Digital Social Hour - The Future of Music: Embrace or Avoid? | Rick Barrio Dill DSH #778

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

🎼 Dive into the future of music with the Digital Social Hour's latest episode, where host Sean Kelly engages in a captivating conversation with Rick Barrio Dill from Vintage Trouble. 🎶 Tune in now to explore whether we should embrace or avoid the changes in the music industry. This episode is packed with valuable insights from Rick's 20-year journey in Hollywood and his pioneering work with Slap Media. Discover how independent creators are reshaping the landscape by merging art with social progress and honest storytelling. 🌟 Don't miss out on Rick's fascinating experiences, from touring with legends to launching Slap Studios LA. Join the conversation about the power of content creation in today's digital age. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 01:28 - Music Industry Evolution 06:15 - R&B Comeback Trends 10:54 - The Sphere Experience 13:28 - Modern Music Landscape 16:16 - Spirituality in Music 20:47 - Social Media Polarization 21:55 - Next Election Predictions 26:37 - US Economy Comparison 28:53 - Political Landscape Analysis 30:15 - Multicultural Democracy Insights 32:25 - Abortion Rights Discussion 34:50 - News Monetization Strategies 36:15 - Future of Reproductive Rights 40:09 - Importance of Independent Creators TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Rick Barrio Dill https://www.instagram.com/rickbarriodill/ https://www.instagram.com/slapstudiosla/ https://www.slapstudiosla.com/ https://vintagetrouble.com/ www.youtube.com/@vintagetrouble SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You! With Admi on the new Google Pixel 9 Pro, never rely on a stranger again. Add yourself to any group photo through the magic of AI. Get yours with TELUS at telus.com slash pixel9pro. I love the independent creators, the independent political creators. You know, reach out to us on Slap the Power, please, because we're looking for people that are interested in crossing art with social progress in any kind of way,

as opposed to, for me, for the longest time, it was like, you need to not do that because you want to be afraid of the backlash. It's like, no, honesty. Yeah, how about let's start there. All right, guys, Rick Barrio-Dill here, one-fourth Vintage Trouble and founder of Slap Media. Thanks for coming on. Hey, thanks for having me, man. Rick Barrio-Dill here, one-fourth Vintage Trouble and founder of Slap Media.

Thanks for coming on. Hey, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. We just met, and this was unplanned. I know, I know. That's what happens when somebody dips out. It creates a vacuum for somebody else to jump in on the opportunity.

Absolutely. That's why I like studios. You never know who you're going to meet in a podcast studio. Absolutely. That's why we created this space. There's Slap Studios LA why we created this space there's a um slap studios la we created the space kind of after the pandemic to to have more of a convergence of independent

creators coming together and to pool their resources you know to make sure that there was no limitation or the limitations or the pain points are minimized as much as possible for making better and better content. And we realized we're selling agency here, agency for independent creators and agency for anyone that wants to lift their voice and have it heard. So props to you for what a cool show. And just your whole team is so on point. It's inspiring. Thank you. Yeah, no, it's great.

Yeah, for real. No, that's cool because you've been in Hollywood a a while so you've probably seen a lot of gatekeeping tons yeah so i've made a little bit of background about me uh i've been in uh los angeles about 20 years my wife is uh she's in the marvel universe her name is anjali bimani and we have a um it's a incredible relationship in that we're both in the entertainment industry i'm a musician by trade we're touring the world and been you know blessed to have to do that with you know my brothers in a band but it's different than the acting industry right so if you're pursuing an art we're very it's very complimentary and now post pandemic there's just so much content is art to me and so our

worlds have kind of come together this in this situation now where we have all these productions that started to merge and we were like oh well let's have a production studio that we do that also you know we we open it up to people like yourself and but have a place where you can do anything from tabletop role-playing games to um you know to do a master class to do or to do a podcast it's just empowering people and that actually feels like giving them agency it feels you know that's inspiring to me the power in the creator hands right exactly yeah it's inspiring to me so yeah because it probably took you a while to penetrate the music space, right? It did. Yeah.

I mean, my entire life. I've been playing music since I was five. I think we toured with Lenny Kravitz, for example, and he said something that sticks with me. But it's that certain musical moments have brought me closer to the Creator than any other time in existence. Wow. And he's like, and i just go after as many of those moments as i can in one lifetime right and i was like yeah that that explains it that's kind of why what i got into music for uh i didn't get in it for the music business right you know it's it's it's uh it's it's also a lot different now which i which i love but it gets

back to content. You know, to me, we toured with last year, we had this amazing tour. We started on Saturday night in Glastonbury. It's one of the biggest festivals on planet Earth. And Saturday night, we're one of the top five stages and everything like that. And it kicked off a two month tour. It was all over Europe and everything. Amazing.

