Let's roll. Okay. Radio detox right now being recorded with me, Heather Larson, and a very new artist to the Valueverse,
Kathryn
Yes, my name is. I'm excited. I'm so excited. And we're at Anton's right now in Austin, which is like a blues, really cool venue and exploring wise. There's a base in the bathroom
that I no. No. No. It's a base case and I genuinely think that there could be a body in there. But I didn't say that. Did you learn? No. Okay. I'm kinda scared. We're getting the lore of Anthos. See. No. It's We're creating the lore. We are. That's the whole idea. You know, this is a cool brain room as far as brain rooms are concerned. Oh my gosh. Yeah. No. The stand up piano, that's that's definitely a very nice old stand up piano. And okay. Look at that big amethyst on top. Okay. That that looks like a citrine right next to a giant Tito's vodka.
On top of a Tito's beverage mat. And you're sitting underneath the legendary Anton's
sign. We've got some of Ainsley's, bandmates hanging out with us, chilling. And how many interviews have you done with anybody in the value verse? This is my first one. Let's do the first high five. And a little backstory here. I have been staying in a house with you for a couple days, so we know each other a little bit better now. Yes. And, you know, we're here for,
in Austin for it's by Southwest,
Yeah. Music Summit, which was yesterday. And tonight, Antones, we've got a great lineup for BoostiGram. Ball, we've got Ainsley, we've got Abel James, SOB and the dang, Suzanne Santo, Henry Invisible,
and someone is a All the people. Yeah. It's all it's all the people. So All the people. All the fun things. And,
honestly, I'm just here to absorb through osmosis.
Truly, what everybody has been doing is incredibly inspiring. And how Ainsley has been able
to grow on this network, I think is something that as an artist
really piques my interest. Because when you're hitting a wall in the music industry of like, okay, I've been doing writer's rounds. I've been recording. I've been releasing stuff on DSPs.
I've been networking and going to all these events, and I feel like I've I'm I'm just getting tired. I'm hitting a wall. And this offers
a little bit of hope in a way. Yeah. This is the Nashville story of how much you work, and you work, and you work, and you do all of these things, and then crickets. And then crickets. And I partly take the blame on that. I went to Belmont University.
I graduated in May. I don't know if we can completely blame you. But okay. But Well, you know, it's
but I think within Belmont, they really teach you that the music industry
is really cool. It's very flawed, but if you can make your niche, you can do it. And truly the networking connections that you make at Belmont are very they're very streamlined, and all of the people that you're around wanna do the same thing that you do. So I like to say that it's like Camp Rock for four years. Nice.
It'll be fun. It's very fun, but also imagine. Okay. You've incredibly committed because you've been, like, everybody that's auditioned or gone there has been the best wherever they're from. And they've been Well, and I'm and I'm saying this take everybody and put them in this Belmont Petri dish. Yes. You take well, and I mean, imagine the mental of that. Like you've been growing up
from a young age of like, oh my gosh, like you're so talented, blah, blah, blah, blah, depending on, like, what small town you're growing up in. So you've built this ego. And then you go to Nashville You get Nashville. And you get squashed.
Like, it's very much like, oh, okay. I I can sing. I can do my little jig on the piano, but 10,000,000,000
other people can do the same exact thing and probably do it a 100% better. Mhmm. And it's like, okay. Cool. I'm a dime a dozen here. So you try to figure out your niche and you try to meet the right people. And, I mean, hey. That's life. But That's true. Yeah. Being young. So you're you're a young artist. You're fresh out of Belmont. Yes. I graduated in May,
and I immediately went into sales.
Did not find her star there. Well, I was
cold selling in the back of Target's AT and T. So you know those people when you walk past That was not your destiny. No.
Well, because if you can imagine, you are going to Target for shampoo. You walk past the electronic department and you hear somebody go, Hey, ma'am. How's your day going? You're gonna be like, fuck off.
It's not it's not something that you're expecting nor something that you're wanting. And so Which is how I feel telling people that value for value. Well, and Hi, ma'am. How's your day going? Would you like to put your music on the Internet? Yes. You haven't
funny. You feel like you're pitching them. Yeah. Which I think is interesting from the sales perspective of the value verse of, like, sometimes when you're explaining this to someone, it can feel like a pitch and not like, oh, this is really cool. Because we sound crazy sometimes. It sound like I I just can't quite put my finger on it because it's such a complicated bit to explain that I feel like I I've talked fast sometimes to, like, be like, can we do this thing and let me skim over this part right here. And then I wanna lose you, and I'm gonna get to the good part. And And then the good part is, but we have to work backwards. Yeah. That was kinda how I explained it in March. I was like, this is okay. You know, my elevator pitch attempt is okay, but, you know, getting people on the value verse is is definitely more of a long game and saying, like, hey, put your music here, and then
who knows what's gonna happen? Exactly.
Well
and I think I don't know. Sales definitely fostered that type of, like, you get rejected 70 times a day for ten hours a day It's a good training for you. Seven days a week.
No. It's it's very much, like, I I remember calling my mom, like, my first two weeks, probably every single day. Like because, wait, were you looking at commission? Yes. I was like, the commission, baby. Shrinked the commission. Just start looking at music. Can you talk about all the time and you don't make any money? It is perfect conditioning, right? Perfect conditioning. Everything was the perfect amount of, okay, You're gonna go into this environment, and you just need to have such a positive mindset
and such like a Mhmm. You have to because they were teaching us to go for two no's. So, like, say I ask you a question, you're like, no. Fuck off. I go, okay. Well, how's your day going? No. Fuck off again. Okay. Awesome. I'm gone. Like, do you just want to keep them going? Yes. Engaged. You want to keep them engaged. And I mean, you're taught a bunch of different
psychological things of like how to read a person, what type of an quote unquote animal they are and like how to like redirect an objection. I mean, that's a little lie. Now that you've lived with me a couple days. I've lived here for a couple days. Labrador.
Tiger. Well, there's
there's,
there's a bull. A bull? A Tigger.
