Meet the Hosts: Playback Ben

His dad was an entrepreneur, so he kind of always had this entrepreneurial spirit about him. Drew would approach me of hey man, I have this idea. Nine times out of ten, his ideas were terrible. But he came to me with this hey, why don't we get into music? The one more time music podcast. Genuine conversations with genuine people about music. Hosted by Henry with a three and playback Ben. One more time. One more time. one more time. One more time. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back for another episode of the One More Time podcast. One more time. One more time. I'm your host, Playback Ben, here with my co-host. Henry with a three. Some asshole took Henry with an E, so we switched it up. I hate that guy. We're gonna find him one day. One day. Henry, who do we have on the podcast today? We are doing another Meet the Host episode. Since you guys went so crazy on my episode, it's actually not out yet. I'm just assuming that they're gonna go crazy over my episode.

Thanks for clarifying. We're doing another Meet the Host episode for Playback Ben. And let's shout out Playback Ben for the first time ever on the One More Time Podcast. All right, we can end the episode right now. My life is complete. It took your own. episode. I got my shout out. To get your shout out. If I didn't get a shout-out on my own episode, like what is it for? I considered not even doing it on your own episode, but you know. That was cruel. That was a cruel thought. It was a good moment. So appreciate you having me on, man. Yeah, no problem. My friend. It's interesting being in the hot seat as far as you know, not doing the questioning. It's interesting doing the questioning. Yeah, I bet. I mean, I'm not sure how this is gonna go, but I might be a bad interviewer. You probably will be. We'll find out. It's not easy. No. Trust me, I'm 12 episodes in. You make it look easy. I'll give you that. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. Awesome. Well, let's get started. Yeah, I guess I gotta get it started, huh? That's kind of funny. I think you do. Well, um, let's take a page out of your book and start from the very beginning. Give us childhood, give us elementary school, give us family growing up, give us the details.

Well, my kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Smith. Shout out, Mrs. Smith. No, I mean, as as far as you know, music goes, my dad. I mean, he's got the stereotypical crates on crates on crates of records, of vinyl records. Totally. I mean, we would listen to everything from Lyle Lovett and Bonnie Raitt from the country music side of things to Earth, Wind and Fire, James Brown, uh Parliament, uh anything funk soul, uh, Grateful Dead. He was a huge deadhead and went to like 60 dead shows at least. He was a deadhead. yeah, hundreds probably of dead shows. Um can't be a casual Grateful Dead fan. That's something I've noticed. I guess not. Yeah, you're probably right. There's no casual. They're all right. they're all right. Yeah, Grateful Dead's all right. No, so he was definitely one that, you know, went to dead shows, went to a lot of. I mean, he's told me stories of being the only white guy at a at a funk and you know, soul type of uh of concert, right growing up. So yeah, always music was playing.

My dad had records on all the time, and I really got like a diverse kind of outlook on music from him. Was there a lot of uh hip hop going on around that time? There was absolutely no hip hop. He referred to hip hop as that rap crap. So uh he was not a fan of uh of rap or hip hop. Um the irony for where you are today. It's very ironic, but now he does support. So actually, it's it's kind of it's kind of neat, you know. He'll you know, he'll ask me for links to the songs that we've been working on together and whatnot. And a lot of them happen to be, you know, hip hop and rap songs as well. So does he seem to genuinely like the music or is he just being a good dad? I wouldn't say he like puts it on if we're like hanging out at you know, a family event. Who is Mr. McTizzle? Mr. McTizzle. So my name's Ben McTeer, obviously.

Um not everybody knows. Oh so Ben McTeer. nice to meet you guys. Um, so Mr. McTizzle was in the age of, you know, fo shizzle my nizzle and Snoop Dogg and that that whole kind of you know era. It was an era. I I adopted the the gamer tag, the instant messenger screen name AIM. Shout out, AIM screen names. Of Mr. McTizzle 22 because why not? And 22 was my favorite number growing up. My mom played basketball in college and she rocked 22. She actually coached college and played in like the women's pro league before it was the WNBA. and uh so big big basketball family. And so she was always 22. So I kind of adopted that to this day. Like my personal Gmail is you know, a a 22 is included in the do we want to give that out or are we are we big shit now? I think we're so big. We can't even, no, it's Ben McTeer 22. Hit us up if you want to be on the podcast.

It's not even my podcast email, but yeah, sure. You can you can hit me up there, it'd probably be you know, uh mixed in with all the like promo emails that I get from the right the gas companies and the uh other spam. So okay, so um, so your dad's big on music growing up, obviously has uh an influence. Yep. Is there a point where you kind of realize that it's something you want to take more seriously? So I mean, like growing up, you know, listening to music and then playing music. So as you know, I'm a I'm a saxophone player. Shout out to Saxophone. Yeah. So Alto Sacks played since I was like in fourth grade all the way through, you know, high school. I was in the school band, and then I even you know did some like jazz band stuff, you know, kind of growing up. So I was always just like infatuated by music, right? Because like I said, it was always on, and then I did take it like seriously in school too. Like I wanted to be, you know, first chair saxophonist and that sort of thing.

