Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Collaboration | Kevin Griffin Ep. 87

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

"Escaping The Drift: Collaboration with Kevin Griffin"💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? You know listening and not giving us that 5 star rating is like going to a strip club and not tipping, DON'T BE THAT GUY!Description: Our guest today is the incredibly talented Kevin Griffin, the dynamic lead singer of the beloved band 'Better than Ezra,' and now, the author of the insightful new book, 'The Greatest Song.' In this episode, we dive deep into Kevin's journey of musical innovation, constant reinvention, and his fascinating insights on the power of collaboration. We explore the creative process behind some of Kevin’s most loved songs, and the inspirations that fuel Kevin's lyrical genius.Kevin opens up about his experiences in the shifting landscape of the music industry, and how he has consistently reinvented himself to stay not just relevant, but impactful. From leading a popular rock band to embarking on a journey as an author, Kevin's evolution is a testament to the power of reinvention and adaptation.Furthermore, we delve into Kevin's belief in the magic of collaboration. Drawing from his experiences in band dynamics, songwriting partnerships, and now in writing 'The Greatest Song,' Kevin illuminates the potent synergy that is born when creative minds unite.Tune in to this episode to hear about Kevin's captivating journey, packed with enlightening discussions on creativity, reinvention, and collaboration. Whether you're a fan of his music, an aspiring artist, or simply someone seeking inspiration to break free from your own drift, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. Don't miss this chance to learn from one of the most enduring voices in the music scene about harnessing the power of change and collaboration to create your greatest masterpiece. Tune in now!"➡️ Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford On his podcast, he discusses all sorts of topics, including what made him successful and some of his core tenants for living life and managing successful businesses.➡️ He is joined by world class guests who share their expertise to help you level up!Escaping the Drift podcast stands to be one of the top sources of knowledge and insights, specifically into real estate and entrepreneurship out there! Not to mention tons of coverage of topical events and insights into our non-commercial lives as well…If that sounds interesting to you, make sure to subscribe to my channel and don't forget to hit the bell icon to never miss a Podcast! 🔔💯 About John Gafford:After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space. ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production.Simply Vegas, a 600 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales➡️ Clear Title, a 7 figure full service title and escrow company.➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers.✅ Follow Escaping the Drift with John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/thejohnmgaffordFacebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/gafford2/💯 About Kevin Griffin:Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/kevingriffinWeb ▶️ https://www.kevingriffinmusic.com

and now escaping the drift the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be i'm john gafford and i have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness so stop drifting along escape the drift and it's time to start right now right now welcome back everybody to another episode of Escaping the Drift. Today, man, I got a good one for you. I got one of my good dear friends and just an incredible human being. I'm going to give him the best I can as far as an intro. So this is a guy that I will call, and I was thinking about this last night. He is a member of one of the longest contiguous surviving alternative rock bands in America.

I'm going to give him that. There's never been a drop off. There's never been a pause. It's been continuous music making, continuous touring since the band came out in the 90s. He is the founder of what is quickly becoming the in vogue or best music festival in the greater Nashville area, the Pilgrimage Festival. And he is a speaker and now an author. So yeah, I hate him in every single way you can possibly but welcome to the podcast guys. This is Kevin Griffin. Hey Kevin, how are you buddy? Man, it's so good to be here to see you and be on this. We're going to escape the drift together. I can't wait. I in boise idaho um and just giddy to be talking to you i love that how's the tea so you're out on tour with better than

ezra right now you're banned yeah yeah as ezra's out on a tour it's a summer tour it's all on the west coast and up along the northern part of the country we end in bangor maine where we're touring with train uh doing a few shows are on on our own but mostly as amphitheaters with Trey. Mostly as amphitheaters. So, you know, you guys have been at this for a long time. I mean, we've been friends for 20 years and it's always hard when I have somebody that is, you know, such a good friend of mine that comes on because I try not to tell inside jokes and inside stories. So if I stop and digress with things is to make sure that everybody's kind of caught up with us, but talk to me about, let's go back to the early days. I always like to ask, and everybody likes to start out with, so what about your upbringing made you Kevin Griffin? Talk about growing up in house Griffin

and what made you Kevin? I like that. I like that question. You know, I grew up in a household. It was great parents. You know, my it was a big sports family. My father was a was a All-American football player for University of Georgia, played a little for the Redskins, one year for the Redskins. But he so he kind of was the well, not kind of he was the patriarch of the family. And it was a it was a family that, you know, where where hard work was was stressed. But also for, you know, so I was always supported in the things I wanted to do, you know, and as long as, you know, I did it right. My father had a saying he would always say, Kevin, when I did something half assed, as he would say it. He would say, Kevin, lazy man works twice as hard. Because if you do it, if you don't do it right the first time, you've got to do it again. And that was kind of instilled

in me at an early age. It's funny, my family, I guess my family just wanted me to just be happy. They weren't always pushing me to be better and achieve more. That wasn't the case. But I just had a thing growing up that I was just a self-starter. I was born in Atlanta, then I grew up in Northeastern. Go ahead. What do you think made you a self-starter? Why?

You know what it was? Because I was born in Atlanta and we were living in Buckhead and I was going to Holy Innocence. And it was a very it was it was the beginnings of a privileged life then my dad's business i went belly up and we moved to northeast louisiana to the poorest the second poorest parish in louisiana which is saying a lot brother because what what was that like what was that like on you as a kid man when you go from that because i have a similar thing with that we we went from a beautiful home uh you know my my aunt was the headmaster at galloway school and sandy springs buckhead which is the private school people in the atlanta area know uh you know what you know country clubs and stuff too we went to uh we we went we lived in a trailer for about a year on my aunt's property. How old were you?

How old were you? I was a second grade, second or third grade. I remember everything. At that age, do you feel like you experienced shame? I know my parents. I know my parents. I was, it was because I had friends in Atlanta and suddenly we were hightailing it. We got out of Atlanta. We started over. It was an I had friends in Atlanta and suddenly we were hightailing it. We had, you know, we got out of Atlanta.

