fantastic. And as a guitar fan and a pedestrian guitar player, it's fun to watch, you know, some of these instrumentalists who are the best in the world. You've been doing it since 2016.

How did you get involved in YouTube? I, in 2015 in December, I made a video to show my friend Shane's wife. Shane is this country singer I was working with. And my son Dylan came down to the studio and I was like, oh, check this out. And I started playing these chords for Dylan. Dylan is singing all the notes in this chord, Dylan. Dylan has insanely good perfect pitch. Really dissonant chords.

And so Shane's like, make a video this for my wife Angie. So I think, okay. So I was like, Dylan, come on downstairs. I want to make this video. I don't want to. I was like, it'll take one minute. I don't want to.

He's chewing a bunch of candy. And I say to my wife, Neen it, tell Dylan to come downstairs. I was going to a school board meeting. I was on the school board at a school. He was in second grade or something, third grade. Go on down downstairs. So we make this one minute video.

And I put it on my Facebook page, which I had about 30 followers. So I'm in this school board meeting. And Shane keeps calling me. I'm like, what do you? Shane calling me. Declined, decline, decline. So I get out of there, I'm like, yo, what's up, man?

Because that video's viral. And I said, what do you mean viral? He says, it's got 5,000 views. I'm like, 5,000 views is not viral video. He goes, you only have 30 followers on Facebook. He goes, watch. Tomorrow will have a million. I was like, I don't believe it.

So I wake up the next day. It's got like 22,000 views. I call Shane. It's like, well, it doesn't have a million. And he goes, wait. Well, that night, by like 10 o'clock, had 3 million views. Eventually that video got about 80 million views.

and I got thousands and thousands of emails from people. And a lot of famous musicians writing to me to ask me, I mean, people you would know if I could teach them this. And they didn't know who I was. I didn't have my YouTube channel or anything, but they were just writing to me. They found my email, wrote to me. So about six months later,

so then we made, send some people, thought it was fake. So I made a couple other ones that got millions of views where Dylan's closing his eyes and it's like, oh my God, Dylan can do this. Because these were insanely hard things. It was very cool. Yeah. I mean, I remember that too. Yeah. Who didn't see that? So it's like, yeah. So six months later, I got so many emails. I was like, I'm just going to start teaching the theory and do ear training videos and stuff on YouTube. That's how I started. Wow. And then, and then it was, but I didn't do any music production things or anything like that at first. And then I started branching out and eventually did these song breakdown videos.

What makes a song great? And I did these top 20 countdowns. Then I started doing interviews in 2018. And so I do, I mean, I do all types of videos and stuff. But is it weird? You know, you spend your life being a musician. You play on some stuff, some stuff that becomes hits. You know, you experience the number one song in country, you know, rock records that are number one.

But what's it like to, what was it like for you to have the biggest hit of your life be a YouTube channel? It's, well, it's, it's strange in that wherever I go, people recognize me. I think because I, it's, I mean, it doesn't matter. I go to Europe. I go to Japan, Korea, wherever. people. I think that I they see my pictures so many times because my thumbnails get hundreds of millions of views a month. I mean, I get about 50, 60 million views on my YouTube channel a month. But the thumbnails are seen hundreds of millions of times each month. And I'm on every

thumbnails. So over 10 years and billions of views on the channel, like people recognize me. Is it because your hair is excellent? I think so. I don't. I must really look at exactly like, well, everybody says you look exactly like you do. I filmed my videos in 4K and they're clothes. You know, you can see what I look like. But, um, man, the guy's got glowing skin and perfect hair. What are you going to do? Um, you know, it's a weird thing. We're, uh, in a, uh, in a place right now where every time our podcast, you know, rings the bell and it, it fluctuates and, um, and there, there are charts that you can watch. And when you, when you, when you have these moments where you're, you know, you ring the bell. It's not, it doesn't feel any different in

many ways than having this week the hit song. And there are artists that have, you know, if you, if you can ring the bell a couple times in a year, you can sit there. If you sit there for a while, then it's like having a number one song for two weeks. It's like having a number one song. And it's hard to explain that, oh, I'm just realizing, oh, I kind of think we're, we're kind of like an artist. And this is our chart. It's not just similar to, like, you know, an alt rock chart. So they used to have a trending chart on YouTube that they discontinued a few months ago. So I, in three years, I had 43 trending videos.

