Welcome to the #piratebroadcast™: 

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Audio digitally transcribed by Otter.ai

Introduction 0:00
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:15
What a day to start a #PirateBroadcast™. And we have a new pirate in the room. Chris Stone is with us today. We're gonna be talking about oh, you know, join us and figure it out because we're gonna be talking about a few different things. Right. Right, Chris. Good morning. How are you doing my friend?

Chris Stone 0:34
Good morning, Russ. Man. You know, I'm a fan. I'm so happy I can now be officially a pirate. I can tell pirate jokes now. That's all it was. I was just waiting to be a pirate so I could tell pirate jokes.

Russ Johns 0:49
What kind of socks do you have on?

Chris Stone 0:50
Arghhh-yle. There you go. That's that's the only pirate joke I really know.

Russ Johns 0:56
That's okay. We only need one.

Chris Stone 0:57
I waited all my life to tell a pirate joke on the #PirateBroadcast™with Russ Johns. Thanks for having me, man. This is uh, this is special. And you know, you and I have known each other not that long. But I feel like we have longer. And you know, even when we were just sort of like, you know kibitzing before this thing even started, I didn't even know that you were in the music business. You were a drummer? That's awesome.

Russ Johns 1:23
Yeah. And you were in the music business as well. I think you're on the other side of the the conversation though, weren't you?

Chris Stone 1:30
I was on multiple sides. Yeah, I was the one that was I was in bands. I played mostly bass and just like a lot of bass players that you talk to, they end up playing bass, because, you know, most bands need a bass player, right? Because somebody somebody's cool. Like you plays drums. Usually, you know, you know, whatever, a sexy singer. Yeah. guitar player that's like, we need a bass player, it's only got four strings, just play the same notes as the guitar player at the top.

Russ Johns 2:04
Just follow where his fingers are going. Yeah,

Chris Stone 2:07
But I fell in love with the instrument. And I've been in bands like you, you know, since I was like, 15. And, you know, playing mostly sort of rock and alternative, but have just a varying interest in all kinds of genres. But when I was in bands, and we were doing these little tours and stuff that we were, I was the one that was doing all the business, you know, yeah, guys, and in the bands that I was in, you know, I think they they wanted to contribute, but I just loved doing the business part of the music. I love talking to club owners and booking gigs and putting together flyers and you know, back when flyers, you put them up on telephone poles and all tabletops exactly, talking to college radio stations, setting up interviews, all that stuff I really got into, and I think I got pretty good at it and the bands that I was in, it probably helped me get more gigs with other bands, because it was like, oh, we bring him in, you know, and that that eventually helped me get a job in the music industry. And I started working for for Sony, while I was still in college in Nashville. And eventually, that dream of being a rock star, and the actual tug of life and family and responsibility, you know, one sort of overtakes the other and I moved down to Atlanta and took a job to manage the southeast branch for Sony. So kind of cut those band ties at that point and grew up and cut my hair and, and decided to still be in the music business. Because I had such a passion for it. And I I still love music, it's still in my DNA, it's still a part of everything that I do. And even though I'm technically not in the music business, per se, what I'm doing now is it completely...

Russ Johns 4:06
It's very parallel. You know, it's, and I think it it really boils down to media, Chris, you know, one of the things that I loved about the music industry. In fact, I actually when I moved to Houston, I actually went out and performed dubstep.

Chris Stone 4:23
Oh, really?

Russ Johns 4:24
Yeah, I was awesome. I broke out some you know, cuz when I fell in 87, shattered my arm and transitioned from a drummer to just programming music. You know, I wanted to electronic music and that's why I got into technology. I wanted to learn MIDI. I wanted to learn programming I wanted to. It's like, I could be a band without having to be a band member.

Chris Stone 4:50
Isn't that crazy? I mean, you know, I'm not I mean, we're kind of dating ourselves right now. But I always thought to myself when I was younger, if I had the software and the access to what kids now have in order for music creation. I mean, like, even just the the basic GarageBand that comes with a Mac, was it, you know, is a million times better than the crap that we had when we were young that came on 68 floppy disks that we have our Commodore 64 computer. Right?

Russ Johns 5:23
Exactly, exactly. Well, it's, it's really amazing. And so you've seen like myself, you've seen the transition and to everything taking place in the music industry, in the media. And the #PirateBroadcast™ is one element of that, because in the FCC days, if you were broadcasting without a license, you are considered a pirate broadcaster. Right. And now we don't need permission. So we're all pirates. And, you know, the pirate community is kindness. And, you know, we all exude this idea that #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree in this pirate community. And, and you know, we're all swimming in the same scene, we're all floating around on the same rock. But ultimately, we have an opportunity to share our media, share our mission, our gifts, everything that goes along with that, and you're doing the same thing. You know, we've transitioned into live streaming now. And sharing this media out, and assisting and supporting a lot of people out in the industry that may not necessarily have another alternative. And it's really amazing to me what we can accomplish. So tell us about your journey. Chris, how did you evolve from the music business into live streaming? What brought you to live streaming?