So I was like always a competitive kid from the sports side of my uh my family, and then within music, I was always just competitive with that too. So like playing saxophone and being the best saxophone, yeah. I I wanted to be the best for sure. Clearly, like that didn't pan out the way that it could have. But we've actually got a record with you playing saxophone on it. That's true. I still like, I still like to uh you know to bring it over the studio sometimes, but um, but no, so like growing up listening to music so much and then you know, playing music, I still never like I didn't go to school thinking like, oh man, I'm gonna be in music. Like, no, absolutely not. Like, that was never like an actual thought. It was more of a hobby, it was a hundred percent a hobby, just a passion. Like, I just love it. Yeah, I mean, being from Atlanta, like huge hip hop head, I mean, you know, into the usual suspects of jeezy, Ludacris, T.I., Outkast, um, you know, Goodie mob, dungeon family, like so, like real stereotypical like Atlanta hip hop fan. Didn't know that any even other genre or any any other regions of hip hop existed, right?

And I'm kind of interested to to see how you bridged the gap from uh a family, you know, of dad specifically who was a not about that rap crap. How did you find hip hop? So me and my dad didn't get along at all growing up. My dad and I, it was that you know, stereotypical like get home from school or basketball practice, be like, hey dad, like how was work? Like, hey son, like, how's it going? You know, we didn't really like vibe that much growing up. Now it's funny, we're like best friends. So it's it's cool to have like that. And that's why I say he really does support me. I don't know if it's me getting mature or him finally like loosening up and accepting kind of like that he's old as hell, and like I'm into what I'm into, and he's okay boomer. He's into what he's into. I mean, we've kind of find some we found some common ground there. I think growing up, it was I don't know if it was a rebellious thing. I I did, you know, I wasn't like the perfectly behaved kid. Like I definitely like acted out in class and stuff, but like I was still a good kid, so I'm not sure if it was like the rebellious thing or if it was more just like me being just the rhythms and the sounds and the culture of it.

Yeah, I would say the rebellious thing is probably something I would attribute some of it to for me, anyway. It was definitely something that's like, ooh, I'm not supposed to be listening to this right now, kind of thing, you know. Ooh, they're rapping about guns and drugs. This is kind of interesting, at least in the very beginning, you know, to like kind of reel you in. I would say that's something that caught me for sure. So is there a point where you're uh rapping at all? Are you doing any of the uh artist thing? Are you dabbling? No, So Absolutely not being an artist, right? But I guess I thought that this was just like every kid in their like friend group just wrote raps and liked to rap, but apparently that like I mean, I know you had your own little stint because we you know we learned that Jay Show on the last episode. Shout out Jay Show. I don't know if if I did think that that was just common, but like we would, my friend group, you know, really write raps. We just listened to instrumentals all the time.

Did you do the beats on the lunch table? I was a big pencil, you know, pencil on desk beat guy for sure. And that was like half of my detentions I would get for sure. Like in school was you know, pencil drumming. Stop making beats in class. We would just like start writing raps. And and no, I never had like a rapper name or anything like that. I mean, maybe my friends would remember if I did, but like I don't think I did. We'll touch on that later. Yeah, exactly. Maybe maybe someone will come out of the woodwork and say, like, you had this rap name. But we might touch on this later in this episode. Yeah. Just some foreshadowing. Okay, so for sure. Let's go. Let's move into college a little bit. Um, what kind of exposure to music? How does it evolve as you're getting older now? Yeah, so went to UNC Chapel Hill. Shout out to Tar Heels. It's been a rough few years of uh basketball, but hey, we're coming back stronger than ever this year. Um went to UNC because like I said, my mom played basketball at North Carolina, she's from North Carolina, so did you go there just because you're a fan, or did you think you'd actually get a good education there? Well, it's definitely a you know, a reputable school.

So, you know, I I was a I was always like a straight A student, to be honest. Like, I was like, like I said, it was that competitive thing. Like, I wanted to be the best at math and the best at you know science and the best at sports if I was doing that, right? So like I really did have this competitive blood in me. Um, so that translated over to school. So I didn't think I was like too cool for school at all. Like I was like the kid that came back after school, did my homework like immediately so that I could then like watch TV or play video games or whatever. So I've been like school, yeah, or write raps, I guess. Kind of similar to you. Like I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Definitely did not go there being like, I want to go in a music business or anything, right? Um, but did end up getting into the you know business school there. So studied, you know, entrepreneurship, marketing, branding, strategy, that sort of thing. Those are my favorite classes. Of course, I had to take the fucking finance and operations class and accounting classes that just you know shout out accounting to you. Motherfucker. Where the where the pre F for sure.

Accounting 101 was my was my bitch. I hated that. You did better in two. Uh yeah, I don't even know. I probably did, you know, equally bad in both, but um, but but no, so like, you know, studied business, but I met a couple of people that really like changed my life as far as music goes. So one of my best friends was from he's actually born in Zimbabwe, lived in Mozambique and Ghana, and then moved to the UK and then New York, white kid though. So we always used to like play, you know. So that was like our class, that was our classic, like out at the bar trying to hit on girls of like, I bet you can't guess where this guy's from. Yeah, he's like a white motherfucker, he looks like as white as you and I, you know, and so it's like, oh, he's from Mozambique and Zimbabwe and hey, we have this African friend, yeah, exactly. So literally, that was like, you know, that we thought that was so funny. It's not even South Africa. No. No. Which would be understandable, yeah, exactly. He was amazing. I mean, it's southern Africa where he's born in and you know, whatever.

