The School of Greatness - 74 What a Musical Genius Can Teach You About World Class Music Production (CJ Baran Reveals All)

Episode Date: July 15, 2014

He lived 20 ft. from me the whole time... Before he spent his 20th birthday he used social media to leverage a record deal. As a teenager he opened for Jusin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. To many, he achieved the height of fame and fortune. But something was missing... Find out the rest of the story at at www.lewishowes.com/74

This is episode number 74 with C.J. Barron. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, all the greats out there? Thanks so much for tuning in today. I've got a very special guest, my man, Mr. C.J. Barron, who's actually my next door neighbor,

who is one of the most talented young music producers out there right now, literally blowing it up with some of the biggest musicians and artists out there and creating some amazing work. I'm very excited about having him on. And I've got some fun stories. We jam late nights. He literally lives 20 feet away from me in West Hollywood in our condo building. And I'll tell the story more about how we connected when we jump into this interview. But I am back. Thanks for all the notes, the messages, all of the emails, the tweets, the pictures on Instagram for following me over the last three weeks when I was down in Brazil and Uruguay playing with the USA national team.

Again, a lot of you know it's my dream to be an Olympian and it's my dream to represent my country and continue to pursue my athletic pursuits for as long as I can. And I had a great time down in Brazil and Uruguay training and competing, getting to play against Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Greenland, and it was just an awesome experience getting to play with my teammates, get down there, and represent my country. So thanks, everyone, for the two, three-week hiatus from the interviews and from the podcast. A lot of you have been requesting, when are they coming back? So we're finally back, and I'm going to be giving you guys lots of great content

here on out, two, three episodes a week, and we're going to be really taking it to the next level with the guests. And this one, again, is with C.J. Barron. Super pumped about this. We're going to dive in and talk about how he really launched his career at such a young age. He was in a band when he was 15, got signed by a major record label, was touring around the country with Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, and then realized that he didn't want to do that anymore. He wanted to be more of a producer.

So we really talk about how he got his start as a producer, his method for creating art and for creating music and how he conceptualizes it with these artists and what he's kind of doing to take his business and brand to the next level. So let's go ahead and dive in. Again, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode with the one and only CJ Barron. What is up, everyone? Thanks again for coming on the School of Greatness podcast. I've got a special guest in the house. He's actually the neighbor to my house.

Literally lives 20 feet away from me. I feel like we've got a baller hall. We do. It's a baller hall. We've got my man CJ Barron in the house right now. What's up, CJ? What's going on? And we've got another person across the hall from us, Keely, who was former Miss Teen USA.

And we've got some old vets in here who are like, just got cool old stories. You don't know what they did. Just like absolutely inappropriate stories. What happened on the roof sauna pool. In our building back in the 70s. And I'm very excited. It's interesting. I moved into this place on Doheny in West Hollywood about a year ago.

And I'm actually moving out tonight for six months while there's construction happening. CJ lived through the construction. I lived through it. I don't know how you did it. It was miserable for the last six months. And for the first six months living here, I never once saw you. Maybe like once briefly I saw you, but I didn't know who you were. The ghost.

Yeah, the ghost next door. All I heard was loud music always coming from his apartment, his condo. And eventually, like six months in, I finally meet you. I don't even remember how we met. In the elevator or the hallway? Yeah, we started chatting. And I started learning all about CJ and what he is up to in his life. I was blown away at this kid's talent.

He's only 24. It seems like he's 30. And has a lifetime of experience already with everything you've been up to. So I'm super pumped that you're on the show. Thanks for having me, man. I'm excited to rap more more with you we just had a late night jam session last night like a creative artistic orgasm of conversation where where i try to go over to cj's once a month or something and learn about all the new things he's up to because it's so interesting and i want to talk about something

you're working on now then we're going to dive back into kind of like your history but you're doing this really cool creative project and let me know if we can talk about it yeah that's fine what's the name of it now so it's called wolf and the wonder show uh-huh it's uh it's definitely a strange project think mike snow meets mgmt living in a Tim Burton film. It's real whimsical. Interesting. Now, what is it going to be about? So, I mean, in a nutshell, the story is guy falls in love in New York City. Heart gets broken.