Chris Stone 6:52
Yeah, I have, it's, it's a weird little thing. And I worked with Sony for 27 or so years. And, you know, I, like I said, I loved music, I still love music. It's just that, you know, it was my job to work particular music. And, you know, there was a small slice of the music that I was working, that I truly was felt and was passionate about. And the other I worked just just as hard on that stuff. Because I you know, it was it was my job. And I had the integrity and I wanted to do a good job. And I learned how to how to manage that. But I really loved working with artists and creative people that I got to choose. And, and so I think when people come to me, and they say, you know, you were in the music business, and now you're working with, you know, motivational speakers and sales trainers. And like, it's like, you're in a completely different medium. And like you said, it's, it's really it's not the you know, these folks are creative people. And when you know that you need a live show, when you know, you need a podcast, when you know that you want to create a virtual summit event for your brand. You just want that you don't want to know how it works. You don't want to know what happens in the back end, when I worked in the music industry. We handled everything for artists, they just knew that they had to go into the studio record, the best album that they could record label would plan out a bunch of stuff. But my job was basically distribution sales and marketing, predominantly in the streaming ended up being the streaming business was in worked with, with Spotify, and a number of other streaming partners. But it was my job to make them look and sound good. So when their album came out, it was everywhere. You could see there was features, there was banners, there was all kinds of all kinds of stuff. So that's what I do for these other people. If they need a video, they need a live show. They need something, I can help them tell that story. And I get to like I said, choose. It's not like I am giving something that I'm just not passionate about.

Russ Johns 9:16
Yeah. Well, and the reality is, is that it's the same analogy holds true. It's like, okay, I just want the sandwich. I don't want to have to go to the farm, be a butcher and process this thing to make my sandwich. I don't want to know how the sausage is made. I don't want to know everything about it. I just want to show up and do the work and create the artwork and create the message. And people like you and I that know and understand and appreciate the technology behind it. It's much easier just to call someone like yourself and say, Hey, this is this is a good idea. I think we should probably take on and move this forward. And same with the #PirateSyndicate™, you know, I'm putting this #PirateSyndicate™ together. And, you know, I'm reaching out to people like you and building a community around this. So we can help hundreds of people. You know, my goal is I want to have, I want to produce 100 shows for business owners and individuals and people, by the end of the year, in order to do that, we have to create a community and work together to support more people. And, you know, they can show up, create their media, and we do everything else.

Chris Stone 10:36
That's it, man. That's, that is exactly it. I mean it's almost like, you and I are on the same wavelength. I've used that line. A lot of times with clients that I have now, or, you know, potential clients that I didn't get in the line didn't work. But it's basically like, you come out of your trailer, step two, your microphone or your camera, do it. Go back to your trailer, go back to your regular scheduled life, and we will handle the rest. Yeah, we'll have a podcast, you will be in 90 countries you will be, you know, whatever that they need. And that's the thing is to is like, we love to do it. I can tell after, you know, meeting you, you know, 10 minutes. You are, you're all in, you're totally into it. Yeah. And I love doing it. And you know, what I really love and i and i know, you'd likely feel the same way is I get to see their success and feel like I had something to do with that. And it's not my own. I look at someone else. And I go, yeah, you know, like they're getting that I had just like a little inkling to do with it. And I think it maybe it came from yours in the music industry and, and you know, seeing Platinum success or something from somebody and go, you know, what, I put together that marketing plan for you know, this and it sold X amount of records or, or whatever your

Russ Johns 12:00
My fingerprint is on this brand.

Chris Stone 12:03
Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Russ Johns 12:05
And it's not necessarily that you have to take the stage and be the front of the opportunity. I know that I can contribute to your success, I know that I can contribute to this process. And after 350 episodes, I know that I can create a show that is consistent. It could be on Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, you know, apple, iTunes, YouTube, wherever you want it to be, I can produce a show and get it out to that platform. And the reality is that it's only easy after you know how to do it. That's right. And it's a learning curve. That's pretty steep for a lot of people. And it's overwhelming. And I want to say hi to a few pirates in the room. Mike Baker in Florida. Love that. You're here, Mike, it's always good to see you. And I'm not sure. I I'm saying Jay Jay Dell, I'm not sure where your name is on this. So let me know. JD so and then Tracie. She's the producer of this show. You know,

Chris Stone 13:21
Tracie was awesome. Like, she was on top of things. Shout out to Tracie. Yeah, great. You know, email correspondence. I mean, everything was clear. I know that that's not an easy job. It really isn't. And I gotta give you some credit Russ to for this process that you've set. I mean, yeah, you go live five times a week. Is that right?