We started over. It was an adventure for me. But, you know, just you asking this, I've never thought about it, but I've kind of always wanted to rise above my station. You know, that are the hand that I was dealt, but I just had this fire maybe because so early in my life, I was, I was passionate about music from the earliest age. Um, that always drove me to want to be successful. And that wasn't just in music. It was in athletics. My brother was gifted. He, you know, he was getting a scholarship to Notre Dame. My father had done really well. I love music, but I loved sports,

but it wasn't my gift. You know, I wasn't, I wasn't like them. I was more of the artistic type, John. But I always, I always, you know, academically, you know, I was always doing what I could to test into different classes, to get advanced placement, to do Boys State in high school. No one ever pushed me to apply for scholarships. My parents never said, hey, why don't you apply for scholarships? I just did it on my own. I think it was always wanting more.

Now, let me ask you a question. Do you think that you would have still had that fire to get that stuff done had you would have maintained that silver spoon life in Buckhead? Do you think that you would have had the same fire? I've thought about that. I've thought about a lot of those i thought about if that did kind of cast the die in me this desire to get something back that maybe at an early age i thought i lost yeah you know i've been a lot of those moments you know i after my freshman

year in college at lsu and i got a, you know, which really didn't mean anything. It was a tuition scholarship, but back in the eighties, I think tuition per semester was like $1,200 for LSU. It's like five grand now, I think, or something stupid. But after year one, you know, at LSU, I dug it, man. I, you know, I was in a fraternity. I was a president of my pledge class, but, but I, I wanted to go to film school. I always wanted things that were just out of my grasp. I applied to NYU. I went on my own dime to go interview up at the Tisch School of Arts, and I got accepted.

I got accepted to NYU. But I was right on the cusp of with my parents' finances. I didn't qualify for financial aid. And my parents said, you've got a, you've got a tuition scholarship at LSU. We're not paying, we can't pay 28,000 a semester or, you know, at NYU. So again, that's another thing when, when that didn't pan out for me, I was like, I'm going to come back. At some point, I'm going to come back to this. You know, at some point, you know, so it was always been, you know, and look, many years later, about six years ago, I was an adjunct professor for a year at NYU at his school of arts. Yeah, didn't go to school there, but I'm teaching.

There you go so one one story of my life and that's tell a lot of people is we all have these things we want these um these goals and usually it's a lot of things and and as a young person you're like how do i get where do i start yeah you know where do i get there and i went through the same thing and at one point i realized okay find that thing you're good at, do that and use that to accomplish those things. So if you can't do it through the front door, do it through the back door, come back around to it. Okay. You didn't get accepted to that school. You know what? Kick ass in this other realm. And then you'll come back, you know, in what being successful in whatever else you do, and you'll get an honorary degree or you'll do a commencement address or something like that. And that's kind of been the story of my life.

So I've let luckily music has opened all these doors that allowed these things that eluded me initially, maybe success, maybe a school, writing a book. Well, you know what I find super interesting? Just something you said a minute ago when you talked about you went to LSU and you were president of your fraternity or your pledge class. You said that. But here's the point that I want to make about that is in my

experience, and obviously my experience with artists is not nearly what yours is. In my experience with people that are heavily right-brained, heavily creative, heavily have that gene to be brilliant artists as they do. The left side that has the drive is a lot of, it doesn't engage a lot of times. So you as somebody that like, normally your guy with its heavily right brained doesn't aspire to be president of the pledge class. He just wants to kind of hang out and see where it goes. So my question is, is obviously just from that statement alone, I'm going to go ahead and color you an anomaly. And

that's not a question, but I just think dealing with artists. So with the amount of artists that you deal with, how often do you see people that function at that level with both left and right brain? Because obviously you, I mean, look that level with both left and right brain? Because obviously you, I mean, look, pilgrimage is a business, right? A lot of this stuff is a, is a, is big business, but you're an amazing artist as well. So is that an, is that just me thinking that's an anomaly or is that real? Uh, you know, what I have found is that a lot, it's, there's some truth to that but it's also a myth okay some of the uh the most successful um artists and they are they are to their core they are artistic people are also incredibly

astute business people yeah taylor swift taylor swift is an entrepreneur she kicks she kicks ass um uh who what paul mccartney yeah incredible incredible business business person so would you say the people at the top of the game all have that in common they do they do okay you know um so so a lot of people and and the irony is that because of that myth or because of that stereotype, which is true in a lot of ways, a lot of musicians feel guilty or they have, they don't want to embrace the business part of what they do. And that ends up becoming their downfall because they enter into bad deals. They don't know the business of their business.

The Motown effect, as we should say. The Motown effect, as we should call it. Yeah, for sure. So look, it's the music business. And what most of those people that I mentioned realize is that music and artistry and business are not mutually exclusive they can live together you know and they don't have to compromise one or the other if you if you are an astute business person you get a great deal it doesn't mean that you can't be as precious of an artist as you want as you want to be you have to do that because that because that is the thing that so there are so

many great there were so many musicians that and bands that were better than, better than, better than us or songwriters that were better songwriter than me, but they quit because they couldn't make a living or they made bad deals. And then they got bitter and then they got cynical and that's the kiss of death in any business is cynicism, you know? But I was always, you know, but i was always you know and i felt guilty about it too i was like oh god you know i you know i i never wanted to be a starving musician i never harbored any romance about that i wanted to be successful you know i from the you know the earliest better than ezra songs i was copywriting my songs back in the day you had to get a form pa from the from the trademark um from the library of congress it was really arduous and i did all that shit i entered all my songs to bmi i learned how to do all that stuff um but you know even you know i gave my

after lsu i graduated lsu and i was going to go to law school. I, my LSAT was good for three years and I was like, I'm going to give better than those are three years. You know, to be you not, I got, I got accepted to be you, not BC to George Washington, not Georgetown.