New York City completely freezes over. And then the rest of it is his kind of journey back to defrost the city when he finds new love. That's in a nutshell the story. It goes way deeper and crazier than that and there's a wizard and and the gist of it is it's going to be a live uh moving performance that you're going to be creating right this artistic performance where there's going to be uh art it's going to be kind of like an art gallery we made it sound like it's a haunted house yeah artistic haunted house with music and art

that you walk through and you experience with a group of people. Each song goes in sequence to the story. And the way we're going to set it up is almost like a reprise of everything, where the string section and piano playing through each of the different pieces that you walk through.

And then when you get to the top, it'll be a live performance. Right. Very cool. I love it. And it's going to be good to the top, it'll be a live performance. Right. Very cool. I love it. It's going to be good to be performing here in LA, right? Yeah.

It's still in the infant stages. But it's going to be one of the coolest things when it comes out. So we were just jamming about this last night for about an hour. Now, I want to talk about your story because I think it's really fascinating what you've been able to create for yourself. When you were a teenager, which is not that long ago, couple years ago you were in a band right you started the band uh called what was it called push play yeah push play and i never heard of it but maybe i heard some of the songs but um it was a a pop teen band right yeah it's like a pop rock band you know four kids like with ridiculous hair what was i doing it's doing rod stewart meets like liza

manelli and ellen degeneres like electrocuted it's amazing i'm gonna post a picture on the show so make sure everyone checks it out but how did this band you know you guys did some pretty big things you were you were young kids in new york city or long island right long island long island and you know there's a picture of you in the macy's day parade i think you told me you opened up for like uh bieber or miley cyrus or some some pretty big names back in the day i started the band uh when i was 15 we kind of like ran his course we got signed we were 16 and 17 did that like kind of did some some touring with miley and with bieber it was fun you know but it was over by the time I was 18. Really? And we were dropped from Sony. And that's when I was like, okay, well, I love writing.

I love producing. I need to just do this. And then I just kind of tried to teach myself. You didn't really like performing as much. Actually, I've always loved performing. Really? But I love having a home base more. I just don't like to tour.

Yeah. It's a lot of hassle. It's just a whole different thing. I like to have a home base. I'm don't like to tour yeah it's a lot of hassle it's just a whole it's a whole just different thing i like to have a home base like a nook yeah you're definitely more of like a an introverted like creative mind i find yeah from connecting with you and you know you're always in your place it's like till 4 a.m working grinding um so i could definitely see how you like that but how did you start this band in the first place like you were 15 yeah and you went to a school for music is that right no no I wasn't actually never went

to school for music at all it was just like four kids who could play instruments like okay and I was just kind of having fun in the beginning and then I remember we at the time back in the good old days myspace ruled And we just kind of went hard on that Really? And I remember even going to other band shows And handing out promo cards Which now I'm kind of completely against But at the time it was great for what we were trying to do

And it just got us to that next level To get a deal with Sony So how big of an audience did you grow on Myspace? I don't even remember To man, to be honest. I remember we got to number one on the chart, the MySpace chart. Really? We got reached out to by Atlantic and Sony and a couple other people. So number one on the MySpace, they had their own music label?

Yeah, it was like a little chart they had based on views and how much activity was happening. Of the best songs or the best bands? It was actually just how much traffic was being driven to each thing. So or the best bands? It was actually just like how much traffic was being driven to each thing. So you had the number one. Yeah, for like one week. We were like really high up. Whoa.

Then we got to one, like at the very end of the week. That's a pretty big deal back then for MySpace. Back then, I mean, there's a lot of bands that hit number one. But it was definitely exciting for us. We were like 16 at the time. We were actually 15 at the time.

Wow. This is cool. So how did you even get girls like this? Yeah, right? so how did you get it to number one like what was your strategy honestly i remember this i remember the minute i get home from school i would sit down on the computer all of us on different computers and we would just start reaching out to people like hitting the mac and starting conversations with everyone one by one one by one and then creating like a little bit of a not army but just i guess just fan base really like a little street team yeah the street team that's a great word for it

and it's great for that kind of thing but now like i said like with other projects i would never do that again sure because people grow attached it becomes a thing and if you if you don't answer back and they're like oh why aren't you answering me back and it's just a gets to become a bit of a nightmare so you guys were promoting and reaching out one by one, trying to get people to listen to the links on MySpace, listen to your music, and then they were kind of sharing it with their friends or talking about it as well, or what were they doing?