But yeah. So they're in different categories. And within the first thirty seconds of meeting someone, you have to basically assume what animal they are. Do sales a lot. And do do yes. And do the objection that you think would get them to the point that you want them. So long story short, sales didn't work out. You're so pretty. Yeah. The animals.
If you're gonna do sales, you have to have a passion. But Yes. It probably did help you with meetings. It definitely did,
in multiple different ways. I mean, hearing no that many times, you kind of go, okay. You need to figure out who you are and take that at face value. No experience like that in Belmont. Like, when you're in college, it's you're you're you've gotta, like, get a degree. Well, you have to get a degree. I mean, my stance on college, I'm incredibly grateful that I went to college.
Yeah. I am too sometimes. And then I looked at my gloves and, Yeah. Well, see, the thing is, I will fully admit that I have amazing parents who were able to pay for my school. Oh, nice. So that is something that
yeah. I'm so I'm excited. Well, I'm grateful that I have my degree, but my thing about college So it should fall back on, right? Yes. It's something to fall back on. Once you get some kind of
a trade, degree, training, certification. Yes. Something to fall back on for all of us. Something to fall back on for sure. And I think,
I think college in a in a way, and work with me here, I think it's an extension of four years past high school that you can use to develop your mental, your physical, your emotional,
and it's in a controlled environment
around people that like the same things as you do. It should build your confidence. You should be doing challenging things and having your confidence built and and also getting swashed like a bug, let's just say. Exactly. Coming to Nashville, being around other it's if it's not that experience specifically, everybody should get a little bit of a humbling.
Yo. Yes. Very much so. But I don't wanna humble you because I actually wanna I actually wanna build you up because this is this is still so I first heard about your music,
hitting the value verse from Ainsley, of course, because I follow Ainsley on Nostra, obviously, as we're at the Ainsley show tonight.
And I did not putting everything together was so crazy for this
special weekend that we're having here for value for value that I just didn't have time to listen to the song and forgot about it. And then, we were in the minivan.
The Scooby Doo. The Scooby Doo minivan.
And and finally, somebody put the song on, and I got to hear Socrates.
Yes. So how many times in my life have I heard the artist's song for the first time with the artist sitting next to me,
period, let alone in a minivan driving around Austin, you know, with with, you know, the maps going and That was such a great experience too. Because Is that weird to have to be sitting next to somebody and having them go, oh, I'm hearing your song for the first time and looking at you at the same time. It's all about it. Like there's a little bit of like, okay, well, I hope that she's not judging me. Like, well, and obviously there's that insecurity as an artist of like, is my art good? Do people like it?
And. Yes. Yes. So.
Yes. Yes. Judging you. Yes. Your art is good. Yes. People, people like it.
So
see, and that's the validation that
I just well, I really need to hear for this art because this is the first record that I've really done in an R and B style. Yeah. Okay. So I was gonna ask for clarity about that because okay. First of all, you're a white girl and I, well, I'm also a white girl in a, in a my Russian family. But,
I didn't expect all that soul from Oh, yeah. So I did not, where does that come from? Yeah. The left toe or what? Honestly, I, I think it comes from growing up listening. My mom's favorite band was Boyz II Men.
So growing up, I listened
to Boyz II Men, Alicia Keys.
I listened and I grew up on
kind of the nineties
blues
almost. That's the good stuff. And I think listening to that and combined with musical theater, which teach Mhmm. Teaches you a lot about, like, belting and breath control in that way. Mhmm. I think leaning into that plus the Can you just belt one right now?
Jazz belt one,
Belt something. What's
Kazanbo.
Yeah. That song is really good in Hamilton. Okay. Your little Hamilton I
see. I love history and I love musical theater.
So Hamilton.
I was amazing for that. So
but Soul. Soul. All of that's to say the best compliment that I got when somebody heard this song for the first time, they literally, they look at me
and this black woman in her forties, she goes, oh, so you season your chicken.
I literally, I paused. If you don't, you know, if you know
this girl seasons her chicken. I was like, oh, gotcha. Thank you. We can eat at your house.
Yes. Because you can't eat at a house, but you No, you can't eat at the house. We can eat
at Catherine's house
as the girl seasons her chicken.
But I That's the best compliment I've ever heard someone give to a singer. Yeah. It was kind of the moment of like, okay, so this is the sound. That's respect. It was definitely respect. That was respect from the black community saying, yes, We hear you. And You sound good. You're we don't we're not trying to be a poser. Yeah. I think You got it going on. You can sing. The part that I kind of worried about delving into more r and b is, like, I was doing a lot of country. I was writing a lot of country, kind of more pop type things. And what I was releasing,
I wasn't promoting because I, as an artist, didn't love the music. And also, I mean, that's kind of the case old story of you don't like what you're writing or, like, you've listened to it enough times about the time it comes out. Yeah. You you hate it.
That's how harsh, though. I mean, that's that's marketing too. That's Yes. By the time everybody starts hearing about it, you're like, I am so sick of this. I've been at this for six months. Why would they care now? Damn it. Damn Damn it. Yeah. It's like, I have to play that.
So I released a few on Spotify and Apple Music. I released an EP,
which was really cool. I had a great experience recording that. It was my first time being in a recording studio, and I just remember going out What was this? This was, oh, my first time this is probably 2020 Okay. Because I recorded this in Tucson, Arizona. Yeah.
Not not even close to a veteran. I'm still working my way up there. I think But this is what's cool about value for value is we can take somebody like you, like, we can pluck you from obscurity, and we can put you on wave lake, and people can just check you out. And I think that's
the value and the hope that I see is that
as an artist, this isn't a place that this isn't a platform that is super saturated yet. Yeah. Like it's a platform that people are
actively looking through and combing through and looking for new music
versus Spotify, like, a 150 songs get released today. It it's it's being a lazy consumer, massive consumer of music versus, let me get on Wave Lake and see what's new today. Yes. Let me get on there and see what the number one song is today. You know, it changes over every afternoon. Right now, the the time we're recording this on the December 16, it's now hot quicks
at two one. And, you know, maybe a few of our artists that are playing Antones tonight are in that that top 40 trending list. And Yeah. We're You know, maybe you're a few zaps away. You know? Hey. You never know. You never know. You never know. And that's the the fun thing. And, of course, we're obviously, you know, you've got one song and obviously, we're we're playing it on radio detox, and we're waiting for the next song.
