Josh Simons & The Music Business

Josh: Wait a minute! Crossface, the Daily Talk Show. A conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show from Los Angeles and from Las Feliz.

Tommy: Yeah, I love the name of this place, Las Feliz.

Josh: But there's billboards There's billboards all around here that the whole marketing purpose is to take the mickey out of how everyone says it differently. So there'll be ads for like Mexican tequila or something and they'll say where we pronounce it, Los Feliz, you know? And so they take, 'cause everyone here says it differently and there are, this is quite a diverse little pocket of LA, definitely.

Tommy: And so that's the voice of, not to confuse things, another Josh on the show.

Josh: We've actually had multiple Joshes throughout our trip. Josh Simons though, you're hearing right now.

Josh: I'm auditioning to replace you. Exactly, yeah.

Josh: He hasn't told me, but this whole trip is just heaps of auditions. Oh, he told me.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: On what?

Josh: Were we not meant to?

Tommy: Okay. Yeah, we'll get to the big crescendo at the end where Josh is leaving the show and Josh Symonds is entering. Look, no, Josh is, we grew up together. Yes. Went to the same school. You were the year below, weren't you?

Josh: I think I was two. I was the year below Lewis.

Tommy: Okay, so we had Rhys Mitchell on the show.

Josh: Let me explain Lewis.

Tommy: Yeah, we had Rhys Mitchell on the show and Rhys's brother. Is we all went to high school together. So it's this, you know, there's quite a bit of nostalgia there. But what I did love, Josh Simons, about your house, and I don't know if this was intentional, I went to the toilet before, you've got an Aussie flushing system.

Josh: Yes, that is actually not intentional, but I think the local hardware store is like trying to faze that 'cause the old ones are disgusting. They got the levers and it's really gross and they waste so much water. Have you noticed how high the water comes up in the basin of a US toilet? You can see the full shit.

Josh: It's like they're molding. It or something.

Josh: If you really need to go, there's no way you're not going to get some splashback.

Tommy: It's crazy.

Josh: Yeah, we just— as I told you guys on the way in, like, we flipped this apartment about 2 weeks ago, or a week ago maybe. Um, anyway, and we had a whole bunch of options of like what tiles you want, what floorboards, what toilets, and they had that. And so I just— yeah, I was like, it's a no-brainer.

Josh: Australia.

Josh: Yeah, this feels Australian.

Tommy: So I, I felt quite at home here.

Josh: The water still spins the wrong way though. It does that, just like The Simpsons.

Tommy: Yeah, didn't they get a generator to spin it back the other way?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, we did.

Tommy: Josh, the funny thing, like, I haven't seen you in years, but social media and, you know, within your peripheral on social media, you see what someone's up to.

Josh: Of course.

Tommy: And I've seen what you've been up to. You've been doing some cool shit. You've got your music, Buchanan. You opened for Keith Urban.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: That was a crazy time. I was watching that as you were going around Australia. And you've launched a tech start up. Yeah, it's cool. I, I love that you don't even need to— not that I didn't want to speak to you, but it's like you, you literally can see what someone's doing for their life.

Josh: You get the highlight reel anyway, right?

Tommy: You totally do.

Josh: Yeah, well, that's— and that, that's a whole different like chat, right? Because, um, I was talking to an ex not long ago and we hadn't spoken in like 3 years, and I said, from, from what I've seen here and there, it seems like you're doing really good. And she said, well, yeah, that's by design. I was like, all right, she wasn't doing— she wasn't doing very well. But, but the point is, is that it's definitely obviously like you curate what you put on online, right? Everyone's a publisher. And, um, certainly, especially actually since launching Vampr, the tech startup, um, it was important knowing that there was people with money that were constantly— like, if I put up a post on LinkedIn, it gets viewed by like sometimes tens of thousands of people, and almost all of them are either venture capitalists or fellow founders. So like, it has to be curated. Um, and I've never wanted a personal account, um, because I don't really think that anyone will get anything out of finding out what I'm eating for breakfast. But But I actually did start a personal Instagram only a week or two ago 'cause part of this meditation thing I'm doing is—

Josh: Setting up an Instagram account.

Josh: Yes, that's right. It was called 365 Grateful. Australian girl invented the idea and originally she did it with Polaroids and real photos, but she had everything going for her, lots of money, great kids, loved her husband, but she was just depressed. And I was not in that situation at all, but I was talking a lot with like, I guess like healers and stuff here, uh, this idea of like if you keep focusing on what's going wrong, of course you'll be in a constant negative mindspace, so, or headspace. So the idea was like changing that mindset by, um, purposely like, because it's really hard. The first 3 days is really easy because you do your wife, your dog, your apartment, your shoes, and then, and then you're like, oh shit, I need to— are we allowed to swear on this? Yeah, okay, great. So it's like, fuck, I need to, I need to work out, um, what actually is making me grateful today. So it's going to be a picture of you guys at the end because it's really cool.

Josh: I thought it was your new toilet.

Josh: That was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's tomorrow's now. Thank you.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: So that's been really cool. So that's the only personal Instagram I've ever had, but you're right. So I understand what you're saying definitely that like you can go home. Sometimes I go home and like, I remember one time I got back from a trip in England, I was standing in line to like, do you remember Seven Nightclub? Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah. Frequent. Yes.

Josh: I frequent. Yeah, I know.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: We probably did some damage together.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: Very good.

Josh: Is it still around? I don't know. I wouldn't know.

Tommy: I went there actually a couple of years ago.

Josh: You're still— they still let you in? I thought you had to be under 18 to get in.

Tommy: Complete reno, if you wanted to know, Josh.

Josh: This is actually a sick thing, Josh, where you've gone away living your life and Tommy's been going to the same nightclub doing the same thing.

Josh: I managed to have a baby and get married and to start a business. See, I've seen that, and that's that thing is like I've been following your life, but not sitting there every morning bookmark Tommy Jack, I've got to cheque his Instagram, but you see these things. I totally understand you're saying Well, I was just standing in a nightclub one night and this dude was like, congratulations on this single coming out like on this day. And he knew more, I swear to God, I'm not even exactly— he knew more about Buchanan than I did because he— because I didn't always do every post, right? There's a team and then you got publicists and you and publishers and all kinds of things and release dates. And this guy was— and I haven't seen him since high school and he knew everything about Buchanan. I was kind of blown away. It's lovely.

Tommy: Yeah, it's social media.

Josh: It's a strange thing.

Tommy: It's fascinating. You've always been a creative type. I mean, I remember borrowing your camera. Yeah. Back when I was probably 18, you were still at school. Yeah. And you were massively into editing.

Josh: I cut your video clip about Kopi Luwak.

Tommy: Yeah, I made a video, guys. I've still actually got it.

Josh: I've got it too, and I'm happy to put this up.

Josh: Yeah, push it over to you guys.

Tommy: It's so embarrassing. It is so fucking embarrassing.

Josh: There's a hard drive over here. I know this is an audio show, but there's a 4TB hard drive over there and it's got everything I've ever done creative that I don't want to lose. And I think yours was the first ever. You paid me for that to edit it. And it's the first ever.

Josh: It's the first ever.

Tommy: It's coming back.

Josh: It was like $20 something, but it was the first ever paid gig I'd ever had in video. And so it was like a really— I was always very proud of that.

Tommy: That's dead set. So what was it actually? Nice to know that.

Josh: Yeah, I'm wrapped.

Tommy: We can watch it on the internet. I'm a scumbag paying you $20.

Josh: $20. I think it's good.

Josh: I asked for $25 and he wouldn't budge.

Tommy: Always been a haggler.

Josh: GST inclusive. I mean, what are we talking? Yeah.

Tommy: What was the video?

Josh: Do you remember?

Tommy: So when I was— this is when I was wanting to be a presenter, and so I decided, fuck it.

Josh: Sorry, what's this?

Tommy: I wanted to be a TV presenter, and so I was like, look, I just— Jules Larn was like, mate, you need to get a camera and do your own segment. So I wrote this segment and it was all about Kopi Luwak, which is a coffee that is eaten by these little monkey-looking cat things in Thai— in, in, sorry, Indonesia. And they eat the coffee beans off the tree, shit them out, and then these poor bastards have to go through the bush looking for this shit, and then they take the shit, they take the coffee out of the poo, and then they roast it, grind it, and serve it. And it's about $25 a cup.

Josh: I thought it was like $80 a cup.

Tommy: Yeah, it's probably gone up now.

Josh: It's a lot of money.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so we went up to Sydney— Rhys Mitchell, myself, James Campden.

Josh: Big investment.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it was a huge trip. And so we went up there and we went to this place. This— I organised it, I produced it. And we all went there and filmed. And so I took Josh's camera. I remember going around to your house in Hampton to pick it up. And then, uh, I can't remember, I think we just took turns shooting and I did this interview and Josh cut it together. And yeah, surprisingly it came together, but it was a, um, it was very crappy, as in my presenting was horrible.

Josh: But also I think I remember even, and I didn't have an eye back then, I was like, I thought I did, but I definitely didn't. But like you know, it was all out of focus, like it was so soft and there was no depth of field and the colours are all a bit muted. There was nothing we could do because that format was like— it was the best camera you could get at the time for shooting stuff like that.

Josh: It's like mini DV.

Josh: It was like—

Josh: was it Panasonic? It was a Panasonic CCD. Yeah, I had the same one. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And you put—

Josh: you'd put like the— it had like the, um, input to be able to add external mics.

Josh: That's right, that's right.

Josh: Yeah, but I was wrapped, I think, because, um Channel V was using it or some shit. I think I saw it in like Australian Idol behind the scenes, but I was like, this is fucking legit.

Josh: I'm doing it, I'm living the dream. I think, you know, well, DSLRs changed the game only like a couple of years later in a big way.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: And, and so did like things like RED and stuff like that. But it's so funny to even talk about film now, especially being like, I have not done anything in film since 2009.

Tommy: We—

Josh: I did that, I did like a Coldplay video clip video thing. Yeah, they got like selected as like one of their winners of like this unofficial video clip.

Tommy: That was the keyboard.

Josh: Yeah, that's the keyboard one. And it was great. I edited that and I was using all like Final Cut, like no, no plug-in. I don't even know if there are video, but like, I don't know how I worked that out. But I, I, I would like— I had a brain. I was— I think I was good at filmmaking. I don't know.