Yeah, it just kind of grew that way. And I remember we did the first slew of shows we did were these high school shows, where we would just play on a Friday night at a high school in the auditorium. And kids would come and just hang out. It started out so small.

Like 15 people would show up. Wow. And we were like, yeah, 15, double digits. And yeah, then it kind of grew from there.

Wow. Just organically. So how did you even like practice? Were you guys having like a garage in your parents' house? Straight up garage

in like all of our parents' houses. Yeah, we would just alternate. Was it pretty much every day after school you got together you played every single day and you were you pretty much writing a lot of the songs or you guys writing them together we did some songs that we wrote together some songs that i wrote by myself which is kind of all over the place but wow and then so you know for me i went to go play sports every day but you went to go play music and play with your bandmates. Mainly because I was just so completely unathletic. I remember I tried out for the football team, and I got cut immediately. Wow. And I was like, you know what?

I'm going to play guitar. I'm going to get girls a different way. Yeah, I've got to figure out how I'm going to do this. That's awesome, man. So basically one year after you kind of launched on myspace hit number one right then who found you and signed you so we were taking meetings with a bunch of labels at the time wow i mean with atlantic and we ended up going with wind up records through sony it's an imprint on sony sure and they were great i mean a really great team they pushed one of our songs to radio

it got to number i think it peaked at 36 on american radio that's great and yeah but i mean it feels like it was a dream like it just it happened so quick right so quick and like i don't even think about it anymore i don't even really remember it to be honest which is crazy because you were 15 when you started then the 16 you got signed then 17 or 18 you got dropped right yeah it was like right when i got out of high school um i deferred from college and we did our second tour. That's when you started going around with Bieber and Miley and kind of like the bigger tour. Yeah, and it was like a real tour, yeah.

And that was when... You had like a tour bus and the whole deal. Yeah, yeah, the whole bus, like sleeping on that, which I miss, actually. That's the only thing about tour I miss. The bus. There's something about being in a bus in a bunk that's kind of like a coffin. And I know this sounds weird, but the way the bus moves it just knocks you out yeah i had the best sleeps of my life wow on a tour bus interesting yeah and it was like your parents go with you or is it not

we were all 18 at that time so we were just on our own and they were all down for it yeah everyone everyone was down there was one tour manager Who was kind of like the Like the dad The house parent On the road He was like a terrible dad The chaperone Letting us drink And

No We had fun I had my own college experience Right right So that lasted for about Like a few months Or six months on the road It was like three months

Three months Yeah And then We got back And then did another Three months on the road Really Just on our own

Just a headlining tour And like small Small small small clubs. Like 500 people. Yeah, like 500 to 1,000 cab rooms every night, just all over the place. To try to keep building momentum

and create another record or whatever? Yeah, that was just to kind of just promote the record that we had. And we were stopping off at radio stations. That's when, at the time, the song was called Midnight Romeo. And that's what we were-

Midnight Romeo? Midnight Romeo. That was a song that was at radio. so we were just kind of going to all the stations and promoting it and doing like the 6 a.m recordings at the stations to do the acoustic sure sure the whole thing that's cool we'll link that in the if we can find it anywhere online we'll link it in the show notes as well good luck with that i'll find somewhere in soundcloud remix version that's cool um all right so you had your kind of like uh musical experience on the road when you're a teenager and you kind of got a taste for like what the business was like yeah and you put in all your hours working with the band you kind of made your break you got signed you got a taste of what that was like. You probably didn't make too much at that level.

Yeah, I mean, it was just like the initial advance, which was that. So I was just, at that time, I was 19 and had just been dropped from my first major label deal. But most people don't get a major label deal ever. So 19 is pretty cool. So I remember just being like, okay, okay well i could go to college but i know what i want to do i want to be producing i want to be writing songs i know a lot of people now in california if i just moved out there so i just i'm touring from the connection touring and like

a lot of we did our record in la so i met a lot of people here right and i just moved straight out here and i started uh apprenticing for the producer that did my band really at the time yeah so his name is matt squire matt squire yeah he's done anything from like panic at the disco to boys like girls 303 a lot of like those scene bands at that time sure so i came out and i worked for him for a while he's a really good dude he was a great mentor so he basically would just throw you projects or say, hey, edit this song, or create me a hook for this, or write some lyrics for this, and then see what you can do. Exactly, that kind of thing. It was mainly track work at that time.