Yes. Which I
I'm really excited about the next song that I am releasing to because
as the first Socrates, that sound that we created, my producer and I, he made the beat, and he was like, hey. So I made this beat in three four. It's kind of an experimental beat. I know that we've been talking about, like, you doing more r and b stuff.
So do you want me to send it to you? And I was like, yeah. Sure. Let's go for it. And one night, I literally was sitting at my apartment, and I played the beat, and I just started singing over it. And I was like, oh, okay. This actually this sounds good. Like, I I can write a melody over it, and I can do, like, a little jazzy thing, runs, and build in the things that I love Mhmm. Instead of kind of following a certain model that I know would do well. Yeah. And You don't have to do that. Exactly. Like, you don't you don't have to follow a certain model. Yeah. No model, no recipe.
Real creativity is coming back in. Yeah. And it and it was kind of the moment of, like, okay. This is vulnerable because for the first time, I feel like I'm putting myself in my record. And, like, I'm
writing from my perspective. This is a new generation coming at the value verse. Hello. And are you saying I'm recording. Hi. This is so great to meet you. Good to meet you in person. Yes. This is a new value verse artist. So I'm recording here from Weird ID Talk. We met. Yeah. So yes. We'll be talking late. Yes. I have a whole bunch of show notes for you for tonight in here. Thank you. You're so welcome. That's exactly what I was was Yeah. Rhonda, where do you wanna sit? So could we he's gonna do some stuff with me. Yeah. Let's see. Room over there. So Yeah. I'll sit. I think we Awesome.
It's fun. Yeah. Yeah.
No. And that was Parker. Parker is super cool. He does so many different documentaries. Yeah. For people listening, like Parker Worthington just walked in with a camera on out of her. Yes.
So like, and I think also for me,
I met Ainsley
a few months ago
through
networking.
Like I met Ainsley a few months ago through networking and kind of knowing mutual friends. And
we met and
I started doing content for her because my background is in social media.
Yeah. I
kind of I was doing some videos for her with one of our mutual friends.
And
then I heard her conversation with her mom about the value verse and kind of Bitcoin.
And I was like,
Oh, wait, they know something. Like they know something I don't.
And I was like, They know something that most people don't, that most people don't. And I was like, wait, that actually sounds kinda cool. Like, SATs, Zaps. What what type of different language are you talking in? Like, what? Alien language. It's like alien language. I was like, I was like, this is very this is interesting. I wanna learn more about this. And
so I was helping a fundraiser event concert that Ainsley performed at. Doing kind of just organizational different things, making sure artists were in the right spot. So she like paying you to help her with social media? No. You're just kinda like chilling, volunteering? Isn't that the story for social media? A lot of times, that's how you get your foot in the door. It's it's funny though, because that that is Dylan and I have hung out with you for a couple days and and, and you we you and I are just harped.
And Derek Ross is also harped on social media content creation for Ainsley who's
admittedly not good at it. So it's weird to find an artist who's like, I'm kind of this and I wanna do it and I like it. I'll just do it for free to get my foot in the door. Like, it's cool. Like, cause most artists are like, fuck. I think that goes back to my parents are both entrepreneurs.
They've both kind of had to stick their foot in the door. And I just, I learned that mentality from them of like, be grateful for every opportunity that you're given. Never take it for granted.
Like never take it for granted
and always stay humble and kind. And that's, I think the main thing is You were like put on this earth to do this. Cause you get your head. All the stories like she was put through it so she could be a musician and learn how to be told no, to learn how to stay humble.
I admittedly, I have not had a hard life. Like truly I have two parents who are still together. I grew up in a good home. They paid for me to be able to school. Like, I don't have the classic, like, starving artist story. I don't That's good. Because we want that to go away. We want the starving artist story to go away. Yeah. Like, I and I believe in that too. And I think with this type of model, it's able to go away. But with the current model that we have in the music industry, it's novel because
ultimately
it makes you reliant on the people above you and it makes you reliant on other people essentially telling you what you should be doing.
What I've seen in the value first is
multiple people working together on a ground level,
helping each other out, which feels more grassroots, feels more,
like a community and a team rather than a higher up.
Or I mean, I I guess not a higher up, but like It's like a rising tide that loves something. Yes. It's and I think the best example that I can see of that is I mean, we were having problems with the fountain app yesterday, and Ainsley was able to literally text the developer of the fountain app and said, hey. So we're having problems with x, y, and z. And this isn't just Ainsley.
Like, you can literally connect with all these different people. This is so small. It's so small that you can if you're having any problems, questions, comments, concerns, there's five different people in a moment's notice that are willing to help you.
Which,
as an artist in a space that comes from a very kind of like scarcity mindset of I'm gonna take as much as I can for me and y'all are on your own, like elbows out.
And You see what I can hear right now? I don't it's probably not coming over. I can hear Suzanne Santo playing worried. Oh, this is shit.
I,
I find anything cool. I woke up this morning, came downstairs and had this great conversation about Bitcoin and all these different things. And I remember walking upstairs and like falling down on the bed and looking at Ainsley and being like, I love this. I love this so much, but I'm very tired. I live by myself. Because it was the fullness of waking up, being able to have that type of, like, intriguing conversation, and then being like, okay. It's still morning. It's 11AM.
It's an instant energy really early in the morning. And me and Val woke up this morning. We were going out of time. But it's fullness. It's definitely, like, you're you're talking about new
ideas and that's very cool. Yeah. And in a space where there's not a lot of new things happening, it's very
it's very cool to see that. But A new experience. It's a new experience. It's like, we turned on the fire hose and, you know, like, the Pistellos brought you Well, and I remember
so so we met and then after this fundraiser,
Ainsley and I kept chatting and I talked to Ainsley and Julie about, like, Hey, I really find what you're doing interesting. I could love to learn more about it.