We've been, you know, doing, but then when you're done, you're kind of done, you know, and it creates this, well, no, you can, you can then focus towards America and you can kind of do things and keep it going. But when you're done, a vacuum is created that some, something else is going to jump into nowadays. This is what I love about what you're doing in content creation is it's something that you can do on a continual basis with your, with your fans or with your art, just getting it out there on a continual basis. It's not a,

it's not an old school paradigm where five years to make this movie or documentary, right. And there's this long promo cycle and stuff like that. We wanted to go live today. It took us 10 minutes to decide to do it. Absolutely. How cool is that? Yeah. It's fucking best. And I want to talk about the changes in the music industry. Cause before this you said there's a million songs uploaded a week now yeah yeah so and you know double check the the the edges but it's close to a million songs a week it's about it's 120,000 i heard last time 120 125,000 a day uploaded to spotify and five years ago it was 60,000

you know and you could and that's great in the sense that obviously, um, you know, we, we have this joke around here. It was, it's, it's amazing because when Steve Johnson kick off an exciting football season with bed MGM and official sports book partner of the national football league yard after yard, down after down the sports book born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory?

What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Your group photos are likely missing someone important. You! With Admi on the new Google Pixel 9 Pro, never rely on a stranger again. Add yourself to any group photo through the magic of AI. Get yours with TELUS at telus.com slash pixel nine pro. Jobs put GarageBand in every computer overnight, right? It was, you had just millions of producers and engineers were born. And I think this is the healthy result of

it, but it is not, it is something to also not you know to be very sober about you know and it's a it's so it's gotten difficult in streaming because you know a lot of the money is in the center it is it is it's going to the people in the center but the same problem is what the studios are now having in town right now post pandemic post two strikes it's what adam conover says all the time it's it's plain the the model doesn't work on streaming which is why you're seeing advertisements now come to streaming which is just cable right that's what it was called 10 years ago 15 years ago right and so the music business is kind of kind of the same thing as things get aggregated into a streaming model once you have a that model for the artist, it's a different paradigm.

This is why taking your own content into your hands, creating it and going straight to your audience is the way to go. If you got the goods, it doesn't matter that a million songs are uploaded a week, right? I truly believe you got the goods, you stay at it. It happens. Yeah. It will happen. Do you feel like your space in the music industry specifically is making a comeback? You mean as far as like rhythm and blues? For us, rhythm and blues was kind of like at the time when we started the band in 2010. It was right around that Amy winehouse kind of time and our love was for early 50s or 50s and early 60s kind of rhythm and blues ike turner um you know but really really

dope ass stuff like um uh otis redding and stacks and motown and so much of that and um i think with when you do partnerships nowadays with something like that that's where the mix-ups you know or you know the mash-ups and and that's where you do like if we're playing a festival we always are going to look for somebody to sit in off the cuff right because we want to kind of create some sort of magic hybrid of that because that's where we did with our music because we just kind of came out and did that we were very fortunate to play a one of the biggest music shows on planet earth called the jules holland show and are in the uk and um an amazing show by the way shout out to jules holland um a tastemaker kind of in the world of music um but our lives changed before we left

the bbc parking lot you know and that, but that was in 2011. And as you've seen streaming in the last 13, 12, 13 years, the best thing to do now for us, the reason why I brought up the Glastonbury comment was because in, after doing two months on the road, it was amazing, but we, we would also be better to do a year's worth of podcasts to accompany, to accompany our music yeah we played with the chain smokers not too long ago they were for the in front of the sofa uh for vip for the

super bowl and they were promoting their podcast wow you know and of course it makes so much sense right if i was a musician now you ever you got a 10 song record make a 10 song 10 episode podcast and have everybody or everything that's done right there's a there's a great great great anecdotal kind of thing about it but it's a i don't know if you're your listeners are familiar with a with a rapper by the name of connor price i believe but he's got this fascinating story on how his same thing he was touring and it's cheaper than for one guy to tour than it is for you know like a guy you know we had 10 of us in a band yeah but nonetheless it was still expensive for him to tour and his wife had this brilliant idea and they basically made this kind of skit she was coming home one day and he had been in the pandemic had

been working with a bunch of artists from all over the world as we were figuring out ways to you know expand and and kind of feel connected through all over the world and that was where the i think the good part about the internet and just being able you know to connect with people that way so he did a bunch of content and everything but what he did is put it together with its i think it was called the spin the globe series and he would he would go and because the tiktok algorithm at the time was you know they wanted first three seconds and he was like i'm going to spin the globe and i'm going to work with any artist where my finger lands and boom. And it would be,

I think it was like Ghana or something like that. Right. But he had already been working with this artist and, but it was just, it was just a way to kind of skit base the intro to his music because then he was like, Oh, and he lands on Ghana. He goes, Oh, and then he tells you this story, but he does it through, you know, a loaf kind of this great, but he does it through, you know, a loaf, kind of this great, kind of the way you do, and then it falls in to the Spotify page.