But in general, yes, it it was a shock to most people, right? But him being from New York, he had this like obsession with Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Biggie, um, you know, the the locks, freaking Dipset. I mean, just big L from Harlem. I mean, I, I got my mind, Grand Puba, like and and brand newbie and like these these guys that like being from Atlanta, you've maybe even never heard of. Like, I mean, some of those folks, like they're legends in in New York, right? But like, you know, not something that we grew up on, you and I, you know, being from Atlanta. And so it was just amazing. I mean, met this kid freshman year. Can we give him a name? Who's this guy? Tiernan. Shout out to Tiernan. Shout out T. Um, but he just opened my eyes to hip hop as a whole. Like, I knew Southern Atlanta rap, and probably like more what you were bred with, you know what I mean? Kind of growing up here. We don't play those records here.

You never would, you never hear anything New York on the radio here. I've heard of all those people, but they were, they were none of them were a part of my childhood. Him having opened my mind up to like this other region of hip hop that basically was the birthplace of hip hop. It was absolutely incredible. But still, even you know, having met him, it didn't say like, oh, cool, there's this other region of hip hop. I want to now do like music business. That wasn't it. I met another guy named Andrew Lindsay, shout out AC Lindsay. Lindsay. What's the C for? It's his middle name. Okay. Yep. So these two guys, once again, like still very East Coast, but Tiernan even T, he was like a hip hop head. I mean, he's the guy that likes, you know, the the culture too. So he's like a big sneaker guy, streetwear guy. He knows all these, you know, things about hip hop and like the origins of it that your average Joe that's even like a rap fan or a hip hop fan has no idea about, right? So he makes us feel like not fans.

No, for sure. He would school me on all these different regions of hip hop. I mean, he put me on, like, you know, Lupe out of the Midwest in Chicago. He put me out on, you know, people from the Bay Area and you know, uh LA and you know, West Coast hip hop, too, right? Side note the regional thing in hip hop is super fascinating to me. And that's I could do a whole episode on just the regionality. Fucking UGK from from Texas and stuff, man. Like, I mean, literally, like he opened my eyes to all this stuff. Those two guys, man. I mean, they changed my life. Um, fast forward in college, we started a company together. Tell us about world time music. Yeah, world time music, man. I mean, it was it was really the genesis of it all for me. Um, you know, shout out music meets business. Yeah, shout out Andrew. He was not the most into school.

So he was, you know, kind of in and out of class. His dad was an entrepreneur, so he kind of always had this like entrepreneurial spirit about him that I didn't really understand. I thought, you know, everyone goes to college, gets a job for a company, you know, that's the that's the progression. He was, you know, dabbling in this, dabbling in that. And see, people hear like, oh, he wasn't into school, and they think he's like a burnout or something automatically. Like he's not doing anything. Like so many people aren't into school because they're finding something that they're more into, and it's actually something that's gonna benefit them in the long term, which I think is just beautiful. He was definitely not into some things. Like he was definitely like, okay, typical college kid in some ways. I love you, Drew. But but no, um, he don't do drugs. He did yeah, he did have this like itch to you know try and build something because he just saw his dad build his company from like ground up to you know, I mean, this is a hundred million dollar plus company, and this is like a serious fucking company. This isn't you know, your mom and pop, you know, retail store, right?

Like this is like a massive bodega, no, it's like a massive enterprise that he built, and um, so you know, Drew would approach me of like, hey man, I have this idea, and like nine times out of ten, his ideas were terrible. I mean, shout out Drew, your ideas were like so bad, right? I mean, like he would come to me with like, hey, why don't we do this? And I'd be like, that's a fucking stupid idea. Hey, why don't we do that? Like, that's literally a terrible idea. But he came to me with this, like, hey, why don't we get into music? And I was like, my ears perked up. Because like I said, I mean, I was a huge music fan. T was a huge music fan. We were living together, you know, really good homies. And so he like, you know, asked us if we were into this like music idea. And at first it kind of started as like, hey, why don't we like sign an artist? So it's kind of like a this label thing, independent label thing. We were like, fuck yeah, let's do that. You know, so we kind of you know, looked around like the campus, like there were a few rappers that were kind of like on campus, you know, that we actually like really liked and and that sort of thing. So we were starting to go down this road with this artist.

Um, didn't end up working out, but honestly, I think it was, you know, maybe for the better, of course. And he ended up saying, like, hey, you know, why don't we put on concerts? And we were like, fucking right. Like, do we get free, you know, tickets? You know, was that the whole basis behind uh the ideas? Like we can go to these shows for free if we just throw them ourselves? I'm a college kid, so like, yeah, was it like was that part of it? Maybe. Yeah. Um, so you know, it was like he asked us, what do you think, you know, think about you know putting on shows? And I was like, I mean, that sounds awesome. So, you know, we end up doing college campus shows at University of South Carolina, University of Clemson, Georgetown, Indiana, Illinois. Um, you know, you name it, kind of up and down the East Coast. We partnered with the company. What are they called? The uh what it uh what it was called them? No, that was the Chitlin circuit. Okay, it's not the Chitlin circuit. that's in the South, bro. That's just like gritty, dirty south. This is you know, this is much. Oh, the bougie mid-East. This is much bougier than that. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so we put on shows and how'd that go? We we we raised some money from you know, family and friends um to do that, and it did not go well. Uh we we lost a lot of money. Um, we were young kids. We made some decisions that I don't think obviously in you know, my seat now I would I would have made, but I mean, to Chad Tenney's point, I mean, you know, your biggest fuck ups are the biggest lessons learned, and you can grow from them tremendously. Were you just not selling enough tickets or what was the what was the flaw looking back in it? Ticket sales were okay, but yeah, that was part of it, but like a big part of it is negotiating the right deals with the artists. So when you're booking, so booking agents took advantage of us, I would say venues took advantage of us. Um, our partners, honestly, we weren't aligned necessarily perfectly with the partners that we had.