You know, it's a George school, almost good enough schools. I mean, they're, they're great schools. So I was going to give myself three years. Of course, those three years expired and I was still a bartender out in

LA trying to make it, you know, and I did ultimately follow, you know, my passion in music. But I was always driven and wanted to be successful creatively and happy there, but also financially, you know, and that was, that's always been important to me. And, um, you know, and, and also evolving and pivoting and, and like, how do I get better? And, you know, and that's kind of really kind of with the book, you know, it's really the speeches I started doing seven years, seven years ago were really about falling on my face at a certain point after success and thinking about going. We're going to get to the book in a minute, but there's so much more, I think, to this than I want to get to before there. Because I think a lot of people, man, there's two kinds of people. There's people that have had success, and then there's people that have never had success. And sometimes it's easier to get going. If you've never had success,

you just got to change your habits, change what you're doing to get moving forward. But what's incredibly difficult is to go from having great success and then have it kind of fade away for a minute and have to go get it and bring it back. And i think you guys have been just the masters of that over the years of reinvention of staying with of of evolving as you go along and the book is immensely like that but what i want to hear about first is that first bit of success like when when good first hits and goes up the sky rockets up and you guys are like holy we're gonna make some money here like what was that feeling like it was it was um it was exactly like you might think it was you know uh this was the mid 90s it was the heyday of the physical sales of albums when the labels were just crushing they were making more money than they ever had because they re-released all the old catalogs on

cds everybody was buying them and we got to be right at the tail end of that you know the story of better than ezra is hard work and grinding it out we got we got together in 1988 it wasn't until 1995 seven years later that we were signed we the you know good which our, will always be our biggest song, was turned down in so many different artist showcases where the label would come and watch us rehearse, you know, in a studio. And so we just kept, we just didn't quit, you know, not quitting Perseverance, it's a cliche, but it is the bedrock of what I do.

But when it finally happened, when we had a number one song, at first on 99X in Atlanta, and we signed our deal on February 5th, 1995, and that song exploded. And we were the number one band in the country for nine weeks with that song. And we were doing Letterman, Leno, Conan, the Jon Stewart show, flying everywhere, headlining all these festivals, shoulder to shoulder with Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bush and all these 90s stalwarts.

It was amazing. And I had such modest goals for my career. My initial goal was I just got to pay off my Discover card. That's what I got to do. That was it, just the Discover card. If anybody can relate, they still do it. But back in the late 80s, early 90s, Discover prowled the waters of the colleges. Man, every room you were in, every room you were in, on the bulletin board, on the chalkboard, to your right with with said you know tutors and stuff there was always a discover card you know no credit needed i

got i was 18 500 in debt at the end of that and i was just like i just got to pay off that bill so i was able to do that and much much more i i was you know i did something very smart i had a good manager at the time and he said you know know, don't do a publishing deal. You've got a song that's doing it on your own. I was able to sign my first deal, an admin deal after I already had a number one song. So it was already guaranteed that I was going to make a lot of money on these three Better Than Ezra albums that I was the sole writer. So I did a really good admin deal, meaning I never sold my publishing. I always just got a publishing company to collect money for me. So I wasn't starting off. I was in a really good position, but it was great.

And it was, you know, doing award shows and hanging out with, with, with celebrities and all that stuff, all fun stuff decadence you know and and great and great times um a few of those with you one or two one or two what was that was that you know a you know initial um great success well and it was it was an amazing ride but we ended up you know being like so many artists with very few exceptions. You have that initial success, you know, and then you have less unless you're a cold player or a green. Well, here's the question. Here's the question.

The reason I wanted to know what that felt like is because I wanted, you know, you can still see it, man. In any of us, I think when we talk about those pinnacle moments in whatever we do, you can see it there, but you can't really understand the waking up in the morning and saying, okay, I've got to separate yourself, your being from what you do, because what you do may change several times. And if what you do becomes your identity, when there's a change, either voluntarily or involuntarily, as it may be, that damages your ego so much. It's really, really hard to get off the mat. So even when you're doing well, you've got to separate. But with you, I mean, what's going out is your heart. It is you on the page. It is you on the radio. So how did you, when things slowed down, how did you focus on staying the course, on doing what you're going to do and ultimately starting to pivot into songwriting, which you did? Well, great question, by the way.

So that first album came out. It cost us $8,000, sold about 3 million copies. Second album came out a year and a half later. Barely went gold, sold half a million. Third album came out in 98, sold about $180,000.

And what was many people's favorite album, our creative high peaks. Was that Gargantua Girl? Was that record? Yeah, which is, you know, artistically, it's just a brilliant album. It wasn't a hit commercially.

But in 2002, we were making our fourth album, and I got that call that most artists get. You know, it was from Business Affairs. It was from our manager and tell us that a lecture was not going to pick up the option for our fourth album. And then we were being we were dropped. Yeah. And it was a gut punch for me. You know, in seven short years, I'd gone from getting signed to being a a household name you know uh in that era um having a lot of success you know all my all my dreams and more suddenly it was uh i was just i

was in my 30s i was in an unsigned band back in new orleans in a band that was big in the prior century you know in the 90s and it was a really tough time it was a blow to my ego for sure and um at first i said it didn't bother me but it did it crushed me um and i considered like you know my ego was like i'm not gonna do this anymore i'm gonna go to law school you, I thought about doing that or pivoting away from music, but I realized I was like, no, no, I've got, I love what I do, but I've got to do it differently at the label. If we were making label money, it was a label is just a bank, you know, and they mitigate their risks just like anybody else.

And we weren't a good investment anymore. So I was like, okay, I'm going to continue doing music but i've got to do things differently and you know i i go back to my dad you know uh he always said to me kevin nothing changes if nothing changes yeah you know so i i realized i was like okay i'm going to continue in music but i can't keep doing it the same way and even then i started looking at my peers and this was the beginning of things, you know, I talk about, you know, in the book about embracing the success of your peers,

which is very hard to do. And then, you know, the key to success and lack is getting rid of your ego. Check your ego at the door. As a friend says, my ego is not my ego. And so I started looking at my, so i you know even then max martin that production team was crushing it with with in sync and britney spears you know and and and pharrell with uh the nettoons they were doing great and so i started studying my peers what they were doing and they were collaborating and then i started looking at different business, you know, the, the, the classic Jack Welch book. And I was studying all these different, um, business people, music people. And I started to see all these parallels and how they were doing their business and similarities

and what people in music were doing for success and what people were doing in business for success. And that was my aha moment. And I realized that, Whoa, um, I've got, I, I, and it was a very fortuitous meeting, uh, with someone who changed my life. It was, it was a manager named Alan Kovac. He managed meatloaf and meatloaf, uh, in 2003 was at a studio with us. It was us, Justin Timberlake and meatloaf in this studio in Hollywood called Conway studios. And one morning Alan Kovac came up to me and he said, Kevin,

Alan Kovac, listen, meet, heard one of your songs and he wants you to co-write with him and a meat being meatloaf. And at first I was like, you know, no,

thank you. Cause I don't always written songs myself. I never had collaborated and I was a little scared. And I also like being the only writer because I was greedy. I like getting all the money. But I was like, my dad's voice again, Kevin, nothing changes, nothing changes. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to collaborate.