I wasn't really into writing sessions. I was just building tracks, making synth hooks, things like that. Making cool sounds. Yeah, just getting weird, basically. Just getting weird in my place. And then at that time, so I was living in Santa Monica then. making cool sounds yeah it's just getting weird basically it's getting weird in my place and then uh at that time so i was living in santa monica then and then i moved i signed uh my first publishing deal the pulse who how old were you i was 21 so two years later after being yes a year

and a half year and a half year and a half later i i met with scott cutler and josh abraham who owned pulse and i remember i was a little bit resilient to go forth with the signing. I didn't know if I wanted to give it up. Because to me, my publishing was like my second virginity. It's like your life. I was like, I'm not giving this up right now. He's like, I don't know. And everyone was like, no, just hold on to it, man.

But they knocked on my door one night at 10 p.m. In Santa Monica? No, here. No way. Yeah, it was when I first moved. And they knocked on my door one night at 10 p.m in santa monica no here no way yeah it's like when i first moved and they knocked on what they were at soho house and they knocked on my door like you have to sign i was like what oh my god and i love it in a good way though it was just like like they're like we want you yeah you'd be making a great decision if you join the team and right then and there i was like okay that's ballsy i love it wow and i signed with them wow okay and so are you going to talk about what the deal is or what it was or yeah i mean it was just a deal where they the way

publishing deals work i mean it's different for everybody but it's usually based on mdrc so you get x amount of money as an advance and then you have to fulfill 300 i mean it's different for everyone for me it was 300 percent um per term and then that would get you to the next advance and blah blah blah on and on so 300 say i write a song with three people and it's split down the middle or you know three ways it's 33.3 percent of my 300 percent and that only happens it only counts if the song is cut by a major label artist and released sure she is which is the trick because like a lot of things will get cut by a major label artist and released sure she is which is the trick because like a lot of things will get cut and then just never released and they will just sit on your

hard drive well i know i was uh in your place last night and just saw like a list of 100 songs that you've worked on in the last five years that aren't on radio right now right they're just sitting there literally i mean it's cut with the artists and like you know supposed to come out you know you don't know and you see can you talk about some of the artists that you've worked with that you've cut stuff for that hasn't come out some of the more recognized names yeah i mean i'm i did a song i did some production work on a song for one direction that got ended up getting leaked oh so then it didn't go on the record so it didn't go on the record yeah it got leaked and i think it's on youtube now it's like six million views or something crazy like that and i was like so then then a lot of stuff with Carly Rae.

I mean, that stuff's going to come out. Yeah. So there's stuff that's waiting. Yeah, it's like a lot of it is just pipeline. Yeah. It's like you just keep filling up the pipeline, and then eventually it's just going to spill out. It's going to come out eventually.

Yeah. That's cool. It's the long pipe. But for a couple years, you have stuff waiting, just sitting there that's a finish, that's an song and it's not out yet yeah i mean i mean i've had songs that i've had on my hard drive for two years now that just got cut really yeah and i forget about them and like luckily pulse has all that stuff in the finger like uh because i wrote this christmas song as a joke i guess not this past christmas the christmas before like when i first signed

with them thought nothing of it have not even have not even looked at that song right and uh it's now going to be in this new like tina fey movie this christmas movie coming out yeah it's called christmas and i just totally forgot about it okay that's what that's what happens like and so the publishing team they're really kind of shopping the songs for you and kind of getting the placement, either with the artists or with the movies or the radio, whatever it may be, right? Exactly. It's kind of their job.

So it's kind of nice to have a team that supports you and gets the stuff out there where you can just be creative and work on what you do best. Yeah. Pulse is amazing, too. Really, really, really good. Nice. So you've been with them for five years now? No, I mean, I say 21. Okay. So three years. Wow. That's been a good experience. really really good nice so you've been with them for five years now for no i mean i say i's 21 like

okay so three years wow that's a pretty good experience yeah i mean they are awesome that's everybody there so cool the environment's amazing it's based in silver lake right and they have like this really tranquil office slash studio space it's really nice that's cool very cool and they're sending you they're sending you artists to work with too right. And they're sending you artists to work with too, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So they're sending you artists, but you also work with another producer that you work with as well. And how does that work with Pulse? So I have a joint venture with another producer. So it's basically, they kind of split the publishing. Uh-huh. And I work with him on whatever. So he'll do a project, a block out for a week with one artist.

