He Got 1M Monthly Listeners Using These Release & Marketing Strategies (ft. Arden Jones)

I recorded my most popular song on Apple headphones, like straight up on wired Apple headphones. Those are the final vocals. That's what's on Spotify. Lately, I've been like purposely trying to take more time and really like find what really excites me. You can't come out the gate as your final form. I had a million monthly listeners before any TikTok popped off. Industry plant. On today's episode of the One More Time podcast, we interview artist Arden Jones. He's been super successful in building a core fan base of people who just cannot wait for his next release. He's been very strategic with the way he makes music, releases music, makes content, and builds connections with his audience. If you're someone trying to figure out how often you should release, how often you should post, this episode is absolutely for you. Let's get right into it. One more time. One more time. One more time. You better watch. You better watch. You better watch. Baby, baby, one more time. Yo, so my wife's birthday is tomorrow, bro. Crazy.

Yeah, and I was like, I pitched her the whole idea. I was like, baby, we're gonna do dinner, and then we're gonna go to an Arden Jones concert. She she was like, Arden who? She was like, What the fuck are you talking about? She actually doesn't. She wants to go to a comedy show instead, bro. So tell me. You gotta put her on game. What are you talking about? Exactly. So what should my pitch be? Like, why should she want to go to the Arden Jones Atlanta show? Damn, bro. She'll have a great time. You can throw on my Spotify. Okay. Yeah. Show her the gram. Yeah. If I if I could show her one song to make her want to go. Which which one or like we gotta put it all. We're betting it all on this song, bro. It's our only shot. Uh show her parachute. Okay. It's a personal favorite of mine, too. hell yeah. Alright, so I'll let you know how it goes. Either I'll see you tomorrow or good luck at the show. Dumb ass comedy show. Hey man. I love it. Alright, with no further ado, we had Mr. Arden Jones.

Arden. Mr. Sunshine. Yes. The Uke Lord on tour with Boy With Uke. so it's very confusing. There's a lot of ukulele happening on this tour, I guess. Yeah. But no, man. Appreciate you coming on. So Age Tape 13. Uh Age Tape 13 just dropped last month. Stream that. Right. I mean, I feel like the Age Tape series should be studied in like music business school. Hell yeah. Like this rollout of this series, right? Has just been incredible, man. So it started in 2022, right? Mm-hmm. So nine of them were in 2022. Yeah. I believe. No, nine individuals. You're right. Thank you. And then we did a zero at the end, which had the five most stream tracks, and then five brand new ones. So it was like a little project. Little greatest hits kind of stuff. Yeah, technically nine. You're up to date. Thank you, thank you. So going into it though, was it gonna be a series from the beginning? Yeah, from the jump. Okay, from the jump.

Yeah. But did you think that it was gonna last 13? Like, you know what I mean? Like we didn't know where we were gonna go from that year. We knew we were gonna do the year, uh, let the fans know when music was dropping, like month to month. So we were like, let's get them up to date on when everything's coming out. First Thursday of every month. We're gonna drop three songs and call that like a tape. And then everybody at home used to call me age, so we went with age. Oh, okay. I was gonna ask what the meaning behind the name was. Totally. Okay, yeah. Why age? Age, because it was AJ. I was AJ until my project started. Oh. Yeah. Arden Jones. Arden Jones is my real name. And so artist-wise, you were AJ. Artist wise, I was age, actually. Okay, wow, wow. Deep cuts. Yeah, we got it. Deep cuts. Look at Arden Jones fan. Learning the lore here. This is nice. Yeah, the lore, exactly. Yeah. We wanted to make sure people knew when music was coming, and we wanted to do a set time, and so we let everybody know first Thursday of every single month. We were dropping three songs.

And so going into it, you know, obviously, if your goal was to do the first Thursday of every month in 2022, like that's a lot of music, obviously. Did you have everything ready? Totally. So all the music was already done for the whole year. The music was done, but switched out a good amount, a good amount of music. So it was like had enough to drop for the entire year, and then month to month, I'd be in the studio making new stuff and just uh swapping stuff out when it felt like right, you know. So, like worst case scenario, we we would have had the age tape series regardless. Yeah, but then it was like, oh shit, let's let's swap this new total fire record out. Yeah, and you know how we're like always popping around like promoing separately and like trying different types of promo or posting songs that like aren't even done yet. I think that is so like back and forth. So you never know what's gonna be working and what's not gonna be. I think that's gotta be great for the creative process too to already have your next releases and not have that pressure of like what is next, man.