Josh: You were good.

Josh: That was the last thing I did.

Tommy: Yeah, and tech was always harder. And Josh has been that guy too who's been doing it when it was hard. Now You can go in, buy your Mac, buy a camera. It's all—

Josh: I remember rendering times isn't really—

Josh: oh my God, I remember having a Windows computer like in the late '90s and I wanted to do an animation, so I drew MS Paint and then I'd use the rubber to get rid of like an arm and I'd redraw it and I'd export it. And I understood frame rates even then, so like I'd put it into Windows Movie Maker and give them all one frame. And this was, this was hard to do that. What I'm talking about was like, I guess I had no friends at that time because I must have had a lot of time to do shit like this, but Um, and I remember I'd make these like 3— they were only 3 seconds long because that's like 60 exports, right?

Josh: Takes you 10 hours, right?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and they were horrible. It was like Johnny Bravo surfing on a beach. But it was stuff like that is always like, what can I do just to fuck shit up and try something new? That's— that hasn't changed. I guess I'm doing that now like on a much bigger level that impacts more, way more people. Um, yeah, that's funny, man.

Josh: How do you, uh, pick which thing you're gonna do? Like, if you've got I'm sort of lucky in the sense of that I'm not talented in that many things. So it's very— it's not like I can play a fucking guitar or do any of that shit. So it's very easy. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna talk and do videos because that's all I can do. When you can actually do a bunch of different things, how do you decide I'm going to be a muso or I'm going to double down on film stuff?

Josh: Um, well, one, there's a couple of things that everything I've ever done have in common, and I've only learned this in hindsight. Uh, one is it all involves working with other people. And finding good people is like one of the hardest things to do in the world. So, um, there's that. And that— so I guess the point I'm making there is it doesn't really matter whether it's making a song or working on the business or running the label, it's all, it's all person-to-person interactions and, and stuff and people management. So there's that. And then the other side is like, what, what, what is going to make me like, it feel an inspiration today kind of thing. So obviously there's some things that can't be avoided. Like if you have, um, say at the business you've got a deadline— I can't even think of a good example— but like there's 3 or 4 things that have to happen today or else the servers will crash, and, and you haven't done some compliance stuff on the, on the state side and you could get a fine. And so that's obviously going to take precedent, right? But that's all the stuff that I can knock out between 9 and midday, and that's generally what happens. I'll get up open the computer, get through the compliance stuff, and then the afternoon's definitely more creative. Like, I try not to have more than one meeting a day. I learned that the hard way when you first get to LA. You go meeting, meeting, meeting. And it's one of my consultants here, um, he's actually an English bloke, but he'd been living here for 4 years, and he's like, you love a good meeting, don't you? And I was like, he was so right. And I— they suck. I mean, first of all, meetings over here are all jazz hands, so it's like, um It's, you know, this is great, it's fantastic, we're going to catch you again soon, you know, you, you hook in with my secretary, we'll make it happen and we'll revert next week. What? Just, is there something here or not? So that's more, I mean, that's the Australian sort of way of doing things. So I try, as a result of that, I'll try never to have more than one meeting a day. And then like I say, like the afternoon into the evening is usually very creative. But sometimes being creative can be, um, working on a spreadsheet. I don't know how to explain that, but it can be like, to solve problems is for me is creativity. And that was what I was going to say is the second thing that they all have in common. It's all problem solving. So when you're writing a song and you're trying to get a group of people and who are feeling it, like, in some ways, yeah, it's creative. And you shouldn't analyze— you shouldn't spend too much time analysing what makes it creative, just like with film. But it is, it's problem solving. You know, I've got an idea, how do I get that idea from, from the brain to the world? Because you are— whether you're creating a song or a piece of film or a business, you're creating something from nothing.

Tommy: It's—

Josh: you're actually constructing from thin air. So I can jump very easily, to answer your original question, very easily between any of these things because it's all creative, it's all problem solving, and it's all people.

Tommy: Yeah, it does. It— I mean, that sort of what you— where the trajectory you've gone on from making videos, doing music, to then creating a company. The, the company that you do have is not a far stretch from music, but having a company is not being a musician. No, it's a very different thing.

Josh: So can you explain Vampr to people who don't know what it is?

Josh: Yeah, um, so, uh, I think like the easiest way to explain it— it's quite simple. The, the one sentence line is like LinkedIn for musicians or Tinder for musicians, depending on how old you are and whether the advertising hits you in a certain city or not. But, um, so it's like, it's pretty simple, but it's, uh, the tech is definitely not simple. Um, it's, uh, actually incredibly complicated. Um, and basically, so every, every musician in the world has spent years building up an Instagram page, a YouTube page, a SoundCloud page, a Facebook page, Twitter page. We take all of that stuff, throw it in, uh, in an instant with a single press of a button into, um, into our backend. And that sort of calculates how people might be related to one another in a millisecond. Um, and then it suggests potential collaborators. Um, should we let the dog in? Because sure, yeah, I think we might have to hold on.

Tommy: We've got a dog situation here. Yeah, Breathe, breathe.

Josh: Bear has had too much time in the sun.

Tommy: Yeah, it is hot here in LA. I downloaded the app, um, last week. I downloaded a while ago, like when I saw it, saw you, it created—

Josh: first doing it.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, I jumped on and, and you're totally right. It's like, for me, I guess I'm the Tinder, um, demograph that should—

Josh: I'm not that I'm married with one kid, not that I'm exactly—

Tommy: yeah, I get it. You swipe left if you don't want, you Is it swipe right? It is.

Josh: So what I guess— it's funny because we, we have to talk about it in quite a technical way, you know, when you're trying to get money or even when you're trying to talk to like a potential partner like a Capitol Records or whoever we're collaborating with. Um, and you— yeah, it's easy to say, oh, we use the Tinder model, but it's actually binary decision making, which is a really, from like a scientific point of view, a super effective way to not only make decisions but also to, to provide data back to the person presenting the options, which then informs future choices. So it's not just I'm saying no to this girl who lives in Albuquerque because I don't like her music. It's also we take like all the other things that might be a characteristic of her, and then fact— and then there's some machine learning there that makes our backend tell the user who might be a good option next. So it's, it's really quite complicated. Like, it's, it's definitely— it's a little bit of AI, it's a bit of machine learning, it's all proprietary. We built this from scratch, um, and it was just an idea in, in the head, just like a like a song was. Yeah, but, um, that's what it is in a— like, it's, um, it's a professional— it's, it's linked— like I said, it's LinkedIn for the musicians. It's a professional network for the music ecosystem. And I think the cool thing is everyone else out there in our space is targeting music professionals who— like, there's only about 400,000 in the world who are actually making money from music. Um, we're not targeting that because every year there's like millions of kids who pick up their first ever instrument and in the ages of like 13 or even 6 when they— and, and they become potential musicians, right? But the, the system says music's not a real path. Um, this is one of the reasons why we made Vamper. The system said music is not a professional, or like, it's not a role or a route you should go in life because you can't make real money, which is not true. Um, so a careers counsellor will beat that out of a child, and school will beat that out of a kid, and sports scene is more viable than music. And we wanted to address that really. And that's like a much larger audience than most people realize. There's— we went through about a decade's worth of census data from as many countries as we could get our hands on it, and we extrapolated a figure of just under 1 billion people who have played an instrument or own an instrument in the last 12 months. No one's ever done that research before, and there's a reason. And so we're trying to sort of get to the bottom of that. And our long-term vision here is that actually we'll do a lot of good on the education side of things, even though we're not selling it like that. That's part of the reason why it's been so sticky, is we're selling it as like the Tinder sex gamification fun, because networking is not fun, it's laborious and a pain in the ass. But if you can find a way to gamify something like networking, especially in a field where they say there is no future for you, um, I think it could be worth a bit of money. So that was the kind of reasons why we got into it.

Josh: What have you learned from having all of that data? What do people actually care about when it comes to picking someone to collaborate with?

Josh: Um, so one of the things, probably one of the most important things, is how complete a profile is. And that should— I mean, some of the things you learn also, by the way, aren't groundbreaking. They're just like, they confirm hypotheses that you would have. Um, so for example, most people who don't include a song or a YouTube video in their account won't get any love. Um, now you'd think that would be obvious, but it's, it's not when the person's making their account. It's obvious to them when they're searching that I want to see what this person's all about. So generally speaking, like, we'll send out a push notification once a month saying profiles that are get 75% more love. It's true, you know, that's a stat, you know, you can't argue that. Um, so that's the big one. Um, females, because there's a lack of females in the industry, get much more attention. It's easy to be cynical and say they get much more attention for other reasons, and there's a little bit of that. Um, but definitely, um, there's a lack of female top-liners in music, and, uh, so they get a lot of love. I mean, I think the last time we ran a report on what people are looking for Producers are generally— because you've got to remember, it's not just what people are looking for, it starts with what they are first.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: So a producer is generally looking for a top-liner, an artist is generally looking for a producer. So you could argue that you could make an MV, like a little product that just connected those two niches, but I'd say that that would be way too small and not worth anyone's time or money.

Josh: You know, drummers seem to get like this certain— there's a stigma to drummers that they move around a lot, or—

Josh: and bass players.

Josh: Yeah. I mean, is that data— like, are you actually finding points where you're like 'Ah, this is interesting, more drummers are moving around,' or—

Josh: I wouldn't be able to tell you that without having something in front of me.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: But I will say that when we were chatting earlier in the year with Dadario, they were interested in finding out specifically where certain kinds of players, like a drummer for example, were living, because that could help with their supply chain in terms of what, you know, guitar sticks— sorry, drumsticks, guitar strings, and what they send to different stores. So there's like a million different ways you can use the Vampr data, and I think that's what the industry is excited about right now with our businesses, it's not just how many people listen to Drake, which we can track that too, which is really cool. In fact, the coolest data point I think we had all of last year was we knew well before he was announced as the Coachella headline, the demand for Eminem, like in general as an artist, was higher by creatives. And generally speaking, creatives are the curators of the world. And a lot of that is invisible. But we knew by a factor of 2 to the second most popular artist on our platform, Eminem had somehow surged that year. Um, and there was no indicators that he was going to be doing all these— this big festival run and these big stadium shows. But we could see the demand there before it was announced. And then when it was announced, it was total vindication of like of this insight that we had.

