Julian Dorey Podcast - #7 - Sydney Di Bernardo

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Sydney Di Bernardo is a singer, songwriter, and musician. ~ YouTube FULL EPISODES: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  YouTube CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChs-BsSX71a_leuqUk7vtDg  ~ Show Notes: https://www.trendifier.com/podcastnotes  TRENDIFIER Website: https://www.trendifier.com  Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey  ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io  Music Produced by White Hot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It won't take long to tell you Neutral's ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. No sugar added. Neutral. Refreshingly simple. I like that that you brought that up.

Because obviously it was there for a long time. Because you didn't do it for a long time. And there's a lot of people out there, some who may hear this, who may have incredible talent. Not just in music, but in anything. And the hardest part as a human being is to start. Just do that first fucking thing and just being like, I don't care if it's terrible or great. Just do it and then build on it. That pressure, though, to get there,

that ever freak you the fuck out? Yeah, all the time. Oh, hello there. What's going on, everybody? Today, we have a little bit of a different episode for you. Instead of just listening to me talk forever, we're going to be joined in studio for a conversation with my cousin, Sydney DiBernardo. Sydney is basically like my pseudo sister. Grew up with her, same town, whole nine. And she is a fucking brilliant, brilliant singer and musician. and for 22 years the one thing she wouldn't do was write music begged her for a long time tried to i knew she had the talent for it tried to work with her and get her to do it and eventually you know it's it's kind of up to somebody if they're going to do it or not to decide for themselves and boy she fucking did man started writing a few months ago now and what's come out so far is amazing i'm looking forward

to people getting a chance to hear hear what she's been creating but if you've listened at all you know obviously i'm a big music junkie, love this stuff, and I think creativity of any kind is a pretty amazing thing, and I'm pretty fucking into it, but today we just sat down, talked about her background with music,

how she views the creative process, how she got herself going, writing, among many other topics, and to close, she's going to perform the first song she ever wrote for us. And I'd highly suggest you listen because it's awesome. So you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory. This is Trending Run. Let's go.

This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the news? You're giving opinions and calling them facts. You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. The one song,

I was like, wow. I wanted to listen to that song, and it's so, the whole song is like one speed. Yeah. It's like she just kind of woke up and was like, all right, I'm feeling a couple lyrics.

Let's fuck around and do some magic. Right? Yeah. And what else are you liking right now um the juice world album i really love a couple songs there um i'm gonna be honest i gave taylor swift folklore like i really went into it with an open mind i'm not typically a taylor swift um like a swifty like a big fan but um i was like i like you know the more chill style music and i went into it with an open mind and something about it i just don't like it yeah i don't know like i think i think when i'm in that mindset to listen to that kind of music i want to hear a

voice like hosier or um like city in color or like a more what do you mean that kind of music like chill more singer-songwriter like folky influences that kind of stuff like when i'm in that kind of mood i want to listen to someone with a voice that like has that and that's their main focus when i think of when i hear taylor's voice on these songs it just it sounds like taylor swift it doesn't sound like the like singer songwriter folk thing that i think she was trying to go for, which I guess it is classified as that kind of music. But for me, I just hear that it's Taylor Swift. So you're saying you almost, without knowing exactly what the lyrics are going to be, obviously, you can almost

guess what the vibe of the songs are going to be ahead of time. And you don't like that? Not even. No. Well, first of all, she kind of made it known that this album was going to be different and the cover is like in the woods and stuff. so you could kind of get a gist of what it was going to be but when i heard it and like tried to listen to a few of the songs i just couldn't get into that mindset because i was in taylor swift mode because her voice is just so it's obviously so distinct and like i don't know it it just wasn't my vibe i I don't know. Now, did you really go in with an open mind? Yes. No, I really did. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so different. I love this kind of music. Open mind, open mind, open mind.

I put it on while I was doing stuff in the morning, like excited actually to listen to it, which usually doesn't happen with me and Taylor Swift. But yeah, I just ended up not liking it. Although I haven't listened to the full thing, I will say, but I've listened to probably five or six songs and i just it's not my thing now taylor is a megastar obviously and even more so than you know the chelsea cutler's of the world like you were talking about earlier every time she comes out with music the expectation is billboard top 10 so when they're and i don't know because i'm not in there, but when they're creating this music, that's the pressure. I mean, I did hear from somebody who I think would know that they're putting $50 million behind every album she puts out just in marketing. So the machine of her brand and her name is going to help already. And she feels like she's got to create that basic verse,

chorus, verse, chorus, final chorus, done pop song. That's going to hit and it's going to be bopped at all the parties and, you know, by all your basic teenage girls.

I mean, is that, does that affect how you approach the music and how much respect you have for it? Because you kind of know that going in. Yeah, obviously I like revere her and i think she's uber talented um in her songwriting abilities i think that's what really sets her apart um

and yeah wait so you like her songwriting i enjoy i like her songwriting i'm not like a big i will not will usually not play her songs voluntarily but if they come on and they're big hits obviously i know them um and i i admire her song, but if they come on and they're big hits, obviously I know them. And I admire her songwriting from the beginning and on and how she's been so versatile and everything. But I don't know. It's not always my cup of tea. Interesting. Her style.

What do you like about her songwriting? I like that it's honest and I like that she tells a story. She obviously started in kind of a country background and I'm a big country music fan because of the storytelling that's part of it. How does this happen, by the way? How did, like, all these girls from New Jersey are like, I'm the biggest country music fan ever. It's like, what happened in your childhood? Like, it's fucking New Jersey.