Right. And then everybody on the team will work for a week, get songs going. And then if any of them are great and the label likes them and he likes them and the artist likes them, then we'll all finish them together. Sure. You know, that kind of scenario. Yeah. And this is with the producer. His name is Max, right?

Yes. Yeah. yeah yeah and this is uh with the producer his name is max right yes yeah and how did you get connected with max originally to to work on some of this because he works with some of the biggest names out there but how did you get connected originally yeah i mean he's he's been my idol since i was 13 wow songwriting and producing idol um and i was working on a band signed a republic at the time and their anR was friends with his manager. And I guess he was looking for LA-based track guys that also do Topline, which is melody and lyric. And she introduced me to him straight up on an email.

Wow. And I heard nothing for three weeks. I didn't expect anything. Sure. I was like, this is like, I'm way over my head. Did you ask for an introduction or she just made the intro? She asked me if I'd be interested. And I was like, wow.

Yeah. Of course. i'm definitely and uh and yeah so i just i sent a private soundcloud link of like stuff that i was working on tracks and weirdness and i heard nothing for three weeks then i forgot about it i was like all right whatever and then i got a call like three weeks later from a an unknown number and it was his manager. He's like, can you come to Sunset Marquee tomorrow at noon to meet? Met with him, chatted like the coolest dude ever. Then I'm leaving. I'm in the parking lot.

I don't really know exactly how it went. I was like, oh, maybe that was just like a meet. I don't know what's going to happen. And he called me back, and he was like, I want you to come back tomorrow at noon to meet with Max. And I met with him. We chatted for like two hours just about his whole history i was just so i was just like all over i was like i know exactly what you did in 2000 like that crazy nick carter song that nobody heard about like like the melody that and all that that's hilarious so yeah wow okay so you basically after that meeting was like, I want to work with you.

Let's try it out. Yeah, we tried it out. We did a couple of things together and I worked on some track stuff. And he was impressed enough to bring you on? He was like, yeah, this makes sense. This could be cool. And then they sorted out a situation between the two of them and that was that. And what was that like?

What were you, 23 then? 23, yeah. 23, working with one of your biggest idols as a producer. I was freaking out. I remember the first time I went into work, I think I was breaking out in hives. Wow. I was sweating, and then my hard drive didn't turn on. I was like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.

I was really fired. I was so done. And then I was like, oh, wait, the power switch is off. Damn it. Nice, man. Something like that. That's hilarious and the cool thing about this experience is you really get to work with some awesome inspiring artists and like the level of great artists continue to

increase for you you know the more jobs you work on you get to grow as an artist yourself but then that team his team is trusting you with their artists which are some of the biggest names and it's it's really cool how it's progressing. It's been really, really great. I feel like I've only come into my own as a producer in the past year, year and a half max. I feel like you're just scratching the surface. Yeah, me too.

In five, ten years, you're going to be a machine. Yeah. I just feel like in five, ten years, I'm going to look back at stuff i was doing today and be like laughing terrible yeah how did that song even make it yeah exactly so wow that's crazy man what are the what are the life experience at 24 to be where you're at and uh to be creating what you're creating with the type of the caliber of people you're with and it's pretty inspiring thank you man it's really cool i feel like i'm 40 though i don't feel like i'm 24 because you're with and it's pretty inspiring thank you man it's really cool i feel like i'm 40

though i don't feel like i'm 24 because you're in your apartment all day just grinding away creating beats well pretty soon i'll have to work just strictly in my apartment which will be great yeah it'll be nice yeah i love my apartment but i gotta you know kind of get out yeah and the cool thing about you which correct me if i'm wrong, you have a very unique talent because you write a lot of the songs. You can play a lot of the instruments, like the actual instruments, but you can also just create them on a synthesizer, all the instruments. You edit the songs.