And collaboration, working with others from that moment on, uh, it became the bedrock of, of what would change my life. Um, and then, um, and then, and then evolving that, um, for sure. You know, you talk about collaborating and, you know, I think one of the things in business that makes good business or whatever it is, is having the right partners is, is being in business with the right partners. And, you know, you and Tom, you know, Tommy D and Ezra have been together longer than most marriages, longer than most marriages. We go, we go way back. Yeah. So the question is within the band dynamics, like I think band, I mean, but band dynamics can be very similar to business dynamics. What makes a good partner for the long haul?

Like what is it about you and Tom's relationship that has allowed it to, you know, not end up with, you know, one of you in the balcony heckling the other while they're on stage on MTV Live? What has enabled that? you know it's it's it's trusting that that partner remembering that they're talented and and remembering to listen you know and practicing that lost art in 2023 listening you know i'm a person who talks but when i just shut up sometimes and i listen to my i listen in the collaboration to my fellow songwriters or i listen to my partner tom i'm usually happily surprised like oh that's a great idea yeah wow i work with you because i hired you we're partners because i know you're good yet i find myself never listening to you because I only want to hear, want you to hear what I say. So when I quit talking and I listened to Tom, I'm like,

oh, that's a great idea. So I listened to Tom. I think we also, we we've learned to know, you know, let that person have their moment, you know, um, listen to him. Um, and, and just, you know, there's that saying, do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? You know, and, you know, a lot of times I'm just like, okay, you know, just get out of his way, let him do his thing. I think it's just, um, communication, you know, again, checking that ego, just, you know, checking that ego just you know having that understanding that that you're around someone who's really talented yeah they bring something the best collaborations the great partnerships are when you're working with someone who brings that brings a skill set that you don't have yeah or that's better you know um and when when i listen to tom whether it's like the mix of a song tom

hears songs differently tom has this different skill set than i do he's really analytical about sounds you know when i hear a song it's got to hit me emotionally and and and check these different boxes for tom he doesn't hear it that way he hears it like this frequency is wrong you know and and i'm always like that doesn't matter it just it can be a shitty sounding song but if it just is a great if it's a great song but but when when i listen to them and we butt heads sometimes that's what makes our partnership successful that's what makes some of the best bands that's what makes some of the best business partnerships there is that healthy butting of heads because, but what, what the product is, what comes out, um, and at the end of the day is great. And so many times there's, there are,

there, you know, look, I use bands as an example, cause that's what I do. But yeah. And the aha moment for me is like a band is just a business partnership. So often when that band breaks up and that singer who everyone said was the real deal goes off and does a solo album, it sucks because that tension isn't there. You know that. David Lee Roth. Yeah. You know what I mean? So there's so many like, you know, sting or insert so many artists. So, you know, we listen, we're different. I respect him and the way he sees things, though I don't always that you know that business how to conduct myself in business how do i be a good partner in business and for me and being in music but also personally in my life all of all it's all the same acumen you know listening approaching a challenging thing from

a different uh from a different angle you know let me let me ask you let me ask you this let me ask you this when you were when you were a younger man through these process, do you think you were a little greedier with, with, with the direction of things a little more my way, the highway, a little more this. And as you've gotten older, you've released some of that because I know a lot of the, a lot of the book is into the culture of collaboration and I'm, cause I'm very much that way too like like when my companies are very young it's just like when we first started these companies that i have it's like nope my way my way my way my way my way and i find myself now 10 12 8 years later in some

of these businesses we own i'm like let's just hire another point of view you know let's get somebody else that we can get a seat that can tell me what's wrong what what i don't see my blind spots well you know look and everybody has a blind spot yeah everybody has i got one you know i got we all got them um you know i think it's kind of what you were saying john is that ego and that drive and it's my way my way my vision gets us to a certain point it can get really far it can get you super successful yeah but at some point it's diminishing returns at some point you hit a wall you plateau and i did creatively you know when I had to say, I need to collaborate, I need to bring other talented people in. I did that in my personal life when I realized, Hey, wait, the way I'm doing things is not healthy. Yeah.

I'm not living in a healthy way. I need to fuck. I need to do something different. I need help around me. That's when the world goes from black and white to technicolor. It's that moment when Dorothy opens the door and Oz and it goes from, you know, goes from black and white to technicolor, you know, or you take the blinders off. So, you know, like you said, you know, early in your business, early in my career, it was me, me, me. And it gets me to a point. And brother, it can get you super successful in all your dreams. But if you really want to go to the next level, you got to bring in other people and collaborate.

As they say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others. Exactly. And, you know, and if you evolve and you have the gift to get some humility, when humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. Well, it's so funny because I see you. We're around each other enough,

and then I see you from afar doing whatever, social media, whatever. And I've seen you evolve so much over the years into, into a person that just is so, is so inclusive of everybody around them. And it continued. And I continue to see little things like, you know what I saw the other day that made me so happy.

And it was something that I guarantee there was probably not even a lot of thought process to it for you. Like it just wasn't even a thought process, but it made me so happy. This is it. You know, for years, as was always been known as a three piece,

it just, it's a three piece. It's what it is. It's a three piece. It's a three piece. It's a three piece. And then the new marketing comes out and, and,

and now we're four piece. And I just, I don't think it was never, I don't think there was ever any thought process to it before, but I think it was probably just like, you know what? Jim Payne, get photograph let's go that was me getting my head out of my ass i do i i love that so well thank you very much and it was way overdue you know originally better than a nether was a four piece and then our oh i didn't know that yeah you know are we were and are we and

we've lost our original guitarist a good friend joel rundle and uh he died he passed away yes and uh and we were three piece and then in the heyday of better than ezra it was three pieces so in my mind i was like it's got to be a three-piece band we're a three-piece band even if we have somebody, you know, and I stuck to my guns, Eve, for probably a good 10 years when I should have just been like, wait a second,

Jim Payne's a part of this band? Jim, my best friend since sophomore year in high school is not in the photos? Stop. So, yes. What was that conversation like with him?