You know, I I don't look back at all, but it was um it was amazing getting to meet some of my like idols now in hip hop. I mean, meeting Wale, he's fucking smoking weed, eating chicken wings, and like barely dapped me up with his elbow, but it was like one of the moments that like I can't. Wale gave you an elbow dab. Gave me an elbow dab. because he was eating chicken wings? Because he was literally had barbecue sauce or like hot sauce all over his hands. Can we take a moment to like just visualize what that looks like? Oh, yeah, for sure, Ben. I got you, Ben. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. And then Static Select us, shout out Static. Shout out Static. He was he is one of my favorite producers to this day. He hosted and DJ'd our first event at Clemson that was the Wale show. Nice. And I mean, we had Cyhi the Prince on that lineup. We had uh Dean's List, which was a huge like blog era group, uh Mansions on the Moon, another kind of like you know, pop EDM type of group that was on the list. And I mean, dude, we had like some, I mean, we did everyone as big as Calvin Harris, and you know it was it was nuts.

Um, but like I said, was not going to pay my rent coming out of school. No. So was going to take away from it. Yeah, yeah. All right. So you mentioned that after the world time putting on shows kind of era that you had to circle back into music. So what went down in between that? I was like, shit, man. I got this really kush corporate America, you know, job offer, like, you know, peace kind of right. I'm out. yeah, like uh, you know, this has been fun, but like I'm not living on, you know, your couch or like yeah, you know, we're not getting a a ratty apartment. Like, so I I just had this like standard of living, I guess, that I wanted to maintain coming out of school, and I wasn't gonna take that that leap at the time um and so I took a corporate America you know sales job and I did that for a long time um it taught me a lot about business so I can't say that like I've hated doing that you know over the years um plus the plus the salary oh yeah and I've I've had the chance to you know make make you know good money obviously doing that but um you know fast forward of course um always just still being a fan of music like and beyond just fan I mean even in those years I would follow like A&R's and managers and like promoters and like people that you should not be following just if you're just an average like music fan like do you think that being away from music maybe made you like want to get back into it that much more like not being in the music scene anymore good doing a nine to five thing and does that make just the music thing that much more attractive I think so I mean but one thing I'll say though is that it gave me time to really keep appreciating music and like being such a fan and loving it so much that I wasn't like immediately jaded by like the music industry because a lot of people that maybe get into it early it's it's hard as you know I mean it's like super hard. I wonder all the time like what my music consumption would look like if I never got into music.

Yeah think about that a lot like a lot, what would I be just listening to? and how would you listen to it? Yeah where and when? how would you act about it? Like what it, you know? Yeah. It's really tough for me right now to add, to not ask you a follow-up question on that I'm the interviewer here. Yeah. Do not do that. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's um, it's one of those things for sure. I I think that I I just stayed so obsessed with it. In like a weird way of like really looking at like collabs too of like who worked with who, like what brand worked with this artist, or like how do they put on this show or like this listening event. Like, I would like to see stuff that like well, you know, once again, the average person would just not give a shit about. They'd follow the artist that they were fans of, and that's it. That's that's where it would stop. In the back of your mind, did you think that you would get back into music, or did you think that your music career was done at that point? No, definitely over the years.

I had like a friend whose brother was a rapper who actually you know, Elijah. Shout out Elijah Kent. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. He's dirty. Yeah. So shout out Ben Feldman as well. Yep. Yep. So I so I think that it was always kind of like me kind of like doing double dutch into it, right? Like I would be like, eh, like, could I do this? Like, eh, no, this is really easy. Like, let's, you know, let's just be like a fan, right? So I don't think it shocked me when you know, I met you and that whole kind of this era has started, and you know, we started working together, which is when I really started to, you know, take this music thing seriously again. Give us give us a yeah, a couple, a couple seconds on how you got back into it, what led to that. Yeah, yeah. So one of the guys that I was writing raps with in high school, um, that you know, he kept writing raps. So like shout out major third. Major third.

My guy TC, uh aka major Third. He is a dope rapper. Like really dope rapper. Fire rapper. But he's like also got other goals that he's kind of pursuing and whatnot. And so, but at the time, you know, this is a couple years ago, uh, he had been writing raps like all through college and all through graduate school, and like into his PhD when everyone else was like, bro, we don't do that anymore. He's like, nah, dude, I'm getting better and better. He really was like constantly improving and he would like send me something like damn, man. That is better. It's Really good. Like, holy shit, man. That's awesome. Um, so yeah, he would always send me raps, and he moved to Hawaii to study um his he got his graduate degree actually at Florida State, and then he pursued his PhD now in in Honolulu. So he's in Hawaii. Living it up. Yeah, living it up. Um fuck a rap career. Yep, yeah. But but no, he's like still writing raps and like really does like have a great sound and like would love to be, you know, a rapper, of course. He's still pursuing kind of both.