Like they're waiting on the next shit. You can just be like, well, I have the whole year's music. Let's just go in the studio and see what happens, you know. I bet you can make some great shit without that pressure on you. Totally, a hundred percent. And I was just able to make music every day. Like I felt like I was making a lot of music monthly while I was in school, and I was in school in uh Orange County at Chapman for a year doing you know, bullshit, not going to class, yeah, exactly. Not doing school at all. He was in School, but not in school, he was at the school, yeah. He was registered, he was paying for school. Exactly. But Wow. Exactly. Yeah. Not, not learning. Yeah. But I was making a lot of music then. And so then when I met my manager and he was like, This is all you gotta do all day. I was like, it's fucking on. And so I just started making music, you know, every day, all day. Bro, how easy was it to say yes to that man? Oh my God. You're hired. Yeah. It

was literally like, you get to make music every day for the rest of your life. No more lectures. Where do I sign? Yeah, Jesus. Oh man. But no, so I feel like you know, teasing the music to your point, right? Like you're just constantly posting new music throughout the year, and if the fans are responding to it, maybe that's when you're gonna switch something out, right? Yeah. But for me, I always wondered this, especially with an artist like you who's who's done so well on like platforms like TikTok, right? When you post a snippet of something, it's not finished, it's raw, it's rough, it's a demo, right? And the fans fuck with it, and then you go and actually like make a finished song out of it. Are they ever pissed? And be like I want the fucking original snippet. Totally. And sometimes it doesn't go in that order, actually, a lot of times, because I was in the studio just making music way before I posted any like ukulele type anything or anything on like even just guitar singing. So a lot of times I'll like make the full track, and then ukulele worked as like a little marketing vibe, so I'll just play the track on ukulele, and a lot of people end up liking that version a lot. And then when I post the original song, they're like, Why'd you go in and change everything so much?

You know what I mean? Uh it's like the song was made first. The song was made first, yeah. It was ready to go. Yeah. But do they want the uke version? They want the uke version after, and a lot of times I don't give it to them. That's fine. Sometimes I do, yeah. Yeah, sometimes we do it. I think you need to do it. Yeah, for sure. Drop them on the same single. You know what I mean? Like ukulele. uke version. Main version, uke version, sped up, slow down, reversed. reverse fucking. And ukulele didn't come into the part of my career until halfway through the tapes. So really that was a year and a half into music for me. No. Yeah, bro. You were halfway through the age of 2022? I just popped my Instagram and TikTok, which had never worked before. Like Initially, it was entirely playlisting and new music Friday and somebody at Spotify blessing me somehow. You know what I mean? You are the poster child for Spotify playlists bro. It's pretty fire, bro. I'm like, stream like crazy. bro. Dude, whoever's doing that, I love you. There's a Arden Jones super fan at Spotify. I appreciate you at Spotify. That's putting him on every playlist.

Maybe it's Daniel himself. It might be Daniel Ek, bro. It might be. I might have hired somebody to go in there. hired somebody to go in there. Dude, someone's on the inside, bro. Yeah, or Daniel's fucking with it. Yeah. Daniel. No man, okay. So wow, I didn't okay. And so what even prompted you to to try a video like that? I only played guitar at that point. Okay. And that didn't work. to the same degree? I didn't even post it. I was just posting like maybe in the studio clips, but maybe, you know, sure. Just other stuff. I didn't think of singing just like on film, and then I went and got a ukulele just because it was small and I wanted to be able to just like roll around with friends and and play, you know, whatever, and come up with ideas and sing melodies. Total convenience, move total convenience move, and figured it out pretty quick, and then I had this song called La-Di-Da. again, like fully written in the studio, fully produced out and ready to go. And I went over to my manager's house. Um, and I was just messing around. I started singing La-Di-Da and playing the uke, and he was like, That's fire. And I had a show like that Friday, and he was like, What if you like played the ukulele and sang La-Di-Da like that at the show?

And uh one of my buddies was just filming side stage, and that was the first clip I ever had, like go. That was the one that I found. Really? La-Di-Da? swear to God. Where I'm like sitting and it's like blue light. Yes. Yeah, bro. The exact clip is crazy. Bro, your stuff is so the the stuff that like pops the fuck off on TikTok, for example. It's so simple, right? It's like backdrop of like beautiful sky or scenery or like beach or whatever, you know, totally nothing crazy. Yeah, and then it's just you, lyrics on screen, ukulele. Yeah, 100%. What do you think is it about your content though that's working or that's resonating, right? Like, what about it? I think there's a lot of things that factor into the like ukulele vibe, and I gotta give a shout out to my dog Einer Banks. Yes, I was hoping, and I'm so happy that I heard tuned up on Starstruck. I was like, Oh, they finally did it, boys. They finally did it.

That's my big brother. I was just hanging with him, and he's like, he's from the same exact spot I am, grew up in the bay, and like oh, really? Yeah, bro. Okay, so the ties run deep. Yeah, the ties run deep, and we just got along super well. He he's like uh just a great dude, and obviously, like locked in with a bunch of people I I really fuck with and like got close with over time, you know what I mean? And and the ukulele stuff, like I don't think people realize how much a ukulele is like ties you into just like young hip hop culture now because of that, you know what I mean? Oh, he's a pioneer, bro. Pioneer, totally, and then you know, with Rap Star and everything, and like ukulele's then just like became, I feel like felt younger than like a guitar or anything else, you know what I mean? So, like, especially for a song like Starstruck, I was like, This would be perfect to throw on ukulele. Again, wrote Starstruck completely off of the ukulele, just like in a studio. Without Einer, even at that point, yeah, without Einer at that point.