That's like top 50 on YouTube in the world. Yeah. Across all platforms, by the way. Yeah, yeah. And so I've had, I had ones that were number two on trending in the world. Yeah. Right. And these were be, you know, these are videos that would get a million views in the first,

in the first 24 hours or whatever or more. they'd be, I mean, there'd just be huge bullets, but it's like having a hit song. I mean, basically. It feels like that, I guess. Well, it does. And it also creates revenue in a way that's, that's unique for its path. And it's, that's legit, you know, it's legit in what it is. And it's, it's incredible. Do you, what, who's, who's somebody that you really want to interview that you haven't? Paul McCartney. Yeah. I said that. Yeah. I say the same thing. Ringo. Can we just do it together? Yeah. let's do it but i mean there's very i've interviewed most of the people that i want to interview keith

richards i like to interview um you said this great story when we were talking on the phone the other day about uh getting the email about the key the key change or the uh it was uh whatever your friend was who was playing all the different versions of organ i think it was so can you tell me that story because that story is so good oh with uh that i had this guy reach out to me about that He played this part wrong? Yeah. Yeah. So I did this video back in 2019, top 20 keyboard intros of all time.

And so this guy writes to me and he says, hey, I watch your video. I really liked it. But on the song that was number one on my list, Whiter Shade of Pale, which came out in 1967, he's like, your friend Les played it wrong. He's played, it's common, people commonly play it wrong. He's doing these inversions on the F and G cord. And it was like, so I write back, I never return these kind of emails. And I write back, it was like, well, maybe next time I'll hire you to do it.

And if you can do it, you think you can do all 20 keyboard intros on the same day and, and, and play them all correctly in front of the game. And he goes, he writes back, he goes, well, I know I can play that one right. I guess you don't recognize my name. And I was like, so I'm thinking like, okay, what's, it can't be. Like, it was from 1967. So I type, I see Matthew Fisher. I type it in.

I was like, what are the chances? I got a Wikipedia. Yep. Matthew Fisher, keyboardist and one of the writers from Brogall Haram of Wider Shade of Pale. I could have played. Then I wrote him back. I was like, man, I'm so sorry. What a jerk I was.

And he was like, no, that's totally cool. He was totally cool about it. But it was like, what are the chances? 1967 is, you know, 22 or whatever. Yeah, well, as they say, you know, the chances are 100%. 100%. You know? That's right.

So we've never done this. but we decided to put together some cards. Uh-oh. Because I think, look, I think you and I share a lot of similar thoughts about music. Obviously, we, we, we were, you know, I think some of the, you know, as you say, like you post videos and people have comments on it a lot of times. And, you know, I'm a proponent of where pop music is today. I'm the co-chair of the songwriter composer wing. and I see music in a really healthy place right now.

And I know, you know, a lot of different conversations you've had. So from that perspective, we'll start with the first one, which is, are songs today better or worse than they were 40 years ago? Depends on the song. Okay. When you said in a video, you were talking about this year's Grammy nominees, and then you showed the 1984. you know,

Grammy nominees for for Best Song. And in 1984 was, what was it, beat it, there were two Michael, yeah,

two Michael Jackson's songs. Which wouldn't happen now. Lionel Ritchie. Yeah. All night long. All night long, right. Michael Simbalo was a maniac,

and then staying every breath you take, which won. Yeah. But the presenters were Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan. Now, there is no comparison.

No one has the, the, there's no one out there. I would argue that there are no two people that are current stars that could come out and have the gravity of to present Song of the Year. Present Song of Year that are Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder.

Who are those two people today? Well, those people today would be, you know, probably like Kendrick Lamar. Uh-huh. Who, you know, maybe it'd be like, like Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars. Okay. I would argue that Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars are not Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan.

Why would you say that? I just, they haven't been around long enough. Those guys at that time. That'll be really hard to, well, Kendrick, I mean, Kendrick's a Nobel winning author. Yes. You know, he's like, he is, as far as lyrics, you know, so is Bob Dylan. So both of them have, you know, both of them come from a Nobel, although Bob turned it down, you know. And then you have someone like Bruno who is, you know, probably today the most dreamed American artist in the world and has, I would argue, a discography that rivals.