Well, first of all, I'm from South Jersey, so right next to farmland. Oh, God. But I actually got that question a ton when i was at school in kansas they're like do you even listen to country music in new jersey i'm like yeah it's huge please i don't know why maybe the concerts were so fun that you know what no that's a good point it's a good beach vibe i think it's obviously associated with summer and like good vibes having having a beer on the beach and he doesn't like

that what about like a little bit of rolling stones or led zeppelin on the beach not your speed not my speed i wouldn't put it on i didn't think so i didn't think so i like you know what like i go all over the place on the beach i could see bumping the classic rock a little bob marley anything that's today too just because it's it's relevant but no i i buy that i mean country's got a very i was talking about it in another episode i just shot with adam but country's got a very dancing in the barn kind of vibe i mean not to oversimplify it but it's it's also i got a lot of respect for it i I definitely listen to more than I used to, but it's, it's come a long way from the days where I feel like when I was growing up,

it was very often, you knew what the song was going to be. It was going to be about like dancing, drinking or, you know, whatever it's, it was always going to be the same thing. And now it's got more range to it and people forget to your point that that's

where Taylor came from. Yeah. I also think country music is kind of it's you know america's roots and i think no matter where you're from in america i think everyone can connect with that and the you know hometown feeling and small town i don't know something about it yeah they probably pockets that don't listen to country music because they can't relate i don't know maybe hey i don't even think i heard or kept a country song on for more than 30 seconds so i went to college and i was kind of forced to listen to some of it but definitely why

i mean i had such a weird journey in music growing up i just i remember no this is what you were like growing up okay you only listen to like tupac and frank sinatra and biggie and all that stuff like i'm wearing a sinatra i know well it's fitting no only you would only listen to like the classics and like obviously timeless timeless people but then i would i would bring a song to be like oh my god you hear this song like it's so good and you like, oh my God, do you hear this song? Like it's so good. And you like poo-pooed every single like modern song that I would say. Those were my days where it's like, yo, the mainstream, man. The mainstream is where the devil is.

Can't live in that box. You didn't want to be in the mainstream. And now look at you. All you listen to is Billboard top. Well, I'll give you more credit than that. All I listen to. It's not all you listen to at all. But most of the time when you're like, when I hear you play music, it's like hip-hop songs.

I'm like, how did this get turned? I don't think you're listening enough. I'm all over the place. It's funny just because we shot this episode on this. Literally, Adam was here three days ago and we did this. But it's amazing to me how music is just such a mood. You can shift. Like, I will be sitting here one minute, and I will want this upbeat, like, music cocaine in my veins.

And I'll want something with a producer that is just taking me out of my seat, like Galantis or something like that. And then the next minute, I might want Dean Martin. Like, it's so weird and it's actually a really good point though because maybe i have more of a feeling with it because i am so all over the board but i don't know that's for other people to decide like if they can relate to this but when you play music you can chemically affect how you are feeling at any given time on any given day. Even when you're like hungover as fuck, you can still have an effect on it by just, and you can't always know exactly what the song or what the genre or what artist or what exactly you're going

to play, but you can know like, all right, if I play enough here and I just kind of keep rolling with it, bob my head a little bit, keep going. point at some point that note's gonna hit on that song you don't know where it is and boom i mean your whole day can change and sometimes it goes back afterwards but at the moment you get that rush you know what i'm talking about yeah i know you're talking about i while you were saying that i was kind of remembering something that I I've never been good at making playlists like mood playlists. I feel like that was a big thing in like high school and college, especially you're making like the pregame playlist or you're making like a sad playlist or something. I've never been good at curating those and making those all listen to them. But for some reason, I feel like that's a special skill like thats have that know the feeling and know the mood that they're going for. Know exactly the songs that they want to emulate that and it just pops in their head. I just don't have that. I don't know what it is.

No, it's a real talent. Yeah. I mean, I know the guys who do and it's amazing. And I struggle with that, too. I think a lot of people do. But it's funny and I kind of like this, you know know with machines coming in all over the place in our world but i would say even the artificial intelligence bots running on these apps which they're very very good for certain things but with the playlists i find yeah very hit or miss you know that they're not point being the the friends you know who have the ability to

just hit the fucking playlist, right? They can run circles around those bots all day. And it's so true because it sets the whole mood. You know, you're in a place with five, six, seven people or 50 people and you play the wrong song. Yeah. Man, that's how the party ends. Yeah. That's how the party ends.

So I want to turn the conversation actually, though. Okay. Now, you've been a singer your whole life right indeed yeah since i was seven since you were seven yeah but you were singing in the shower before then no i was singing on stage you never sang in the shower oh i always i always think so yes so yes okay but when i say seven i was in musical theater and then that kind of evolved into choir and then classical lessons and then I was in a rock band and I minored in music and so I've always been doing music but now it's kind of a new chapter for me in terms of like doing my own music and and figuring out who I am as a solo artist. And you're 22? 22 almost 23. Okay

what changed now and and for a little background when you say now you're trying to move to being a solo artist what is that comprised of are you are you mostly out playing live and playing covers or are you really trying to dig into your own spirit and the creative flows you have to create music yourself? Yeah, the latter. So I've been trying to write my own music now, where for years I've been singing other people's music. And in my band, we were singing original music, but I didn't do the writing. So I was just, you know know singing someone else's vision there and then um when I was in college I would play at bars and play covers and then do open mics and

different things and I was always just doing covers and I don't know at some point I think one of the turning points that made me realize it was like you're never going to get anywhere just playing covers I can play covers all I want in as many restaurants and bars as I want. It's not really going to get me anywhere. And then in terms of writing and what really inspired that, I think for so many years I thought that I had to be a really good piano player, a really good guitar player in order to know the melodies to play and really formulate a song that I would deem impressive or I wouldn't be embarrassed of, I guess,

finding the right chords for it and everything. And then I kind of, I don't know, I just kind of threw that out the window and started realizing how simple songs start and how simple they can be. Even the biggest hits in the world have, like, they're songs that are comprised of two chords. Like it's not that hard.