So he came in kind of like Yeah, I went, I went in, I went over, I went over there and I was like, bro, I want you to do this, and then we just cooked up the rest of the song. Oh shit. Yes. That's dope. Yeah, yeah, bro. Cause I would have thought it was like, all right, we're the you know, kings of the uke. shout out, boys you sorry. I don't mean to leave you out of this conversation, but like we're we're crushing with the uke right now. Let's go in and make this like uke inspired song together. And it was not that at all. Totally. It was you brought him something that was already like half baked at least. and wanted it to be yeah, ukulele. And that was after I posted like Starstruck on the ukulele on my Instagram. I hope you guys are enjoying the conversation. I want to take a quick moment to tell you about our pals at DistroKid. You can't get your music onto streaming platforms without a distributor, and DistroKid is an excellent choice to handle that for you. For the ridiculously low price of $23, you can upload unlimited music for an entire year that is less than $2 a month. I tripped on $2 walking down the street earlier. They have countless features to help you out on your musical journey.

One of my favorites is splits. Instead of my collaborators hitting me up all the time saying, Where's my fucking money? I can input everyone's percentage when I upload the music, and DistroKid will handle it. I've personally used DistroKid for many years and can genuinely recommend them as a great tool to get your music out into the world. And if you sign up at omtdistro.com, you'll get 30% off an already insanely low price. This is absolute peanuts for unlimited uploads yearly. We wish you the best with your creating. Let's get back to it. But so obviously, okay, so ukulele played into the success of the content. But like what else do you think about it? Is there anything else you can kind of point to? I went to film school. That's one thing I did pay attention to. And I was in film school throughout high school. So I was going into like public relations and advertising Advertising for my major, and and that's something I like did freelance for people. I was even like filming music videos for people in high school. Shit, were you nice with it? I was pretty nice with it.

Okay. Yeah. And you can ask, like, you can ask Max. I'm very particular about how videos are put together and posted and everything. Framing up the perfect. shot. Framing, yeah, my head, like halfway through the thing. I'm like looking for backdrops all the time, I'm making sure there's like you'll notice in all the videos, like it's a very contrasting text to the sky and a certain like text style and size, and then usually like on a blank, whatever it is, like if it's a cloud or like a beam in a house or something, like I'll try to line it up so it's visually pleasing and stuff. I think all those things play into it, you know what I mean? But you just blew my mind. Yeah. No, he just blew my mind. I was like, this motherfucker's just out here in Cali. He's like, oh, just grab the camera. Not exactly. That's how I thought that's and that's but I think that's actually part of the secret sauce. 100% is that the viewer, me, I'm like, oh, this dude's just living. He just said someone like, record, I'm just gonna whip my uke out and sing. Totally.

And it was like, no, yeah, we've we're framing it up. Yeah. And to your point, yeah, like the words are always perfectly in the blue sky with the white letters or something, yeah, or white letters on a brown beam, you know what I mean? Whatever. But they're creative decisions that are meant to kind of be invisible. Yeah, like you don't notice, they're not like crazy special effects happening. No, no, no. They're subtle things that you don't notice right away, but you're like feeling it all at once kind of just like sums up your whole sound, I think, even. Just like visually pleasing, you know what I mean? And like nothing's jarring, nothing's jarring, and it's not even like it takes a lot to do it, but just like, you know, people who are super good at Instagram or or just posting pictures or whatever, like you can have a style with those things and you can be super particular about them. No, this is huge. Yeah. This is huge. Yo, y'all, because like I feel like we're somewhat of the mindset of like, hey, just like it you can really go anywhere and shoot and you know, like you can to his point, like it's not like these were you know unachievable like goals that you had for the content, but it was like you still were you know particular about like how it's framed and like what exactly is the backdrop, like you know what I mean. You weren't going out of your way significantly, but at the same time you were you were selecting how you were like presenting the content, which I think is is huge.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I don't always do the best job at it, but I feel like like generally having a style you stick to seem to work really well. Oh, for sure. I mean, yeah, once it worked, why not? Yeah, double down. Exactly. At that point, right? I feel like that's the other cheat code. But how important do you feel like the songwriting is to the success of just your artistry and then obviously like the content as well? Dude, songwriting and melody, I feel like is everything. I mean Yes, sir. It is, bro. Dropping some bombs on that. It is, bro. Big time, bro. And obviously production is super important. Um, but like you'll hear people say, like, I would be I would be killing it if I could just get in a studio, bro. Like, that would be it, you know what I mean? And like I've seen myself and a bunch of artist friends I know. Like, I recorded my most popular song on Apple headphones, like straight up on wired Apple headphones, those the final vocals. That's what's on Spotify horror story is like no, yeah, I've seen myself entirely just Apple headphones, like in a little back like house at this like spot.