Tommy: Crazy.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So how many users are on Vamper? Like how much data?

Josh: Yeah, we're now dealing with— I think we're just over half a million, um, which is, uh, way more than we ever expected to do with our original seed. Because, uh, the seed is funding for, for those playing along. And, um, I think we, we raised about about $900K over a 3-year period and spent it over a 3-year period. And we thought if we got to $100,000, we'd be laughing. So we've done pretty good, like we've gotten further. But I honestly think we'd have a reasonable chance within the next 5 years of reaching about $90 million. And that's what we're aiming for. That's what we're aiming for.

Josh: When did you go from being a muso to being an entrepreneur?

Josh: Well, you are definitely an entrepreneur as a musician. So every musician's an entrepreneur because whether you realise it, and this is part of what the Vamper thing is again, but whether you like it or not, let's just say you're doing a show at the Corner Hotel. You've got some—

Tommy: Great bar in Melbourne.

Josh: Yeah, great bar in Melbourne. Great music venue. You've got someone who's making your merchandise. You've got someone who's running the merch stand. You've got a lighting guy. You've got a monitor engineer. You've got a sound engineer. You've got the promoter to deal with. You might have an agent. If you have a manager, you're dealing with them too. There's fans. So there's this supply chain. We worked it out once. Tends to be about, even at the smallest club show, um, about 27 different roles of people that you indirectly work with. So all musicians are entrepreneurs. And I think, um, is that a big misconception to musos?

Josh: Do you think they don't want to admit it?

Josh: Even, even when they do finally realize, oh my God, I'm this capitalist piece of crap, um, no, they, they are running small businesses because everyone's taking their little cheque along the way. In fact, the biggest crime is that the musicians who are running this whole thing usually walk away at the smallest amount. You know, the sound guy gets his $500, the musician, after they've paid everyone along the way, will be I was lucky to go home with $20 and they got 3 beers and a rider, you know.

Tommy: And I said to Josh, um, today that I've always thought that you were a real hustler with your music, which I think is entrepreneurial spirit.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But, but I've always thought that it's a different, different area to play in than creating a company.

Josh: But I signed a record deal with Inertia and it was crap, um, and I fell out with them. And then I did, uh, and they do like Adele and Bon Iver in Australia and stuff like that. And so that, that didn't work out so well. Um, what does that actually look like? What did that deal look like? Yeah, that was the reason why it didn't work out so well. It's not actually their fault. Um, they— I was so green, so they presented me what was a record deal, but it was actually just what's called a P&D, a physical and digital. Um, and that doesn't include a marketing budget, but it has the option to. And so they sort of took the approach of, well, you've got a song on Triple J right now, and it's getting— looks like there could be some crossover appeal with the mainstream radio stations. 'But we're gonna sit and wait before we offer some money.' And I was like, 'Well, it's chicken and egg, guys. We don't get the next single on the radio without getting a video.' So it felt like you were sat on? I was sat on. We were 100% sat on. But then in the meantime, and this is what really impressed, I think, my manager of the time— fuck me, I go through a lot of managers— but this guy Michael Lynch, he's Tim Minchin's manager. But he was impressed with the fact that even despite that, we managed to get another song out there, brand new one, probably the biggest song we ever had in Australia called 'Run Fast.' master. Um, and I did that through my own label. So then I realised that was— and that's why— and that was at that point I sort of stopped trying to chase a record deal. I, you know, we'd had offers from Sony, had a huge offer from Universal, and I sometimes regret not taking that. But at the same time, I wouldn't have been able to do Vamp without having run a record label for 6 years, which I did. Um, and again, that's where you learn what it really means to to run a small business. Vamp is a different level though. We've got a board and I have shareholders and shareholder letters.

Tommy: Is it— do you sometimes think, fuck, it was actually easier just being a musician?

Josh: Oh yeah, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, absolutely. I wish I'd sometimes— I mean, the Keith Urban thing came up after I genuinely thought— I put out Pressure and Empty Space, Buchanan's second record, in April 2016, and I had finally, for the first time ever, made my peace that I was done with music. And then Barry Palmer, who signed me to my first ever record deal and is my partner on, on Vamper, he and I jumped on a plane to launch Vamper at Metem in France. And while I was there, APRA, who's the like the songwriting collection company—

Josh: yeah, I looked up on their website when I had an internet radio show, but I was only getting about 10 listeners a day, so I felt like if there was only enough people listening that you could fit into my bedroom, that I shouldn't have to worry about licensing. Very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're dealing with APRA?

Josh: Yeah, well, APRA called me out of the blue and said, can you come and have lunch? And I came there and they said, um, your song is going to be the winner's single on The Voice this year and we need you to sign this deal. Um, I don't know why APRA was handling it because I ended up dealing with Universal. But, um, and then I realized, okay, I might have a career here as a songwriter outside of Buchanan, because until then everything music I did, I traded under Buchanan, but no one ever overseas knew who that was. So I had to make a choice, like, am I Josh Simons now?

Tommy: Or—

Josh: because I've started to have my fingers in all these different eyes. I didn't know which thing to follow. Then the next day, literally the next day, my agent, who I hadn't spoken to in like a year, called me and said, um, Keith Urban wants you to open for him. And so I'd quit. Like, Buchanan was dead. I'd already announced that it was the final show at the Workers Club some months before.

Tommy: You've pulled a Jimmy Barnes coming out of retirement.

Josh: I had actually quit though, and I was done. Um, I don't think I've ever said that like to any— I've told my friends that, but I thought I was done. And then, um, there was like this validation. I think that was the universe saying don't give up. Up because, um, I was pretty beat down. I have friends who like done really well in companies and climbed the ladder and done incredible things, but I was always creating something from nothing and I wasn't ever given validation. Like, um, so that was hard. And it was like, you know, and especially when you'd be— I was in a band for like 4 or 5 years. It's very hard to get your friends to go to shows after that amount of time. They've seen the set a thousand times, um, you're constantly hustling. You said it before, Tommy, and, um, it's not the most rewarding thing in the world. So because, I mean, you're not doing it for, uh, recognition, but you kind of— you also want that someone to be there.

Josh: What were you doing it for, do you think?

Josh: Um, oh, I, I know that I can write, um, big songs that connect with people because, um, now it has. Like, just historically, I've done, I've done that. And, um, there's something very validating about accomplishing that. I don't, I don't know. I mean, but you— it is nice when you have someone that you know validating you too, right? Like, you can't— like, it's one— it's funny, Vamp has connected— we've facilitated 3.5 million connections around the world. That's changed the music landscape, whether anyone wants to admit that or not. It has changed, changed music in some way, um, and it's affected 500,000 people, right? But I would care so much more if just like a group of people that I knew were like, that's incredible, you know. It's a strange thing. It's a very strange thing. Like, um, yeah, I don't know.

Tommy: And so the Keith Urban thing, that was— what happens? What's your mindset when you've gone, I was done and now I have to strap my shoes, strap my boots on?

Josh: Um, there's definitely boots that are Keith Urban.

Tommy: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, cowboy hat.

Josh: The first thing I did was go to the gym. I was like, I have to lose 20 pounds. And I got— okay, it took me about 6 months to get in shape, and then I put it straight back on as soon as I finished up. But, um, so yeah, the first thought was time to get fit and stop smoking for a while and get that voice working again. And so there was like a really positive influence on my life because it kept me behaving for about 6 months.

Josh: How did he find you?

Josh: Um, he saw my TED Talk and he loved it. Actually, his trainer saw my TED Talk and then he passed it on to him. Um, me and Keith actually got along really well like throughout the tour, and we— so we— I did get to ask him things like that without being like, how did you find me? Yeah, you know, what was your TED Talk about? Um, uh, not too different than what we're talking about today. It's kind of what have you done and why, why did you do it?

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: Um, it's— and then you played, and then we played. So our TED Talk was cool. Yeah, because we, we did one song and then I did a talk. It was actually a very awkward thing to finish a song and then pick up the mic and start talking to people. It was a bit, um, required a bit of confidence. Uh, and I didn't like the talk, so I actually had them pull it.

Tommy: Really?

Josh: The, the, the, um, talk that I'd practised I thought was great and then I got there and they make you do the talk the day before, and I'd learned like the headings and I wanted to do a bit of a stream of conscious, but I knew I had a time limit to keep it within.

Josh: It's 18 minutes.

Josh: It's 18 minutes. That's— well, yeah, there you go. It's actually 15, but they give you— they tell you like, oh, you can have an extra 3 minutes if you want, because they know that you'll go over anyway. Um, so I prepared really hard for that speech, much more than the show, um, and we were doing 3 new songs from an album that no one even knew was coming, right? So it was a big day.

Josh: —And then what part of the world were you in?

Josh: Sydney, Macquarie University. Yeah. And so then, um, I got up the day before and we had to do the practise run. They said, oh, you need to practise your speech, we need to see what— And I said, I'm not going to do that. And they said, no, you have to. And I was like, it's really going to screw things up for tomorrow. And they said, you have to. And I said, okay, fine. Did it. That was fine, it was great. And then they go, got some producer notes. And they said, can you move this? And but the thing is, they said, can you move this section here to that bit there? And it was all about like like how my dad dying when I was young kind of led me to want to push harder, and I realised the interconnectivity, blah blah blah blah blah.

Josh: Don't talk structure the day before.

Josh: So I took— no, I thought, no, you know what, you can be bitter or you can take them— they know what they're doing, they've done this before. I took them— I took their advice to heart, and I came out there and I did it the way they said it. And there was— there's one shot in the video, it's so fucking funny. This woman turns to her friend, she goes, what the fuck is he talking about? And you can read her lips. And then I saw that during the edit and because I think they couldn't post-cut it. Like, it was live edited, right? And it was printed or maxed or whatever the word is. So, um, we were stuck with it. And I just thought that one— I feel like that too, watching it back. I was like, what am I going on about? But if I'd done the day before, that would have been good. But so Keith saw it and he liked it. Keith saw the performance side of it. Um, so he— yeah, he— because they had— by that point, I mean, it never came out, the actual talk. It was live streamed to 10,000 people, but unless you were those 10— one of those 10,000 people, um, you would never have seen the speech. So everyone else has just seen the, um, the performance, which was bloody awesome. I'm really— it's one of the proudest things I've ever done.