If you don't mind, not the one that, the one where you said, Jim, get in the photo. what was that what was that conversation like with him if you don't mind not not the one that the one where you said jim getting the photo what was that like uh it was like jim it was it was it's happened slowly it was like you know for the longest time we'd asked you know we'd be doing on the road and we'd signing a poster which is the three of us and he would be signing signing, I knew it, you know, he would let me know that it annoyed him and made him feel uncomfortable. So that was on me. It was, it was me finally like, man, who cares? No one gives a damn about it.

It was this thing in my head that was a complete illusion that we needed to be a three piece that the public thought about that. No one cared. Look, celebrate your best friend. He's a part of this band. It means a lot to him and you'll be happy when you do it. So that's kind of where it was. So that, yes, that is a big deal. I love that, man. No, I saw that. And I was like, wow, I'm like, I'm so, I was so happy for Jimim but i was actually more happy for the rest of you guys because i'm like well i'm sure in the back of your mind that was

probably something a box that needed to get checked and it feels good to do those things man it does and and it's also to say i was wrong that should have happened earlier but my and my wife was like what are you doing jim paint getank. I was like, you're absolutely right. Oh, it's the wife. Yeah. But like it's never too late to say, hey, this doesn't need to be right. Never too late.

I love that. So speaking of collaboration, man, the book, this is, it's a fictional, it's a quote unquote fictional book, but a lot of these stories are based on actual.

A fictional narrative. A fictional narrative. I was very upset, by the way, to read this entire book and not read about the Dungal I was, I was very upset by the way, to read this entire book and not read about the Dungalow story. I was very upset, but I'll give you a chance if you want a chance, you want to tell that later, but this is about your evolution from going from a place of kind of wrapping your own arms around everything to you, opening your arms to the, to the, to the world and the possibilities of what can happen when you're inclusive with other people. Um, I read the book. It's one of the

books that, you know, I do this when I read a book that I like, if I like it, I'll buy 10, 20 copies and I'll just start giving away to people when I, when I meet with them. And I'm already giving you did. And that's so cool. I just do it all the time. I do it all the time. I do it all the time, but I, I, that's how much I think of this. And I thought it was a great story to great read. Um, you know, a lot of people don't know, you know, they might hear this and they might think they might've gotten to this point in this podcast and thinking Kevin Griffin.

Oh yeah. Good. Yeah. I know that song. Oh yeah. I know better than I was about, but they don't realize that so much of what they hear on the radio right now was written by,

you know, yours truly. They don't realize that. I mean, you're talking about, um, the tiger lily tequila song that's out right now. Stuck like glue by sugar land. You're talking about, um, I got it. I just rattled. I mean, I just, I saw your list on Spotify, which was incredible by the way.

It was incredible. You've written songs for Taylor Swift. Um, just all these incredible songs that you've written. So my first question about that is the obvious one. If you could have one back, if you could say say shouldn't have given that one away what's the song i think if i could have been assured that we would have had the the um happenstance um hit with it it would be collide yes that is that is that is my number one, because I swear, you know, and how he's a nice guy, but when I hear that song, all I hear is you. It's all I hear. That's a collab. We've been, we've been doing it live on this train tour. We were playing it. People are going crazy, but see, this is a, you know, I needed to, you know, songs are, songs are these little cottage industries.

Every song is, is a startup. And you gotta, you got to, when I'm collaborating, when I'm writing a song or I have an idea, I'm always like, what is the best vehicle to, to have the best shot at success for this song? You know, and I have ideas all the time and I'm right and I'll be right. I'll look at my calendar. OK, who am I writing with this week? OK, I'm writing with another writer. Monday, we'll write a song together that will pitch to an artist. OK, that's a harder that's a harder thing to make happen, pitching songs to artists. Okay, Tuesday, I'm riding with an artist. This song would be good for them.

Let's say I have a hit idea. Yeah. But the label is kind of so-so, and they're a little older. I'm going to say this song for the Wednesday ride with the new young artist whose label's got tons of money behind him, he's the best vehicle for this song.

That's what you have to do. And you don't always get it right. You know, so going back to Collide, it was 2005. Ezra was on our third label. We weren't with a great label. A ballad-type mid-tempo song needs a very strong label behind it with money to continue pushing it because ballads are harder to become make hits because they take more spins but once it happens it becomes huge so i was

like ezra's not the vehicle for this and and howie day was 18 he was the bit he had been in a bidding war epic had won the deal they had tons of money at the time that was the person to take the song to the finish line it turned out to be right even though ultimately it was a complete fluke that the song became a hit so that's those are those things i had to do but yeah so collide was that was like i wish it was a nezra song yeah and now because we'll release it it will be you know yeah i mean well now it's it's funny you know i walk around my house and my daughter just won't stop singing the tequila song and that's uh and dude it just it's non-stop that's a it's a great song so great that song

started on a cigar bot it's called shoot tequila by tiger sorry i just called the tequila song because romo and uh and it look it's it's blowing up i'm look it's like number 40 right now on the country chart i hope it continues going up um it's just a silly fun it's a it's a it's a song that comes off when you sound oh this sounds stupid but it's a very smartly written lyric that i wrote with the girls it's a four-way right um but it started on a cigar box guitar it's a three-string guitar that's it's the actual cigar box that's made it was a gift from sugarland after collide um yeah and uh you know every song having a hit is so hard to do unless you're pharrell you know or orion tedder, you know, most of us,

you know, swing and miss more than we hit. So when I have one, I'm super grateful. Well, let me ask you this is, is there a pattern recognition involved when you, when you're dealing with songwriting? Are you looking for like what trends, like what business, what I do? It's pretty simple to monitor trends, you know, mirror what's working and just trying to replicate what's, what's out there and improve on it is. So when you go into the song and props, are you looking for those patterns of what's happening now? Or I know there's a little bit of that in the book, but is that something really that you're doing? It really is, you know, and, and, you know, the kind of the book,

um, the book was, I started doing it for the people listening, I started doing these speeches, you know, to YPO's and then to companies like Salesforce and Nike and Disney about the tools that I've used in my for every business, but I can talk about them in a music sense that people find interesting. And that's when I did. I came up with the business prayer. I told a story about a struggling songwriter to your to your question. One of the things I talk about is feeling the well and knowing the business of your business. So, you know, there are a thousand great songs written every day in Nashville. Many of them could be hits and there's probably a thousand great business ideas every day. But what separates, you know, where the rubber hits the road is, do you have the knowledge of your business or like you said, the trends to get it across the finish line? And in music, like a lot of times i'll

have somebody a songwriter he's complaining like man i'm writing great songs but i'm not i'm not getting any cuts and i'm like well okay what's the last song you wrote oh i wrote a country song you know i'm like okay well give me name some songs in the top 10 and they're like man i don't know any of it they all suck you know i'm like well name name it name a producer that's hot and at the end of the day i'm like wait a second you're trying to compete in a in a current business and you don't know what you're competing against you don't know what's happening you don't know you don't read the trade journals or listen to the podcast like you know, Escaping the Drift, to know what's happening in your business to be able to connect those dots. And the music business, like any business, is like the Queen's Gambit.