So you'd have to go back. So Bob Dylan, we have to go back into the early 60s. By 1984, these guys have been artists for 20-some odd years. Yeah, fair. Both of them, okay? That's right. And so, but these guys don't, Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars' careers

don't go back that far. Right, that's right. They're each about probably 10 years for, well, Bruno maybe. Yeah, so to me, that equivalent of someone that's been... Taylor Swift would be the closest thing to that. Taylor Swift would be the closest,

that had a career long enough. We go back to 2006, when Taylor's first record come out, something like that, right? I mean, I think she's probably, you know, maybe not even inarguably, the biggest pop artist of all time. Inarguably, is it?

I would say like, I don't know, wait. Okay, because she has. Arguably or in a? No, I don't think you can argue it. I think, I don't think it's a non, I don't think you can argue somebody who has the tours she's had, the albums she's had, the, the business savvyness she's had, the longevity, the consistency amongst both the commercial success and the, um, the business aviourness she's had, the longevity, the both the commercial success and the critical acclaim for 20 years.

There were times in between, you know, maybe in parts of the 70s where Bob Dylan's records weren't as good as when to get a blow on the tracks. Okay, we'll play it, play a game here. So let's open up Spotify and look at Queen and compare Queen to Taylor Swift. Okay. In the size of their top five songs in spins, Queen who's been around for, 50 years and monthly listeners versus Taylor Swift's now if we did that does anybody have a phone here that we can do that with I think here's here's the thing

you're still talking about Queen had a very short run in comparison like you know you're trying Freddie died in 1991 and the Beatles had nine nine years of of creation you know it and the Beatles are the greatest band of all time it'd still be hard to compete with somebody who had 20 years of like unrivaled chart success. Well, the Beatles were only together for eight years. Eight years. Sorry. Yeah.

Well, the releasing records for eight years, yes. But I mean, the same thing, the idea, though, of somebody like a Taylor Swift having, you know, the... I'm curious now... The longevity. I'm not even... Okay, so what do we have? Here. Monthly listeners comparison.

Okay, what about their biggest stream songs? Newerhapsody, we go top five. I mean the Rhapsody, three billion. Crazy. Stop me now, 2.5 billion. Under pressure, 2 billion. Another one bites the dust, 2.3. And we will rock you 1.6.

That's pretty good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a little out of order as far as the top stream songs. It looks like Cool Summer, 3.4. to playing space 2.3, shake it off 1.8. Oh.

David Ophelia, which is your newest song, 1.1.1 already. Wow, that's amazing, actually. That's fast. Yeah, that's real fast. Wow. So. I mean, I'm just saying the idea

of the longevity aspect of it is something that's undeniable. It doesn't even matter if I'm, like, a swiftie or not. I'm just looking at straight up numbers and it would be really a difficult thing to rival there being a bigger artist. Even if you love Elvis, even if you love Madonna, even if go down whoever it is,

Diana Ross, these people had great runs and amazing hits across multiple parts of their career. Michael Jackson still, like, I don't think 20 years of consistent chart success and tour success. It's hard to be. We might be, we're watching a, you know, we're watching a Michael Jordan. of pop music. It's hard to have a career that's successful over 20 years, almost impossible.

Yeah, in any field. And the fact that we were both surprised that she's over a billion streams already, the record's been out since November maybe, right? Yeah. To have a billion stream song already in that short period of time is amazing. I will, another interesting fact is like,

if you look the most streamed artist in the world, it isn't Taylor Swift, it isn't Bruno Mars, it's, you know, Indian artists and people outside of the United States. I think that there's this assumption, especially within the United States, that they're American people. Going back to, you know, the idea of that post was that songs today don't rival those four songs at that time. Well, actually, my post was about the particular songs that were on this year's, uh, charge. And I think, I will say this, I think in the end, I don't know if the Kendrick song, I don't know where that will land as far as evergreens go. But, you know, I do think that back to friends, which wasn't nominated, ordinary, which wasn't nominated, will be those songs that certainly rival maniac, which I grew up in the 80s. I love the song, but I don't think if you asked a kid who is born now, if they knew, you know, when

they're, when they're, when they're our age, they won't know maniac. They're not going to know maniac. And they certainly, you know, four years. But they do know, they do know, thriller and they do know, um, I'd be more interested in, in what the songs were, say, like, 1986. And this is where the Taylor Swift thing is that if you have a Taylor Swift in this, or a Bruno Mars in the same year, die with a smile is. you know, that's, that will, you know, that has, and it has core changes. Yeah, it's core changes. It's got a great melody and it's got a great production on it too. What's a better song? Papa Roach, Last Resort or Ordinary Alex Warren?