It falls into the produced music, or it falls into the produced video. And so you get sort of this in to the story that you just don't get in any kind of traditional way. You're not going to get it by uploading your music only to Spotify, right? Yet it expands the story or the ability to catch and connect with people in a way that so much more powerful than just,

you know, putting a record together and having a promotional team and thinking about, Ooh, cool way, everywhere we're going to do it. It was like, no, make some fucking cool podcasts.

Yeah. Podcasts are super personal. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like fans never got that connection with their, their people they liked before. I just tripped over this, too. But I don't know if you're old enough to remember this.

But there was a time when, like, you, too, put their album on everybody on Planet Earth's iPhone. It just showed up one day. And the world lost its fucking mind, right? Because it was like, how dare you automatically put your art in front of mind, right? Because it was like, how dare you automatically put your art in front of me, right? And now everybody, you know, it's kind of like done sort of willingly. Once you say yes to, you know,

something in a podcast, it's like, there we go. We got a channel to deliver our message and our art. And I just think that's really empowering for content creators and for independent artists of all shapes. Absolutely.

YouTube's been performing a lot in Vegas. Yeah. At the S in vegas yeah at the sphere yeah uh no my partner went there um he went there for fish again all the older older school bands i noticed yeah no no but but uh it's i rib him about fish all the time but they're amazing um but the i i'm looking forward to going there because that's a full century experience that I think is kind of the future. We have a friend of ours, Matt Wallace. He's one of the biggest producers on planet Earth. And he produced Maroon 5, songs about Jane, and tons of these massive records. But he's leading in the Atmos space space which is the way that uh apple's kind of doing now and and atmos mixes are it's insane it is it is true spatial mixing it's i think it's

something on the order of like 190 independent tracks inside an audio a uh an atmos mix of something so that means you can throw it to 180 different speakers or 109 different speakers, right? And they'll have different effects on things. And when you put that in the 3D space, it gave me hope for music again. We had a demo at Matt's studio at Sound City, and he would play old records that you've heard, right,

that have been redone in Atmos. And it is a completely different experience and it's way different than anything you could ever get in a just a two-dimensional sort of flat you know earbud speakers or coming out of your laptop speakers and stuff like that so that's why the sphere interests me is because it's it's incorporating that i was i was forever moved when i had when we had the Atmos demo. And Matt Wallace is one of like 30 guys that really know this space, that kind of high-level mixing. But it changed my life.

I was like so re-stoked in music again as a commercial thing. I know how it works to the heart and to the soul, right? We talked about that. But as a commercial viable thing, it makes me hopeful for the future. And then you add in real immersive venues like the Sphere, and that is the future. It is exciting. I heard they use sound beams, so you actually can't lose your hearing in the Sphere because it's only a certain sound level. See, that's awesome.

Yeah, because the problem with concerts, it's awesome to be front row. But if you don't have the earplugs, your ears are ringing for hours after. As a guy who's in a band with guitars and drums, my drummer beats the drums like it owes him money. So yeah, I know. Volume and decibel level. But I can't wait to go to the Sphere. Yeah. It's going to be exciting, man.

What do you think of modern day music? Do you even listen to it? I do, man. you think of modern day music do you even listen to it i do man um so i have a show a podcast called slap the power and my co-host um the incredible insanely dope maya sykes um one of the top three singers back bb's in this town she's out with um ray she just did coachella with ray and she was before that she was out with um billy idol but she's done uh she was out with Billy Idol But she's done She was out I think with Doja There's all kinds of stuff she's been out with

But she turned me on to Ray And I saw the Ray performance On Saturday Night Live My mind was Even me and my girl were like Holy snacks I don't even get like that It's hard

But I like that. Her band was smoking. I mean, the band was just killing. So I like, you know, I like the fact that some of the biggest tours have the baddest bands on them, you know. And that makes me really, because that's way different than the experience of a recorded you know every frame of it's meticulously put together live especially if they're letting it run and not all like you know all on backing tracks or something like that like letting the band run it there's nothing like it man yeah yeah no you said you were inspired by 50s and 60s music. What is your favorite decade to listen to?