Tommy: I love it as a creative, just knowing that you can do something and not know in the moment what it will do for you. Yeah, but it can change everything.

Josh: Well, so the lesson I learned there, and, and every day actually, just in anything is if generally when you put effort into the universe, it will reward you in some way.

Tommy: Just as a blanket statement, being tired, being really tired, needing to go to bed could be one of them.

Josh: Yeah, well, going to bed is refilling the bucket, right? Which gives you the energy, energy to do the next day. So anything you do— but I've had months, definitely, especially in the early years, like the— or the middle year of Vampr, actually, where I knew that I had to sit at my computer every day and just invite people and, and go on Craigslist to every little suburb around the world and mention it. Like, there's all these little growth hacking things that I knew if we didn't do— there was no quick way to do them. We couldn't hire someone to do them. We'd have to do them ourselves and do it really well. And so 2017 was like a real grind, right? But it— and, and I guess the thing I got back from that was a nice healthy user base. But what I wasn't doing during that time was like, I wasn't writing music, I wasn't spending effort on Friends. And then all of a sudden I was like, like, why aren't I getting opportunities? Yeah, why doesn't anyone want to hang out? And it was— the answer was really obvious. Well, you're not putting effort into those parts.

Josh: But isn't it interesting that, uh, you were talking about the fact that you were about to give, like, you know, finish up all that music stuff. Yeah. And then you get the call about Keith. Yeah. I've noticed that in life sometimes when we turn our back to the thing that we're really pushing hard for, yeah, it comes towards us. Have you, have you thought about that? And is it an approach that you've, you've applied to what you're doing today?

Josh: You can't force that. You have to genuinely be about to give up. And you have to genuinely— because that influences— you certainly can't, like, you can't sort of say out loud and wink to the guy up in the sky, "I'm done today." Yeah, that doesn't work. Yeah, because the woman in that audience would be like, "What the fuck's he talking about? He's been doing too much DMT or something." Um, no, you can't fake that. And look, there's— I can't really probably talk about it so much right now, but this happened recently where I thought I was done with something and and then something came around that made sure I wasn't done with that thing. Yeah, um, how vague. But it does happen in life, and definitely I've observed that pattern. And I think it happens with relationships too, and it can go both ways there. Like with it, um, with the partner, if you're thinking I'm truly done now, oftentimes that'll be the start of something really special and a bit of, uh, some sort of turnaround. And then other times it'll also be like that moment where you're both like, yeah, we're just really good mates. Yeah, you know, and that happens.

Tommy: And I think business could mean that you then meet your life partner after that. Exactly. Which is a positive, but it's wrapped up in this thing where it feels like it's not.

Josh: We're dealing in so much clichés today, but yeah, things happen for a reason.

Tommy: No, but life is full of clichés. Business partnerships.

Josh: Tommy and I have just started a business together.

Josh: I'm sorry. What's it like? What's it been like so far? It's been, it's been good. Co-CEO. I'm sharing the title. Co-manager. You're paying $25 for his videos.

Josh: Yeah, $5 more than you're on.

Josh: Winning model there, the Josh Simons model.

Josh: So, so our business is called Big Media Company. Okay. And so, um, yeah, so we're, we're working together and, you know, Tommy and I have traditionally been pretty sort of individualistic in our approaches to life. This is our, um, you know, this is our attempt at—

Josh: Do you mean you have your own philosophies on how to go about things?

Josh: Yeah, no, well, we've ended up with just, just by design you know, a lot of creatives can't find the right person to collaborate with, so you end up just doing the stuff on your own. And this is through the Daily Talk Show. We've actually been like, fuck, we've done 190 episodes of the, of the show. Like, maybe we could actually do videos together and we could do all this sort of stuff. What has been the lessons that you've learned through having business, business partners?

Josh: Before we go there, with having spoken to that many people, do you guys like realise like the value in your own network and what you, you probably— there's not a role in the world that if you you said, shit, we need someone to do XYZ for us, that you would not have a number to call. Yeah, you guys are very fortunate. Yeah, like, that's— you can't buy that. You can't get that from going— maybe you get that from going to like an Ivy League or something, because if someone there or their parent does it, right?

Tommy: And it helps having gone to Wesley College, Josh.

Josh: Yeah, you know, my parents used to— I used to say, why did you send me to a private school? Because I went to a state school for primary school, and I said like, why did you send me to— they said, oh, you know, the communities and the families you I'm glad I went to Wesley because I made a lot of great friends. That's horseshit. You know, it's not like it's a Yale. I understand that it's expensive to go there, especially nowadays. Like, when we were there, it was still like $10,000, $12,000. That was just a fuckload of money. But now it's like $25,000 or something ridiculous. Um, but I did not meet like a high net worth community that made my life. I mean, there's no one from Wesley that I can think right now that I lean on. Yeah, you know, do you? Oh, I've got—

Tommy: I mean, Reece Mitchell is probably the only one that he's a solid friend. Yeah. Um, but we went back before Wesley.

Josh: Same.

Tommy: But I've always thought, like, I think about with my son where he goes, and I said this to my wife, she went to public schools and, and they weren't sort of of the sort of, I guess, expense or prestige of the one I was at. But it gave me a, a mind-opening, like, hanging out with kids where they had walk-in fridges and their parents owned $100 million companies. I just have never thought that I couldn't do that.

Josh: And I think it gives you confidence.

Tommy: Yeah, it's almost like I just see this shit as like, isn't that normal to have like a really great car?

Josh: Well, the funny thing is I went to a public school and went to a low socioeconomic school and met this sweetheart. Exactly. And so I think like, you're all right though.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. You got glasses, but exactly, you still got all your teeth.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: I got to be school captain. I don't think that if I went to, you know, another school, like I wasn't talented academically. And so, yeah, I think that it's a, you know, you can always lean, you can always look at things and say, I'm this because I had this experience or because I had this opportunity. But I think that in a lot of ways that it's like it's cemented in, maybe it's through your parents or whatever it is, but I think that like like, yeah, I don't think it needs to be the factor. I mean, if I, if I had kids, I think I would go like public school.

Josh: Yeah, Paul McCartney sent his kids to state— in England, a public school is a private school, but he said it's a state school. I truly believe it's all the parents. I don't have kids, but, um, you're a dog. I got a dog and he's, he doesn't fucking go to school. He's nuts. But, um, no, no, I do think it's like if your parent says to you from a very young age, you can be whatever you want to be that I think you end up believing it because you are a sponge and you believe what you're told. Um, I think the problem right now, like certainly here in the States from what I've seen and people I've spoken to with kids and that, is there's too much, um, blame on the schools if the kids don't turn out right or if they have problems. And I think that's just such horseshit. Yeah, I mean, that's such an our generation thing too, isn't it? Like, oh, someone else's fault. Yeah, no, take some responsibility, it's your fault. Um, so Yeah, I don't— I mean, as I said, I went to a state primary school. I thought it was fine. And there's a few guys there that turned out to be drug dealers, but they sold me really great weed. I was not complaining. And now it's actually all legal here in LA. So I can't actually— I actually can't— I can't smoke weed. You can't? I think 17, I had, um, I just used to get too paranoid. Yeah. And then one time I just got way too paranoid. I was at Cypress Hill at Good Vibrations Festival. Do you remember that?

Tommy: I don't remember, but I know Cypress Hill.

Josh: Yeah. And there was a joint being passed around. I remember making a pledge to myself, this would be the last joint I ever have, and it was.

Josh: But you got fucked up.

Josh: I did get fucked up, and I didn't get paranoid that time, but I just remember sticking— I just said, why do I do every weekend something with my mates that I'm pretending to enjoy? Well, and that was like, that's like a good lesson to live by. Why ever do anything you don't enjoy? Yeah, yeah. So I'm not enjoying this. Every time I'm pretending like I'm having fun but I can't feel my fucking legs. So I was like, I don't want to do weed anymore. No, but they have this thing now called CBD oil and I mean, I don't know if they have it in Australia yet 'cause the only reason they have it here is 'cause it has been legalised and so people are coming up with all kinds of—

Josh: It's like a marijuana oil.

Josh: Well, they take out the THC from hemp, sometimes from marijuana, but mainly from hemp and all that's left is CBD, which is some cannabinoid chemical of some sort and it has— That feels so LA right now talking about this. I know, this is crazy, right? But it has no psychoactive in it. So you get the relaxed that people, 'cause I never understood people who say I smoke a joint to relax. I'll have a fucking beer to relax. But someone really pushed me in for quite hard actually, my old boss, but now someone who potentially might come to work at Vamp, which would be cool. But she was like, you need to do this, it'll change your life, it'll change your life. And I finally, 'cause I was quite scared to do it, I hadn't touched weed in over a decade. I finally took it and you don't notice anything. Like it doesn't, there's no point where you suddenly feel relaxed or anything like that. But that's kind of what it does. It removes inflammation throughout the body and a lot of like stress could be in— we don't know this for sure, but it could be inflammation of the brain. Epilepsy, people with epilepsy, it stops people having fits. Um, it's apparently good for depression and things like that and mood disorders. And I mean, for me, I've just found, um, I don't do it every single day, but, um, it seems to keep me on track. It could be— that could be, um, a psychosomatic— what's the word? Placebo. Sorry, that's what I was looking for. It could be a placebo, I don't know.

Josh: But, um, why not take it every—

Josh: if it works Why not take it every day? Because, and I think this is real, a real and not placebo effect, it seems to make me a little bit tired. And that's fine if I've got bounds of energy, but days when I've ended late and have to start early, if I take that, I might be chilled and not stressed, but I'll get to 2 and I'll be like, I need a nananap. And that's not really, that's not gonna work so well.

Josh: Do you put it on your neck or like where do you apply it?

Josh: I put it under my tongue 'cause then you let it sit there for 10 seconds and then you swallow it so it goes into your bloodstream. And yeah, I know, just kind of chills you out a little bit. And, um, it's legal here, it's totally legal. It's bloody expensive, but I'm sure that'll come down as there's competition and stuff.

Josh: So, so Keith, back to Keith Urban. Yeah, so the first time you were on stage, how many people was it? The biggest event that you'd ever performed at?

Josh: No, Laneway Festival probably was bigger. Yeah, maybe. Actually, I don't know because there was a few nights of the Keith tour where we did 16,000 people, but over the whole tour we played to 150,000 people, which is— and that was in like a 10-day period. So that's the biggest I've ever done.