You've got to be able to see the moves. How do I get from a great idea to the finish line so i'm always reading hits daily double and billboard knowing you know listening to spotify new music fridays you know and and if you there's those three dots out to songs in spotify if you click on those three dots you can scroll down it says credits i look i'll be i'll be listening and i'll be in the gym working out and i'm like here i hear a song i'm like oh that's a rad song. And I click on the buttons and I see the songwriters. And more times than not, like, I know that songwriter.

And I hit him up. Like, yo, I didn't know you were writing with Harry Styles or this new artist, Ray. She's this UK artist. And then they're like, yeah, dude, we're writing next week in LA. Can you be there? I'm like, yes, I can. Or I find that an executive I knew at Warner's is now at Sony where I could never get any success. So the point is I'm always looking for trends where the executives are, what's happening with my peers.

Dude, you know what I love about what you just said this is what I'm gonna tell you I love about what you just said is if there are places you want to go or rooms you want to get into you know a great way to make that happen it's like it's what you just said it is congratulate the people that are going there already you know dude so many people will look at like like why did that guy get that speaking gig why is he on that stage and they'll be like they'll hate instead of those hate on them instead of that take two seconds to be like bro i saw you're speaking it you know 10x was great cardone that's fucking amazing good for you bro that's awesome proud of you that's awesome and then whoever's having the event hey i saw you just booked my friend you know mike whatever he's amazing you're he's gonna crush it for you and all

of a sudden now you're in the conversation so So simply by saying, dude, I heard the song. I love it. I didn't know you were doing this. Now you're in the room too. Yeah, exactly. And to that point, it's embracing the success of your peers because ego wants to say, screw them, fuck them. I had that idea. You know, your ego says I'm better than them. Your ego says there's nothing to learn from them it's about me but when you just check that ego and you say and you know you go oh fuck that song is so good you know and then you can grab you reach out you congratulate them you know or you study what they do like well what makes that idea what makes that song good oh and you do you reverse engineer a hit

yeah which i talk about in the book and you know what are the what are the parts of that idea that's crushing that's amazing and you and you break it apart you know some of the people you know we both have a friend robert leblanc yeah he has a lot of very successful restaurants down in new orleans one was a j James award-winning restaurant when he's not at his restaurant in the kitchen or at the uh he's at his peers restaurants seeing what they're doing finding out what the competition is doing you know embracing them you know and and I'll go to shows I'll go to music shows my wife worked as an executive for Gibson now I'll go to music shows because my wife worked as an executive for Gibson. Now I'll go to an artist that maybe I wouldn't go. And, and, and I'm watching and I'm like, that's a great thing to do live.

I'm stealing that idea. You know? So when I embrace my, my peers and, and, and, and cheer them on, you know, then like you just said, suddenly I'm in the conversation or connecting people, you know, sometimes, you know, like, I know I want that right. Or I want that in. But a lot of times, like, you know what? These are, you guys are two great people that I love in this business. I'm connecting you guys via text.

Take it from here. That. I love that. Connect the dots. I love it, man. I love that. It comes back. And also just conducting

yourself selflessly sometimes and and you know karma is real you know if you put that out it comes back you know you know what i think is funny man and i think that the two things kind of go hand in hand because because ego is such a huge part of what you talk about in the book and i talk about all the time i find that people that have the biggest egos haven't tried anything new in a really long time like oh yeah for example for example like you know we got we got we got a house at the beach uh not two years ago i told my wife my whole life i've wanted to learn to surf it's what i just my whole life i've wanted to be a server and dude i suck balls i mean there are days when I almost drowned out there. You know, I went out with Noel, a friend of Noel Bowman,

a couple weeks ago, who's a really good server. And it was a little too big for me. And yeah, I almost drowned. It was not good. But- Wait, wait, where are you in? How are you in California? I'm also in Newport Beach, right?

Right on the peninsula. Yeah, four houses off the sand. It's great. And right by Blackie's, so that's surf break. And dude, but I tell you, houses off the sand. It's great. And, uh, right by blackies. So that's surf break. And, um, dude, but I tell you, nothing keeps me grounded more than getting out there and looking like a complete jackass. So I think if you're somebody in your life that feels like you're stuck or you're always unhappy or you're mad, a lot of that's just because you haven't tried anything

new in a really long time. What, what is how big of a, not just from the business point, but from a self psyche point, like how big of a, of a premium do you put on constantly trying to evolve? Oh my gosh. That's one of the biggest things in my life is, you know, on so many fronts, I've got to continue challenging myself and doing stuff that scares the shit out of me. That's the only way that I, that I create new neural pathways in this brain, you know, by challenging myself, um, by, by, you know, again, I talk about it in the book, you know, leaving your comfort zone, you know, when you're, when life is in flux and you feel off balance, that's often when you're at your most creative. You know, I have spent my life on stage, as you know, you know, and I played in front

of audiences, 100,000. I've been on TV to millions of people. And seven years ago, I started doing, you know, speaking events. And usually they're much smaller. They can be now they're bigger. You know, it can be 30 people or 3000 people, but when they started, they were for YPO's and WPO's and they were usually about 60 to 80 people. And the third speech I did, it was in this, uh, room at the house of blues. It was a private room at the house of blues in Dallas. And it was to a YPO group in

Dallas and it was during pilgrimage festival. And I had not prepared for the speech. Um, and it was to a YPO group in Dallas and it was during pilgrimage festival. And I had not prepared for the speech. And it was all still very new. And it was also terrifying because I'm used to being on stage with my guitar and do my little, little quips. And then suddenly, you know, you know, and then I'm into a song, but doing a full speech that can be 45 minutes to an hour long. It's a whole other thing. I went into it. You know, you're shut. You're nodding your head. Cause you know,