So
they invited me over to their beautiful home, which as I got there, they were like, thank you so much for driving the thirty minutes. I was like, I was like, no, trust me. I promise I'm from Wisconsin where it's a thirty minute drive everywhere. So I pick you promise. It is not, it is not a big thing.
They were so
great about how
they were walking me through this because it didn't make me feel like I was an idiot for not knowing it. Yeah. It was like Well, most people don't know this stuff and there's no point in like snobbery or making everybody feel like an idiot. Because like we're still figuring it out as we go. Breaking things daily, as you mentioned, you know, it means they're doing the fountain takeover yesterday and, like, it breaking and then, you know, emailing heads and fountain to be like, oh my god. What's happening? What's happening? It'll be okay because we picked enough songs to be at the what's happening? It froze. Yes. And that's and it and it happens and
and, you know, we're just kind of flying by the seat of our pants. And isn't that just music? Yes. Very much so. Very much so. I think
the space is very interesting
and I'm just still trying to kinda like figure out the Domus and Primal and Albi, and there's so many different wallets and lightning and sets, and it's a micro Bitcoin and what? And three months from now, you'll have 75 lightning wallets, all the nostrils. Yeah. Like All the stuff. Yeah. It'll and then you'll be like and it's still like, let me try some more because that's kind of where the space is at right now where we're all just going because there's a lot of choice in that nostril.
There are a lot of nostril apps out there.
I might tag Ainsley for, like, thirty seconds because I really need to use the bathroom. Yeah. I have this okay. For those not washing, I have I have a giant water bottle that I always carry with me, and I drink at least four or five of them a day. Therefore, I spend a lot of my time in the bathroom. That has to be high. That's a good alternative. This has been an amusing interview so far. Anytime I do live interviews, anything can and will You wanted I was like, oh, are we recording? Yeah. We're still we're recording. We had to Adam walked in, and I met Adam before. Oh, that's awesome.
The band walked in. And so like there's a little background noise there. Yeah. I love it. I heard that I just like locked myself in someone's office and was going and making my obnoxious warmup noises. And I was like, Oh God, it's cold. Cause I could hear them so well. And I can't tell if they can hear me on on stage or not. But you know what? It's part of the ambiance, man. Yeah.
So you and I, we, we go way back to
July. I don't know. July.
Yeah. When was our first interview together? It was July.
July. So like five and a half months ago, we spoke for the first time on she helped me kick off the podcast. I feel like I've known you for longer than that, though. I feel that effect on TV.
I love it. No. Yeah. Because, I mean, the after the first interview that me and you had together, it felt so easy and so natural in a way that a lot of other interviews I've done haven't. And so that's crazy that it was only this year. I would have thought that it would have, it was in February.
This value verse thing for what what, eighteen months? Yeah. Long time. Actually, just about a year and a half because it's it was July.
So just about Okay. What's what's twelve plus six, eighteen months? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Year ago, right now, you were doing a show with Just Loud at Minneapolis. Yeah. First ticketed concert. It was. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that. That was my first ticketed show. Yeah. And so this is kind of the year anniversary of that. Oh my god. That's really cool. High five. Thank you. The value verse of Live and Mill. A year later, you didn't break it? We're here. We're breaking it. And then hope maybe next year, we'll go back to 1st Ave, and we'll be on the main stage at 1st Ave. Oh, hey. That'd be cool. Run on the main stage at 1st Ave. Last year, you were on The 7th Street Entry. 7th Street Entry. Okay. Cool. 7th Street Entry was really cool, but Mike was like, hey. Do you wanna warm up in the 1st Avenue Green Room? And I was like, what do you take me for? Of course I do. Didn't have to ask. Yes, of course. And so he was really nice. Cause it was, we did the whole, they snuck me out the back cause I was already in my show clothes. And so, and it was also Minneapolis in December. So it was freezing
And I just have, I don't have any tights on. I'm just wearing a skirt. So they snuck me out the back and then we went in through the main entry of 1st Avenue. And then Mike took me into the, the actual
green room. And I have some videos of me just like from warming up and getting my,
X Men. Yeah. For my album. Lot of firsts, lot of experience. Yeah. But what's your takeaway from the last year? Something that really stands out for you that you didn't experience
or even, like, something you've learned. I think it's been really cool that I've kind of become
the guinea pig for a lot of this. It's it's not even something that I really intended, but, you know, it was you're right. It was the interview that we did for my album that hasn't come out yet, or the album hasn't come yet out yet, but the interview has and it's come out in increments. And then, you know, being one of the first people to test out the fountain radio feature, you know, Ravel actually said something really nice about me on the Nosta Rising podcast. He said, you know, Ainsley has kind of been and I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of Ainsley has demanded more of the space than we've really been ready for yet. So she's kind of forced the rest of us to step up our game because she needs things that we don't have yet, but we want Ainsley and we want her fans here. So Stop it. Stop it. Yeah. And so it's just been really lovely to I I try really hard not to be a difficult person to work with, but everybody's been Oh my
god. Everything is a person to work with. I know I'm so difficult, but you know, everybody's been really lovely about trying to accommodate me and how we get my fans over here who are eight to 18 year old girls who, you know, aren't really the typical Nostra Bitcoin audience. And how do we make it a safe and fun and lovely experience for them that their parents aren't gonna get on Nostra and be like, what is Nostra and why is my daughter on here? Yeah. So becoming the guinea pig and really being able to advocate for that as a young girl who did grow up on the Internet and who did, you know, accidentally see bad things on the Internet every once in a while. It's, like, really being in on the ground level to help set a precedent and
create
this, create what Instagram and Facebook and everything else should have been is something that really stands out
to me. Yeah. We we have the chance to make history here, or do I try it? Yep. Exactly. Yeah. We go down swinging, and as you know, you can't say we're not trying. Yeah. Say we're not trying. Yeah. People have heard the previous podcast. Yeah. Especially the x list album,
previews. I don't think they called it. That'd be I think so. Album special. Album special. You know, can't say I'm not trying. Yeah. No. It's not. All the legal hindrances as to why the album is not out yet. Music breaks kind of stuff. We're we're working on it. We're figuring it out for sure. I need to hijack your interview. No. Well, I don't wanna suck up your energy before the show. No. You're good. I actually probably need to go keep getting ready for soundcheck. Yes. Everybody, it's been real. Thanks for listening to me. Yeah. Alright. And, Katie, back to you.