Um, but he flew back to Atlanta and was just like, yo, I want to record some songs. And so I asked, you know, a colleague of yours, collaborator of yours, Ace Taylor. Shout out Ace Taylor. Love you, Ace. Um so I asked Taylor, like, yo, I knew he was in music. He and I kind of grew up in the same circle, um, you know, through high school and and even earlier. And so I was like, yo, who, you know, who would be a good like student, or like, you know, where's a good studio to record at for Trey? And it was just me literally asking as a friend because Trey asked me, do I know anywhere? So it's nothing like official at all. It was just literally like best friend shit. We're like, hey man, do you know somewhere where I can record? Like, let's do that. So I, you know, got referred to your studio. Shout out, Henry. Shout out Henry. You've managed a way to shout out yourself on my episode. You fucking selfish prick. I'm just kidding. No, so so he he he, you know, Taylor referred me to you. Um, we come in, obviously, studio looks nothing like this. No, like, you know, I think I was literally in the middle of uh construction phase when y'all first came.

I don't even remember if that was the first or the second time, but like one of the times, yes. It was God, it was like tarps everywhere and fucking I could barely like walk around. It was just miserable. Now we got like fucking Buku space. Um but yeah, so like Taylor referred me to you. You and I would of course, like while Trey was in the booth and recording, like we would just, you know, shoot the shit up. Yeah, like you're clearly not an awkward guy. I like to talk to people. Like we just kind of like as humans, like connected on like a little bit of a level, right? But you know, I kind of like took away from that. I was like, oh, like that was like really cool. Like that was a great experience. Like, really kind of like jazz me up again about like being because I had been in studio sessions when I said I was doing the label. We were in sessions with like a couple artists like around campus, like in college. So like I missed that. Like that was like really cool, like being back and like seeing your flow and and that sort of thing behind the scenes and like seeing Trey record some songs. That was like really cool to me. Um and then, you know, he goes back to Honolulu. Um, and then six months go by because he can't come to Atlanta every fucking month.

Like it would break his student loan budget. Um, the government, the government can only pay for so many flights to Atlanta, right? From Hawaii. Yeah. Um, so he ended up coming back uh over Christmas. You know, he still had some family here, friends here, obviously with me. Um, so we ended up, you know, hey, I want to record some more songs. So we ended up, you know, booking a session with you, and we just like really linked, you know, on a on a you know, personal level, and just I was like super interested in what you were doing because I saw the progress even from six months ago of like what you had done with your studio space, and then even you know, you had improved over six months just of like you know, seeing you work, and it was like fascinating to me. I mean, because I had been in sessions before, and I'll say this to this day. I mean, this guy's a fucking GOAT when it comes to to recording engineering. I mean, he's fast as hell, he's efficient, he's coaching the artists uh, you know, through the sessions. So just so that this is a record that's on YouTube forever now.

Would you say that I'm the reason that you got back into music? You a hundred percent. I mean, there's there's no there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. You can take the throne of, you know, why I got back into music seriously. So when this guy is the greatest manager in the game three to five years from now, we're gonna still have this YouTube video up on my channel. For sure. No, definitely. So, you know, you and I hit it off. Um, I have this business mind mixed with this like obsession with music. And so I just asked you straight up, like, yo, can I help you at all? Like it was really just legitimately like, I see what you're doing. You clearly got this own like good thing, but like, where can I kind of insert myself and kind of add fuel to the fire, not slow you down, but like really like accelerate what you what you've already started to build. Is that how the managerial thing kind of started?

You know, like I said, I kind of followed some managers, but I didn't know what they did. Yeah, no one knows. I had no idea. Yeah, what do managers do? What do I do every day? Exactly. No, so I had no idea what that actually meant, but I knew that like I wanted to kind of latch on to something that you've already started building that I really was a fan of just from an outsider's perspective, and then give my expertise and like lend my skill set to that to kind of multiply efforts, you know, really accelerate this this momentum that I could already see was kind of happening. Like I said, I had a snapshot of like one point in time and then six months later. So I already saw like visually and like speaking with you, kind of like just even that six month period of growth. So it was like, oh shit, like this guy on his own, like already kind of like made these moves, and like he already is speaking a certain way, or you know, telling me he's up to like XYZ. Um, so it was like, damn, like what if he had some help?

And it was, you know, a point in time in my life where personally I was struggling. I had dealt with you know, a personal like tragedy in my life uh that just had me kind of like thinking, fuck, like what do I get excited about? Um, so yeah, it was like perfect timing, man. Yeah, like my life could end tomorrow. What do I really want to be doing? Yeah, kind of thing. Yeah, honestly, it was as as you know, drastic as that, yeah, for sure. So since then you've you've started managing artists as well. You've started, you've you've opened up your roster a little bit. Yeah, you've become very helpful to a wide range of people since then. But what I want to know is where did playback Ben come from? When did that end the equation? Where do we get playback? Oh my God. So, so you end up doing a collab release with my now client, Gabriel Averitt, formerly known as just G A. Shout out, Gabriel Averitt.

Love you guy. Um, so you guys had a song called I Don't Wanna Fall in Love. And this is literally like two months into my like managerial like trial, right? That I'm you know, that I'm doing with you because you know, we wanted to just kind of feel each other out. Uh you have this music video that you want to shoot. And of course, we're trying to like do more with less, cut costs where we can, you know. we, You know, we have some, you know, staff, of course, doing, you know, videography, you know, like kind of like director photography stuff. We have like a lighting guy, we have like another behind the scenes guy, but like there wasn't a person that was playing the music. Who's on playback? That was doing the playback. I didn't even know what playback meant. They're like, yo, can you do playback? I'm like, what? Oh, probably. I don't know. Can you tell me what that is? Yeah. So playback, for those of you that don't know, is when you're literally on a video set and you need to play the song back so that they can, of course, sing to it, rap to it. In time.