Tommy: 150,000 women who love Keith.

Josh: Yeah, that's right. We did. We were worried that they'd— because people— so being a support act's weird, right? Because a lot of people obviously have never heard of you. Most people.

Josh: And you can't go too hard, right? Like, you can't go— we did. Keith asked us to. Oh, really?

Josh: Because that's why— because everyone was like, when I got the shows, they go, oh, so you're a country band. I'm like, firstly, thank you for listening to my music. Um, no, Keith actually wanted like a, a pop rock high-energy act to open the show, so that was specifically what he wanted. To get people going. And so we were told to go out and do our absolute best and loudest. And, um, oh, it's just so funny, like, casting back to that. There was so many—

Josh: what year is this?

Josh: 20— end of 2016. But it was a dream. I mean, that's literally the end goal. The end goal of being in a band is I want to play my music in arenas, the tens of thousands of people every single night, and feel like I'm a rock star. Do you get paid for that stuff? Yeah, Keith paid us really well.

Josh: Which you can imagine them going, all right, let's just get these, like the label or whatever, being like, this is an opportunity, I've got an opportunity. Yeah, Tommy's gonna pay you $20, $25, get you a lunch.

Josh: Um, uh, there's an Australian band that's very well known, uh, that name rhymes with, uh, Maydee Cree See. Um, it took me a while to get it. And, um, they They did that, I believe, with some of their friend's band, and I think they were paid nothing. Look, taking a band around Australia is particularly— actually, more than any other country in the world— is fucking expensive. Um, like, per show you can easily budget, if it's just the 4 of you plus 1 roadie, um, doing it on the lane, you might be like $8,000. $6,000 in the Virgin Lounge or something, at least.

Josh: No, not at all.

Josh: We did everything. We hired a really good TM, Justin, um, Justin Healey, and he, um, very humble guy, but he's done a lot of these big international sort of acts before. And, um, he gave us an indie rate and he knew all the right hotels that would give— gave us enough privacy but were cheap. And he basically got me spending what I would spend on a club tour but on a big tour, including— but Keith was amazing too as well because he took care of our backline. So Keith, person like his, his trucks took our equipment. Um, we had to pay for our airfares Um, I think we paid for our com, but they covered all transport to and from. Then, like, Keith went above and beyond. Like, some bands will get paid $400 to do an international support. We got paid, um, ballpark, we got about $3,000 a night. And that doesn't include the royalties that you get from playing your songs on the— in front of 15,000 people, which then come. And that was— I'm not going to say how much, but that was the biggest payday I've probably ever had in my life.

Josh: So how do royalties actually work?

Josh: So when you're, when you're performing in a public venue, even though it's not the song's CD version playing, it's still a performance of the track. So, the songwriters need to get paid for that track having been performed in front of that many people. It's like when a song's played over the speaker in a mall, it's technically being performed to all those people. So, the songwriters need to get paid for that performance of their work.

Josh: But in like a shop, for instance, so you go to like a Supreé or some retail shop.

Josh: So, they'll just pay a blanket license. MBCA, APRA, that's right. They'll pay a blanket license. License. And then at the end of the year, when they have all of their figures on who got royalties, those blanket figures get distributed proportionally or prorated to who's already killing it. So it's really— that, that works out really well if you're doing really well, and it works out horribly if you're not doing very well. Um, when you're playing in front of that many people, you can put in what's called a song sheet directly afterwards where you chronicle what you just played. And as I said, that was like the biggest one-day cheque I've ever received. So APRA is taking that pool of money And then they're saying, no, the promoter of the show, as the person who put on the performance, they have to pay specifically for those songs. Okay, an instance like that. And so it's all at the end of each night, like a promo, someone from the, like, the promoter's company— don't quote me on this exact process, but from memory, I had to sign a sheet at the end of each night that actually confirmed what I'd done, because it comes out of their pocket. They're paying.

Josh: Yeah, so that's what I was wondering. So they actually pay the exact amount you're saying? It's not like there's a big pool of money and they just percentages. No, no, no.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Tommy: Is there a set fee for, like, if you were— so you were Big Cannon, but there could be another band that was twice as big, do they get paid more because they're twice as big?

Josh: It all comes out— it all comes down to the number of people in the room. Okay. Um, so, uh, and it's based on the size of the venue capacity, not on the actual people who turned up. So you could, you could book a Rod Laver Arena and have 3 people come through the MCG. But then But then if you're the one booking it out, you're the one paying the royalties back to yourself or through an intermediary that then comes back to you, and everyone's taking a cut along the way. Well, that's cool.

Tommy: Rapper 360, he would probably would have done really well before he opened for Eminem at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne.

Josh: Yeah, well, he would have done the same as I would have when I opened Rod Laver 2 nights in a row. Yeah, he would have made the same amount of money. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and so it'd be nice if that was more regular. I'll say that, Keith, if you're listening.

Josh: There seems to be a lot of middlemen and that sort of thing. We had, um, with the music industry. So we had Seth Godin on the podcast recently who's a marketing genius, written 18 bestselling books and all this sort of stuff. And he talks about this idea of picking yourself, which isn't necessarily conducive to middlemen. It's the idea that like, you know, self-publish, get yourself stuff out there. How have you balanced picking yourself versus knowing when middlemen actually serve a purpose?

Josh: Well, I do self-publish and I, like, I do self-distribute, um, but you're still relying on a, on a third-party service to actually physically be the distributor. Um, you can't— there's like, there's a limit to being independent. Um, also there's only so many hours in the day, and even if you somehow manage to cut— okay, you can't go to every— if I was going to be a true self-publisher, I'd have to go to every single shop in the entire world and every city in it, you know, and cut deals.

Josh: So you, so you go to something like CD Baby.

Josh: Yeah, you go to something like CD Baby and that covers your distribution. It doesn't necessarily cover your publishing, although I think I think you can now, um, although I would not recommend anyone has a publishing deal unless they need one. What does that actually mean? Publishing deal means that the public— any money that you get on like the work side, so the song— um, the songwriters that it— any money that's due to the songwriters, a publisher will take a cut if you have a publisher. And the reason they're taking that cut is they're out there trying to get you what's called syncs, which is like placements on TV shows and stuff like that. Yeah. And they're also trying to collect— they also admin, which is collecting the monies that are due to you all around the world. The thing is, that's pretty much all automated now. So half of their job's redundant, and that's why publishing percentages are down. From a few years ago, it was like 50%, now it's down to like regularly 25%.

Josh: So they're like commission jobs, and now they just— they're not—

Josh: no, they used to— they used to be able to have a real claim to why they're asking for such a big cut, was if you didn't have us, yeah, you might still collect some money through your PRO, like your APRA's and your PPCAs, but you're missing out on a large chunk of money that's unclaimed for you. That argument isn't true anymore. It's just— there's— it's, it's—

Josh: so if you're on a TV commercial, say an Apple TV commercial, they would do the deal with Apple and then they would say— that's right, Apple's going to pay $500,000 for this track and then they'll take 30%.

Josh: Okay. Yeah. And that's fair at that point because they're getting you $500K. Like, you're happy to give away the 30%. Um, and also, like, and this is again where having a publisher— by— I just want to be clear, is a very good thing if you make quality product and you make a lot of but you can't get in the room with Apple. Your publisher can. That's why you have a publisher. And you don't have the time. Like, you can't be talking to Ford and Apple and, you know, and Samsung and all these different companies at the same time, um, trying to cut while you're out there creating good music. Like, because eventually your quality and music will slip. So it's— you do need— you can't be fully independent. That's just a farce. And as I was saying right at the start of this lecture, um, you, you are always dealing with somebody else, even when you're super independent. Like, you just can't avoid it. There's— the only thing in life that you can do that's truly independent is masturbation. I'm serious. Even toilet, you go— like, even taking a shit involves toilet paper that you got from a supermarket, and that was made somewhere else in another factory and was packaged by someone else, and there was truck drivers to get it. Like, there's nothing you can do except masturbating and breathing.

Josh: So you're a very independent guy, and that's not me asking if you wank a lot, by the way.

Josh: I'm super independent. Yeah. Especially since getting married.

Josh: Yeah. And so the— so, but what is that? What is the takeaway from someone who's actually a muso who's wanting to do it now? You've mentioned so many elements.

Josh: Oh yeah.

Josh: And obviously there is the idea of going— being entrepreneurial, but like, what is the— like, if you were to have a bit of a game plan, if you were to mentor someone, what are the things that they need to be worrying about?

Josh: I did. This guy whose hat I'm wearing, I mean, this is exhibit son. Son. I just did his like new album this year. Exhibit's son? Yeah. Um, so I did his album this year. It's the biggest project I've worked on since Buchanan. Um, and I produced on every track. We had like a real big roster of really famous producers, but I, I basically coached him through that and said, um, this is how— like, this is how I would view a cohesive project. He had his own vision too, I should say, but together we sort of realised a very specific vision Um, and then that translates to more than just music. That translates to like the aesthetics, the, the visuals, the branding, um, the rollout, uh, and then, and then choosing the right partners to do things like distribution. He was very fortunate, he partnered with Stem, who are a great new distributor, like challenger to CD Baby, that are getting a lot of traction. Like, they're one, they're one to watch. If they ever do an IPO, put your money in that. Yeah, but So yeah, I mean, I have been a mentor, I guess, to people who are already— and he was already established, like he'd already had like Spotify hits and stuff like that.

Tommy: And his dad's X to the motherfucking Z, right?

Josh: So, you know, that was a cool one. But yeah, he's younger, you know, he's 4 or 5. You learn every year. I learn every week. A lot of it's about respect as well. Like a lot of young people don't have any respect, um, and sometimes that works. I can think of one household name rapper right now who's screwed over pretty much everyone I know and it worked for him. Now he's a baby daddy to a— no, never mind. But I get it. But so, and like, that worked for him. But then there's other people that it really backfires for. So you've got to be really nice every step of the way. That's probably the most important thing. I don't think I was very nice when I started, to be honest. Why not? Um, well, I think I was always— I was— I've always been nice to the people that I work with until I feel like I've been done wrong by. And I'm a very fiercely loyal person. Person, um, and that can go both ways. So take a bullet for someone, but if, if they turn on me, I turn my back pretty quickly. Um, and that's not necessarily a good characteristic at all because, um, I think there's a lot of— like, I looked at some friends at school that have done, you know, things that are impressive. What I've done is impressive, and everyone seems to rally around them. And then sometimes what I've done has been a pretty isolating route, and I do think that's probably because my personality Yeah, um, I feel the same way.