She takes her rehearsals and she goes
yeah. So Katie's got one song of the value verse. You mentioned you have a producer. Yes. So that I do. A wallet split? Yes. He is. I actually reversed to it. Didn't you? Well, so there was that moment of like, hey.
So I'm gonna put this song out on a different platform. It's not gonna be Spotify. It's not gonna be Apple Music.
And
I want
you to have Yeah. And I was like the b word. Yeah. It's not it it's not gonna be something that you know, but,
my friend Ainsley
was able to make a lot of money in one year
off of this. Dude, you're on And fountain. Yes. I'm on fountain. Not on wavelength.
Not on wavelength. Yes.
Yes. Yeah. It's way Fountain right now. Yes. Fountain right now. If you wanna hear new independent music, you gotta get the fountain app, and you gotta download fountain. And then you look up Katherine and you say The first person that you look up is Katherine, k a t h r y n. It's the only correct way to spell it. Socrates.
Yes. I think well, the the the precedent that I'd love to talk about is
what I wanted to do with my producer because it wasn't a work for hire because I didn't pay him for the b. And essentially, on DSPs,
it would be a fifty fifty producer split because you're not doing a work for hire.
So And by the way, recording is freaking expensive. Recording is very expensive.
And the producer that I work with, he's one of my best friends. We went to Belmont together. He's dating my best friend, and it's the funniest yes. He's family. He truly
knows what he's doing. He's a very talented
guy. He's kind of more into the niche of, like, rap and does a lot of
rap beats. So I'm trying
I do not rap. I can I can really try? Yes.
I can do like that,
Like all that fun stuff, but
I think I have ADHD. So my brain goes all the different places at the same time. It's okay. Everybody will stay in the same
place. But going back to the precedent is what I really wanted to do on this app and what I was talking to Ainsley and Julie about is by releasing this as a song where not only is it split fifty fifty between me and my producer, anytime you zap the song Socrates,
even here, he gets half of that as well. I think that's incredibly important to set the precedent of if you're not going to pay somebody for the art, you are going to pay them in a different way. Everybody eats, everybody rises, and it's not a dog eat dog. Everybody eats. Everybody eats. And I think it's very cool that we're able to set precedence on a new app and say, okay, this is what we're going to do, and this is how it's going to be. Setting the culture. We're setting the culture, which that's such like, I get chills because it's such a big thing to be able to have. It's a big thing and it's a big power and it's a big responsibility in a way Yeah. Of, like,
okay. The first few people that come in here and really do the thing,
what you do is going to make a difference for the next person. Yeah. And we don't make some mistakes. And oh, a 100%. That's how it goes. This as we go. But, yeah, we're we're because, like, the first time I did the podcast,
I didn't know anything. I don't know. I put myself in the split Yeah. Split. I'm like, what do I ask? What do I do for this this Right. Status. And so then I figured it out. I went back and I I fixed them all at Split. Because, like, the cultures are already being set. Yeah. It's
and that's so cool for so many different ways. I mean,
I was talking with Derek
yesterday
about Derek Ross. Derek Ross, a very cool guy, very cool man. Not the CEO of Master. Not the CEO of Master, but the unofficial CEO of Master. Show me how to stop saying that. He was like, you can't keep telling people that. Do you know the account like, the climate for CEOs right now? Noster's getting big enough that I can't fuck around anymore. Yeah. But that's what yes, Derek. We were talking about
But we were talking about how it's so revolutionary
that Enzy is able to play my song
on,
like, essentially a radio in Fountain. I'm able to get money from that instantly
and turn around. And literally, the next song, I'm able to send sats to a song that I really enjoy. Stently.
So what? The song came out
on the twelfth. Oh, only on the twelfth? Yes. So four days later, can I ask what you have made? Have you booked? I have over 20,000 stats in my wallet. It's $20. $20 now because at the moment, Bitcoin at the moment. Hold on. I will look. This is next. More than $20. It's Monday, December 16 at 04:24PM.
We're at $1.00 $6.02
45
right now. So, hey. This was slightly going to $20. But the thing made that right now. I wouldn't have made that right now. And and and and we think about that's only half. So Okay. So that's only half. The song has made $40
some bucks. 40 some bucks. Four days. In four days. I just will put a song on That's mad. They don't make that in five years. And they don't make that in five years. Like More. Truly. Many, many songs. Yes. Many songs. I mean, Ainsley will talk about how she had over 20 plus songs on Spotify
and wasn't making,
even 500.
He didn't buy himself dinner. You can't, like And then also, if you're waiting for a check to come, which is the other Yes.
Kinda shitty. You know? And it doesn't matter if you wanna want or need to use that money today. Fact is you can if you want to. Yes. It's in your wallet. It's in your wallet. And by wallet, I mean, Bitcoin wallet. And and I'm I'm gonna I'm always concerned that I I'm speaking too much in jargon on the podcast.
So I'm trying to dumb it way down because with Bitcoin at a 100 and 6 right now, there's gonna be renewed interest and people going especially after we did the independent music summit yesterday. Shout out to ATX Musicians, a big organization
that helps 6,000
musicians here in Austin. I can't wait to meet y'all.
Yeah. The value verse. Yeah. You know, because there's there's an alternative. I talked to Patrick Buchta yesterday.
He came out to the summit. He's the CEO of ATX Musicians.