A Popper Roach. Why? Because it's, because 12-year-old kids like it. Like Papa Roach? Yes. And 12-year-old kids don't like ordinary? It's more, I think it skews more towards a little bit older. and and uh popper roger's a built 1.5 billion plays they probably have about the same amount of plays

how many plays the ordinary have i think it's over 2 billion is it up but you know you're talking about it's you know it's set records across all radio in every country like the UK and the u.s it's one of the biggest songs and i know you know uh uh bias i love the writers of that song um great people and but i think think, you know, the feel of that and Golden both had this shuffle, 6-8-4-4, depending where you count it feels, and vocal performances on both of those were extraordinary, and no pun intended. And I think that they, I don't know, there's something about the, I feel like the quality of that composition as a song is, is a better song. However, I think, you know, obviously

like the guitar part of Papa Roach is fucking sick. Got a great guitar part. It's interesting though, but when I make videos on stuff like that, I was just surprised that I put that on just to see... The Papa Roach one? Yeah, put the Papa Roach song on the car. A lot of my videos come from driving my two daughters to school.

It's like whatever I decided. I was like, yeah, put this on. And then the fact that my 13-year-old now, it's her birthday today, Layla. Oh, happy birthday. Yeah, so she was like, I know that song. I was like, what? How would you know this Papa Roach song?

You kidding me? Why does you know it? Because it's because it's all over YouTube shorts and Instagram and TikTok. Yeah, my life here, two pieces. Great. Like a Virgin or Pink Pony Club? Pink Pony Club. Interesting.

Why did that? I'm bored of like a virgin. Yeah. That's fair. Bob Dylan or Kendrick Moore. Bob Dylan. Who's your favorite lyricist of all time? Joni Mitchell.

She lived not too far from here. This was the spot. Beat it or blinding lights? Ooh, that's tough. I love blinding lights. Most stream song of all time? Yeah, I love blinding lights. But my friends played on beat it, so I'll say beat it.

That's, yes, you don't get trouble. That's right. Hey, and, you know, similarly, you know, I got to go blinding lights because I'm friends with those guys. I love blinding lights. I think it's amazing. Is Max Martin the greatest songwriter of all time? I am the biggest Max Martin fan. I love Max. And so the greatest of all time, I'd have to put Lennon and McCartney up there and stuff. But Max, to me, is one of the most brilliant melody writers and producers. I think he's, you know, and I'd love him to come on my channel.

I got a chance to meet Max one time a couple years ago, and he was incredibly cool, and I think he's so talented. Yeah, he's just super generous. You know, I've said all the nice things. You know, he's just, he's great. All right, do too many songwriters ruin or make a song better? It depends on what song.

I can't generalize that. Well, let's take... Apata, APT, whatever you, however you want to pronounce it. So, there's a gazillion writers on that song, you know, and there's a reason why, but What is the reason why? Explain it. Well, I think what's interesting about a song like that is, one, everybody who contributed to the song actually fundamentally changed the song. Okay.

Which is slightly different than people just playing to a fully written competition. composition. People changed, you know, arrangements. They added different melodies. They had different lyrics. They moved the song around. And they each had an opinion on it and they were compensated kind of appropriately. I do think one of the saddest things in music since, you know, take the beat it era is like, you know, my Sharona got, those writers got a portion of Apeta. what the fuck are we talking about? Like, shame on musicologists, especially ones that work at record labels

whose jobs are not to protect their writers and artists, but to go and litigate against their own creatives because they're scared of a blurred lines, you know, lawsuit that has never been held once, used once in court. And so, you know, you have an era where all of a sudden there are more writers on that song than should be. So some of those writers and some of those interpolations are not actually interpolations.