Josh: I feel like— and it's one of those things where it's like, I think the word Josh is also really hard.

Josh: Now I'm dead serious, actually.

Josh: It's not—

Josh: I wasn't— but seriously, the word Josh is a hard name, and I really think that like it's, it's harder to like a Josh. I think— yeah, I, I saw one of those Facebook memes the other day, tag your mate who's a cunt who's called Josh. And a few people tagged me. Yeah, I was like, oh, none of you have reached out in a couple of months.

Josh: I didn't I didn't even get that, that. So I must be— oh good, that's right. Yeah, yeah, they're not even— they're not even friends on Facebook.

Tommy: Tag you because they're not friends anymore.

Josh: Exactly, exactly. I mean, how do you avoid that? Because I think that I'm similar in the sense of the very passionate and can be great but also can blow up when shit's not—

Josh: yeah, passion's not— passion's not—

Tommy: we're getting, um, snickering laughing from his girlfriend right now. I don't think passion's—

Josh: I don't think passion is seen as the most beautiful trait in Australia, um, and it's to do with small puppy syndrome, uh, and it's also just to do with tall, tall puppy.

Tommy: I said tall puppy. I thought you said small.

Josh: Oh, did I? I fucked up.

Josh: He was fucking tall puppy syndroming you, right? Yeah. Oh, just like fucking bringing him down.

Tommy: Oh no, I just wanted to bring him up so I can cut his head off.

Josh: Did I actually say small puppy? It was just a slip. How endearing. All right, um, anyway, uh, telling people how they should feel, that's a part of it. No, um, no, I think, yeah, it's definitely And it's funny, in America it's quite the opposite. They do applaud hustle. I reckon I'd actually burnt out with passion a bit by the time I got here. I probably would have done really well here if I had made it here 2 years before I did. 'Cause by the time I got here, I'd kind of made peace with, or maybe I hadn't been ground down so much as I just realised it's not a characteristic that people like. You don't need to broadcast it. Maybe keep it to yourself. Like you can still feel that way and still—

Josh: So what do you do then? How do you, where do you take the blow up And how does it actually come out? You're feeling a certain way, you feel like this is a fucked situation and you wanna tell them how you feel.

Josh: Yeah, I'm still really bad at it, but wait a night, sleep on it is the best piece of advice ever. 'Cause generally you will handle it better the next day. I've gotten myself into a lot of trouble by thinking I was in the right and thinking I was actually having a, like telling someone else why I thought they were wrong and it's completely backfired and I've realised like just how, before, like it's cost me a management deal before that was worth a lot of money. Now they weren't doing the right thing by me. They let a huge amount of money go past and it was entirely their fault, but I had been doing the wrong thing by dealing directly with the person who might have paid us that money. So like there's like, I can think of times in my life and now like on a social level, how do I deal with it? Like with friends or former friends?

Josh: Or how do you even approach that? Like, so if you're not to blow up, what's the, like, do you still have the conversation?

Josh: Uh, because that's why I think eventually, eventually there was a situation this week where someone kept me waiting 2 days in a row, and like, that's really insulting. And the person— and there's a reason why— and they went to someone else, called them, and the person they went to see I don't think is that much more important. And it's got nothing to do with being important, actually. It's got everything to do with— I blocked out too, after— respect. And like, I was furious. I still haven't addressed it because I know I'm still too, too hot about it. Yeah. And I know what the kind of things I'll say. Yeah. So I'm gonna wait till I calm down.

Josh: I nearly just went into my full—

Josh: I'm gonna wait till I calm down, but I am I'm gonna wait till I calm down because I know that the chat has to be had, um, because we still work together and there needs— it needs to be addressed, um, and he will walk away from that whether I go well or not, and he'll probably think this guy's a knob, but he'll eventually realise that the positives far outweigh the, the negatives.

Josh: So the time thing, waiting, what actually changes then? Like, rather than— like, because I guess I would worry that you just— okay, so it's not like tea, you don't like steep in it more and it becomes sort of more sort of some personality.

Josh: It depends on your— for me, um, one thing I know you can't do is like not— if you do feel super passionate about something, you can't ignore it. Because if you ignore it, I think you're then giving permission to people to walk all over you. Um, and it's a really— it's a hard one because I know heaps of people that never seem to be in confrontations and get really high in life, and it's far in life and, and high in what they do in their org charts and stuff. I think, how do they do that?

Tommy: Because you have to—

Josh: I think anyway, you have to let people know that that you're not going to be walked on, because otherwise you do get taken advantage of. And, you know, I'm sure everyone in this room can relate to that, especially trying to do what we're doing. And, and I'm talking about not just getting walked on in terms of respects, like how much people are prepared to pay for you to do something or to appear somewhere or to be a part of something. You know, at some point you've got to stand up and say, I'm actually worth more than this because I've been putting in over a decade and I've got life experience. But, and so I, I believe, and I'm happy to hear otherwise, but you have to be able to learn how to speak up for yourself. But the time thing's definitely about doing it in a respectful way so that you don't like a complete knob. You're still going to sound like a knob because it's con— by the nature of the very word, confrontational involves an element of like confrontation. Isn't there something annoying in the idea though that like I sometimes feel like— can I— can we go remote with this and I can make more mimosas? Yeah, absolutely.

Josh: Um, this is, you know, what— how do you sometimes feel like annoyed that you've, you've been in that, put in that situation? Um, in the sense of like you're feeling like the knob because you've, you've said the you've said you've had to have that conversation. Yeah. Yeah, like what's your thoughts on that?

Josh: What you're saying is like basically is more of a question like how do you win in a scenario where you feel the need that you have to speak up about something, right? I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know that anyone does. I think if that would make you like Gandhi or something, right?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, what is your relationship with ego?

Josh: I definitely, and I'm sure there's plenty of people who know me who would actually say that's not true, but the people who really know me would know this is true. I don't believe I'm right. Sorry, I always believe in what I'm saying, but I don't believe that it is the truth. I'm always happy to— I love being proved wrong. I don't like being the smartest person in the room. Being the smartest person in the room puts you at a massive disadvantage by and large because everything you do is like being watched. And you're set up to fail in some respects. So I love being wrong. And that's probably, I think that's a skill you learn from hearing a lot of nos, especially when you're like an entrepreneur and you get used to hearing no all the time. Like someone who's like emotionally intelligent will then go, why are people saying no? Or what about me is so like off-putting? Or sometimes it's not you and sometimes it might be a product or it could be a combination. But yeah, I don't know. Being able to have empathy and listen properly to what other people say is like kind of a key to succeeding and getting ahead. But again, it doesn't really answer your question, like how do you be more— how do people— or how to become more likable?

Josh: I don't know, maybe the goal is not to be likable. Maybe likeable is—

Josh: I think you should be nice and have empathy, and some people will like you. And that's actually the right answer. So some people naturally, thousands of people like them and call them leaders I don't know, I feel like I'm a leader, but I know plenty of people don't. I'm like Marmite, a lot of people don't like me, and that's totally fine. I have not— I've made my peace with that one a long time ago. Yeah, but I've realised I've helped many more people than have helped me, uh, and that's— I don't think— I don't mean that like resentfully or in a bitter way, but everyone who worked on Buchanan— I was trying to work this out— so most people who were former band members or collaborators have gone on to have a career in music, even if they won't talk to me anymore for one reason or another. Mother, and I feel pride in that. A lot of people who work with me in The Vapor Boys, that feature film I made in 2008— I remember that. Yeah, they have gone on to work in the film industry and like have that hustle and understand how to do independent things because they worked around me for a month. Like, I think I inspire, but then people don't always like me. Is that self-talk?

Josh: Are you hard on yourself in the sense of that idea that you go to the shops— like, you, if you go back to Melbourne, you can have a bunch of people that you just, if you bump into them at Coles, you're gonna feel a bit awkward.

Josh: The guy at the local BP who used to watch Rage and see me on the TV a bit, he's like more excited that I'm back in Melbourne than like a lot of people from school.

Tommy: But again, that's not— Mum, I'm home, Josh, I don't care.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, no, mum's good. Mum's a good one. Mum's a good egg. She'll come and pick me up from the airport every single time. God bless her. But no, it is strange. But I think also there's probably people, Like, Mum and I have talked about this many times, actually. I don't think people really, as I said right at the top of this, I don't think people know what I do. And so it's very hard to support someone if you don't know what they're doing. Yeah. And that's, I'm fine with that.

Josh: What do you do? I don't know.

Josh: I write songs, I try and look pretty, and I run a tech startup.

Tommy: And make great mimosas. Trying to, here we go. I'll come grab those. What do you think just about living in LA? Yeah. And coming over here here from Melbourne, I think we were from probably a unique group of people because there was like people, a whole bunch of people at Wesley have gone on to do exactly the stuff that we've been talking about in this conversation— music, film, creative endeavors. What do you think it is about LA?

Josh: And did you get a sense moving over here going, this is a different beast, or people like locals here are different, or Well, um, yeah, we did come from a unique year level, and every school has, has one every now and then where there's like a couple of years where there seems to be a lot of like— I mean, our, our streak at Wesley, there was like even in the years a bit older than us, but we had some guys from The Temper Trap, and then we know obviously had The Mitchells, and— but there was a lot of people who went on to do really amazing things from our little cohort, um, which is— it does happen like that sometimes. As far as like LA being like a if that being a microcosm of LA. It's not— I don't really think that's the case. Everyone here has one thing in common and one thing only, and that's that they want to make it. Um, it's not just the people in film. Um, and it's always— it's also a bit of a stepping stone between, um, New York and the rest of the world too, is like make it here first. Oh really? Yeah, definitely a little bit of that, especially in the corporate side of things. Yeah, like there'll be the LA scene, which is the younger one, and you know, it's like you get your little break and your first big job at a big company, but then a lot of people then and move on to New York from here. It's very rare that people sort of come from New York back to LA. 'Cause I think a lot of it, it's kind of like Sydney. A lot of people go there 'cause there's great opportunity. I don't think anyone actually wants to live there. I'm just taking a shot at Sydney. So, Bonsai's pretty good.