Yeah, do the music, you know, uh like coordination, skills required with the video. Being able to press play on your phone. There's no skills required. You killed it though. You killed it. Yeah, I mean, thank you for that, I guess. But but no, it was just one of those things where it was like, fuck, like I'm standing around as a manager. Like, you are just kind of like around sometimes with like certain things to kind of oversee. Of course, in this day and age, I would like hope to pay someone to do this job, sadly, but like I'm not above it. I'll fucking do playback now still. I think that's what a manager does. They just do the jobs that like we we forgot to get someone for that job. Yeah, sad, sadly, yes. That's sometimes what we have to do. And so just pick up the the slack and whatever. And so, you know, that was my job for the day. And that was like I said, really brand new into it. And so then I started just thinking about like how do I brand myself? Like, kind of, you know, I had run into people with like you know, hip hop and like music industry names.

All right, well, yeah, just give us a little uh, you know, little synopsis on like what you're working on, what you got for the future. What can we expect from playback Ben? Sure. So I mean, you know, the clients that I'm working with right now, you're obviously, you know, golden boy, poster child, Henry with a three, my OG client. He was honestly, he was the first one that took a chance on me. So, like, there's people like that that everyone that's come on this podcast, I would say has like referenced, really meeting you, you know, um, was was life-changing for me for sure. So, like, likewise, my friend, likewise, appreciate it. So, like, you know, you know, manage you, manage Gabriel Averitt that we shouted out before, and then shout out my guy Moneymaking Nick, MMB, from the Money Making Bros click. Uh his new tape is out right now, drug dealer car collection DDCC. Go get it. It's a fucking masterpiece mixed and mastered by my guy right here, Henry with the three. Um, so no, that that those are kind of like my roster of of clients from a manager perspective.

Um, definitely with the artists that you've been working with, I would say I've been wearing a you know marketing and project management kind of like consultant hat, right? It's like if we're gonna release a song, I've kind of put myself into that role with those artists, right? Like, uh, and it just kind of comes with the territory of me wanting you to be successful with those releases. Um, so that's been really fun. I love a rollout, man. Nothing like a good rollout. I love a good rollout. Um, we nerd out over like, oh, did you see how childish major just dropped that album? That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, you know, him doing the whole like you know, punting off a Domino thing and Kanye thing, like shout out, Childish Major. Yeah, childish major. We'd love to have you on the podcast. We'd love to have you on the podcast. too. Um, so that's a great tape, and then and a really great rollout. Can we expect any more um video production, Ben, or or per perhaps label Ben in the future? Yeah, I mean, I I I think that you know, you and I for sure have really high hopes of signing an artist at some point, just because we're so involved in that, anyways, with these like collab releases that we've done. We're already doing everything a label does.

Yeah, so it just kind of makes sense, I would say, as like a logical, you know, next step. And I I've talked with even folks like you know, Dan Helfrich, that was uh Helfrich, excuse me. Hell Frick. Oh, German motherfucker. Um, even Dan, you know, in Third Brain, you know, them kind of transforming from just management to label services. It was inspiring. I think that that whole talk track was really cool, like really having a you know, stake in that, like an ownership stake in the the creative and and and the music itself, right? Um was was really cool. And then just this podcast, man. Yes, I love it. One more time. I really love it. Um it's a fucking challenge to grind. I mean, week after week, we have not missed a freaking episode. We in your face every Thursday, every week. This is gonna be 13 Episode number 13. I'm lucky number 13.

That's right. I mean, it's a lot. Um, you know, shooting the videos, editing the videos, uh, chopping up pieces of content, uh, engaging with uh followers of the podcast already, trying to find new followers of the podcast, uh coordinating scheduling with the guests that we have. I mean, it's but damn if it hasn't already been rewarding. Oh my god, it feels so good, man. I mean, just the stories that we've gotten to help tell. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Like, I hope mine's not been like too boring, but like the other episodes, go check out one through uh 12, even Henry's episode if you don't like mine. Uh, but no, man, like it's been incredible. Um, these are real people that have such unique backgrounds and stories, and even if they're not, you know, superstar J. Cole, Eminem status yet. Um, I think that A, the people that we've had on are gonna be there. That's right.

Um, if they're not yet, obviously, and some of them have already seen such crazy success. Um, you know, I mean, shit, you take Leah that's done collabs with every who's who of EDM, right? You know, you take some of the managers we've had on and and label execs like Dan and uh and and Whoa. Whoa, cool. Well, um, anything you want to uh add before we go into this rampage? No, I think that like appreciate you guys, you know, tuning in to all the episodes so far. Um obviously Henry's about to rampage my ass, so like buckle up. But no, this is this has been really cool. So I I I I I think you've done great, man. I'm asking the questions. Thank you. Thank you. So if for any reason you can't make an interview, I can run the podcast without you. If I'm sick, you get COVID tomorrow. Oh my god, why would you knock on like dude? Knock on every wood. There's a new variant, you know. There is. There's a new variant. I've heard of the variant. I've heard that you literally I'm fully vaxxed, bro. So like you need a vaccine to eat indoors in New York now, so that's kind of wild.