Well, so I would say 50s and 60s was where, and I only say that from a rhythm and blues standpoint because that was kind of where the birth of like so many, everything else was sort of a subset of that because I'm a Prince disciple all the way. My favorite, I would say I'm a Motown guy because I play bass and something like Sly and the Family Stone and more like that music. But modern now, like Bruno's band is ridiculous. Bruno Mars?

Yeah. Ridiculous. And everything they put out is jamming. I mean, I love all kinds of stuff. That's the thing is I like anything that's good. So you just appreciate the art of music. Yeah, absolutely. Again, you know, it does something that is really, it's, it's beyond.

So we've, you know, we play in Japan a ton and that's the thing about playing a place where they're, they'll sing back our lyrics to the verses and it's not even their language, you know, but it's not even their language, you know? But it's a connection with music, and it's a connection, I think, with the people around, and that's why it's so special. It transcends language to me, which is why you go with your friends to the festivals and stuff like that because it's more the thing it does that we can't explain.

It's universal. It's spiritual, right? Yeah. That's a good segue into the next topic. Yeah. Spirituality. Yeah, yeah, sure. Have you had some journeys there? Oh, my God.

Man, I was on a rock and roll tour bus for 10 years, man. I'm writing a book about it, so put a pin in that. But, yeah, I think if the former president of the United States would take mushrooms, for example, I think all of our lives would be fucking so much better. Um, because yeah, well, 45 Donald Trump. Yeah. I mean, that man needs a, uh, a mushroom trip, like nobody's business, but that's why we kind of, one of the reasons why we started slap the power of the show. That's what I do with Maya. And it's, um, the, on a journey tip, i you know i've done plenty

and uh you know steve jobs said it when he when he went in his book he was like you know he's so thankful that he did lsd because it completely changed his life and i was in college when i did lsd for the first time but i was doing i was i thought i was going to be a studious and i was doing my paper on it you know so i could really could really get, you know, kind of get into it. And I always look at that event as I was one guy the day before and I was a different dude forever the day after. Because it gives you a sense of the internal, the third eye. It gives you a sense of however you want to get to that kind of spirituality. But we're going to find out in generations past ours that there's so much in mushrooms that are us.

It's like what Terrence Howard the other day was like. It's like we're all God. We're all the same. You and I, we're all brothers. We're all sisters. And I love that on journeys or mushroom kind of things that i've done one of the things that always tells me is i always get a message if i'm if i go on if we trip on mushrooms or something like that and most of the time it starts out with stand up straight

because i'm six four and i saw you talking about it earlier i was like all the time it's that message of stand up straight because all that i just feel so much more empowered when i stand up straight but it's a in a world where you know you just get kind of used to slouching stuff like that from school man yeah yeah so i get the littlest things from mushrooms like stand up straight to the to the most deepest uh you know i got my life yeah my mother-in-law i'm very very fortunate my mother-in-law she's one of my best friends, 85-year-old Indian woman, she speaks six languages. And she's learning her seventh right now, Spanish. She is brilliant.

Yeah, and she does the crossword puzzle every day, like just on point. But there's a, we talk about it, the Bhagavad Gita, and from an Indian and from an Eastern perspective, it's a lot of the, it's almost after a mushroom trip. Like you read that and you put it, I've put it together with just other sort of personal and Kabbalah and spiritual practices and stuff like that. And you're like, oh, it's kind of like what Terrence Howard was talking about, right? There's just a oneness that sort of transcends even you and I here, right?

You know? Absolutely. And if we can get in touch with that and relax, you know, and treat each other like we are the same and we are one, you know, that's where we can all transcend. And so, yeah, that's kind of why we created this space here. I want to create stories like that and opportunities to talk about that. You know, I don't think there's enough talking about it. It's easy to distract us with so many things that are insanely important right now. You know, I say all the time, and I stole it from my hero, John Lovett,

from Positive America and love it or leave it, but everything is insanely stupid and incredibly important right now, all at the same time. What a quote. Right? And it's the truth. It's like some of it is so stupid. The guy who's the frontrunner is facing 91 felony counts.