You do everything that a producer can do and that a musician can do, a writer can do. And that's almost like a triple threat, I would think, right? That's like a label's dream to have someone be able to do all those things together. I feel like that's kind of what's happening now in the music business. It's almost becoming the norm. You're expected to be able to engineer your sessions,

edit a vocal properly, play every instrument, record every instrument, and produce. It's become expected now. Really? You can't just be a singer i mean you can and there's no rules but i feel like for producers you kind of have to do it all do it all right right now at least in the current 10 years ago you could just be one just be awesome at one thing which i think maybe also is the reason why some of the music in the 80s or even the 90s like i don't know maybe i'm just being biased about it

because I love that music. But it just sonically sounds a little bit better. It's a little bit cleaner and warmer. Because you had people that studied their whole lives just strictly learning how to mic up a drum set. Wow. Now I'm like, it's two inches from the skin. That should be cool.

Right, right. Or you're just using a drum beat machine. Yeah, or I'm just programming it on my laptop. It's always something like that. That's crazy, man. That's pretty, I mean, I don't know too many other people that can do what you do i don't know do you have other people that can do everything you do um yeah there's definitely some producers out there a bunch of producers that can do yeah it's just nerd like a bunch of like nerds i'm totally like i i found myself yesterday morning looking at a page i was

studying the sub frequencies of a bass note so i could tune the kick drum to it and i looked at the page and i was like what am i doing i was like when did i get so like nerdy you're like why aren't you chasing girls right now yeah i'm looking at sub frequencies of this kick drum and then and i'm spending an hour tuning it wow when you want to master your craft that's what you do you get it you pay attention to the details so that's why you've gotten to where you are and that's why you're so successful and that's where you're going to continue to be successful which i think is really cool i think it's a you know as a someone who wishes they were on glee and secretly wishes i was on glee i love like the

whole singing and the music stuff my uh my brother is uh arguably the number one jazz violinist in the world so he tours all around. He played with Les Paul for 10 years in Times Square and travels all around the world. My sister's

extremely talented singer-songwriter. My parents were opera majors and I really can't do any of that stuff. I'm more of the athlete of the family but I appreciate the art for what it is

and really admire people that can create artistic music in the way that you do or any type of music so i just think it's such a gift and a talent of what you have and my brother and you know parents have and it's like that's why i always come over to cj's place late at night i went dude what have you been creating i want to hear all this stuff i think it's like the coolest thing in the world because i secretly want to be on glee so that's so funny we literally have the opposite um like family setup nobody in my family except for my grandpa is in music really play as i played music they're all like jocks yeah athletic i'm just so not i played basketball like terribly and then everything

else just like i'm not even gonna go there yeah so bad you got cut from the football oh yeah every team i think i got cut from the track team. I don't even know how that's possible. But I did. Well, it's good that you got cut because you've got a gift for this. And it's cool because, you know, CJ's not really online too much. You can go to – I'll have some links in here for his Twitter account, Instagram account. Make sure to follow him over there. And I'll put up images of his crazy Rod Stewart hair days when he was 15,

16 in the boy band. But you can also check out, I guess you have a page over at pulserecordings.com, I think. But there's not really much music of yours online. Is that right? Do you even have a SoundCloud with your music? No. I kind of like to keep under the radar. All my favorite producers, they stay under the radar.

Yeah. All your best stuff is on your hard drive it's all my hard drive it's crazy man it's so crazy on there but it's like some of the songs are starting to come out right yeah there's a few things trickling out now you did some stuff with uh cody simpson right and he's kind of a young up-and-coming star and yeah so did his last single that came out and yeah you know we he's in europe right now touring but he'll be back in two weeks and we're going to kind of finish up what we've been doing on his record.

Right. Um, so that's been, it's been really fun. It's very cool. And you're working with some other big names who are, you know, you said Carly Rae Jepsen right now you're working with her putting out her

next record, right? The whole, pretty much the whole thing or most of it. Dude, I have a few songs on it. Yeah. Very cool.

Which would be fun. She's so talented. Is she? Yeah. Like ridiculous. She's not just a one hit wonder. I don't think so at all i mean i think that song was massive it was genius but she's so good lyrically like in the studio vocally everything just really yeah and as a person it's awesome wow very cool who's the most talented artist you worked with so far hmm that's tough that is tough or maybe a couple people that you're like wow this person's

actually not just what their image is like in the world but they're actually really musically talented or so gifted that it was like whoa it kind of shocked you that you're like around them yeah well i mean adam lambert was absolutely amazing like really like just as you would expect yeah i heard the song i heard the song that you you guys did obviously the night but it was like he's this guy's got a voice he's got a voice and he knows what he wants you know he he knows himself he knows what he is and he just owns it so he's amazing um i love collaborating with have you ever met ben romans yet i don't think so he's the other half of my crazy weird project thing okay yeah you mentioned him he used to be in a band called The Click five years ago

that was very successful. But he is one of my favorite people to write with as well. He's just crazy musically talented. Wow. He'll just write a symphony just because he's bored and score it out and have all the parts written. Amazing. Yeah.