Josh: You talk about quality of life. That seems to be a common thing that we've heard from everyone that we've spoken to in the US, especially Australians moving.

Josh: What have they said? Said?

Josh: Well, they've all, they've all said a similar thing, which is like, it's the, uh, there's a, there's a grittiness to the US, and it's, it can be very hard. And a common thing is, especially in places like New York City, unless you're making absolute bank, unless you're sort of in the 1%, you're going to have a pretty average—

Josh: yeah, it's just like, it's much like London in that respect, which is where I'm originally from.

Tommy: Did you move over there after school? Yeah, yeah.

Josh: So I was born in England and then we came to Australia when I was 5, did primary school, secondary school, went— I moved back to England, came back to Australia for a little bit, and then came here. Um, but yeah, it's very gritty. And, and it's actually gritty because there's like romantic gritty, which is like Hollywood, I think, um, which is, you know, movies like, like Soderbergh films capture that beautifully, and like Crash and Traffic and those sorts of like— but there's that grittiness, but then there's actually grittiness of life itself, which I I've, it's funny, it's only something I've started considering like fairly recently, but these people here are tough. Like say what you will about Americans being dumb or smart or, you know, they don't, all of them don't have passports and all that. They are really tough individuals because even my wife, she has a pretty rough background without going into details 'cause—

Josh: She's from Hawaii. She's from Hawaii.

Josh: She had a very rough upbringing.

Tommy: Mate, there's a volcano about to erupt. There's some hard people coming out of that place. Always on the fucking edge of death.

Josh: No, uh, rough in a traditional sense, you know, like family problems and stuff like that, and, uh, and drugs and all the rest of it. Not volcano problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so, uh, what was— oh yeah, so then she— so some of the stuff she's been through, and like, I guess you'd call it trauma. Um, and then I look at the trauma that we've been through, and half my friends are— have got anxiety and, and, you know, have had mini breakdowns and that. And I don't know, I don't know, maybe Americans just don't talk about it, but they're really hard. Like, they're motherfucking hard. Like, they have a lot— like, she'll, she'll wake up after, you know, some sort of event or whatever, and then she'll just troop on and go to work and earn her crappy wage because the wage here stinks. Like, if you're on just working a service job, um, and the minimum wage is horrible, and they just troop on and they just get it done. Because I feel like maybe it's because we went to Wesley, but I feel so soft. Like, if I feel like if my life I mean, I don't consider what I'm living in particularly amazing, but it is what it is. And I'm, you know, I support myself and I don't rely on anyone, but I couldn't imagine living on anything less than this. And yet some people come in here and they're like, you're living in luxury, like, look at everything you have. And, but I don't consider this luxury. I also don't consider this being a pauper either. I know exactly where I'm at. But Americans seem to have this toughness where they can cope even if they're on less. And I could not cope on less. I'm telling you right now, if I was living in anything like like, and like, this is tiny. Like, I feel claustrophobic in here, to be honest.

Josh: Like, in Australia, get rid of some of your fucking guitars.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, but I know, I guess, but the point I'm more saying is like, I feel like a pussy next to them. Yeah. And the quality of life here is— I don't think it's great, you know. Like, um, we talked about it earlier, but, uh, having to drive like a lot of miles to see a doctor because the healthcare that you're partly subsidizing, that you're forced to go on because that's the employee's choice, employer's choice. And, you know, there's all these like complications. That's what you'd call them, complications that we just don't seem to have in Australia. But I think that Australia is lucky more than, rather than this being tough, I think Australia is actually incredibly lucky and you don't realise that until you leave. 'Cause I've lived in a few major cities around the world now. I've certainly travelled to a lot more than that. And I've only just started to appreciate in the last 3 years just how well we have things than in Australia.

Josh: Why do you think Australians come to the US?

Josh: Opportunity, market size, it's that simple.

Josh: And do you think that you'll come back to Australia and what will you bring with it?

Josh: Probably some children. I don't know. Yeah, I do, I'm definitely gonna come back to Australia whether it's in 2 years or 3 years, but that's sort of the timeframe. It's great what you learn here, like the size of the roads, the size of the sidewalks, everything here like teaches you how to cope in a much bigger way. Even the mountain ranges are bigger than they are. Like, think of the Dandenong Ranges, then look out my window and look at like, you know, all of these, like the Santa Monica Ranges and everything behind it. Hey, um, so I think you learn how to cope in a much bigger world, and then you come back to Australia and it does feel a bit like a small country town. But on the flip side, it's like, it's a small country town with the best restaurants, the best amenities, best nightlife, best people. So it's a really, it's just an odd place. I don't know why everyone wants to come to America. I do get it. I understand why the market size thing, but— Feels like there is a lot of opportunity. There's up there, but that comes with that, this many people.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. You see like there's so much homeless and maybe I'm just noticing it, but you just see how people are weathered here from the vast amount of people and just them having to just get ahead. You just see like in Starbucks, The characters— we were in West Hollywood yesterday at a Starbucks, very interesting spot. It's the epicentre of the gay community mixed with every other flavour imaginable. And we saw so many people come in that were just struggling, and I just like— it sucks it out of me seeing that. But what I think— what I've taken from it is like, this is what happens when you dump a shitload of people in one area and everyone's having to try and and make something of themselves.

Josh: Yeah, when everyone says this is the place you go where dreams get made, this is where you go to make it. Where there's dreams, there's nightmares. Yeah, that's right, 100%. And I think it's my biggest, it's the thing that upsets me the most about this city, especially when you're driving. So only locals would understand this probably, but like the pain of driving east to west, if you have to commute each day is like a nightmare. It's one of the worst drives in the world.. And, you know, 10 miles might take you an hour and a half if you leave at the wrong time. But what you see along the way is just a lot of poverty. And that's the thing that affects me the most. And it affects you, I think, the more you live here. Like, it— I'm sure it's— I remember how it felt when I first got here. You kind of thought, well, that's a bit awkward, but there's the Hollywood sign. Now it's like, because you're— I'm a part of the furniture here, like, I've been living here for a while, you don't really notice the, the neon signs and the Hollywood sign. You do notice just like the other stuff that's going on more. And it doesn't get better. Like you don't get better at ignoring it. So if I could help, put it this way, if I sold Vamper or something like that and I decided we would stay here for another few years and I could work on a new project, I'd want to do something to do with that. 'Cause it is something that I think everyone who lives here would agree is like pretty depressing. I think there's more homeless people in LA than all of Australia combined.

Josh: Wow. Yeah. The falling outs that you've had over the years, do you feel like— do you get to a point where you've— there's a forgiveness that you've actually— that negativity has just gone away? How do you reconcile those previous experiences?

Josh: Um, like, I think if you're like a little bit inebriated or whatever, you can still always find some of that anger. But like, in— on a day-to-day level, yeah, forgiveness is key. The first ever bandmate, the guy who's actually founded Buchanan with me, a guy called John Barra, we fell out after— felt like we'd been together longer than anyone, but it was only one year after starting it. But I was offered a deal and the deal didn't include him, and it was brutal.

Tommy: Is this the time that we tell Josh Janson that he's no longer a part of the Daily Talk Show?

Josh: I'm just setting up, Tommy. I'm actually— you jumped the gun a little bit. Sorry, mate. We've got a couple more minutes. Got a couple more minutes. And we'll, uh, we'll make the big announcement. But yeah, he wasn't offered the record deal, and, um, and I said, I'm gonna find a way to bring you in anyway. I'll just give you part of my cash and we'll just do it outside. Don't worry about it, I got this covered. We'll be good. Because he was like about to turn 40 and I was 20, 21. So I understood why the label was doing it too. It kind of— anyway, I tried to bring him in, but he never let that go. He took that very personally, even though I wasn't the one who suggested it. And, um, we fell out as a result. He just stopped returning emails. He held up the release of an album because he had to— he hadn't given permission for us to use tracks and blah blah blah. So it really almost cost us a year of time. But he, um— so I started to harbour resentment too. So he had resentment for no real good reason. I then got resentful because he was resentful and held us up. And then I just let it go, but I would occasionally think about it. And then curiously, one day he called me out of the blue and he goes, "I heard you had cancer a couple years ago." I was like, "Yeah, I did." And he's like, "I just wanted to say I'm blown away. I'm really proud of you for getting through it. But I just hate how things ended between us as well. And I've listened to the new record and I think you've done a marvellous job." And I was like, "Do you wanna come back and work with me?" And he was like, "Absolutely not, but I'm really proud." And so, but that was kind of it. And so yeah, you can make up, definitely. Yeah, I don't think like disputes are necessary. Like I really wish they didn't happen and they don't really happen so much anymore. But it is hard when you're trying to be in it. You guys should know this. I mean, you do know this, I'm sure. Like you're trying to do something, no one's particularly backing you. Like you've got great mentors around you from what I understand, right? With like Jules and a few of those guys in that scene. But like it's not like Osteria is paying for this, right? As much as you'd probably, but if they would— I mean, and that's the, to us that seemed like the, the old method.

Josh: Like, especially, you know, music industry I know is still very different, but with what we're doing, we don't have to be picked. We can pick ourselves. That's, that's what we're trying to do. But I guess we see these examples where it's like the blowups happen, and we're almost just trying to bring all that stuff forward and saying, okay, well, what are the conversations we can have now? How can we point out the fact that most partnerships are going to be a clusterfuck and end badly?

Josh: Yeah, I got That's so— and I know you guys are friends, but almost every partnership I went into with a friend, um, where there wasn't already a working— I should say where there wasn't already a working relationship in place has failed miserably. Um, right, me and Reese's thing failed miserably. Um, uh, and almost always it affects your friendship even if you say it doesn't, even if you, you still catch up for a little bit afterwards. Inevitably it frays a relationship too if it doesn't work. Um, having said that, Vamper, my business partner, is, uh, he signed me to a record deal, but I'd call him a friend even though there's a 30-year age gap. He's definitely a friend. You know, we go to each other when stuff's—

Josh: when stuff's— it's like, what, like 1 years old is he? How old is he?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, he's a really, really good-looking toddler. Um, doesn't talk back, makes a lot of noises. No, but, um, so I mean, that one worked, but I guess this age gap is so large that um, kind of— it's a different relationship. It's a different kind of relationship than like being just there with your friend from school. I think that the key to a successful venture, doesn't matter whether the person's a friend beforehand or not, is a common goal. If you align around the goal, then you guys are always going to be arguing about how to get there, which is a great thing to be arguing about. What a beautiful thing to argue about— process. If you're arguing about what the goal is— and, and the reason I say this, like, let's just— let's do a stupid example. But I need to get a carton of milk as quick as possible, that's the goal. And then someone goes, all right, well, I found a place one block down the road, it's gonna be $12, or there's one that's 10 Ks away but it's only $2. Like if the goal, if the common goal is let's get it as soon as possible, you're gonna go spend $12 and you'll find a way to get the money together. It's when the goal differs, that's when the argument really starts.