I went into that speech and I started speaking. I started to, and within 45 seconds, I started losing my, I couldn't catch my breath. And I started, my voice started quivering on stage speaking i had the first panic attack of my life it was terrifying it was embarrassing i had to stop you people who have had a you know when i that's a panic attack make me sure it means you're soft you didn't go like full will ferrell at all like we blacked out and just did the speech and don't even remember it like you got there i had to stop i had to stop i was like and i went and and i'm and when i'm telling you this i'm right back there on that stage and i was like

whoa i'm really nervous guys hold on a second i gotta stop let me catch my breath and then someone in the back said you can do it you know And then I was like, all right. And look, this is a crowd of people who've sold their business. They're all very successful people. And someone said, you can do it. So I was like, all right, you know what? I'm starting over. And I got through that speech and I ended up getting all these other speaking gigs because of that speech. But I'll tell you what, because it was real, I guess it was authentic. Ultimately, it was good.

I don't know. But I went back to my room at the W Hotel in downtown Dallas and I was like, I'm never fucking doing that ever again. That was terrifying. It was the worst because i was it was new i was leaving my comfort zone i wasn't prepared um and it was like you almost drowning on a surfboard you know fuck this i'm not meant to do this i'm i'm 50 years old you know you don't

need to do that but that but you know what two weeks later i was on that stage But you know what, two weeks later, I was on that stage again, you know, but this time I was prepared. I knew what I was going to talk about, you know, and then I knew like that, that, that, you know, that, that a panic attack was out there, you know, if I wasn't prepared, but the point is, if I hadn't continued doing the speaking, it wouldn't have been a turned into a really great fourth or fifth career for me yeah i would have never written a book well let's talk let's talk about let's talk about look because you know it's being in a band songwriting all of those things the risk is nobody buys your stuff you don't make any money but let's talk about the biggest risk you that i know that you you take in the music business, which is pilgrimage festival. Cause that was absolutely financially swinging it out

on the end of a limb and starting to chainsaw between you and the tree. It was, uh, it was, uh, that was a brave move, my man. And so let's talk about pilgrimage festival a little bit. And, uh, let's talk about that. Yeah. A friend of mine who's an entrepreneur said, dude, you don't shit in your own nest. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, you're starting a big music festival in your hometown. And I didn't understand what he meant until a couple of years later when we were almost broke, you know, our night, our belief in ourselves and our complete cluelessness about what we were truly

embarking on was a, was an asset, you know, had we known what, what a financial liability it was, it could be, and was going to be. We probably wouldn't have done it. When you start a music festival, you have to make people remember your festival, so you end up

overspending. I would have done a lot of things differently. To give some color to this to the folks that are listening, we're not talking about the neighborhood banjo guy gets up there and strums. We're talking about Foo foo fighters we're talking about the biggest bands around uh we're talking about justin timberlake we're talking about chris stapleton we're talking about the biggest names that you can have on these stages it's a big festival it's a big deal so year

one we lost our ass year two we lost our ass there were moments when i was lying in bed like we've sold tickets to everybody i know from the mayor on down and we don't have money to pay our deposits for the staging the sound and the artist deposits that are due tomorrow i mean things like that like i'm gonna be run out of town but every time things just worked out, you know, and my wife was, God bless her, was like, you know what? You always figure it out. It's going to work out. You guys are doing something amazing. It's going to work out.

It always did work out. Our third year, man, you know, just. Well, like Cody Sanchez, like Cody Sanchez is a great entrepreneur. She's awesome. She says her dad always says, you know, about entrepreneurship, you're not in the game until it's the middle of the night, your head's in your hand and you have no idea what you're going to do. You're not in the game until that moment. You're not in the game. You're not in the game. You don't know until you're just like, this is we're going. I'm on the Hindenburg. Going down, baby.

You know, and it's terrifying, but also really exhilarating, you know, and one thing about pilgrimage. And I kind of said this earlier, you know, when you're doing things, when you're around great people and you're checking your ego and you're listening and you're and you're living you're practicing what you preach things become serendipity starts happening in your life you've probably seen this when i'm doing them when i'm doing things right all these things conspire to help me and you know and it's amazing and i never would i would have called bullshit on it have i not seen it happen in my life many times and pilgrimage is an example of all these things happening the city getting the land suddenly jogging out the day after thanksgiving north which i never do and finding myself out of this beautiful farm in the center of franklin tennessee where we started this this festival you know justin

timberlake moving to franklin tennessee and me having a meeting with his best friend about an artist that I was publishing that they wanted to manage. And then me having the presence of mind going, Hey, you know, would Justin be interested in doing pilgrimage with us? And, you know, all these little things. So year three, we had Justin Timberlake play and we made money for the first time year four hard not hard not to make money with that guy yeah i know he's got a following but but we paid off all our bills ah you know in the black baby like oh you know when everybody thinks you're just crushing it like like no we're just paying off the old debts. Yeah, pay no attention to the bills behind the curtain. Oh, my God. Nothing to see here, folks.

Nothing to see. You know, that's an old, that's the second Wizard of Oz reference. And I'm sure you put all of these bills on the Discover card from LSU, right? Oh, yeah. All of them put on the Discover card? Oh, yeah. I don't know where. I asked, I was doing a speech the other day.

I was like, is Discover even a thing? I don't think it's a thing anymore. I think they were a sponsor of asked. I was doing a speech today. I was like, it's discovered even a thing. I don't think it's a thing anymore. I think they were a sponsor of the event I was doing. But, but, you know, look, pilgrimage has been this thing after our triumphant third year,

we got rained out and we spent six months battling it out with an insurance adjuster. We finally, you know, paid up, but it's a labor of love um this year we've got zach bryan the lumineers black crows nathaniel rateliff uh head in the heart better than ezra the band the most excited to see black crows yeah you know what you know what's wild

listen to this this is this is wild i'm gonna share something while i'm gonna try to show it to you because i'm gonna see if you can actually see it on the screen. I don't know if you're going to be able to or not. But, uh, so we went and saw a couple of weeks ago, me, Noel, and my son, uh, we were, we were down in Newport and we took a, took, we went up to LA and we went and saw love and rockets at the ACE theater. Right. Cause they were touring. Cause I, I love love and rockets and sitting right in front. I just got to show you this photograph. Oh my God. Because this is an amazing photograph,