And it's like, yeah. court kicked a kicked a uh the case on whether or not classified documents that he stole and is putting on the allegedly putting on the open market that should be a subject that we should kind of why is this guy even able to run right but we we are in a situation now where we're in a various degree of cult and algorithmic control right we live in two different, we live in very algorithmic, yeah, polarized. It's designed that way. It's designed to keep us at each other's throats as close as possible, right? And yeah, it's concerning to me

because it's not, it's a little concerning. Do you think social media is designed that way to get more engagement? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, we know for a fact. And we know that they've known a lot of this data for a decade and it's kind of like it reminds you of like the oil and gas companies in the 70s they would do studies to say gee i wonder if this is really hurting the planet and then they find out yeah this is really fucking hurting the planet really bad but just hide the information and you know uh teenage female suicide rates right

right around the time of the invention of instagram and the front facing camera uh just hockey stick right you know and now we've gotten control of that in a way and now we we react but we're going to be in charge of our own future you know there's not some bunch of septuagenarians and, you know, 90 year old people in Congress is going to know what to do with AI or, so we need, we need, we need leaders out there and thinkers that are, that are, um, you know, that realize, okay, yeah, this is maybe not the most perfect system we have over here, but this is the system that we all need to make work right now and which means we need to feed into that with the right positive energy absolutely who do you think wins the upcoming debate uh the election yeah so um i'm not hesitant at all to say that i that the us remaining a what you a con us remaining a democratic what i consider a democratic nation relies on donald

trump not getting into office because he's fighting right now for what he was unsuccessful unsuccessful doing on january 6th which was overturning a free and fair election we know this to be true and yet because of the limited media, the way that it can get controlled through right-wing propaganda networks, to be frank, and there's some on the left, but it's in no way equal at all. There's a right-wing propaganda network that's dedicated to the top 1%. Bernie Sanders is out there every day talking about this very thing. Every day. The guy out there every day talking about this very thing. Every day, the guy does every day. The billionaire class is out of control. When, when our old manager, shout out to Doc McGee, one of the biggest managers on planet earth, he had a saying that was when the cat shit gets too bigger than the cat, it's time to get rid of the cat,

which I thought was fucking great. And, and in so that, you know, we have we have industries that have taken that are bigger than our government. Yeah. So they they have control the government. There's, you know, you pharmaceutical industry and that, you know, they have 10 lobbyists to one in Congress. Right. That's that's what we call. It's not capitalism. It's corporatism. So and that's and that's, you know, that's one issue to deal with. But the election, I think there's almost nothing that we can be more focused on is making sure that Donald Trump does not steal this the entire country, because if he gets in, he's not coming out. The only reason he's out last time is because a gentleman by the name of Mike Pence at the last minute did the right thing. That's the only reason Donald Trump didn't invoke the Insurrection Act and bring in whom he had part of the Pentagon set aside to do it. And on January 6th, he was going to do it. The reason why he sat there for three hours and didn't say shit while the Capitol was getting attacked on was because he was going to try and see if it was going to fucking work. And to me, we can't be animated enough about not letting that dude back in because by the skin of our teeth he got out whatever you want to say about joe biden you know joe biden has done more

and for progressive policies in this country than any president in my lifetime and that includes barack obama the problem is he's old and it's and democrats are are shitty at, at touting their own victories. Right. And there's a lot of problems that can be dealt with, but there's one side that actually wants to deal with problems. And there's the other side that just wants to tear it all down. Yeah. And that's not, that's not governing.

That is, that's just tearing it all down. If that's your thing, then let's, let's stop. Let's have a good faith argument and say, that's your, that's your anger. You're coming from your aunt. You want to tear it all down. Yeah. Let's start there but to get me to start talking about you know uh you know using ukraine and the way that everything is getting leveraged nowadays it's not a good faith

argument and that's the problem is what's going on in the media what's going on in congress and it's not even a good faith argument right they're holding the entire United States economy hostage over the last several years because of one man's wish to use it for political power, right? Donald Trump's. So he tells his minions in Congress to do this or gunk up the works. And it's one man's agenda that is making life harder for millions of people. And that's why people are so frustrated with Joe Biden is because at the end of the day, does it shake out to the bottom, right? You know, does it shake it to the bottom? And some of this stuff does the student loan forgiveness, you know, um, the investment in the chips act and how much it's paying off right now in our economy, we're leading the free

world in the, in the economies right now and rate of economic growth. Yet you would not know it because it's so easy to sell a misinformation or disinformation campaign on how shitty things are now we can talk about objective figures that are questionable but but in all senses of the world we're leading post-pandemic of any industrialized nation in the economic in the major economic sectors and that should be the thing that people should concentrate on if you don't like how old he is, if you think whatever, there's a list of accomplishments that they've done that is so impressive. It's just, you know, you got to get good at,