Russ Johns 13:43
Yeah.

Chris Stone 13:43
I mean, that's insane. Really, if you think about it, it's it's insane. But to your point, it's like, if you put together the process, and you do the work, of course, the first time you went live wasn't your best, right? second one was better. Third one was better, right? And then eventually, it's like, you're home and man, you're doing the reps. And, you know, all of a sudden, it's 350 episodes in.

Russ Johns 14:11
I'm closing in on 350. And I purposely didn't really I didn't number all my episodes, just because, you know, I see these hosts on podcasts and say, yeah, I talked to Jim, on episode 259. We talked about, you know...

Chris Stone 14:35
who's counting?

Russ Johns 14:37
Like how do they know that when they're on the podcast, or they're going live? It's like, I don't have that brain. I don't have to have systems. I create systems. I create processes. That's that's my golden gift.

Chris Stone 14:51
Do you think people care about episode numbers? I mean, I think if you want a shout out on it, if you're a podcaster and you've got like 400 episodes, and you want to talk about a previous episode and you want to help people find it, maybe, I guess you could say, you know, on episode 178, I talked to Russ, about being a pirate, or whatever. So that was that way somebody could do that. And maybe, you know, you put the link in the show notes or whatever. But I think for the most part, are people really? Is it a? Is it a thing? Is it badges of honor or like what?

Russ Johns 15:26
Well, it does show consistency. A lot of podcasters. They start out really excited. They do about 10 episodes, seven to 10 episodes, and they say, nobody's watching my show. What am I doing? Why am I investing this time? Then it's called pod fade. It's a real thing. It's pod fade. And there's over a million episodes out there. So million podcasts out there now, which is a small number compared to blog posts, right? I remember that. I remember the days when people say, Well, I don't know that I really need a website, because my people aren't really on the internet. You know, it's like, my people really aren't. My customers really aren't on email, because they don't do email. Say, Hey, I own a fax machine, too. But ultimately, the reality is, is that we have an opportunity to build a community. And here's Jim, Jim, thanks. You guys are doing some great work out there, too.

Chris Stone 16:31
Jim's my partner in crime. Yeah, so we met just over one year ago, and we met in real life IRL, at a podcast Atlanta meetup, which shout out to mark deal and podcast Atlanta, largest group on meetup.com. But, you know, something's happened over the past year. So physical meetups or, you know, have have altered or changed just a little bit, so Jim, and I met once, and then I saw him at the at the second event, maybe a month later. And, you know, we sort of connected and we, you know, talked, it was like one of those deals where, you know, a business card, you know, who knows, kind of thing, I don't know if this is gonna be a thing or not. And then we just eventually had this little Venn diagram where we were showing up in the same sort of groups, networking, masterminds, online, and then all of a sudden, we just develop this great friendship. And, you know, we knew that we wanted to work together. We knew at some point, like, I don't know how it's gonna happen. But Jim and I, we got to figure out a way to work because I really like what Jim does. He's a great person. He's got a great mind for social media. And it's something that I knew that I there was a real Yin and Yang. And there's, you know...

Russ Johns 18:01
You're both now pirates.

Chris Stone 18:03
That's right now, so Jim calls me one day and he goes, You know, I watched this video from Ross brand. And it was it was him talking about Amazon live and how to submit for Amazon live. So he said, I submit it for Amazon live and their influencer program. And I got accepted in like, 15 minutes, because, you know, Jim, has more Twitter followers than Kim Kardashian. And so, and if you don't follow Jim Fuhs on Twitter, I mean, what are you thinking? So, right, right, we had a conversation, Russ for maybe two hours that day. By the end of that two hours, we had a show name, we had a logo, he already had a list of guests that we were going to have on our show, because on Amazon live, if you watch Amazon live, most of the content still now is people applying makeup, like a home shopping network, like a QVC thing. And Jim and I said, this is not what we're gonna do. We're gonna do what we do. What we do is we talk to pirates, we talk to people that like to take apart things and put them back together. And usually there's like a couple pieces leftover, but that's okay. But like tech people, people in the industry people that are that and and everyone buy stuff on Amazon so they can just talk about the stuff that they use the books that they've written, all of that stuff. And so we had that show, and we've done it since July. And it's been it's been fun, averaged, you know, financial stuff and in the opportunities that that dealcasters live has created aside. We just have a blast. We really do have fun and that's if it wasn't fun. Russ, I don't think I'd do it.