There are no limits. How many Spotify streams? 30 million. Come on, man. Fuck yes, bro. No excuses, no excuses, y'all. That's that's the best. Okay, we could like quit. You want to quit the interview now? That's we got our clip. Oh, yeah, we got it. We're done. No, but that that's huge. Yeah, that's huge because we do hear that all the time, man. If I only had a budget for this, a budget for that. I need a good engineer and a good producer, and I need a $10,000 microphone. No, you don't. So melody and songwriting, dude, a hundred percent. And those two things fitting you as an artist, fitting your image and what people see, you know what I mean. And I'm I'm like still trying to learn all of this and trying to pick up on it just so I can like better my myself as an artist, you know. But those are the things that I feel like people lock in with when you can like really see this is real with a person and connect to the person through what they're writing about. And just like your content, I think you're very selective with your words as well. I feel like you don't use too many words, but you use the right words.

Yeah, for sure. Just trying to make it stuff that would come out of my mouth, you know, and trying to be making music that when I listen to it, I'm not like, oh, this is I would never say that. Something that you wouldn't want to sing along to. Yeah, it's also but it's also the the authenticity, bro. Yeah, I think you're hitting something like super important, is that like of course it's in melody, right? So it's in song form, but it is very conversational, and that's what makes it so relatable. Totally. Yeah, that's what I think you crush it with, bro. Is the relatability of like, oh shit, I do feel like he's just talking to me. Of course, he's singing in like amazing melodies, and that's what's keeping me interested, and that's what's making me like the song. But I feel like what's making me really like get emotionally connected to it though, isn't the melody, it's it's the it's the way that you're talking to me as the listener, I would say. Totally. So so how did the evolution happen? Like, how did we get to that point? Because you know, you know, you said you're still learning, obviously, to this day, but even to get where we're at, it takes a while to find yourself as an artist, you know what I mean? And like you can't come out the gate as your final form at all, you know.

That's like you see the evolution in everybody. Mac Miller's evolution's unreal, just like over time, like where he started to the albums, you know, near the end, which R.I.P. Mac meant so fucking much to me. Yes, I can't even explain it. Yeah, um, like I was saying, I started out just like freestyling in the car with the boys rapping about literally whatever we wanted to, you know what I mean? And like that wasn't the beginning of like me as an artist. It was it was stuff that I like picked up, but I felt like once I really started writing stuff that meant a lot to me and felt like it related heavily to my life. I was like, that was the beginning of this like project, you know what I mean? And it doesn't have to be everything, it could be like you could be telling a story, you could be writing about something you saw in a a movie or like a a story your friend told you, or something like that. As long as it it feels like something you want to say or want something you want to tell people or something, you know, I feel like it's a lot more authentic, and that took time for sure.

And obviously, those like early SoundCloud rap songs I was dropping and everything, those were like helping me get to where I wanted to be as an artist and where I wanted the type of music I wanted to make. But like it's a different feeling when you're writing something that you think is important or like you know, real to you. How funny is it that it's like almost the harder you try to relate to people, the more inauthentic it becomes. Literally making it about you and your life, and the more that you can just make it about you, ironically, you end up relating to the most people. Yeah, I I feel like people write what they think people want to hear, yeah, versus just writing what is something that they just experienced. And this even goes like a complete aside, but I'm a huge fan of Kill Tony, the like live comedy podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Massive fan. Exactly. So I feel like a lot of the times the feedback they give to comedians is that if you would have just told that story that you told in the interview portion that was just about your real life, yeah, you would have to do it. That was funny as fuck.

Yeah, yeah. And then same thing with artists. If you would have just written about what it is that you experienced last month, last year, any time in your life, or something you experienced watching something, you know, you know, seeing something, whatever it is that you know that that might have happened, it's like that's what's gonna work. Totally big time. So, how do you work? Dude, I'm uh I'm that's changed a lot too. In the beginning, it was just like write a song um in a day, maybe like two days, and then recently I've like really tried to allot time to a song. Um, but I'll try to I'll probably get the whole song done in like at maximum two weeks, but then I'll be working on multiple songs all at once, you know. Um in the beginning, it was literally like, especially with like the voice memo shit and just like throwing stuff down on uh headphones, I could throw songs down pretty quickly, and like I feel like that's more of like a hip hop, you know, approach. I was about to say, do we think it differs?

Do we think it differs by genre? Even straight up like, like booth writing and everything, you know? Because bro, you're saying two weeks, there's rappers listening to this right now, yeah, chuckling, being like, but you only spent two weeks writing a song. I punched in two songs tonight. Yeah, two songs in an hour, bro. Yeah, and I've done that too. I think it really varies for me. Yeah. But lately I've been like purposely trying to take more time and really like find what really excites me. And I think that's worked, and I'm like a couple years in too, so I think it's like as I was saying, adjusting. We mentioned just the the sheer consistency, right? Of 2022 in particular, once again, like a year that needs to be studied from an Arden Jones career perspective, right? How how important do you think the consistency was to the to the success? Super important. Especially dude, people are moving so quick these days. Yeah. Too quick, you know. Myself included, people just like need to be entertained. They need what's hot and they need like this, this, this.