Josh: If someone all of a sudden saying, I want almond milk.

Josh: Right, right, whatever, or I wanna save money. And it's like, well, I didn't realise the goal was prudence. It's like if the goal is as quick as possible, then we're gonna get it as quick as possible. And I think that's where successful partnerships are built out of. I think best example are bands like U2, Coldplay, the Beatles, the bands that stick together. And there's always, they always have financial agreement. They're always in alignment with like how to handle business until they're not. But no, but generally speaking, they've got a very clear framework that starts from very early before they're successful. Um, and they have ambitions, shared ambitions as to where they want to be. And in all those cases, they wanted to be the biggest thing in the world.

Tommy: Yeah. Do you think there's— so those bands you're talking about, do you think there's any correlation between bands that get together and start playing because they love what they do and they actually couldn't give a shit about money to start with?

Josh: I think they're lying. Yeah, you reckon? Yeah, especially if they really find that they're starting to love it. Because if— I do think bands can start just because you just want to play music. No two ways about it. I've done that before with friends, just hang out and play music. But when you realise how much you love it and then the next thought, the natural next thought is, I don't want to do anything else except this. Well, what happens next? You go, well, how do I survive? But I don't want to do anything else except this. Well, I'm not going to go work at Safeway. Fuck, I better be good at this so I can make enough money. So you end up getting there. It doesn't matter. I know a lot of people go, we just wanted to make music, didn't matter what happened, man. That's such lies because how you You got to support yourself.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And even if it's like at the very back of your mind, it might be subconscious.

Josh: I'm not saying that they're consciously sitting there and going, we've got to make some money out of this. I mean, that's probably the business person in me thinking more, but it is an inevitable thought process that you go through. I don't want to do anything else.

Josh: Is it a one-page document where you're doing dot points? Like, if we were to— if people that are listening, uh, you know, in the same position that we're in, we're starting this partnership.

Josh: What is it actually? It's called a heads of agreement and it's 2 pages because you've got to leave 1 page for signatures. Yeah. But it shouldn't be more than 1 page.

Tommy: My signature is really big. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: You got a Donald Trump-sized signature. How great is his signature? That's the— you know, people say small hands, he must have— I think the signature is the biggest giveaway. Yeah. If you've got a signature 6 inches tall.

Josh: If you have to use a crane.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Josh: So talk about that. Like, I have no idea.

Josh: So heads of agreement is, is basically exactly what we're just talking about. It, it states an intent. It's, it's, it is somewhat enforceable. It's more enforceable than, say, an NDA, which is just don't disclose anything else.

Josh: We've, you know, it's an alignment, there's an agreement.

Josh: Yeah, it's a statement of intent, like this is what we're going to do. And generally it precedes what's called a long form, which is what you'd enter into if you were going to set up a serious, like, proprietary limited company in Australia or an LLC in America or any kind kind of thing and mechanism in between. Um, you would sign a heads of agreement, and it is a great— it's an exercise more than anything. It's kind of like one of those boring exercises you have to do at school, uni, where you— it's like, why are you doing it? Like, this is so obvious. But it's like, if you didn't have it, it's never been explicitly placed somewhere, written down somewhere. Like, just to be able to simply say, we want to create— we have the intention to make a radio show or a podcast that has, uh, this many— that will eventually have in a year's time have this many viewers, and we'll eventually get advertised and we will split that money 50/50, and the net expenses we expect will be blah, blah, blah. I mean, you can get that in on a page easily and word it the right way. I'm fortunate in my situation to have worked with enough lawyers that I understand legalese pretty well. So I've had to do a few heads of agreements, because I advise a few other startups now, and I've done a few of those in the last year. But you can fit it easily all on one page. And then if things move ahead and you start to see like a dollar coming in or just traction in general, at least and stuff, then I think a point that will be very obvious to you guys or whoever's going into business together, there'll be a point where it's like, this is something we should probably get our ducks in a row and make sure everything's in order and dot those i's and cross those t's. And then you do that and you put it in a drawer and you never think about ever again. People who— I'll tell you another quick way to fuck up a business relationship or a partnership is is if you're going into business with someone who's constantly referring to the agreement. Oh yeah, contracts are there as a guide when things break down, and they're still just a guide. What you end up compromising on will not be the, the contract, be some other compromise. And I've been in situations like that where, well, the contract says this. I don't give a fuck what the contract says. I'm trying to get a result today. Like, you know, and that's, I think, what's the difference?

Josh: How do you— when are you referencing it in a positive way to create alignment argument, and when are you doing it just to be fucking pedantic?

Josh: You shouldn't bring it up unless things are really bad. Like, there's nothing wrong with like having an argument in business. I think it's part of being in business. It's part of being in a rela— business is a relationship, and part of relationships, whether they're friends, sexual, or otherwise, um, hey, you've nailed Tommy in my relationship. Yeah, how— yeah, how is that going? How are you guys mixing the sex and the business? Yeah, it's good.

Josh: Well, the sex came first, so it was pretty easy, I think.

Josh: That's always the better way to start. Fuck that friends first nonsense. Um, good for you guys. Uh, yeah, there's gonna be arguments. The contract should not be referred to unless things are really dire. You know, I'm talking like I'm ready to walk away and then the other person goes, why are you gonna walk away? How could you do that? Because right here it says this is how it was going to be and this is not what it's like right now. That's a perfectly good chance to say Hey, motherfucker. But if you're just arguing about, you know, day-to-day process and someone pulls out and says, well, I've done my 7 hours today, I'm not resolving this, you can catch me tomorrow at 9 in the morning. It's like, oh, you're in this for the wrong reasons. Yeah, you know, it really— this is not going to work out. There's so many of these warning signs that I wish I knew like 10 years ago, that because I just— you would save so many years of time. I'm a hard learner.

Tommy: Like, I learn that the hard way.

Josh: I got told everything that's like gone wrong, um, on my way to being where I am now, which is just, you know, partway through a bigger journey again. Everything that's gone wrong, I was probably warned about, almost certainly. But I'm like you, mate. I have to, I have to fuck up, um, because then you believe it. There's a difference between thinking something and believing something, and you believe something after you've experienced it, um, or yeah, or told yourself it's true enough times. But someone going, oh, this might happen, be careful, there's like, I don't know, it's not going to change. It's not going to have an effect on your decision-making. You're young and full of cum. You're going to go and—

Tommy: no one can stop us.

Josh: There's the title of the episode. Man, I really appreciate the fact that you're open about this shit because there's heaps of people who have had clusterfuck relationships, all that sort of thing, and they just, you know, act as if everything's been cool and the journey's been easy.

Josh: You have to share it. Yeah, because because that's, that's, that's, that's paying it. That's being in service to the community. That's love. That's proper love. Yeah, that's what I believe anyway.

Tommy: One last question about— sorry, Josh— about, um, LA. Aussies in LA, do, do Americans not get in the front seat of Ubers?

Josh: No. And don't feel guilty about getting in the back seat. I learned that too. I still have that English— maybe it's Australia, I don't know— but I still get that guilt when I open the back door because I do— I sit in the back. Um, I used to— because, okay, so Americans don't sit in the back. I used to sit in front as a respectful thing. I thought, that's nice, you're not my slave driver. Um, but a lot of, um, because a lot of people sit in the back, the front seats are often jacked up right to the front. So you're spending a lot of time playing around. I know that sounds like small, but often I try to work on my laptop, so it does make a lot of sense to sit in the back. And also I get quite— I've realised I get quite carsick as a passenger on this side of the road. I don't— it doesn't happen in Australia at all, but over here, although it could be—

Josh: I've got into an Uber accident Maybe, maybe it's because you're on your fucking laptop.

Josh: Yeah, that's also part of it. I did— I think I got into actually a bad Uber accident over a year and a half ago now, and I got whiplash and concussion, and I was in hospital for overnight.

Tommy: You definitely called one of those signs that says, oh, you injured?

Josh: Were you injured?

Josh: I went to Google and typed in, I am injured, who do I call? Um, I did, I sued them. I got about $10,000 from Uber. Um, but then the law firm I used took some stupid big commission and they made me run around town to all these doctors to justify it. I ended up with about $3,000 as the short of it and it took about a year to come through. It was not worth it. I should have just not done the claim, to be perfectly frank.

Josh: Yeah, I've heard that so many times. Like, it's—

Josh: Uber tried to call me the day off to settle over the phone and they're like, don't take that call, hang up, hang up. Um, I should have settled over the phone. I would have walked away with much more cash. Yeah, but it's not about that. I mean, the, the real point of the storey is ever since that, I've actually found myself just casting sick in here. And it could be just because of the accident, I don't know. But, um, being a passenger in the front seat here is a headfuck, I find. Just, you're in the driver's seat, like, yeah, yeah, you know what it is?

Tommy: I actually look up to the, the mirror and I'm, and I'm like, my head just goes mad because I'm like, my mirror's not facing my way, I can't see behind me. It is, it's all these little things like that.

Josh: So yeah, you're right, Americans don't sit in the front seat, but it's a great thing because means we don't have to sit in the front seat either.

Josh: Yeah, it is a little bit annoying when there's 3 of us because it gets a bit sort of, uh, I agree, because I'm too many people in the back. Yeah, that's okay.

Josh: And then I'm always— that means Tommy would be in the front, right? Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: I'm third wheeling.

Josh: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, third wheel on the front. It's the Daily Talk Show. Josh Simons, thanks so much.

Josh: Thanks. I hope that wasn't too serious. I hope, you know, we got some laughs in there. That was great.

Josh: It was good fun, man. Have a good one.