Russ Johns 20:02
Yeah. Well, and that's the message, you know, here's the two nuggets of knowledge to take away from that fact is that one, you connected with somebody with like minded attitude and an ambition to get started two hours and you had everything going up, it's like, take action, get started, and then enjoy it. It's not necessarily, you know, don't turn your don't turn your excitement into a work task, you know, go with the flow and make sure that it's enjoyable, you know, it's progress over perfection every single day. Yes, really one of those things you have to really think about and reflect on and say, I don't have to be perfect in this. I just have to make progress. And eventually, like any instrument, like learning the bass or learning the drums, you know, your first few sessions may not necessarily sound as good as your last few sessions.

Chris Stone 20:57
So what about your first dubstep session? I want to hear about your first dubstep.

Russ Johns 21:05
Oh, well, you know, it was it was interesting, because I was just, in fact, I'm doing this right now. Because I'm, I'm working on my online, I'll answer your question. But I'm going to come back to this. I'm starting my third musical adventure. Now, on the iPad, I'm doing iOS based music, I got Ableton and I got Pro Tools, and I got all that stuff. And so I'm doing iOS based ambient electronic music, and I want to use it for background music for a show that I got, where I'm going to be talking about, like a narrative. Not necessarily poetry, but a speaking kind of thing. This, this whole idea that I got is what I'm going to do is create the music while I'm talking and use it as a YouTube show after I get to a certain point. And then I thought, well, I should probably document my journey and do that already. And it's kind of the same thing I did in Houston. Now, I was just itching to do something different, you know, something out of the box that wasn't normally doing because I was running radio shows, and I was streaming High School varsity sports live, Chris, over the Internet, to an am radio station. So but I was kind of bored, I wanted to do something else. So I learned I got a a ky a ps 40, I think is what it's called. And it's like LinkedIn. And then you can program some loops. And then I had these loops program. And then they had these events in, in Houston, where you could go up, and you can play for a couple of, you know, two or three songs and go up and put play sets. And then I did a couple of creative shows, in museums, with some other artists that were there, they would do the visual graphics, and then I would do the DJ for the event and, and just kind of fun. venture out into music land doing something creative. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. Because I, I got into electronic music in Seattle, where it was, they had the festival there, it was there for a number of years. They had music all over the city, you go to different venues, and just, it was all electronic music and it just kind of cool. So now I'm going to come back and I'm full circle. And my goal is to play a large event, like in my 70s, or something like that.

Chris Stone 23:50
That's incredibe because you're, I love how you have this vision for something that you're creating. That's audio and video. And then you're creating music into that. And I think there's a lot of people right now that are just like, taking music and they're just trying to bolt it on to whatever they're doing. And wheneve I'm working with people, I you know, music is a huge, huge part of what I do. You know, and people don't realize how important that is. I mean, we've got Jim, that we've talked about already, but you know, I did the intro video for the Tim and Jim show before their 100th episode. And I you know, Jim gave me a bunch of episodes that they had done. Yeah, they did 99 right. And so I'm like, dude, you're gonna have to give me like, top 10 or something so I can pull some highlights or whatever. So I was cobbling together this video and I you know, you have to sync this video with music. And it just in order for it to to flow right and I sent it over to Tim and Jim. And of course, you know, they thought it was awesome. But they were like, the, it's just the music is not it isn't, you know, pumping enough. I'm like, Okay, and so 15 minutes later, they sent me a track, you know, of course, it's a licensed track and you know, I'm sure we'll hear it one day on a, you know, butter commercial or something. But I had to go back to the drawing board with that song. Because I knew when I heard it, that this is what they wanted. This is their audio brand. I don't think people think enough about their audio brand. As much as their visual, you know, their logo, their color scheme, like all that stuff that we do, right for, for people on on live streaming, like what you have here, obviously, the brand here totally on point. Love it. You've got a whole thing. The intro, you know, very concise, you've got the you know, and the music, like, it's the audio brand is such a huge component that I think people miss out when they're putting stuff together.

Russ Johns 26:10
And it's not easy. When I was doing radio shows in I had my own show in Houston is called the Fort Bend spotlight. And I did all my intros and outros. I created my own music for all the intros and outros and commercials and all of that stuff. Just because, number one, I knew that it wasn't...I didn't have to worry about licensing because I created it. It's like, okay, it was a thumbprint. You know, it's a fingerprint is that idea that, okay, I have a piece of this going forward out into the out into the world. And it's just something that I can say, hey, this, I did this, you know, it's like fun. It's just a part of the process. So I want to say hi to Russ Hedge. Chris Stone is awesome. To you a pirate. Thank you so much. Mike Baker says appreciation for one another. And Russ Hedge says, Russ and Chris, you both are doing amazing things. Thank you, Russ. I appreciate you.