they're busy doing the work rather than making signs and saying how the other side sucks so bad. Yeah. You know? That's impressive. I didn't know we were leading compared to other countries. Yeah, yeah. And on many indexes, we're post-pandemic we're we're killing it and a lot of it has to do with the investment that has been made

begrudgingly like the right wanted to shut down things you know bernie wanted a bigger but there was all we could he's not right though right no no he's left but i'm saying he wanted a bigger bill when we had a shot to get the inflation reduction act i think it came down at like 3.6 or something like that which had 1.8 for climate in it right but it started out as a nine trillion dollar bill and would have had a lot more for climate in it and it would have had a lot more for um helping kids with uh school public schooling with we've already got a great infrastructure act going through but that's a that's something that joe biden's gonna be dead you know by the time that reaps its fruit right he's looking yeah he might have to.

Well, but the thing is, everything he's doing right now is because he's trying to do as much good as he can before he gets off planet Earth with respect to the hand that he's dealt. And the other guy is just trying to stay out of jail. Right? And that's ridiculous. Why aren't we talking about, you know, that should be the kind of the end of the conversation. Donald Trump's not qualified to be given the keys to the nuclear codes. Again, he's still trying to fight for being able to overthrow the election that he was unable to overthrow on January 6, 2020. And so the reason why the Supreme Court is letting him go and kicking it down the court is because they want to know if he happens to win, they work for him at that time. Yeah. Think about it. Even though it's, even though, you know, but,

but they were appointed by him, which is why they're kicking it down the court. Because if you rule against him and it's a federal case, he's going to pardon himself if he wins. And then he's going to go after the Supreme court that put him, that said that what he did was illegal. So rather than answering that question, what they're doing is they want to push it down past November. When in all reality, as voters, we should want to know right now the truth on, it should not be legal to steal the election, to not give up, to the lawful and peaceful transition of power is baked into our agreement. Whatever you think, red, blue, whatever you think. And that motherfucker is not interested in giving over power.

The only reason he didn't do it last time, I circled back to Mike Pence, which is why you can't give the guy the keys to the castle this time because he's still trying to say that stealing the election last time was legal. And we're not having a good faith argument if we're not talking about that. Damn, I didn't know you were this passionate about politics. Well, you know, man, it's one of those things. We're lucky. I've traveled the world. I've seen governments.

We had, during one tour, we had three shows canceled for terrorism on one tour. Which country was that? So the first one was the Battle Clan in Paris. Wow. When that was shot up by ISIS terrorists and over 100 people died. It was one of the friend of ours in the band. It was traumatic. The second one was

we were in the air of trying to land in Nice and there was a bus or a van that had come and mowed a bunch of people down on the Cote d'Azur. And the third, when we were there in the same tour, Istanbul had a coup, and the military took over in Istanbul, and we were on our way there.

But I only say that to say it gives you perspective when you see these things and you get to go and you see Norway and Iceland. You see these kind of New Zealand. You get a perspective, and then you bring it back to America. The American experiment is not perfect. It's never going to be perfect. It's built on an original sin. And we can all come to an agreement on what we think it should go,

but right now we don't agree on what it is. The interpretation of being able to be white nationalists or Christian nationalists, it's just rebranded. To me, that's just a rebranding of something that... Let's start here. Do we believe in a multicultural, multiracial democracy? And if you can get a yes or no question there, then you can figure out where to go from there on a conversation. But if you can't have a similar answer on that, there's no reason to push forward with the conversation because we want completely different agendas and we have totally different ideas on

what America is about. So I say that because in Los Angeles, this is La La Land. This is why I live here. It's to me, it's the greatest city on planet earth. 8 million people on top of each other. I can go from little Russia to, you know little tokyo in you know 15 minutes in this depending on the traffic depending on the traffic right no but it's the everything the weather the beach we've got you know other countries that are just south of us right mexico is just south of us we could you know you could hop to there's just everything in los angeles it has every color i've ever seen on planet earth in one place at one time. And in a way that because we're spread out and because we have nice weather, I actually

believe as opposed to like a New York kind of grind state of mind, it where we rev on a little lower frequency, which allows us to, you know, we have a different, we have a West coast, a little bit of a different perspective, but where we deal with, uh, I think, uh, we have two of the largest ports on planet earth next to each other you go down there and you see the amount of just life and commerce that comes through those ports on every any given day there is no bigger than los angeles so we're kind of we're kind of you know jaded a little bit here because we're also hollywood and this is where we create we we this it's delusion that we create all this shit but delusion is what creates all this cool stuff right and so i think you know i i just i think los

angeles is great and we have we have i think we have a in all things considered a great governor and we have a we have a super majority in a democratic state so that i think this is a lot of the reasons we get to enjoy the freedoms that we do here and that people flock here. I live in West Hollywood. It's one of my favorite cities on planet Earth. It's, you know, and but we have that here. The rest of the country is not like that. So we need to circle back onto what is our agreement on what the deal is. Right.