And then in quarantine, honestly, I started picking up the guitar more. I had so much more time on my hands and I kind of just, it just kind of happened. I was like playing around on guitar and found some, I found one chord that I didn't, I had no idea what it was. I just, you know, like played it and I was like, oh, that sounds, that sounds okay. And then I played it with a chord that I didn't, I had no idea what it was. I just, you know, like played it and I was like,

oh, that sounds, that sounds okay. And then I played it with a chord that I did know. And it just turned into a progression that I was like, I think this could be a song. And then I just kind of like ran with it for my first song. Now, I love that point you make about simplicity with the music and pointing out that some of the major hits can have one chord or two chords and it's very repeatable but obviously megastars many of them like some of the ones you're thinking of in your head the taylor schwifts of the world they have songwriters and they they write their own songs too but they have people working with them all the time to create the perfect sound engineered chord progression etc but especially when you're coming up and when you're not a megastar,

there's much more of an impetus on you to create that thing from scratch. And yet you see artists all the time, and it's not just music. It's with anything. What we tend to do as humans, especially when we have a talent in something, is we take things that we create and we start at a base that's beautiful. And then we're not satisfied. And we keep going. And we build on top of it.

We make it more and more complex. And the farther and farther we go, the more we lose the soul of exactly what it was we created in the first place. That's a danger with music. I heard a quote that kind of was another like Kickstarter in this that was like, if you, the best songs are the ones that you can strip down and just play with an instrument and a vocal and it's still good and it still hits and, you know, gets the same feeling across. Is that your attitude?

So when you go in to say like okay i'm feeling the juices right now i want to create is your attitude very much like that like let's just start with my voice and then i'll build whatever one instrument i need from there and then leave it there and then figure out if there's something later um well first of all it's super new so i'm kind of playing around with different styles and approaches. Sometimes, well, for my first song, like I said, it was more of me finding the chord progression and the melody and then putting my vocals on top and figuring out from there the feeling and the lyrics and then the structure and different things like that. So that started with a couple of chords that I thought were sounded nice together and then but

I've also like had songs where I have a lyric or an idea that I want to build something off of but again I'm not like I'm not super good at guitar or piano I kind of just can get by and I can figure it out so it's the process of figuring out sometimes that is that takes a while and like so it goes both ways I guess is the the short answer what do you mean you're not good at guitar or piano you don't think you're solid at playing this no I mean I've heard you play I know I well I so I grew up like taking piano lessons and I hated it so I didn't practice a ton and I feel like that was not a wash at all. Why'd you hate it? I think anything that like really feels like work and I have to put a lot of effort and practice it, I just – it makes me not want to do it. You like the spontaneity of self-motivation.

Yeah, yeah. And when I'm like feeling like playing piano, I'm feeling like playing piano. I'll sit there for hours and just do it. But if I like – my mom would sit and tell me to practice for an hour every day and I'd be like, I don't want to do that. It's funny how we're like that as humans. I know. But so the same goes for piano and guitar. I just like, I can't play by ear or anything like that.

But I minored in music at college and I took a few music theory courses. What's in those courses? I'm just curious. I'm never asked. Like when people say music theory, they're like, oh, I took music theory. I'm's in those courses i'm just curious i've never asked like when when people say music theory they're like oh i took music theory i'm like oh cool man all right music right yeah so um it's actually funny my dad took that as an elective thinking it'd be easy like the theory of music it's like it's literally another language like you're learning how to read music on a page and the structure of chords and inversions and all this other stuff. A lot of it, which I have forgotten.

But it definitely like rebuilt that foundation that I had from taking lessons when I was younger. And so then I got more comfortable with playing around with things because I was kind of forced to in class. And so I figured out, you know, I don't know. I just learned little different, not tactics, like, I don't know i just learned little little different um not tactics like i don't know the structure the basic structure of chords and how to like build build a song or build a chord progression i learned and then so now i take that and use it um as best as i can did you build any songs during that course build it like write songs yeah yeah during those courses yeah not myself i usually was in a group did they ever get created like like yeah full

blown were they good wrote like the one that i remember is a jurassic park it was a scene of a movie and it was like two minutes or three minutes And they muted the sound to the movie and we had to write a song over top of it. That was a cool thing. That is a cool project. So it makes you match the plot line too. So you have a box you got to stay in on that. Well, yeah. And then it had to like match, yeah, some of the other music in the film and different things.

It had to like emulate. But that's way different from making your own music when you make your own music there is no box you go wherever wherever the motivation is now you mentioned a little bit of your progression with music throughout your life and just kind of went through the whole thing like a laundry list but to put it more like on a timeline you left a rock band when you were how old? It was right before my senior year of college. So 19. Or 20, something like that.