And that was sick because it was just monthly, you know, you're getting three songs from me, and it still is that way, you know. It still is it is that sick. That I just mean for that initial go, because I think zero from zero to like uh having a you know consistent group of people who are looking forward to your music, having them know the schedule in the beginning of the year, they're like, all right, I know exactly when I'm getting this tape and you know they're not gonna forget about you because they're looking forward to next month so it's such an interesting approach because I feel like some artists would argue like you know that whole like mystique thing of like oh well Playboy Carti. My fans shouldn't know when I'm going to drop, you know what I mean? A hundred percent but look at them in the very beginning you can't have mystique from the jump, you know? Yes. Say it again bro Say it again, bro. one more time. Yeah no it's it's that's absolutely true. Yeah that's your boy party. That is so as far as the you know as far as the uh content goes, right?

Because I know that you obviously were you know making music every day to remain consistent on like the music side of the house, right? How intentional were you about like being consistent with the content and I guess what was your approach to that? Like this was even before you I did like two to three videos a day for a year. Nothing over a thousand views. Like straight up an entire year just flop flop flop flop flop flop. You know when something finally hit it obviously meant so much but I was already working in music. I was just throwing up videos consistently and I'm really glad I did that because I just like cycled through this isn't for me. This isn't for me and like adjusting and moving on, you know what I mean? And I still again I'm like I'm no like master of short form content or TikTok, but it is how the industry works now. But yeah, it was like so consistent and quick, and I think that makes it move quicker. You know, you if you compared to posting a video a day, move posting a couple, or compared to posting a video a week, like you're just cycling through, like learning and and picking up on little things that work and don't work.

Oh, you're gathering so much more data. Totally, yeah. Exactly. It's like, how can you not get better if you're like getting all these data points around like what it is that's working? I tried this type of caption, I tried this type of title text, I tried this type of scene. I tried, you know, this part of a song, whatever it is, like all those different data points. I would say I just posted this to our story. That graph of like the like uh line graph being completely flat, and it's like you know, five years, whatever, you know, somewhere at the time. People think that it's a steady move up, but it's really like two to three videos under a thousand, and then it and then steep, exactly. So it's like and then and then Yeah, sure, right, sure. But yeah, basically the point I'm saying is that like most people give up when you're just I'm assuming you wanted to give up when you were getting less than a thousand. It's like fuck this. This sucks. I'm posting two or three videos videos a day. I'm not getting more than a thousand views. This sucks ass. I'm done, bro. This shit is not for me. I can't imagine, like, you know, that's how most artists feel. Yeah, but like, bro, this guy's over a million monthly listeners.

Come on, man. Like, imagine if you would have given up, right? So I just want I just say that to say is that like I'm glad that you had that experience that because most people only know you maybe of like, oh, this dude's been playing the ukulele getting hundreds of thousands of millions of views on videos, like industry plan. Yeah. I was about to say. Yeah, and so it's like, nah, bro. This dude was uploading to SoundCloud with probably minimal plays. This dude was posting his ass off with no views. Yep, big time. But you were trying new things, yeah, as much as you could. And then finally you're like, I guess I'll fucking pick up this ukulele I bought to just hang out with my friends. So we don't want to take a guitar case everywhere. Yeah, it's insane. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, man. So I just think that's like super important, bro. For sure. Dude, I swear, nothing pops and stays a consistent good thing unless there's a lot of hustle. You know what I mean? For a long period of time. Like you look deep into any artist who's actually stuck around and they've been in different avenues for years, or they've been in different, you know, trying different things, uh, adjusting all this stuff, and it's like, yeah, I don't know if you guys know Tommy Richman just popped off. Oh, yeah, big time, and he's I've just been like watching him and and everything he does for a long time, bro, and he just hustling like making incredible music and like so well deserved.

Oh, most people number two on Billboard right now. Yeah, which most people didn't see that though. No, most people think once again. He just came out of nowhere and has a number two song. This is his first song. Million Dollar Baby is his first song. This guy's so lucky. How did he do it? Totally. number two on the charts. Yeah, Artemis, another one. Yeah, crazy. Tommy, we'd love to have you on the podcast. my friend for sure. No, he's fire. Tommy's so fire. Yeah. So all right. This is like a big thing, man. I feel like is there such a thing as a TikTok artist? Yeah. Really? I wasn't expecting that answer. Yeah. Okay. Tell me more. First off, I am not a TikTok artist. Okay. Some people might some people might disagree. I'm just I had a million monthly listeners before any TikTok popped off. Whoa. Yeah, exactly. Yep, big time. Oh. Shot you down there. It's a pretty good argument. Yep. That was a leading question. Yeah, my first release on Spotify got new music Friday. Oh wow. That guy, Daniel Ek, huge Arden Jones fan. Is he your uncle?