They're fear-based musicologists who are arguably unethical in the way that they're treating their job. So I think a lot of times you end up with songs with more writers on it because somebody somewhere along the line, so you have to clear this. Right. and they have to add those people. And they have to, they're added to it. Yeah. Just so that they don't have to. Just in case.

Yes. I think the argument should be that if a label asks you to interpolate a song or request that, that the label needs to compensate you equally on the master share. In the past, when somebody would use a fragment of a melody, that people most of the time people never said anything there was a thing I remember where

there's a Led Zeppelin song going to California and there's a Pearl Jam song given to fly and there's a Tori Amos song um

silent all these years. Love that. Amazing song. That have similarities between the verse melodies. Just in the way it's a stepwise thing. Was there any lawsuits between those songs? No.

Now maybe there will be because I just said that. No, they don't. People didn't care. No, that they didn't care. No, if it was interpolated, it would be a, you know, would be considered an homage. It would be. Yeah.

You know, Ravel and Chikovsky. And it's like always the example I use. Like they literally would go back and forth out of respect to use the same melody and show what they could do with it. Right. You know? In jazz, you call it a quote. Yeah, man. It's like a sweet thing to do.

I'm not saying that you go and, you know, if I say, you know, if you're going to use the same title, the same lyric, the same melody, I've had one situation that was actually theft. Other than that, everything else that I've ever gotten an interpolation was some label that cleared a song I wrote with the publishers who were like, hey, by the way, you're a writer on this song. I'm like, I'm not, I didn't write that son. They're like, yeah, no, you wrote it because they cleared this. Well, that feels weird, man.

There's a song that's out right now that's a single that I was like, they came to me and they said, well, what percentage do you want? I said, I don't want a percentage. I want to hug if it goes number one. I also can't be a songwriter advocate and then be, it can't be too-faced about it. So, geese or radiohead? Radiohead. What about geese now versus the Benz?

The Benz. We had this discussion last night at dinner. I mean, the answer is the Benz. Yeah, the Benz. I'm not, like, I'm not arguing with you. Yeah. I just was curious. Yeah.

I mean, the Benz really is what made Radiohead because the first record, Pablo Honey is just... It's creep. Yeah, it's creep. That's the first record. And had they not made the Benz, no one would know Radiohead. Right. I mean, I was trying to, Marcus was on here, Mumford, and we talked about the Benz. I love it.

Adele or Whitney. I love Adele. I love Whitney, but I love Adele. Yeah, also like, you know, iconic. songwriter. I don't know what the answer is. They're so different, but like, so it's not really fair for me to do and then not have an answer, but I don't have an answer. So there you go. Let's go with, um, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I think we're in the best era of pop music. Am I wrong? You're wrong. Why? Because the best era of pop music was, um, was

1962 to 1970. That's a really strange time to choose. Well, I just think about that's basically the Beatles. Yeah, but you're going from the sort of the, the reason why I say that is because up until 1964 in the U.S. before the Beatles get here, it's Brill Building, Brill Building. You know, it's obviously, you know, whatever, Gershwin all the way through, right? And you get into Brill Building in the 50s and, you know, Elvis.

And you get into like real pop music, the beginning of the music business, all the do-op stuff. And then, so the reason why I say that's a weird time to include is because you're talking about the transition from an industry that's fully outside songs to by 1970, extended to 1971, to Carol King going from Brough Building to, you know, one of the greatest artists of all times. Tapestry. So it's really like this weird era switch from 62. to 70 because I feel like that's like when I think about such a pivoting when I think of pop music but I think of I think of the Beatles that that's that's the that's the era of pop music that I think the greatest songs were written

I think the Beatles wrote the greatest songs and greatest pop songs and there's no there's no one that wrote with the variety that those guys wrote with in that period of time, they're just nothing will ever touch them. There will never be another Beatles again. Never. They invented and they didn't repeat themselves. Their songs are so varied that there's no,

there's nothing that anyone can do. You can't, first of all, their songs are far more sophisticated. They're hits. They're 27 number ones. are far more sophisticated than pretty much anything that you hear on the radio nowadays, at least when it comes to harmony and melody.