20, 21. Somewhere in there. Okay. So two, three years ago. Right. And at the time, you were saying that any music you guys created that you performed that was original, you didn't write. Yes. So my bandmates were more of the writers, and they had a very specific vision for the music.

And you didn't fuck with that vision? No. Why not? So they did a concept album. So are you familiar with what that is? Nope. So they wrote a story, and this is a fictional story. It had a lot of things to do with space and different things.

So they wrote this story, and then they wrote songs to correspond with the story. And another thing is hard rock isn't my music of choice usually. And they had more of like a punk influence and like hard rock and definitely some pop influence and electronic in there as well. And so there were obviously elements that I liked and I liked being in a band because especially because it was a different style from anything I've done. So I learned a ton. But yeah, it wasn't in the end, it wasn't my my style. And it also was someone else's vision.

So I was like singing something that meant like really nothing to me. It wasn't yours. Yeah. Yeah. It was also a fictional story. There wasn't like, there was definitely emotion in it, of course, but it wasn't like, I don't know, as relatable as like me writing something i think a lot of people who aren't musicians themselves obviously everyone loves music or

at least most people with a pulse love music of some sort but everyone who's not a musician i'm not sure that they understand that it's not just as simple as, okay, you have the ability to play this instrument or sing in this octave or that octave, whatever. Okay, here's a piece of music that matches what you do. Go do it. It's not like that. You can't go just turn on that spigot whenever you want and make it sound with that emotion and

bass and tone that makes you different than other people. So when you were making this music and you did it for, I don't know, three, four years, something like that, did it get to a point where you realize, you know what, I'm listening to myself sing and I you know it's probably fine but i don't think it's even very good because i'm just my heart's not in it for sure for sure um in the studio was a little bit different than live performance i think in live performances i kind of got lost in like just trying to be the best performance performer i could rather than you know emoting in that in that way but yeah i mean, it was just my heart wasn't in it and it was evident through my vocals.

Did the crowds ever get you into it, though? Like just having people there who were clearly like, wow, she's great, getting into it? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if people, you were at the shows. Could you tell that there was a disconnect between me and the vibe? Or did you, I don't know if people you've been to that you were at the shows. Could you tell that there was a disconnect between? Me and the vibe or did you I don't know for one thing Those guys all had talent they were all good

but They didn't have your talent It was it was there was a little disconnect and that would be fine Like people look at no doubt and they go well the band didn't have gwen's talent yet duh right yeah they were still really fucking good right the thing was with the exception of the one guy who did some vocals with you everyone was playing an instrument and to your point it was a very hard rock punk rock vibe and they drowned you out all the time and i would watch people in the crowd be like almost like shut up like we want to hear that

and you'd be belting it and we could make it out but there's fucking two basses two electronic guitars like a loud organ going on and it's like dude and that's absolutely like yeah it's something that i recognize too and i i guess my justification for it at the time i didn't probably speak up as much as i should have about it but um was that it comes with the nature of the genre that we were kind of singing and it's kind of just a lot of loud noise sometimes and so i guess i just figured that was you know what they were going for and they were creating the music at the time so I was like if that's if that was their vision that was their vision um not that I like didn't have a say but kind of because I I it wasn't I don't know

it wasn't mine well what what have your vision been if you had a chance to inject what you wanted to do on that band leveraging their talents i mean they were good yeah they're they're great they still are a band and they're great but um at the time i was not a songwriter at all and was very new to even like being around a songwriting process or anything like that. So I don't even know at the time what direction I would have taken it in, but as far as the vibe of the band, in my head, I always thought that what made us stand out was kind of the juxtaposition of the type of music we were playing,

our look, our sound, our vibe, and then my voice, which is kind of more refined. I'm saying more – my voice is kind of unlike a lot of those in that genre and that space that I've heard at least. So I thought it was kind of – that's what made us a little bit different and a little bit off the cuff in terms of that kind of music was my like more kind of clear and I guess refined might be a good word like refined voice on top of all the like what was happening it's more of it it's more of a traditional voice you're more you're a lot you're a lot closer to birdie than you are to stevie nicks yeah both great voices

right but stevie nicks knows how to put the juice out like she's banging her head against the wall yeah you know that's not what you do yeah it's not my my forte so um i always liked that part of it and i wanted to showcase that more and kind of emphasize that more um but i mean in the end they just started going down more of a path that was kind of away from that and it just didn't make sense. Yeah, it didn't make sense. But now that was two or three years ago. And you didn't write music right away.

And you didn't write for a couple years. And you mentioned you didn't do it until quarantine. And then even in quarantine, you know, quarantine started mid-fucking March. Jesus Christ. That was a long time ago yeah but you didn't really start writing until i guess like mid-may yeah was there like a moment where you said fuck man like i haven't been doing this now i'm not doing it during the most optimal time ever like fuck it just go yeah i feel like the phases of quarantine i kind of went through

the typical like at first i was like working from home and had so much time on my hands and i was like netflix yeah i was kind of chilling taking a breather i literally thought we were going to be in quarantine for a week i was like oh my god we have to work from home for a week it's gonna be so nice like take a little break and obviously it has not progressed into that but um yeah so at first I was kind of like just lounging taking time to like relax and decompress more than I usually do and just like be more of a homebody than usual and like veg but um then I got to the point where I was like this this is gonna be a lot uh longer than I expected so I want to do something productive um and so I just picked up my guitar and I started doing that more often.