That's amazing. Now, tell me what it's like um when you're creating a song from scratch so when one of the the the people that you're working with is like okay here's an artist here's adam lambert or here's carly with jeffson and here's whoever like go how does it work when you guys get together how do you craft a song with them because you write a lot of the songs with some of these artists so how does that process actually work um it depends on every every single song is different yeah some songs i might just get inspired by myself and get weird alone at night and it usually starts on a piano and a loop like one quick drum loop and i'll just start

scatting the one thing that always stays the same is I do lyrics last. Really? Last, always. I never start with, unless it's like one word or one hook that the chorus is going to be, or like the concept of the song. That you have or the artist has. Yeah, or whoever it is. Or like, I want this to be about this.

Yeah. Here's a cool line or something. Like, oh, let's call this song Cigarette. And then I'll figure it out. But it's strictly gibberish. So once the chords are in, then I'll put the loop on with like one drum loop and one instrument whether it's a pad a guitar a piano and then i'll just pace around the room and just sing straight up gibberish like la la la la like yeah just just melodies just weird melodies and i have my phone and record and then okay that one

was good but that one was terrible and then i'll just kind of piece them apart and that that's like the first step of it getting them all in there so you put the chords down first okay and you come up with the chords yourself you're kind of like

okay here's what this could be exactly so it's a work in progress it might change but that's how it starts and then the melody is second okay

and once the melody is in there then that's when I start getting kind of a little bit weird with the math of it which is I mean

there are no rules but i have like certain things that i like to do like if the chorus is going to start on one then i'm going to make sure the pre-chorus does not start on one and the verse does not start on one it starts on the end or on two yeah and it helps build the energy especially if like the verse starts on two the pre starts on the upbeat and then the chorus the first thing to hit on the downbeat it'll make that chorus erupt wow a little more strong interesting yeah so i mean that's just one one little thing that i like to do a lot huh now how did you come up with this kind of method was it something you learned from another producer yeah i think just working with a ton of different people you pick

up on little things and is this what other people do as well like it's kind of similar some people think i'm crazy some people like you are too formulaic like what are you doing really yeah too formulaic is that what you said yeah and i don't i don't i just don't believe there's any actual like key right i don't think i don't know maybe there is but i don't have it sure and i think it's just a bunch of experimentation wow interesting and so after that's done then you come up with the lyrics yeah then i just fill in the blanks and scrabble you come up with like the the notes for you're like yeah that could be like i really want a sandwich or whatever that could be whatever it

is right and yeah but it always starts with gibberish melody for me interesting and then you write the lyrics and you put it all together yeah and then it's just making sure that everything you know is phonetically correct and sounds good right wow and it could take a couple hours or it could take weeks right yeah to do one song i mean i've spent weeks on songs before really and like and the artist will come with you and just meet with you for the whole time pretty much or wow just stuck in the studio yeah generally it's like it's two days i usually black out two days like per per song with whoever i'm working with like 9 a..m. to 6 p.m. or longer? I usually start at noon and go until whenever,

like 10, 11 for the first writing day. And the second day, we'll come back. And do you come back at night and kind of work on it yourself? Yeah, I always do. That's when you're up until like 4 a.m.? Yeah, so I come back and that's when I start doing all the editing and piecing it together. Or I work on other things that I'm way late on.

Right. Because I'm way late on. Right. Because I'm just behind on everything always at all times. And then you come back the next day and kind of try to tighten it up and see, does this work? Exactly. Let's listen to it again with fresh ears. It's the fresh ear thing. And I really believe in that. Wow.