Chris Stone 27:17
Yeah, and he's the he's the #inspiration specialist and author of befuddled live the life you choose. Go pick it up. It's in stores. Now. How about that, Russ? Awesome.

Russ Johns 27:27
Fantastic. And then Hiett Ives in from Houston. I'm late in here. Good morning, fellow pirates. And here Oh, we got an answer back. Thank you. My name is Jorge Del coral sauce.

Chris Stone 27:41
I think they correctly pronounce that Jorge?

Russ Johns 27:44
Jorge. Jorge.

Chris Stone 27:47
you know if you're from Utah, George.

Russ Johns 27:49
George. Yeah. It's like St. George. Thank you so much for being here. Jorge. Oh, man. In from Spain. We have an international audience.

Chris Stone 28:07
That's like four names.

Russ Johns 28:09
Yeah, awesome. Fantastic. Progress, progress, progress, progress and having fun doing it. Angie Schuman. My hero. She actually introduced me to Tracie. So she's popping into say a quick hello, pirates. Thank you so much. She's a supporter. Anita, Anita is here. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you so much. I haven't used music in my video. How much is it for the licensed music? Well, if you go to you can use a couple of platforms. epidemic sound is one audio hero is another one. You can actually here's here's a pro tip, you can actually go on YouTube in their library and select and filter down to license available for professional use without without any licensing requirements. If there's something in there, you can find you can use it and it won't get blocked. It won't get taken off the airwaves.

Chris Stone 29:12
yeah, and Anita it's like, you know, most of them are anywhere from 15 to 30 bucks a month. It really just depends if you just want one track. You know, like for someone like me, I need music. I need multiple tracks throughout the month. So it makes sense for me to pay a subscription. But individual tracks. I think it's it's probably like that and then you just get something in perpetuity and vado is another one.

Russ Johns 29:45
Well, Chris, this has been I'm glad we got to hang out a little bit more. You know, it's it's an opportunity to actually connect and have a conversation that you know, just a few people listening in. It's like the coffee shop only. It's a bigger coffee shop.

Chris Stone 30:02
Yeah, man, that's the way I treated it. I was like, Okay, awesome. I get to talk to Russ Johns today. Oh, and other people, you know, get to listen in from all over the world. That's awesome, man. I I appreciate the opportunity. I love you know, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree I love the whole pirate deal. I you know, I I can't believe I am one man. I'm just I'm stoked. I feel like, you know, I'm gonna go wake up my wife and tell her that I'm a pirate and she'll she'll give me the look she normally does.

Russ Johns 30:40
I don't care what Russ says. Well, Chris, is pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. I really like the things that you and Jim are doing. And I have yet to venture down the path of the Amazon live influencer program. However, I have bought enough gadgets and gadgets around here that I could probably talk about it.

Chris Stone 31:07
We need to have we'll have a little side chat, dude. You would be fantastic. Yeah, absolutely would be fantastic. On it's really just, you could probably just turn the camera on your desk and just start talking about talking about stuff like this.

Russ Johns 31:28
Look at this fine piece of equipment here.

Chris Stone 31:35
Well, at least $6.79.

Russ Johns 31:37
I don't know. I'm, you know, I'm an I'm an experimenter, you know, it's like, okay, I want to I want to certain things a certain way. And it's like, I get to set up and it's like, I have it in my brain. Like this TV here. Everybody's saying, hey, green screen green screen. It's like I got a I put up a real screen because I wanted to be able to swap it out. Make it color corrected if I need to. And and it's just fun. It's just fun.

Chris Stone 32:04
Yeah and and you don't have to worry about your your head suddenly, like your ears are missing.

Russ Johns 32:13
Or my shirt color turning into the background. Well, Chris, thank you so much. Tracie's gonna say you guys are over time. So it's like, we can wrap it up.

Chris Stone 32:24
I'm sorry, Tracie.

Russ Johns 32:25
Yeah. And thank you so much for doing all the work that you do, Tracie. Thank you, Chris, for being here. And everyone. Please remember if this was helpful, if you found benefit in it, like and share it. You know, there's a lot of people that haven't found the pirate broadcast yet. And I know that there are people out there, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn live. Go subscribe, like and subscribe to this stream and help help other people out and get to know the pirate community. So it's, it's awesome. And as always, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree and you #enjoyyourday. Take care, Chris.

Exit 33:13
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