And the following four. And then yeah, that was crazy, bro. Like straight up, Spotify again, for a year, it was just in the studio hustling and posting music that I made, or or even just in my room posting stuff. TikTok did come later. TikTok helped a lot. Instagram helped a lot. But Starstruck, I went from, you know, 20,000 to 300,000 followers. So that was like Starstruck was way into my Oh, followers on TikTok. It went from 20,000 to 300,000? On Instagram. On Instagram. Yeah, yeah. Oh, shit. So that was like shit. One song, y'all. Before that, yeah. It'd pop you the fuck off. Yeah, it was like five years to get to 20,000 followers and then a month. Two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks. Yeah. So over 10x. yeah, it just happens like real quick. And I see that for so many other people too. Just like that one video or one song, whatever it is. How did you feel when that was happening? Uh dude.

Crazy. I I pressed the gas for sure and just like was so excited about everything. I still am. I love it. But like just video, video, video, ukulele, ukulele. I had so many songs to show people. And I was already posting that much, so it was fine. See, that's key. that's a high for sure. You're you know, we're always opening these apps, and when it's working, it's working, which feels really good. Bro, when we saw our first Millie video, we were like, Yeah, we might have just I mean we were like, I wish this would because like for you it was ukulele for us, it was like a draft, which isn't like our typical helping, you know, independent artists. But he wasn't a ukulele player either at the time, bro. Yeah, I mean, like that was still new to you. So, so like, you know, fuck it. I mean, yeah, we should do more drafts. Yeah, we did like a rapper draft. That's so fire. And it did like a million, and we were like, This is the coolest shit. And we did another one and it got five million. Yeah, the next one did eight. Eight. It was like, okay. Crazy. When when was this?

I think I've seen these. You might have seen it. Crazy over the last couple years. Yeah. That's nuts. bro. Yeah. It's definitely like last year, but yeah. But no, man. Um, okay. So what happened in 2023? Did you let your foot off the gas consistency wise or not? For sure. Am I okay? So like For sure. did anything happen? Like totally. What happened 2023? There's a lot of stuff. I mean, mental health, I think is a big one. Dude, yeah, you were going like a crazy person in 2022. Yeah, bro. Like substances will fuck you up, I think. And that's all that's always been something with me. Like, you know, I'm just that type of person who kind of goes goes hard, um, which can like, you know, get me in a bad spot. And uh that can really like tear up your life, like motivation and caring about the right things, you know, making sure you care about the right things and making sure you keep the right things in front of you, like the at the forefront of what matters, I think is super important. So how did you re-center in 2023?

Time off in a little bit of a a break. Yeah. Canceled some shows which really sucked. Yeah. Canceled tours. Um in the long run. Yeah, exactly. Very good. Looking at the next like 10, 20 years, 30 years, I just want to make sure I can get myself in the right position to do things in the right way and and give people the best version of myself and stuff. So I wish, you know, obviously, that I could be on pedal to the metal on the gas 24/7, like all the time. And you know, that's not how it's been for me. But uh, I'm gonna be there for sure. And I have no doubt in my mind that you know, everything's gonna go the way it's supposed to, and I'm still in love with music, and I still strongly believe this is exactly what I'm meant to be doing in this life. So no, for sure. I feel like you know, we were going crazy hard for a while, and it started to wear on us, even too, right? And it's like I just feel like a lot, you know, a lot of artists do need to be mindful of that.

And I don't think that mental health is talked about enough in the music business. I feel like it's just now starting to become like a like socially acceptable topic, right? For people that are struggling with shit. Because I mean, dude, if you think about the life of an artist, tour, you know, is just like drugs, alcohol, partying, late nights. If you think about just studio sessions are late, there's no sleep, like you're not eating well when you're on the road. Because it's like you're not in your you know comfort zone of like going to your grocery store and being able to cook, like you're in ho fucking hotel rooms where you're gonna cook, you know what I mean? Like you gotta eat out. So, like, yeah, I feel like it's super important that you know, should people get the chance to like see the level of success that you were starting to see like towards the end of 2022 and moving into 2023, like I feel like they gotta be just looking at themselves and making sure, like taking a health check and being like, Am I big time? Am I like okay right now? Because it's it's overwhelming, I feel like 100%. Yeah, artists are crazy, you know.

We I think we've got some crazy brains if you're like constantly diving into music and diving into you know, whatever, like a lot of ADHD, a lot of you know, doing random shit and uh yeah, figuring everything out, but it feels good to to be back, you know, where I'm at, and and I'm excited about everything. Hell yeah. We're happy to have you back, man. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Yeah, because I was just like, man, because I I was obviously tapped in, and so then I was like, wait, was it just me? Maybe like he wasn't popping up on my feed and I wasn't like being tapped in enough, or did he actually, you know, kind of you know, fall back a little bit on the consistency and I was posting like once a month. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, maybe once every two months. For sure. Um, just dealing with other shit, and it's really like uh being locked in type of thing. You gotta like, you know, stay consistent, stay hustling, stay better in yourself in music, and if you're too focused on other stuff, then you're not gonna have time for it, you know. But we're getting there.