Yeah. Because and that's fine. Bill Maher has it. And he says, look, there's city mouse and country mouse. And there's two different agendas. And we need to figure out, can these two agree on what America is? Is it multicultural, multiracial democracy? Is that okay where everyone is equal? Are we starting there?

Because if we're not. Yeah. So some states, that's not the case? Absolutely. Right now in Florida, if you're six weeks and one day pregnant, you can't control your own body in Florida. If you're a female right now, an abortion. No. And,

and there's other States right now that I'm, I might be wrong, but they're either pushing for it or they have it with no, I think in Arizona. Well, they, they walked it back, but Arizona walked,

had it where there was no, you, even if you, if you're, there's no abortion at all in certain States is what they're pushing for. If Donald Trump gets in there, they, the gets in, the party that put him in there, that ultimately controls him, what we were talking about earlier, the corporatism, they're going to push for a federal abortion ban. Make no mistake about it.

The writing's on the wall. You can listen to. They don't let cameras in the Supreme Court, right? But they record the audio. And if you take the time or if you follow people that listen to the audio they're telling you what the game is they've been telling you what the game is for 30 years wow you know which is they've been going they went after roe they got their guy with donald trump uh mitch mcconnell at the time blocked barack obama from being able to put in the supreme court justice

that he wanted for an entire year which is unheard of of, right? Because to Mitch McConnell and the uber-rich, right, the justices are everything. If you're playing chess, that's the whole game. So you get Donald Trump in there, even with the help of Russia and unwillingly, most Republicans at the time didn't want him in there, but once they get in there, everybody, they bow, they kiss the ring, or they'll be removed. Do you remember Dick Cheney? One of the worst,

most, like most, most hated Republicans. His daughter is no longer, she's persona non grata in the Republican party anymore. Liz Cheney. She was, she was Senator and they kicked her out,

right? Mitt Romney, one of the preeminent sort of middle Republicans from Utah, no longer his persona non grata in his party because of, because Donald Trump and the MAGA movement has, has kind of taken over. And I think at the core of that movement, if we were able to, you know, live in a world where we shared the same information over the course of periods of time, there's so much more there that we could agree on, you know, on, then we would disagree on. But the money is in the fighting, right? The money is in the agitation. The money is in outrage. So that's what I think.

It's going to be interesting to see how the news channels cover Donald Trump because all these judges are afraid that he appointed. They're afraid to rule. There's only going to be one case that we'll know by the time of the election. And that's going to be this Stormy Daniels case, you know, with him paying off an adult. That's been going on for years. It has been going on for years, but they finally got it. There's going to be a, there's going to be a ruling. So it's conceivable that he'd be a convicted felon by the time that we get to vote. So if he's a felon, he can't run. No, he absolutely can.

Got it. Yeah. But here's the thing. There's not a provision that says you can't run no he absolutely can't got it yeah but here's the thing there's not a provision that says you can't actually run president from jail to my to my knowledge so we're going to deal with in the in the in the same way we're dealing with a lot of things we've never dealt with before as humanity be it climate change or ai or yeah or the fact that the supreme court has been stacked with conservative judges that uh they wanted roe versus wade that was you know that's what they wanted now they got it and it's like the dog that caught the car they kind of don't know how to deal with it because it's unpopular you can't have women have rights for 50 years and then go take them away from them it's ridiculous absurd that we're in america and

we're even talking about it yeah right but it's because of donald trump and it's because of the manipulation by the right so now this is the thing to this is the thing where I feel like, you know, concern to be our concern in November is it just can't. Donald Trump will usher in a federal abortion ban without a doubt. You know, in addition to tons of other things. If you're curious, go to Google Donald Trump 2025 plan. It'll frighten the shit out of you. If you're anyone like us, artists, anybody, even remotely, wanting to live in a big tent and have as many views but respectful and peaceful and everything, that 2025 plan is not that. They don't give a shit about any. Democrats, to them, are worse than the enemy. It's worse to be a Democrat to a lot of the the super right than it is to be russian

you know right now which is any intelligence will tell you russia right now is one of they just two days ago launched a satellite into space that's designed to shoot down our satellites really yeah russia did yeah holy crap yeah so maybe they're not maybe joe biden and the democrats you know aren't as bad as that yeah i don't i'm just i'm just going out on a limb yeah you know what i'm saying i mean one side is actually trying to help albeit you know it's it is it look brock obama said it best you know every decision that gets to my desk is 51 49 and they're both shitty or else somebody else would have solved it by the time it got to my desk. Right. So there's a lot of problems right now. And one guy is a good man has heart and, you know, and his, the people that work for Joe