So the Beatles basically invented, when I think of pop music, I think of like top 40 radio, pop music. And so it's like when people say, what's the Baroque era? Well, the Baroque era of music is 1685 to 17. Well, that happens to be the dates that Bach lived. Now, did Bach? Was he competing? I mean, composing. I mean, the first pieces you hear from about 1705 or so when he was 20 years old.

You don't know any early things. Like, did it really start in 1685? Yeah, there were composers that were, you know, but. I mean, I guess, look, okay, so when you're talking about this era of radio, from 1941 all the way till streaming. better yet radio from 1941 all the way to 1994 when when the when the when basically what happened was regional radio

there were regional bands and you could have a band that had smashes just within a region what pop music did was it there were syndicated programs that would consolidate the best songs from these regions. And in 1994, it became allowed for independent radio stations to be bought by a conglomerate. So you ended up with a centralized place choosing what the playlisting would be nationally. And it destroyed the idea of regional music. Well, this is 1990. Well, I, maybe it's 1996. 96, the Telecommunications Act. That destroyed the music business.

It just, it just, destroyed media. Really? You think so? I think so, yeah. I've made a video on this before. That, that, that, that's when all the, that's when Clear Channel and Cumulus and all these things went up and bought these, Bally stations. Then you lost all the regional, you lost all the regional music. The last great regional music is certainly like Seattle, although there, you know, been, you know, things that have popped up, you know, obviously Atlanta in the turn of the century. That's right. And, you know, they're, they're definitely.

pockets where people go and seek out great music, but the concept of regional music really went away once you could consolidate. So it's hard not to think of the pop music in multiple ways. You know, their most played songs at radio now were far more played than songs pre-1996 because they would, they, it was bespoke. Although, you know. Every breath you take is the most played song ever at radio. Okay, so one of the most, another thing that happened in the 60s is that you started getting composers like Antonio Carlos Jobbim, Brazilian composers. And Frank Sinatra made some of the most amazing records of Jobim's music in the mid-60s that are, you know, at least from a, and a lot of music that has a lot of Brazilian influence. in today's music that has

a lot of Brazilian influences and things like that to come back to Basanova which became really big in the 1960s wasn't you know that influenced not only pop music but also influenced jazz music and jazz music is kind of like half Brazilian

it's half swing music and half Brazilian music which we call straight eighth music Yeah Stan Gats and yes that's right Great music or great songs What do you choose? choose to listen to. Probably great music.

Great songs fall into great music, so. Because I don't listen to, I don't listen to only songs. I listen to a lot of classical music that I wouldn't consider songs, orchestral pieces and stuff. I tend to listen to more, you know, I tend to listen to more music because I don't get competitive or I'm not like at home hanging with my kids thinking about lyrics, you know. It's like, it allows me to be. know, when I listen to music.

But I really care as an artist. I only care about the composition. I don't think I care about the production. Oh, well, okay, that's a totally different thing. Yeah, you have to have a great song. The production can make a great song even better, but you can't, production can't make a bad song good. Yeah, yeah.

I agree with that. do you think that are you bullish on the future of the music business or are you bearish? I don't know if I'm bullish on the economic model of the music business, but because I think that kids, they don't care what came before. They only know what they hear today, you know what I mean? So they, everybody has their own era of music that they grew up with, songs they connect with and stuff. So they, they don't care that there were the Beatles in the past or the Rolling Stones or

or Carol King or Joni Mitchell or anybody or Bob Dylan. They don't care. Stevie Wonder or Herbie Hancock. They, they, it's irrelevant to them. They only know what they are into. So, um, so I think that people will continue to, to love music. and I hope that the I hope there's a way for people to to do as well as people from my era did from the music but you know as far as being able to make a living wage from their music and stuff that I hope that that that's something that can can continue on what else should we talk about that we haven't talked about um let's talk about you having your podcast on YouTube.