Yeah. So so what are you most excited about now? Being back, right? You're on the road right now, you're like halfway, you know, through this this tour with Boy with Uke. what what's on the horizon that that's getting you excited right now? Dude, uh man, next month I'm dropping a song with two people who I've listened to since I was 13. Let's get it, 14. so that's crazy. Who are they? Uh we got I'm sure I can say we can we can bleep it out. Yeah, we'll leave it out. if we can't. uh with Galantis and Dylan Francis. Oh my god. Come on. Dylan just looks like one of those people I so badly want to be friends with. Yeah, right. I'm so jealous that you know. He follows me on TikTok. Oh, you did. He tapped into when I was doing content. Henry had a content run. I was just out at a Stagecoach with Dylan hopped on stage. I was fine. Nice. So much cooler than your follow. Fuck my follow. Literally, he took your follow-up and he said, fuck that. shit. Were you at Stagecoach with him, bro?

No, but yeah, no, so Dylan Francis and Galantis, wow. How did that even come about? Dude, uh, wrote a song, hit Dylan with it. He was like, yo, uh, I'm gonna, you know, throw this over, throw this over to uh Galantis, and then next thing I knew, it was all, you know, I got a bounce back and I was tripping. I was so excited, bro. Yeah, yeah. So are you interested in it? The EDM world? Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I dropped a song with Dylan uh last year, and then I got a few other things going on, you know, like uh open for two friends, that was great, and just like that whole like world, I think is so fire. Oh vocalists and songwriters over EDM. Yeah, yeah. It's a fucking cheap. Winning formula. There's not enough people that exactly There's not enough people that realize this, bro. Like, even just artists that we know, it's like, bro, if you would just hit up some DJs that make dance music or like EDM music, it would be over. Yeah, and that's the way to do it too, is the songwriter has the idea already, because the producer loves getting like an idea in, and it's like make this idea.

Totally. I love that anyway. Like having a thing to just go off of already instead of starting from scratch where it's the ideas are literally infinite. It's like too much to think of. So here's an idea, let's build that. Yeah, love that. And I gotta say, shout out uh Mickey Rea. Okay. Shout out. Why? Yeah. He played a huge role in that song coming together. Okay. All right. We're just going to get, we're just, She's an incredible uh producer, songwriter, extraordinaire. I've wrote a bunch of songs with him, and uh, yeah, he's just the man. So Let's go Mickey. Yeah. Hell yeah. AJ, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Oh shit. Oh shit, Henry is right. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Yeah. Age. Can we call you age? Yeah, of course. Are we cool now? We can do that. Yeah, yeah, we're cool. This is the rapid fire rampage. It's gonna be a three-part rampage. Wow.

Oh yeah. We're gonna start with uh some short answer questions in part one, and we'll explain the rest as we go. Let's get into it. Cool. Starting with Sup. How are we doing? Go. I'm doing great. Very good. I got age on the pod. You did. Let's go, bro. We are hype. Okay, moving on. What has been your favorite and least favorite parts of being a professional music creator? Favorite, making music every single day, which is my passion and what I love to do, which is crazy. I feel so lucky to be able to do that every day. Nuts. So it never gets old. Never gets old. Never. No. Not yet, anyway. No. Still young. It's Podcasting, like sometimes I'm like Yeah, I'm over it. You want to move on? Got an Arden Jones interview on the schedule tonight. Jesus Christ.

What the fuck is he gonna talk about? Okay, and uh least favorite? Having to talk to Ben, or is that the least favorite? Exactly. I was gonna say, podcasting too. Fuck you, Arden. Just what I thought we were cool. I turned on you and you turned right back on me. Okay, Fine. Such a good interview We're definitely not coming to the show tomorrow. Oh my god, bro. Just missed out on two tickets, bro. No, dude. That's great. All right. Well, this is gonna be funny because in our next scenario, playback Ben has just finished his first single. He's ready to release it. He has no fans. Brand new social media accounts. Sounds about right. No followers. What advice would you give Playback Ben to promote his first single release? God. I used to like these hypotheticals. I'm not a fan anymore. Send that single to everybody you can. Okay.

In your contacts list. Tell them to show people if they like it. Direct. And then straight on to uh socials, and then yeah, I think that's about it. What kind of content First single. What's he making? He's making just made the song of the summer. No, bro. I can't hear that without thinking of that British chick that was like trolling that. I just made the song of the summer. And she's like, fuck that. Like she basically doesn't want people to make content like that. That's what I hear. That's what I heard when you said that. Yeah, bro. Yeah, a British girl. Okay, all right. So I'm just sending it to all my contacts. I feel like that's so underrated. Yeah. Direct communication. You have people in your phone. Like, let them know and ask them to share it. Simple. Sure. Okay, moving on. You must choose one song to play every time you walk into a room. What's your walk-in song?

Black and blue by Mike Snow. Oh. Wow. Shout out Mike. If you had to jump into a pool of something besides water, what would it be? Jell-O. Okay. And finally, what is your favorite curse word? Fuck. Part one. I still like the money answer better for the pool. Yeah. Someone said money one time. that's the obvious one. Okay, bro. Pool of money. I was thinking quick. Yeah. No money's. fire. He's like, fuck you, man. Jell-O's kind of fire too, though. That'd be fun. That'd be fun. Okay, moving on. This is the this or that portion. I'm gonna give you two choices. You gotta pick one. All right. Here we go. Starting with guitar or ukulele. Guitar. Wow. The thing that changed his life. He said, fuck it, bro. Most controversial part of the interview.