Yep, for sure. And before we start this rampage, let's just take a moment to appreciate how great it is that with no video editing at all and no pauses, my drink has magically refilled itself somehow. Because we definitely don't edit any of these episodes at all. Not once never. It's one one cut, one take. Here we go. Bro, have you been wearing this construction vest this whole time? Have I blacked out this whole video? I don't know what you've been looking at, but it's very bright. I think I made too many jokes about it before we started that I forgot to make a joke about it right now. So I'm gonna take my time right now. Can you guys throw shade at Henry about his construction vests in the comments? Or if you think that a vest is a very beneficial thing that can get you to sneak into anywhere that you want to go without paying. Maybe construction sites. Leave a comment. No, like the Kanye concert on Thursday. I might just show up with this and a hard hat and see if I can get in.

Well, now everyone knows when we're filming this. Well, okay, it's not dropping the same day. Spoiler alert. Can we start the rampage? We can. Let's do it. Playback Ben, rapid fire rampage. Let's get it. It's a three-part rampage. Is it starting with short answer? I'm unfamiliar with the rampage. Can you explain to me? You did a rampage last week. I don't want to hear it. Okay. Here we go. That's a it's a gnarly sip right there. Ben. Yes, Henry. If Willy's went out of business, would you starve to death? No, I would definitely have to still go to Chipotle. It's my go to backup. Wow. Traitor. I do feel weird every time I go in there, but give us three artists or bands in your top ten all time. Doesn't have to be a particular order. Van Morrison, Outkast, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Fire. God damn, that's good. That was a fire three. I hate only having three, but you love the number three. If you started rapping tomorrow, what would your name be? And I said this would come back, didn't I? Mr. McTizzle. Love it. That's it, man. It's just easy. It works. Or playback Ben, I guess. Kind of works. Joe Biden exiles you from America. You know what you know what the rest of the question is. Oh my gosh. Where am I going? Where are you going? I'm going to like the Caribbean somewhere, man. Yes. I'm going to. But it's a U.S. Virgin Island. Does that count? We'll let it we'll let it slide. We'll let it slide. Yeah, we'll let it slide. St. John. I'm coming for you, St. John. I love it. It's like literally one of the like I've taken two vacations there in my life, and it's my like favorite place to go. And it's not too far from here.

No. No. Not that you could come back. You can't get rid of me that easy, Joe. No, you're exiled. You're not coming back. Um, if you could manage one person outside of your current clients, who would it be? Alive or dead? Who is it? Bill Withers. Rest in peace, man. Give us one of the best decisions you ever made. Man, it's cliche, but like this music stuff has changed my life. I mean, like I said. getting back into it the second time. Getting back into it the second time. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the but the first time is what led to the second time. So I guess you can, you know, lump that in. Play, play devil's advocate and say it was the first time that really like even made me think about it. But like I was in such a dark place, like for real. Um it saved my life. I mean, shout out Lupe Fiasco, hip hop saved my life. I mean, music really did save my life. Um, it gave me purpose, and um just being a part of this stuff with like you and and Gabe and Nick and just the other artists we've been working with, man. Like, it gives me no greater joy than like to see you guys like doing your thing.

Like, I love it. I love it. If you could get one thing through the heads, just really drive home to all of your clients. One tip, trick, what what is one thing you just wish all your clients just knew like it was the back of their hand. Man, I mean, do you know where I'm going? What would you guys do? No, that's why I'm asking. What would you guess my my answer would be? See, do you see how I flipped it on you and now it's interviewing you? That's fucked up, man. Okay, okay, fine. I'll answer. I do have a guess. Okay, go ahead. Um probably like some, you know, something work ethic related, wanting it every day. Sure. I mean, so that that's that's honestly not where I was going necessarily, but like treating your artistry like a career, right? Like, if you're a business, you get up and do stuff every day that's going to further your business. It's so simple.

It's like whatever you got, make them buy into the next thing you put out, the next thing you, you know, roll out. Like I like like Apple. Do you buy the next iPhone like as much as you can? 100%. Like as many times as you can buy a new iPhone, you do. So you're like the existing customer thing where they're like constantly feeding you, but then do they want to fuck they want to get those god dang galaxy motherfuckers, right? They want those. So it's really so simple. And if you break it down, it's like whoever you got, feed them, constantly feed them, make them feel like they're part of something, like why they even got into you know being a fan of yours in the first place or a consumer of yours in the first place. And then it's hey, who's not and why? How do we get them, you know, into our world and really like you know, make them become a fan and a and and a consumer, a customer of yours, right? It's just more thinking about it, yeah, as that business.

Like, we all want to just be in the studio making music all the time and just being these creative, you know, whatever um, you know, people. But as much as I want to do that, I also know that like it doesn't, that's not how it works. Um see what happens when you ask a manager for one quick tip. You get three fucking tips. I think that's gonna do it for the first part of the rampage. Uh short answer. I don't know if we can call it that, but that was but that was a lot of gems. That was a long answer. That was good gems in there. I'll give you that. I'm so passionate about that last topic. It shows. I knew I knew I was gonna bring it out of you. Because it's like it's no one does it. Yeah. Even like, I mean, shit. Like, like as much as I preach it and like stand on my soapbox to you and like Gabe and Neek, like, man, like, it's just not, it's not easy. No. That's the thing. No, it's not. It is not easy. So moving on to the this or that. Part two of the rampage.