What is the difference between having your podcast on as a podcast versus having the visual part on YouTube? Yeah, it's interesting when I asked you, you know, you said how when people say, I love your podcast, you're like, well, you don't really have a podcast. You have a YouTube channel, you know, and that's a difference. And we're over nine years old now. I wanted to be an archive for songwriters and that was my concern and never really even thought of

we started filming it over COVID when we would do zooms once we started doing in person we even filmed a lot of those and didn't edit them we didn't really know what to do with them we talked about it for years but it was like I don't know what's the

like a lot of people have YouTube channels and then once we did video it's like holy shit I had no idea I also like especially in LA like I also get recognized in a lot of places and you're like whoa song you know songwriters are not really recognized

wait I want to critique your thing so your thing looks great and you're a great interviewer this is from me being an interviewer too that you have a look like the whole when I saw it I was like wow not only is it is what you do great and you're a great interviewer but you also immediately have it down chairs like everything your branding I mean this is like great thank you it definitely has opened up a lot of a lot of channels in my head um of like what things that we could do that are helpful

I think the main thing that, you know, in 2018, when the Music Modernization Act passed, part of that is because of the success of this podcast. That is maybe in my career, I don't think I believe in legacy in any real capacity. No one will remember any songs I've written. They don't remember the Beatles and the Beatles were everything. So, like, they certainly aren't going to care about any song I wrote. They won't care about any of us as writers. We're all going to be gone.

kids now are like, oh, yeah, I learned about Bach, but they couldn't tell you one song, you know, one piece he wrote. So I think in the end, like, none of that matters. But if you can improve your community, absolutely. Like songwriters got involved. Yeah. And they really helped pass the Music Modernization Act.

And for those who don't recognize what that means, that's like we removed all of Harry Fox. So that 9.1 cents per song, per album that you got in the Shinedown era, those that a portion of that royalty went to the collection agency we completely obliterated that 14% that went to Harry Fox and now the people who pay for that are the DSPs right and that was the creation of the MLC and that's part of the music modernization ad what songwriters did by posting I'm a songwriter I'm a producer I support the music modernization at the first phone calls Ryan Tetter and Dan Wilson and these people made to their senators and to their governors

moved the needle. The people who gave money so we could buy billboards outside of senators' houses saying, Senator Wyden, why do you hate songwriters? That was the kind of shit that literally changed how songwriters get paid today. And it's because of the community that was built around podcasts like this or like yours. Like we can actually do things as a community. and I believe in a few things. Like if we can get, you know, if we can get health care for songwriters, if we can get a living wage for songwriters and do what the Ivers are doing in the UK with major labels and bring that here. If we can have DSPs add AI labels to songs that are fully generated by AI.

These are things that can be driven. These initiatives can be driven by the songwriting community. and people can be educated on channels like yours. So I feel like the visual thing that what I've learned from YouTube is we can actually communicate some of those things differently than if it's just audio. I meant to say, too, that the fact that you focus on the writers is really great because me being a behind the scenes person as a music producer, I mean, I think, you know, I've played in groups, but I think of myself as a music producer.

and I interview producers and I interview session players and things like that. And it's incredibly important because I want people to know who are the people that are behind the scenes because they're as important as the, you know, a lot of the things that you're hearing, these session players play in this stuff. It's like these are the people that actually played on the on the stuff. And it's important to hear their stories too. Just like having the writers. And I hope to have some more writers on my channel as well. And I think it's amazing. That's why I love watching this because I like to see who the people are and hear

their stories. I love that, man. Well, thank you for doing this. This is fun. I mean, well, I'm sure we'll do this again because I feel like we can dive into all kinds of shit and this go in. But again, you know, us moving to YouTube, the first thing that Joe said is like, you got to watch Rick.

You know, it's like, oh, interesting. This is where this is, it was inspiring because I think I have. had this idea of what it was and I think you've shown what it really is and what it can be and I appreciate you highlighting songs. I love when you do top tens, top 20s. I love when you interview people and I follow, I think pretty much every guitarist you've ever interviewed since going down the rabbit hole because I can't do what they do and that stuff's magic to me because I'm there's a good there are the greatest players ever are alive right now some some of young young kids are it's insane and this is what you know this is why I'm really hopeful and I'm

really bullish on the songwriting business I know that sounds crazy everyone's really like a naysayer right now but if I were if I were a betting man which unfortunately I am sometimes I'm putting I'm putting a lot of eggs in the songwriting basket I don't know if I'm putting it in you know session players or demo singers or some of these others but if i'm a betting man i believe in songwriters and uh i believe in youtube channel so i'm in man let's do it ross appreciate it there you go