Literally. Wow. Interesting. He doesn't mean it ukulele. Drums or melodies. Melodies. Got to. Shaboozy or Tommy Richman. Wow. Damn. Dropped a bomb. Why are they the two most viral people on the internet right now? I just did a Shaboozey cover on my Instagram. Fire. Yeah, the bar song? Yeah, yeah. So good. Is that why you asked this question? Did you do research? Don't worry about it. Did you do research, bro? I always research. Okay. I see you, big dog. Tommy. Shout out Tommy. It's a million dollar baby cover. Shaboozey so fire, though. Shaboozey's a Million dollar baby cover coming soon. Bro, my dad. 100%. Dude, my dad sent me a Shaboozey, me and my managers, he sent me a Shaboozey song over a year ago. Wow. He said, yo, I just found, I just found this dude. He's pretty sick. Early. Crazy. I thought he was gonna say, I just heard the song of the summer. That's what I heard his dad saying in my head.

Damn, bro. My dad sends me crazy shit too, but he always sends me when like a rapper gets shot or something. That's wild. It's because he sees it on like ABC News. It's like on like the main news. That's your first line of information. That's what you get in. My dad literally is on it before, like no jumpers on it. I swear to God. Crazy. Yeah, he's 77 years old, too, just for the record. Old guy. Old man. Wait in the merch line or see the opener. See the opener. Keep TikTok or ban TikTok. Keep TikTok. Someone buy it. Elon. In studio or on stage. On stage. Go ahead and buy it. On stage. Barely. Yeah. Yeah. Like the Kentucky Derby. It was like a three-way. Dude, that was nuts. bro. See that? I had money on that. Did you? Damn. We we did good. Let's go. French fries or onion rings? French fries. Meditate or skydive. Skydive.

Permanently sing instead of talk or permanently skip instead of walk. Permanently sing. I think that's the right answer. Let's go. Like a goofball skip and everything. Yeah, you wouldn't get you wouldn't be taken seriously ever. And you're a good singer, so it wouldn't be annoying, I think. Hopefully. Everyone's a good singer, Henry. Okay. Can you pick up? Yeah, yeah. Everyone can sing. He didn't mean that. Okay. And finally, never use melodies in your vocals again. I.e. rapping only. Or leave the music industry forever. First one, of course. He's rapping. It's going back to age. Going back to age. It's going back to age. Big time. Mixtape coming soon. Produced by Metro Boomin. Yeah, exactly. Let's go. Shit. I love it. Okay. Some fire. Who would be your producer of choice to drop your like rap tape? Rap tape, yeah. Ooh. That's a tough one. That's a good one. Day trip.

Ooh. Good choice. We're moving on to the final part of the rampage. This is the word association. I'm gonna say one word, and you just give me the first word you think of off the top of your head. There's no correct answers. You're only judged on speed. Here we go. Rampage! Starting with ukulele. Beach. Egg. Nog helicopter. Pad. Goat. J. Cole. J. Cole is winning right now, bro. A lot of people forgave him. Dude, everyone forgave him, bro. They're like, all right, we get it. Everyone respects him. We get it now. He's not getting shot at. He's not, you know. He's not getting shot at. He's just on the beach by himself. With the ukulele. Yeah. Exactly. Living his life, bro. YouTube. Shorts. Mars.

Bars. AI. Friend. Garbage. Man. Zodiac. Killer. Mushroom. Man. Pirate. Gold. Lil. Wayne. Age. Tapes. Let's go. This has been Arden Jones. Mr. Sunshine. On tour with Boy With You. You better be at that show tomorrow. bro. It's not up to him. Dude, you better be there. It's not up to him. Bro, it's my wife's birthday. She doesn't know who you are, bro. And I promise he would be there. Let me pitch her the... All right, we'll do a video. Record a video. Show her a video. Show her love on you. Show her toxic crush, show her. I thought it was Paris. Bonnie and Clyde. I thought it was parachute. I got more. He's got more. I got hits, bro. I'm going to options. Okay. She's not gonna do it. I'm telling you, do a video, say, hey, Arden Lana, this is Arden.

I would love for you to come to my show tomorrow. I'm very excited. I want to wish you a very happy birthday. She'll come. Watch. She might. It's like a come on. It's like a shout-out. It's like a camera. I'm giving my best, bro. I want to go. I want to go. I guarantee you're gonna have a great time, and it's gonna be the best show you've seen in a long time. Okay, I believe you, man. There you go. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe if you fuck with this interview. Follow us on Spotify Podcast, Apple Podcasts, leave us a five-star review. We are here each and every Thursday. Until next time, Henry. We're getting out of here. Getting out of here. Peace, y'all. Thanks.