And he said, you know, I just wanna show them there's an alternative. There's there's another way to earn from your art. And I and he's very interested in independent stuff. I had a great talk with him because at the end, he we were giving out, like, Bitcoin cards. And part of it was you have $5 of that Bitcoin. Azteco card. Yes. The Azteco card. Shout out to Azteco. Shout out to Azteco because it was really cool seeing people's faces of, like, okay, this is real money. Like, I have I have 4,000 sats, like, 4,000 ints of change sats in my fountain app that I just created
that I can now turn around and support this event not knowing, not coming in with any knowledge, any experience working the app. And now I'm able to be onboarded
and spending in the same day. Like, that's revolutionary.
And he was like Cool. This is very cool for artists to come in and be able to see this
Yeah. And see what's happening. Like, this is how it were. I mean, it's it's it's there's a bit of a learning curve, you know, to, like, go, okay. What is 5,000 sats? Okay. That's equivalent to a little more than $5 at this moment. That's gonna fluctuate. That's gonna change. But if you'll leave it there, you know, if we if anything's like Rebecca, she would tell you she earned x amount of sats a year ago in Minneapolis, and that that is worth a whole shit ton more. Oh, yeah. You know, if you don't touch that wallet and you don't care, that's thousands of dollars more right now. Like, they just essentially doubled this year. Even since we did Sarah j, that culture shock in Phoenix, I think I think Bitcoin was around 50,000
that day. And so that day, for playing thirty minutes of her original music, I think she made just over $700.
So, yeah, her husband playing on our stage at Sam Mean Mead's Warehouse, you know, you know, they're just going to work a little bit in the Bay of yours. Right? Like, that's
that's wild. Thirty minutes of you doing what you do best, what you love, made 700 let's say 700 that day. Okay? Because that's I don't know the exact amount. So today, that'd be worth more than $1,400
if they never touched that point. Which I I think the turning point for me kind of deciding to get invested in this space and deciding to, like, fully kind of commit is just understanding
baseline how Bitcoin works. Right. Baseline, baseline, baseline. What surprised you about when you started learning about how Bitcoin were, what was a misconception
that you had? You got it in this and it burst your bubble because I love hearing this from people because it's enlightening for me. Well, because my my introduction to Bitcoin was the NFTs craze, like, a few years ago with, like, the apes and all of all of the fun things. That was not a great moment if anything with with the Internet. So, like,
you know, like a dumb person, individual. Because you didn't know. You didn't call them dumb you didn't know. You didn't Like, and honestly, dumb isn't the right word. I think I was gonna say dumb kid,
because I I think at the time, I saw it as, oh, this is an investment that, like, the older generations don't know about yet. Like, this is my little, like, cool thing that I get into. Like, I'm so I'm smarter than you, but also, of course, goes back to only child, goes back to all of those different things. Kinda like the only child thing. Yes. It's like I, I've gotten better at it as I've gotten better. Chamber's only children. I mean, kinda stupid. Kinda like, y'all left me at the house this afternoon. I was so happy because I
I had some peace and a silent override here, and that was gorgeous. It was wonderful. And then I didn't realize I was here. I was like, in my own little world. I was like, I'm not getting out of the Westin, and the driver looks at me and goes, this is where you're supposed to be. And I'm like, I'll look out to the left. I'm like, oh shit, there they are. The guy was off of my own mobile world. I don't know. My friends were texting me and I was just, I don't know. My mind went somewhere, but like, that's an only child for you. It looks like a struggle. And it's live in your own mobile. And,
I think
when I was learning about
crypto, I was under the understanding that crypto and Bitcoin were like of the same. Like they were different stocks in the same type of field. Totally different. And I have this article Totally different. Every once in a while because people are like, well, technically, you know, you get that Yeah.
Being more than I guess, actually. Yeah. And, like, some people be like, well, actually, it's technically crypto. And it's like, yeah. But, you know, as as things have moved and matured,
there is a school of thought that there is there is crypto and people think about, we won't mention the shit coins by name. We shan't do that, but We shan't. We shan't do that. But Bitcoin is a completely different
idea. Well, and what makes And I think that's what some of those shit coins are, is people trying to replicate Bitcoin. And and those are where things get a little heavy because that's what gives everything else a bad name because, yeah, people are getting wrapped on shit points. Like, Hawke two girl did that point that that I mean, that Yeah.
So I can't let people approach this this space not at all. And if they do, there's a lot of skepticism.
Oh, and I think the skepticism
comes from, I'm an artist. I'm a creative. That's math. What do you mean? Like, I'm not gonna get that. My point is pure math. Which, like, so it's I think that's initial I have dyscalculia, by the way. You know what that is? It's it's similar to dyslexia, but with math. Yeah. So dyscalculia is a learning disability for people with numbers. So I can't I can't do shit with numbers. It's great. It's like they dissolve in front of my eyes. But I force myself because I I don't wanna be
I don't know. I wanna be more well rounded, but I can't do things with numbers. So, like, I'm self employed, which is fun because, like, I have spreadsheets and software, so I don't have to do any of the math myself. But, like, you can give me a calculator. It's hilarious. I'm just like, I don't even care.
Like, I'm just going, fuck, fuck, fuck, run button shit. So I mean can't even look at it. And that's the perfect example of so many misconceptions about Bitcoin and having to know how to mine things and how to do all the different Bitcoin stuff. Like, you truly don't need to know all of that back end stuff. All you need to know is baseline,
in my opinion. All you need to know is baseline what it is. Very good take. That's the that's the Lynn Alden take. She's she's one of those better thought leaders in Bitcoin because
macro economist. And and, you know, this is how Bitcoin gets nerdy. But, you know, she likens it to and she actually said this about Nostra, but I think you could say the same thing about Bitcoin and Nostra and the value first is to where we're trying to get it to where anybody can use it and do these things easily and quickly and cheaply. But, you know, she explained, look. We all use email. Right? Yeah. You don't know you don't know how an SMTP
server works. You don't know how anything works on the back end, you know, and and the Noster space is still very small to where people are still openly talking about the tech. It's very developer heavy, and I think Bitcoin is getting less and less like that. Is there's there are more products that we can use Yes. In these spaces like Wave Life, like fountain, like Azteco cards.