We're gonna give Ben two choices. He's gonna pick one. Here we go. Let's get it. And this first one is sensitive, so think carefully, but not too carefully. Oh god. Because we want honesty. Managing artists or managing producers. Producers, boy. House party. I mean, go ahead. I'm here with my guy Henry. Let's go. You were my you were my you know, first first entrance into the to the industry. So house party or the club. God, neither. That's an acceptable answer. Home with my with my wife and my friends. Shout out Lana. Can we shout out Lana one time? I love you, Lana. We love you, Lana. Um, yeah, no, neither. Cool. I'm so lame these days. You know this. You hit 30 already. I'm coming up on 30, so I'm wondering if I'm. I was already like that at like 28, man. I don't even have the 30 excuse. Okay.

Michael Jordan or Roy Williams. Oh my god, MJ. TV shows or movies. TV shows. Willy's or Chick fil A. Oh my god. That's probably the hardest one. It's the worst question anyone's ever asked. Because just for anyone that doesn't know, we link up a lot. He's over here at the studio a lot. And nine times out of 10, it's Willy's or Chick-fil-A is in his hand. So I want to know once and for all. And that's why I've gained like 30 pounds since you met me, probably. Um man, it's gonna have to be Chick-fil-A. No way. It's gonna have to be Chick-fil-A. Didn't see that coming. I can't deal without my waffle fries. Okay, fair enough. That's why we're doing the Rampage. Did I surprise you? Definitely. Do I seem surprised? Do I want Willy's on my way home right now? Yes. Yes. 100%. Boxers are briefs. I'm a boxer brief guy.

Does that count? Yeah. Is that because they're not straight briefs, you know? Yeah. They're a little bit looser. Yeah. But they're not this straight. They don't get flowed up like flowy boxers. Love it. Love boxer briefs. Yep. Cats are dogs. Dogs. I'm allergic to cats. Easy enough. Shout out, Mocha. I love you, girl. YouTube or podcasts. Podcasts on YouTube. And if you're listening to this podcast or you're watching it on YouTube already, please like, subscribe, comment. Hit the bell too, so you get the notifications for new uh new episodes. Yeah, no, podcasts on YouTube. I mean, I just think that it gives it a different touch. Um, we could have just as easily started just a normal podcast that was only audio. Um, but I think that, you know, with iPhones being incredible, and we've already divulged that we shoot this on a bunch of iPhone. I'm talking like multiple and we look great iPhones, and we look freaking amazing.

Um I I think that um, you know, podcasts on YouTube. Love it. The lake or the beach? Oh, the lake. Oh my god, I love the lake, man. Fuck my parents for selling the uh the the lake house that they owned. That was like my sanctuary growing up, man. So it was it was tough to see that let go. We'll get one back. I'm already searching, so like you love it. I'm like lyrics or swag. Lyrics. I'm a songwriter fiend. I mean, like, if you look at any platinum diamond gold record, um, it's it's the lyrics. I don't agree with that. It's the lyrics, man. There's no instrumental platinum records. Show me one. Show me one. They have lyric. A lot of songs have instrumental platinum records. They all have lyrics, but not all the lyrics are good. I mean, lyricists don't do numbers versus the people that are just like, I love a girl and she had a face.

But it's catchy lyrics. Of course, but like, but that's not all right. Part two of the rampage. But it's an interesting thought. I've never actually thought about it. That like there's no instrumental platinum records, though. I don't think so, huh? No, there's definitely not. Could we be the first? No chance. Should we do an instrumental project? And I mean, okay. Platinum post? Fact check me for real on this, because like maybe there is. Let us know in the comments if there's any instrumental Platinum records. I don't know, but like moving on to the word association, final part of the rampage. Playback band part three. You've almost made it through. You've done great so far. Thank you. But you you'll really be tested here with the word association. We're gonna give you one word. You're gonna spit one word back, top of your head. Here we go. Rampage! guitar. Hero. Corona. Virus. Contract. Negotiation. Korea. North. Evan.

Williams. My boy. I don't think I'll ever be able to hear a guy named Evan without thinking his last name is Williams. Thanks to you. Yeah, I love it. Purple. Hayes. Crypto. To the moon. Love it. Decatur. The deck. Shrimp. Lobster. Politics. Biden. Static selecta. God damn, a Boston white legend of hip hop. I don't even know what one word. It's incredible. I love him. What a rampage. Clemson World Time Bold or freaking World Time Play Bowl Fest, man. Love it.

What an episode. Wow. Yeah. And I guess I'm doing the outro thing now. Thank you, playback Ben for uh, you know. I mean, I can't help with the outro, man. Because I'm new to this. Yeah. Are you okay? No, no, I'm already freaking out. Guys, this has been amazing. Um, I love getting to know Henry on the last episode. I hope you guys have enjoyed, you know, me blabbering about what I've been up to and kind of how I got my start. We thought it was important because we're doing this podcast thing, and we could very well be two random people that have nothing to do with music sitting in these chairs just interviewing music-related guests. Um, but I think it's it's you know fair to give you an outlook on on where we come from and and what we're you know, up to in music. So who the hell are these hosts? Yep, yep. So we we appreciate it for real. If you're on YouTube, really do like this video, uh, subscribe to Henry's channel, uh, comment on the video. Let us know what other uh guests you think we should have on. We're always we found a bunch of our guests really already by people recommending them.

A hundred percent. so that's been amazing. Uh shout out other topics that you want us to cover in these episodes because at the end of the day, we are doing this for us, but we really are doing it for you guys. Um, so we appreciate you guys tuning in. And until next week, until next week, we're out. Bye bye. Peace.