Interesting. And so you do this a number of times with a lot of different artists. But you said before, some of this stuff may not come out ever. Yes. Or maybe years. Ever sometimes. I mean, plenty of times i've worked with artists and they've been like i love this i can't wait to put it out and then it just doesn't come out whether there's lit problems with the label or the label doesn't like it or whatever it is they just won't come out and then they may love it though the artist yeah and they may love it and it might not matter

it's every every situation is different well but, that's happened to me quite a few times. Wow. That's got to be really frustrating though. It is, yeah, but you've got to keep trucking on. You can't cerebralize. You just have to keep moving and don't let anything bother you. Wow, that's crazy. Now what's your ultimate dream then?

What's your goal for this business or your life in this business? I just want to keep on doing what I'm doing right now with production and eventually be able to create my own company where i could sign writers and producers to it and then kind of have everything be self-sustainable in one so you basically want to be you know max at some point where you're kind of like have your own team that's like the ultimate dream but where you have like artists coming to you yeah and then you you work on you have your team working on the initial stuff and you're kind of going in and like that doesn't sound good that sounds good change this change that exactly you're putting together the deals i just i like having a communal environment that's fun things and i think i would

love to have something like that where not a lot of people just you know two or three people that's cool that also do the same thing and have us all working together and critiquing each other that's really cool yeah that's the dream i like it how far away do you think you are how many years i have my 10-year plan so we'll see see if that folds out there you go nice very cool man well uh want to wrap it up with the uh the final question this is a question i ask all my guests uh so you're in good company but it's what is your definition of greatness my definition of greatness i think it's being able to wake up every single morning excited about what you're doing and then go to bed feeling completely content there you go that's it i love it where can we uh what's the best place to connect with you

instagram or twitter uh i mean i rarely use my twitter instagram i'm on it i'm trying to not be on it as much yeah there's only so many plates of spaghetti that you can actually look at before you're losing your mind. Or selfies. Or selfies. Yeah, exactly. Because we both love those. Yeah. So what are you at?

CJ Barron? Yep. Okay, cool. I'll link it up in the show notes. CJ, I'll make sure to tell everyone to go watch the weird art production when it comes out in LA. Yes, please. It may be a few months. It may be a year.

Who knows? We don't know. But I'll make sure to spread the word. And if people want to listen to any of your music, how can they? Do they just have to wait until something comes out on the radio? Exactly. Follow you on Instagram. Instagram.

And you'll post about it. I usually post about what's coming out. Like the artist you're working with. Yep. You've got pictures with Carly Rae in the studio and all these other artists sometimes. So you'll be promoting it, letting people know when stuff coming out. Like the artists you're working with. Yep. You've got pictures with like, you know, Carly Rae in the studio and all these other artists sometimes. So you'll be promoting it, letting people know

when stuff comes out. Exactly. Awesome. I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for coming on, bro. Take care. And I hope you guys

enjoyed this episode with CJ. Again, check out the show notes over at lewishouse.com slash 74 to see some of the cool stuff that CJ has done, what he's working on. Check out the image of his crazy hair from back in the pop band boy days, back when he was a teenager. And learn how you can stay in tune with the cool art project that he has coming up in the future. So we'll have it all over at the show notes over at lewishouse.com slash 74.

Again, it's a pleasure to be back in the States and recording episodes for this podcast. Thanks to all of you loyal fans for sticking around for a couple weeks while we didn't have any new episodes. But make sure if you're just joining us to go ahead and download and listen to some of the past episodes. And again, we've got 74 great episodes from some of the most inspiring men and women all over the world doing amazing, incredible things. Check them all out over at lewishouse.com. Please subscribe over on iTunes or check it out over on soundcloud.com slash lewishouse over on Stitcher and everywhere you can listen to podcasts online. So thanks so much again for tuning in everyone

and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. from that starting point i've never forgotten those things like you said i never forget those true things that you stick to the basic things that that uh you know make you successful and and for me it's that truth, finding that truth, the truth of the moment of where I am at the time. You know, not trying to cater to a certain demographic. You know, not being something I'm not, not driving a truck over a bridge to value, you know, the whole thing. Like, there's so many similarities.

What you do need is emotional stability. You have to be able to think independently. When you come to a conclusion, you have to really not care what other people say and just follow the facts and follow your reasoning. And that's tough for a lot of people. That part I think I was just lucky with. I was born that way. I think that really is much more important, frankly,

than having a few points of IQ or having an extra course or two in school or anything of the sort. You need emotional stability. Outro Music