And as I did that, like I said, I found, I ended up finding chords. Well, I'll back up. So how I started with that was I've had my guitar for forever. I just didn't play it often. And then I, in quarantine, started looking up songs and playing more covers and kind of just putting them on Instagram, TikTok, whatever. And some of them started involving the guitar. So then I got more familiar with chords and, you know, strumming patterns and the different things that come along with like learning guitar. And then, as I mentioned before, I just kind of stumbled upon a chord progression that I was like, this makes sense.

I've never heard anything like this before. Like, I think it could be a good song. And so I have obviously felt the pressure for a little bit of I want a song, right? I just don't know where to start. And then once I kind of found that chord progression, I was like, this might be like an opportunity for me to just like try to write a song. Did that pressure, like that that you brought that up because obviously it was there for a long time because you didn't do it for a long time and there's a lot of people out there some who may hear this who may have incredible

talent even not just in music but in anything and the hardest part as a human being is to start right just do that first fucking thing and just being like, I don't care if it's terrible or great. Just do it and then build on it. That pressure, though, to get there, that ever freak you the fuck out? Yeah, all the time. I mean, that's why I didn't start for so long is because I would think about something like a concept or some lyrics and I never thought like they were good enough. Or I would think of a chord progression like this is so basic, like I'm not going to do something that's, you know, this like stupid in my mind. I was like, why would I even do this?

Whatever. And I think once I was kind of building my confidence with guitar and I was playing with those chords, trying to figure out where to go from there, I just kind of took the pressure off myself and said, if I want to start, it's going to be bad. And back to another quote, it was like, your first, I don't know, your first whatever is going to be bad. As long as you keep going, it'll get better. And I was like, you know what, that's true. I'm just going to say, like, screw it. I'm going to throw spaghetti at the wall, see what sticks. And then from there, I mean, my first song, I think, ended up being, like, kind of good because I did that. And I said, I'm not going to try to be super eloquent

with my lyrics I'm not going to try to like say something that is um ingenuine or untrue I'm just gonna say exactly what I'm like feeling and then try to make some sense of it and just like see what happens well you you had said you would either start with the chord progressions in the past or a couple lyrics and you didn't think it was good but when you started with lyrics in the past was it random lyrics or was it drawn from something highly personal to you was that always the case always okay yeah and then even something with with my first song that i was like struggling with was,

how am I going to make this relatable? And I think you were the one that said, it doesn't have to be relatable. It just has to be real. And then I was like, okay. Real is relatable. Right, exactly. And emotion, that's the whole point of music is to relate in human emotion. And so if I can tell my side, which is obviously very specific to me,

and not everyone is going to go through that, the emotions are still there and the emotions are still the same and everyone feels emotions. Yeah, I always bring up the song, and it's an extreme, extreme example, but Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique, which is this six, seven minute ballad. It just made me think of that with that answer you gave, because there is a song, if people haven't heard that, it's intense. I mean, it's, it's, it almost makes me sick to discuss what it's about. But the short end of it is, it's about a kid who feels a lot of pressure

his mom loves him but he's constantly getting in trouble and he gets older he feels the pressure it gets to him he turns to crime and then he gets involved with this crew and they run around and rape women and then eventually they you know get to his mom and I remember my first time hearing that song and I mean I can't fucking relate to that it was it was an urban story about one of the craziest edible basically scenarios you could ever imagine but it has an effect on you and even though you couldn't do it and then a less serious example obviously like Mona Lisa another rap song by Lil Wayne about robbing people and shit. Like, we can't relate to that.

We don't do that. But the way they paint the words and tell the story, it's like, fuck. Wow. And it just makes your whole vibe go silent. And those are more extreme examples. And they're way off the end of things but for you relatable is about what's the mood of the song is the song happy like start there is it happy or is it sad yeah that's where i kind of start when i find a chord progression or a pairing of chords

that i like i'm like what what does this make me feel right off the bat? And then sometimes I'll play with it and try to, you know, do the opposite and make it more interesting that way. But if a certain song is like screaming this emotion, then I just kind of run with that and try to think of a time or, or relate to it as what I'm going through at the moment or, you know, whatever it is to, to write to it. What about the creative juices though do you do anything to get them going or is it very much spur of the moment to get into the flow it's usually spur of the moment i've found again i'm very new at this but i have found so far that when i sit down and like, I'm like, okay, at nine o'clock, I'm going to sit down at the piano. I'm going to try to like finish this one concept or idea that I've been thinking about.

It usually doesn't end up happening because either the one example I'm thinking of, it was like kind of a more somber song. And I was like in such a good mood that day. And I was like, I just can't get into this like vibe right now. I can't get into this mood right now. It's going to be so... And then I would try to throw out lyrics. I'm like, that's so stupid.

I don't know. It just didn't feel authentic at that point. So then I would try to go a new direction and write kind of what I was feeling at the moment. So it really is kind of dependent on my mood or what I'm feeling at the moment so it really is kind of dependent on like my mood or like what i'm feeling at the time i i one thing i haven't done yet but i've been thinking about is um looking back at like pictures or like notes or something that that bring me back to a certain time and back to a certain time frame and will put me in like the mood that i'm going for or that i originally started the song in or whatever um and i feel like that would be helpful if I really like dig into those.