Biden are some of the best you could possibly want in, in both government and, and brain trust. We want smart people, not just lawyers who are interested in making laws for, for their, you know, for their, the people that are paying them, you know, we need, we need thinkers, scientists, you know, innovators. That's what would be great for the future to me, for our lawmakers in Congress and stuff. Why do you think these big companies want to push this abortion bill through? It's not big companies. Big companies want nothing to do with it. This is a far-right agenda that has been there. It's the evangelical right that, even in theory, I think this is interesting

because 10 years from now, I'm sure we'll have many, many books that have been written about it because it's only been two years since the Dobbs decision went down. But they've been going for this ever since Roe v. Wade because they had something to fight against right they wanted the right to life which i understand i understand wholeheartedly and

there's all kinds of discussions we had on that i have i i would like to live in a world where there's a right to life and a right to have a women's choice and i do think there's a venn diagram there it's not a binary thing, right? But the reason why they were concentrating on Roe versus Wade is because they wanted to chip at it. And when Trump got in and they got the justices they want,

they put it up in front of the court and lo and behold, they got rid of it, right? And so now we're dealing, you know, ever since then, the Republicans have been losing most of the elections, rightfully so, because women are pissed off, rightfully so. They should be.

You can't take away rights. That's not what America is supposed to be about, right? We're supposed to add damage control to some degree because there's a lot of hard line that really want this but they actually don't represent what the majority of republicans represent which is a decent right you know right for women's women's right to choose and to some degree and you can kind of have where that where they're drawing that lines but i don't even think they should draw it anywhere let the women and the doctors decide, right? Let old white men stay out of women's decisions. But you put Donald Trump in and they're going for a federal abortion

ban. So the choice to me is pretty easy. And that's why I appreciate you even providing a platform to talk about, you know, across generationally, it makes the biggest difference because the future has to be built by, you know, by the young. And there's been, you know, there's been some things that are horribly, you know, off track, but there's also opportunity in a lot of the kind of things that are,

the pieces that are laying by the side of the road, right? You know, and this is why we were talking about earlier, agency, creative agency with voices. I'm seeing some political voices on TikTok, young, super, super young kids that are, you know, meeting with Biden and these kids are going for it, but their content is amazing.

And that gives me crazy hope because it's much truer and it's from the bottom up as opposed to, oh, we're getting all of our information sprinkled down by the media giants that determine. John Oliver had that great piece where it was like they took hundreds of local news stations all over and everybody was saying the same thing. I saw that. Yeah, you put them on top of each other, right? They followed a script.

Yeah, that's not a voice. That's a corporation. That's not authentic. No, no. follow the script yeah that's not a that's not a voice that's a corporation that's not authentic no no so this is why you know i love the independent creators the independent political creators you know reach out to us on slap the power please because we're looking for people that are interested in crossing art with uh social progress in any kind of way as opposed to for me for the longest time it was like you need to not do that because you want to be afraid of the backlash. It's like, no, honesty.

Yeah. How about let's start there. Absolutely. Yeah. Rick, it's been fun, man. Anything else you want to close off with? Bro, I appreciate you coming down. I'm looking forward to the future.

And, yo, check out, you know, my wife's always got so many things going on. I'd like to throw a shout-out to Sweet Ange online with three E's, but it's Ange Libemani. And then for us, we just launched Slap Studios here in Beverly Hills. It's slapstudiosla.com. And we're teaming up with another company to create a kind of mega company that's called 360 pod where no matter where you are in the arc of your podcast journey or anything where we have a team that can kind of wrap around you and help in that respect because it's not hard to do a podcast it's hard to do it consistently and hard to do it well right and that's what that's what we just try

to make that you know remove the pain points absolutely link it below thanks for coming on bro yeah that was fun yeah definitely try to make that, you know, remove the pain points. Absolutely. We'll link it below. Thanks for coming on, man. Bro, thank you. That was fun. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for watching, guys. See you tomorrow.