What else did we use? Yes. We I mean, zapped right out there. Yeah. We were at the Bitcoin Commons. Shout out to Pled Labs. Shout out
to Car and Thriller, the Zine Podcast.
I'm most joining the take. But, we Just kissing babies and shaking hands. Right. So so in this space, we have we have all the tools at our disposal. There's a variety of ways that you can do these things. Yes. You can self host. If you want to go through the work and you have the time and the inclination to go teach yourself
self hosting, having a website and servers and nodes and Yeah. But if you don't have the time, I mean, you just wanna get in like Catherine is doing
right now. And that was the part of the interview where there was a crisis. Ainsley's mom stepped in, interrupted us, and she did this again actually in Nashville, which is a whole other story, and I'm gonna get there. So today, I am recording
present day November
2025.
It's been about a month now since I interviewed Katherine a second time, but in Nashville
at Bitcoin Park, which I'm about to get to. But I wanna play the song that we were talking about specifically during that Austin interview that you just listened to last December
2024.
Let's start with
Socrates.
Baby, I don't wanna fight. Let's just take a breath. Maybe count to 10 a
ten week cab. A parliament
job.
More than we have. Please just take my hand. Make me understand
what kind of landing
and
So Socrates, great song. That's the song that we're talking about in the first part of the interview that we recorded again last December
2024
in Austin, Texas. So that brings us to present day. Hey. I'm Heather Larson back with a new season of Radio Detox. Welcome.
So we're starting with this mega episode about Catherine.
At the time we recorded this, there was one song, and it was Socrates. You know? Sometimes I think things happen for a reason. I got busy,
couldn't edit, and released
the first part of the interview this year. There was, like, only one episode
of Radio Detox that came out. That was in March.
And and so, like, after we recorded the interview and I didn't get to release it, though,
she released a second song, which I'm about to play, which is Lemons. So we'll play that in a moment. You can hear Lemons. Right? So we're gonna go in order here in which the songs were released in which the interviews happened. So I'm telling this story now. It's actually kinda cool how this is working out. I kinda felt bad that I had to let the podcast go through well all of 2025
so far. I got really busy. That's another story. There were many life changes. Right?
And with Katherine not releasing any more new music after Lemons throughout all of 2025 until the other day,
she put out new songs on fountain. So we're gonna get to those as well. I'm gonna play them all. So about a month ago,
we're going back to October
2025.
Catherine and I caught up again. It was unplanned. It was so awesome. I was in Nashville, Tennessee at Bitcoin Park. It was for 3 point o. And who walks up to me and taps me on the shoulder there by Katherine?
And I was like, girl, what are you up to? I heard you're traveling through Europe all summer, so we started catching up.
We seized the moment, and I said, let's sit down and record it. She was like, yeah. I was hoping you'd have your recorder with you. Gotta travel with the Tascam in tow. Right? I brought the big purse. Let's do this. So
we get the recorder.
We go find a room because time was of the essence. We we get a room at Bitcoin Park, close the door, we're recording,
and, you know, just has the last interview
with Catherine ended with us being interrupted by Julie Costello.
This one also got interrupted by Julie Costello. So this is an adventure that we are on where Julie Costello, love you, Julie, always interrupts us. So I'm not gonna tell the story about, the things
that make Julie interrupt us. There was this crisis, right, in Austin, and I'm not gonna tell you the whole story because there's a documentary
I think that gets could get featured in. Okay? Parker Worthington
is working on this this documentary of what we did in Austin, and I think he's been traveling around the country and following all of these, quote, unquote, value for value music events. I don't wanna keep calling it value for value. It's independent music
events that are kinda underground
and grassroots,
and they pay artists. And there's no easy
name for that. So
this music thing that we're doing. Right? So I'm just gonna call it, like, underground indie music. I I don't know. But, you know, in in case Parker Worthington puts that crisis into the documentary, I don't wanna ruin that part of the story. So I'm not gonna tell that story right now, about the crisis. We'll save that for later. We'll save that for Parker. Shout out to Parker.
So Julie interrupts
us over and over. Me and Catherine in our room, Bitcoin Park, and it's a good interview, and I'm about to get into it because you get to hear from her in a way that catches up with her career.
And what she thinks of this whole space where we're combining the new technology of Nasser with the old technology
of RSS.
And
this is to the benefit of musicians like Catherine and others, and we get to hear her thoughts about all of that in the new interview that we just did in Nashville.
What's changed? What hasn't changed? What she would like to have changed from her artist's point of view? So we're gonna get to that. But, of course,
you know, Julie
keeps interrupting,
which let's just have a Julie Costello
appreciation
moment. I think she's the ultimate mom manager, a momager.
I would say the best momager this side of Kris Jenner and probably, in fact, better than Kris Jenner. Because you know what? She's just so damn likable. And I don't know. Was was Kris Jenner? I I don't know her. I don't know her work. I just know that she's, like, the most famous momager. And
Julie is, like, the least famous momager, but I think she's the best. We wouldn't be doing any of this
traveling around the world, traveling around the country, bringing music to the people online, and empowering musicians
with independent music and sound money. It would not be happening without
the extensive
behind the scenes work of Julie Costello.
She doesn't like the attention. She's probably gonna get mad at me for mentioning her.
She's not gonna let me interview her. I you know,
this is my one and only
chance to shout out Julie Costello and Phantom Power Music. And if you've ever seen and enjoyed, obviously,
the music of Ainsley Costello,
the person who does all the worky work stuff behind the scenes is mama ger Julie.
She deserves this big shout out.
Every time I interview Catherine, I'm sure Julie will be there to interrupt us. So
much love, Julie.
My friend, let's play another Katherine song. And this was the second one that she released.
So this is on Fountain FM. And if you're so moved by it, you got some money in your fountain wallet, you can send her a little bit of money. It's called Bitcoin.
She gets it sent directly to her wallet. No middleman. There's nobody taking a cut, and she chooses how that money is divided up. She is the musician. It's her music. She's the boss.
You can tell from the first half of the interview that she shares the money with her producer, splits it down the middle. The technology does that
automatically,
so she doesn't have to handle that money for that producer. So, you know, you're you're not just paying one person.