But TBD. Whenever something's being created, there's some kind of precedent, right? Like even if you're building something new, but if you're making music, music's been made before, you know, there's a lot of songs out there. And so what do we hear? We hear the ones publicly that make it, so to speak. And it's so easy to immediately think something sucks because in your mind, you're not just comparing it to that music you've heard before that might be relatable to this or comparable to this. You're also comparing it to a finished product and comparing it to all the moments in your head you can remember where not just you were listening to the song and wowed by it in the gym, at home, whatever,

but where you're listening to it with friends and they feel their own way with the experience with the song, but they feel something too. And so then you compare what you are about to create to that at its infancy before it's even carved out of the stone. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's even carved out of the stone. Yeah, yeah. I think that's something I've had to overcome. Obviously, now that I've started songwriting,

listen to songs in a new way. What do you mean by that? I hear the lyrics differently. I try to listen for all the sounds that are in the song, what instruments are involved, different things like that, to see now when I start my songs, I'm like, okay, I'm going to start this way, but if I were to build it, this is what it might sound like in the future, so that I can kind of get a better picture of what the end result could be, even though I'm starting at a more, like,

I'm going to start it genuine, but if I'm going to, if I want to at a more like I'm gonna I'm gonna start it genuine but if I'm gonna if I want to make this like a hit or something what what might I add to to get to that spot I don't know that might not make sense but just trying to like I see that I hear things in a fuller way now and try to think about that when I song write and not not try to like you to duplicate things or just copy what I'm hearing, but just have an idea of especially where music's at right now. You've grown curious about the details. Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And then, yeah, obviously it's always going to be my spin and my experiences and my feelings.

But then on top of that, how do I make it relevant and like the stuff that I like to listen to on a daily basis? Music's now at this point, in my opinion, where we are seeing what you would call the fading of the lines of genres. So the most ridiculous over-the-top example, but relevant, would be, you look at the biggest song in the world in 2019, one of the biggest songs of all time statistically. It's Old Town Road. It's a country rap song. You know, it had the whole controversy around it too,

where it wasn't making the country charts because they're like, is it country or isn't it? It's all over the place. And now you see, where it wasn't making the country charts because they're like is it country or isn't it it's it's all over the place and now you see and you could even draw it back to great producers starting to work with major mega stars in the pop line whether it be a rihanna or taylor swift or something like that you could draw back to there and say like at some point musicians who came up doing a certain type of music or what we think was a certain type of music began to experiment saying hey i really fuck with that sound over there hey i really

love that sound over there let me try it and for you do you ever feel like i mean you were in a punk rock band i mean that was way off the map for you and that wasn't exactly your speed but do you ever feel like okay i just made a song that's a piano and and kind of a traditional melodic voice i'd like to make a trap song that's a ridiculous example but do you ever get that spaghetti against the wall to use your words in your mind about music yeah i mean again i'm still in the very early stages and so but i love all kinds of different music i love country music um i don't know if i would ever go full country for me like a taylor swift kind of country i would like use as as a um genre that i would feel that i would fit into um a little bit or i don't know like a chelsea

cutler but i also love rap music i probably will never do rap music, but I would love to dabble in different genres. Once upon a time, you sang a pretty fucking good hook for what should be a rap song, though. Oh, yeah, but that wasn't me rapping. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That wasn't me rapping. But that was born for someone to drop bars in three verses. Yeah, and that would be awesome and so fun.

I love all different kinds of music, so if I can dip my toes in different stuff, I would love that. Well well with this song in particularly that you just put together and you're working on two others and I love seeing this I mean from afar I've always wanted to see you write music I'm I'm a writer myself not a music writer but I've always seen that same sort of creativity in you but it's such a personal process and as much as i would want to see you do it or encourage you to do it it's something you got to bring out of yourself and you did that it was kind of one of those things going back to piano lessons and i was like do your lesson do your lesson you were like write music write music

listen it's not that easy i know i know i just can't do it one day do you notice something though what i shut the fuck up i know you did i didn't even text you about the word music for about not quite a year but almost a year yeah i know i would look at the watch stop looking at your tiktok that i set up for you i was like she's gonna do it or she ain't and then you sent me the first verse and bass chord progression progression of the chorus of that song and i gotta tell you i will never forget opening that up because it was like 11 o'clock at night on a friday night i was sitting here outlining an episode tired as fuck had my phone on do not disturb happen to look at it i was like oh fuck am i am i really gonna open this i do i need to deal with this

and at 3 30 a.m i was still fucking pacing this room listening to it on volume 60 just bumping it around the whole house like oh my god it happened because it wasn't just lyrics i mean we'd always wanted to i knew you could write lyrics i mean i'd seen you write the lyrics the one time and they were fucking unreal i knew you had it in you but also adding the bottom of it adding the guitar and putting this beautiful melodic level to a song that was so fucking raw. I was like, wow. Well, thanks. At first I was like, he's my cousin. He has to say this. But then, yeah, I mean, I'll tell you if you suck. I want people to tell me when I suck. It was one of those situations. You were like, do it, do it, do it. And I finally did it. And I was like, all right, here you go.

And so I figured you were going to be happy with whatever. No. I almost like, I was like, oh, God. After a while, you still kept with it. And I was like, maybe he's like really. I figured you were sending me something you had done in like 10 minutes. Saying like, I finally did something. Like participation trophy, turn in the homework like 10 days late.