but I just got to find it. Hang on. But sitting right in front of us at this place, hang on one second, let me find this. Give me one second. Man, you never know how many pictures you take until you start scrolling back. And then we have those friends who know where every photo is i know i'm

like all right hang on a second hang on a second here we go so here's the photograph right i'm going to try to show it to you see if you can see this can you see that i see the back of their head oh that's marilyn so marilyn manson is sitting right in front of me now i'm going to zoom in on the photo a little bit three rows in front of him can you see who that is can't tell who it looks like mike mills it's chris romanson from the black crows so in one photo i've got marilyn manson and chris rossin both sitting right in front of me at love and rockets at da cedar how random is that um you know love and rockets were that band that they had their moment but they were really uh a band a musicians band that you know we musicians love love and rockets i mean we used to cover no new tale to tell that was that was the first concert i ever went and

saw without parental supervision i went and saw love and rockets play at the rights union gainesville for five dollars with jane's addiction opening there was there was 80 people there i was 15 years old in gainesville florida that's that makes me think that's that's an amazing bill yeah i saw jane's addiction on the first album in a deep lm live in dallas in 1989 and it was yeah the best well that's so decadent and sexy and cool well here we go you don't have to tell you don't have to tell the dungalo story but here's what i do want to know for i want one your favorite story from the road that can be told in less than five minutes what's the story well i mean the dungalo story is pretty great let's have a dungalo story for a little tell it well the dungalo story we were this was 2005 better than ezra played uh star 98's halloween bash on santa monica boulevard right there in the heart of West Hollywood.

And we were all staying at the Chateau Marmont, the decadent Chateau Marmont. You know, and we that, you know, I think actual Halloween night was on a Sunday night that time. On that Saturday night, Ezra played our show. And then afterwards we went, I think we were hanging with Lindsay Lohan and DJ AM. He was DJing in the bar at Chateau Marmont. And then we had to go play a show down in Orange County, but we came

back for actual Hollywood night. Sorry, Halloween night at Chateau Marmont. And one of our good friends um michael whalen would you mind being named it doesn't matter now i'm not beeping it he he had a he had a bungalow at um the chateau montmont and the bungalows are these amazing chalets on the on the property of the chateau montmont that's where all the stars stay. It's by the pool. It's super cloistered and very

romantic and sexy and very Hollywood. We had a party there. Good friends who hated it, we were all staying in there. At some point around 1.30 a.m., Pete Wentz showed up. He and a buddy, they were dressed

like Owen Wilson's character Pete Wentz showed up and he and a buddy, they were dressed like, like Luke, like Owen Wilson's character from no Luke Wilson's character from Royal Tana moms. They were both wearing matching red, sweat outfits and white headbands. And they were there and I went home. I went home cause I lived in LA at the time. And the next day I, I called up my buddy Mike and, and, and he was like, dude, how was the partying life? And they were like, dude, it's not, don't even talk about it. I'm

like, what? Because you don't even want to know what happened. I'm like, wait, what, what happened? I'm like, man, at some point I'm trying to get into my king size bedroom and the door's locked and we can't get into the bedroom so we get our friend she climbs into the bedroom window falls in to the bedroom and she starts going oh my god oh my god turns stumbles finds her way into the bedroom turns on lights, and it's a terrible story. Someone could not make it to the bathroom, so decided in this $2,000 a night bungalow at Chateau Marmont to take a dump in the bedroom and then track it through the bedroom

and crawl out the window and disappear into the night our investigation has always zeroed in that pete wentz from fallout boy was the culprit so we renamed the bungalow the dungalow after that and when i bring that up to those guys who lived through the horror and the worst part was the hotel was sold out that night. So they had to spend the night in that. And it was just a, yeah, that is a,

that is a dirty, uh, rock ball, Hollywood story tales from the road, boys and girls. Pete Wentz. Of course, we don't have any direct proof,

but we're pretty confident. He put the shit in the room. It's an assumption. He took a shit in the room but it's not not definitely thing so let's do the thing where we try to tell people how to find you because oh my god this this is going to be like the longest how do we how do we find you in history so first of all brand new record out on on spotify apple music everywhere it can be spent from better than ezra called mystified you'll want to check out. Spin that if they want to find you and follow you on Instagram, where is that Kev?

It's Kevin. Sorry. It's Kevin Griffin music. I said, wait a second. Let me hold a second. Cause Kevin Griffin music.com is my website. That's where you can buy the book.

See tour dates. Kevin M. Griffin is my Instagram site. And then there's are better than Ezra. So that's all things better than Ezra. Right. And then there's we are better than azra so that's all things better than azra right and then there's the book you can buy it offering by directly from the kevin griffin music site you can get it amazon everywhere you can get it from kevin griffin music.com barnes and noble amazon you can do kindle i would say the audible book where i voice all the different characters including including that's what I do.

And reads Canuca. He's from Barbados. I do all the voices. It's been for two months. It's been the number one music business audible book on Amazon. That's awesome. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of you book. So it's doing really well.

And I'm, I'm hoping to get a, a Grammy nod for best spoken word. So we'll see. And one last, and one last one, a pilgrimage festival. If they want to,

uh, go to the festival, how do they buy tickets there? Brother? I love it. Uh, pilgrimage festival is September 23rd and 24th. It's in Franklin,

Tennessee is 18 miles from downtown Nashville. Go to pilgrimage festival.com. Again, Zach, Brian, Lumineers head in the heart, Nathaniel Rateliff, Black Crows, and James Bay, Better Than Ezra, and many, many others. And let me tell you something about it. As somebody that's been to that festival several times, the town of Franklin is like the coolest little – it's like Mayberry, but with Michelin chef restaurants. It's so cool Garden and Guns

Southern Living Conde Nask continually say it's one of the best small towns in the country such a cool place such cool Kevin brother thank you so much man I appreciate you doing this I'm sure listeners got so much out of this and I appreciate having you and I will see you soon right love you pal

you will see me soon hi to the family alright guys what's up everybody thanks for joining us for another episode of escaping the drift hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as i did out of it anyway if you want to learn more about the show you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list but do me a favor if you wouldn't, throw up that five-star review. Give us a share. Do something, man.

We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.