I think in that thing i only had like a verse and a chorus right but the the entire first verse was done and the lyrics like made my heart stop oh and the way like we never touched the verses and how to do those you had the verse progression including the music below it completely done that never got touched but what happened next and i think that this is interesting is you got right on it i didn't expect that i kind of expected you to be pulled back again and be like oh i don't know like that whole thing you were talking about earlier like oh it might suck i don't know but you came over here two nights later and we sat in here for 10 hours almost and just went line by line bar by bar discussing the song we have a lot

of it on camera which i think that's some really compelling documentary content on how the song came together but when it was all said and done you put together a four minute and 20 second just beautiful melody and every lyric in there every single word came from you i think i said that to you at one point when when you were like i think you maybe you had just placement lyrics in something oh those were bullshit lyrics i was not serious you said that up front and that's like fine but i from that point i was like i think i need to do the lyrics at least like 95 just because it will feel more real i know but i'm saying like in the future whatever like it's gonna feel more genuine because it's coming from my experience like you could know all about

you know whatever the song's about but i feel like the feelings because because i was the one that went through it are obviously going to be more genuine coming from me versus from somebody else does that make sense well it totally totally by the way but i want to touch on what you just said the feelings of the song where what was going on and you don't have to go into stuff you don't want to go into but whatever you can or are comfortable talking about what was going on that spurred this and brought out the rawness that created the song? Specifically, I Wish Yesterday Was a Dream, the opening line of the song,

that was either that day or that weekend, like an event happened in my life that kind of culminated from a lot of different things that have been happening. And the feeling was so like, so strong. So that's where I started, right? So that's the opening line, I wish yesterday was a dream. And then what that yesterday that I'm talking about, that day, meant was a lot of different things for me.

And so, I mean, I think that a lot of the themes in the song are, like, sadness and sorrow over, like, losing someone or losing a relationship or something and then there's also a feeling of like relief and like triumph like for me it was because that relationship was was pretty toxic in my life so um once I finally realized that I don't have to deal with that and I can you know create that boundary and say I don't I don't like deserve to deal with this and I don't have to put up with it that was like the um the lyric about feeling free I mean so it's kind of a range of things and it's it's from a lot of different experiences and emotions throughout years of my life.

But that was one moment where that day happened. And then from that day, I kind of started to say, you know what? I don't have to deal with this. And I'm going to make that decision for myself. And so the song is kind of born out of that decision and what led up to that. When you came here to work on it it was like a day later it was one or two days later like right away we did it yeah like and we we went in that weekend and basically finished the song but when when you came to do it

you walked in here and you were still very upset I mean you were like even like short with me just just very very clearly like a lot of shit going on in your life and I was like wow okay i understand where this song's coming from but when you finish the song and when you heard it even the first time when it was still a draft and it was you know on very shitty audio but just put together all in one did that take some of the weight off for you and and almost i don't want to say take it away it does it doesn't do that but was it therapeutic in a way that you were like wow okay i just rose above that a little bit and something came of it and there's good that came out of this situation yeah i think it's that and also

from that decision i made to like you know just move on from that and like choose for myself to be, to be a happier version of myself. I think a culmination of that has been therapeutic for me. Um, but I, I'm happy that the song happened because, um, now I kind of have it as a, as a little mini story and a little like mini piece of my life. And I, what I feel like happened a couple months months ago like i think that'll be a big life event for me and so i'm happy that i have the song and that i kind of packaged up in a little bow of that experience and like it's a good little like reminder and then you know yeah therapeutic to like get over it and move on to a new chapter yeah well you've also i don't know hit it four or five different times here but right before that answer you were talking about the personal personalness it's not a

word but you understand what i mean the how personal lyrics are and how much how it's important to you that it's coming it's coming from here and it's coming from you specifically you know it we've always talked about what how tom's always preached self-contained artists that's what he worked with his whole career right and he worked with all these amazing amazing amazing game changing people but for you could you ever see yourself living in both worlds where you're writing a lot of music but also having music that may make sense and is relevant to you written with other great writers yeah i think one song actually by len and stella um what's it called i'm so bad with song names but there's there's one song and the music video is like her sitting in a field it's about her oh yeah what is that song called i'm gonna look it up really quick

it's um that's an amazing song it's like it's the one with all the pictures from her whole childhood and actually had to grow up fast and things like that what the heck is that and that's such a you want to talk about a simple song yeah older than ier Than I Am. Older Than I Am. Yeah. That's a song that I relate to in a lot of ways. And I'm like, I would have loved to sing that song and perform that song. Even though someone else wrote it. And I know someone else wrote it with her too. That actually, sorry, hearing that song, it prompts me to look into who wrote it. Because I was like, this is such an awesome song.

I relate to it so much, whatever. I wonder into who wrote it because I was like this is such an awesome song I relate to it so much whatever I wonder if she wrote it and so I looked it up and it was her and I want to say her name's Emily the songwriter and it just kind of put the idea into my head that oh yeah like songwriters

exist like and they're great and you there's so many songs like that that i relate to and i'm like almost every lyric could fit my life perfectly but um i guess i've just never firsthand experienced someone writing a song for me and like you know there's a huge difference and i i don't want to take a shot at drake here because i have a ton of respect for drake and he's incredibly talented and he just he puts out hits like crazy but Drake makes a lot of jams he makes a lot of songs that are about you know particular normal type themes that were put together probably with some input

from him but by a team of writers that he has around him all the time and he's putting them out all the time guys are workhorse there's a huge difference between that though and putting out a song that has depth to it and this is where when you're working with writers you can run into problems if it's not a personal relationship yeah like when when you see with adam and i were also talking about post malone and i don't think we talked about this on the episode, but we were going through beforehand about like his process. He bought a fucking house in Utah, got away from it, built his own studio in there. And for Hollywood's Bleeding, I mean, they recorded 55 songs. And he's got five, six writers, and they're in there the entire time with him studying his vibe and talking through life and talking through things to make it personal.

So when it comes out, yes, of course, he has a heavy hand in the writing. But the guys who are writing with him, they get him. They know him in and out, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about that because I tried my hand at therapy in like high school. And I, at that time, something I learned about myself is that I had trouble talking about the like deep things that I was going through. And I couldn't seem to make out in words like how I was feeling.

Eventually it like happened, but that was at first like a big problem. And so I've always thought like if I had a therapist that was a song writer and I could just tell her everything and they like come out with these songs that are you know so personal to me but say it in a better way that I sometimes can or say things that I've been feeling but didn't know how to say like that's that would be perfect I don't know if that happens well music is therapy yeah it's funny you say that it totally is therapy i mean you think about it so many musicians come from these tortured backgrounds or or no seriously torture i i know i know but i'm i'm making a i'm making an overall point. That's why you see some tragedy with musicians because their writing and their performing is a getaway.

You know, and even for people who aren't in a tragic situation, right? And there's a lot. Most aren't, right? You get what I mean, though. Even if you're not from that everyone still has their skeletons in the closet everyone still has their things that they go through in life where it's like fuck i really got knocked down here shit's going shit's going on and and you even have moments where you're like i don't know if i can go on it's it's human right and you draw on that

to create i think um like when i was in high school and stuff and like going through things, I didn't write music at all. But I totally get that there are certain songs that I relate to on such a level and they were kind of therapeutic for me at the time. And I don't know if it was maybe a subconscious of I'm not alone in this. Like whoever wrote this song was clearly going through something similar and that maybe I found comfort in that I don't know but that was more my therapy like in the moment of like the thick of what I was going through in high school but like now I feel um more mature maybe and more like ready to talk about it from my own personal experience and maybe that is part of

like what changed and what led me to like finally try my hand at songwriting do you feel like more writing's just coming a lot easier now like as far as the spurs of those moments just because you have one under your belt yeah like obviously the hardest part is to start when you're writing an essay i would always leave the intro to the end because i knew like what i wanted to write about but i didn't know how to start it and so yeah that's the same thing it's just like now that i did it i'm like okay i maybe i'm not so bad at this i'll keep trying and as like things come up in my life now i'm like i think that a good way to help get through it is writing it in a song. And so it's kind of been a new, like, if you want to call it therapeutic, like, method of dealing with things.

Music's your diary. Yeah, now it is. I love that. That's great. Well, are you going to play this song for us or what? Yeah. You want to hear it? I mean, you have heard it. Do you want to hear it i mean you have heard it you want to hear it like officially i would like to hear it again okay yeah all right let me uh you get it out i'll eq you okay

am i supposed to put the earphones back on you don't have to can you first of all pull that bitch real in tight yep did I move or did the no that's good now move the mic tilt it down a little yeah yeah that's perfect that's a good angle

alright now just sing something for like 15-20 seconds anything I just wanna hear I'm gonna fuck with the volume later but I wanna EQ some of this now on the board ooh ooh ooh

ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh Bravo. Okay. I like that.

Okay. You ready? I think so. Okay. You ready? I think so. What's the name of the song? Last Time. It's a beautiful name. Thanks. I wonder who thought of it.

Yeah. Wow. That guy's a genius. Oh, my gosh. Did you get that on film when we did that? I think I did. It may be in the documentary. It might be in there.

Stay tuned. Stay tuned. I don't know. I don't know. It was a great moment of creativity. I think I did. It may be in the documentary. It might be in there. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. I don't know. I don't know. It was a great moment of creativity. It was a good discussion we had about that. It was.

We came to a good conclusion, I think. We did. We did. Our good decision. But you actually ready? Yes. Yes. This is last time. Okay.

All right. You're on. I wish yesterday was a dream You haven't been the same since 13. Do you remember pulling me around the block in that little red wagon? Do you remember telling me to look up whenever my feet were dragging? Now I'm grown and I know that you'll never feel like home if you keep playing cheap with my soul. Oh, you let me down. Oh, when you left so Finally I get to see

A side of me That taught me what I need And I just had to thank you For teaching me How to be You've been teaching me how to breathe. To breathe free. I cried when I wrote this song and it hurts to talk about it. All my life I thought you'd be here.

Never thought to doubt it. You and me, we were a team. But you let this come in between for the last time. Because now I'm gone. And I know that you'll never feel like home. If you keep playing cheap with my soul Oh, oh, oh You let me down

Oh, oh, oh When you left town, finally I get to see a side of me that taught me what I need. And I just have to thank you for teaching me how to be, to be? Tell me, is it worth wrecking everything with me? Because it wrecked me, because you wrecked me Because you wrecked me Oh, oh, oh, oh You let me down Oh, oh, oh, oh

When you left alone Finally I get to see Inside of me You taught me what I need And I just have to thank you For teaching me How to be To be free Ooh Ooh

Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh

Sydney DiBernardo Last time That's how you make a fucking song Sydney DiBernardo, last time, that's how you make a fucking song. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for listening, everybody.