You're going to pay two people. It goes right to their wallets. It doesn't go through ASCAP, CSAC, or BMI. It doesn't go through a record label. It doesn't go through anybody. Not even the momager.
Right?
And,
Catherine does not have a momager or a manager.
She is an independent artist in every way. It is your direct relationship with the artist and and the people who'll help them make their music. So that should feel pretty good. I think it's a little bit more ethical way to consume
music and pay for music than, you know, the endless monthly subscriptions. Of course, I I pay for those too.
You know, but there's never been a time
where you could just pay an artist directly using the resources available to you on your phone. Now you you're using fountain app. You got some money. You got some Bitcoin.
You got a Bitcoin wallet. You got fountain app. You're just getting it done. You get to write a little note when you do it. So it's not just sending money. It's money with a message.
So tell Katherine
that you love her song. Send her a little bit of money. And it doesn't matter what it's called. Right? In some of the culture, the RSS culture calls it a boost. The nostril culture calls it a zap. And since the dawn of time, I think we've called it tips. Tip the band, tip the artist.
The idea is there. We're just doing it in a more technological,
updated,
fast kind of way. So without further ado, let's listen to Lemons.
So let's get into some new songs from Katherine, and we'll get into the next interview too. So this first song,
these just came out the other day on Fountain.
They tore up the trending charts, and we love to see it because we love Katherine, and we've been waiting for
new music all year. We've been waiting for new radio detox all year too. So, yeah, Catherine and I are back with new stuff. And this next song is, like, we get this soulful
r and b
stylings, but then we get her voice too. And I'm not talking about her singing voice. I'm talking about the voice that talks about what what I'm thinking, maybe body image issues or social society and cultural issues maybe around body. But see, I already did the interview before I heard the song, So this is just my interpretation of it. And that's the great thing about music, you'll interpret it another way.
And, you know, the third interview that I get with Catherine,
we can ask her what the story behind the song is, but right now, we don't know. So we just get to listen
and enjoy Catherine
singing body.
No running projects.
I have the body
present tense and monumental
crumpeter.
Didn't say
it would be easy.
Didn't tell you how to treat me
and tell you how to treat me. I have a body
Well, I have a feeling that's gonna be stuck in my head. And then there's another new song here that's gonna be great that I think you're like, I think you're getting the vibe of Katherine.
She's sultry.
Amazing voice. I've heard her do runs. I've heard her she's got quite a range. And this next song has the sultriness,
and it's also got some reggae. Like, I thought we were just gonna be friends. I I thought we were gonna be friends, but, this song tells a different story, doesn't it? It's Catherine with Scoot.
These songs by Katherine are great, and I think you know what I'm gonna say. She needs to make her songs longer.
That is that is my display name on Noster. You can find me on Noster as Heather Larson, all one word. That's Larson with an o. Or my display name is Make Songs Longer. I'm on Twitter at writer Heather l, the literal.
And, I don't know where oh, we have a radio detox YouTube channel now that I'm gonna be working on to try to bring this info to the masses. Like, there was a time a couple years ago when we all got into Oster and said this is better than traditional social media.
And and it is, obviously,
but that didn't really bring in a lot of people. So I have done the thing where I go back out into the unkind world of toxic social media like x,
and I even paid for a stupid blue check because you can't actually get your message to the world there unless you pay for the stupid blue check, which is, you know, this is dumb. This is this is why we're working on Noster. So to get more people
interested in, educated
in what we're doing here with RadioDutox,
anybody can do a podcast like this.
Yeah. It's not probably quick and easy. But if you care about music and you wanna contribute to the space, there is definitely plenty for you to do. So come join us as I relaunch Radio Detox and doing music podcasts again.
I'm looking for the easiest,
quickest way, and I haven't found it yet. So whoever wants to come along and
join me in this effort, you are more than welcome. It's it's really unpaid and thankless, but thanks thanks for being here and listening. So I'm relaunching the podcast right now using PodHome.
Shout out to Barry for making a great product with PodHome
that lets me do the podcasting two point o things. It's only gonna cost me $16
a month. It's not my entire tech stack. Obviously, there's, like, Riverside,
Hindenburg.
And there's a lot going on here in order to make the podcast. So I appreciate you listening at all,
even if you just fast forward through the parts where I talk, and go right to the music, and that's awesome. But if you're listening
and you're thinking, how do I do this? I want you to check out Pod Home. It is awesome.
That's gonna be podhome.fm.
I don't get anything from telling you to go there. I just I like the
product. I am checking out new things because RSS
Blue has been absorbed now by Fountain, so I think it will be going away.
So I'm checking out new products in the podcasting
two point o space,
And Podhomes does that specific type of posting with the wallet switching so that you can play the music, and the artists get the money. So there's a little effort involved here, for podcasters.
I think it is a better way to podcast. I think it's a better way to listen to music and be a fan. It's good for musicians. It's good for fans.
It keeps us all independent,
and I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. And we want more people in the space because that will give more incentive
for the artist to come into the space. If there are more people playing their music and doing podcasting two point o, then we keep we get to keep growing the space, and that's awesome. So that I can keep playing more new music for you, like this next new song from Catherine
called Canvas.
Maybe my party
is not the answer
to a present.
You
are
fed. Give me some grace, please.
Give me some time,
please. I can't be your tailor
or tutor
or waiter
or martyr.
Maybe my
brother
is not
Couple more new songs, and then we'll get into
the current present day 2025
interview with Catherine.
Let's listen to
her song Relevance.
So in the second season of Radio Detox,
I'm going to be playing with the format a little bit, and this super long, epic,
Catherine centered
episode
is gonna be the kickoff to that. So I've before
I I would interview people and I would insert the songs into the interview.
And so
this time, I did, like,
interview and then songs and then second interview.
So I think that'll work for this episode. I wanna do some
different
video
episodes where
I'm not gonna do the music and some of the video interviews
because that defeats the purpose of doing podcasting two point o, and the wallet switching
only works with audio.
It works with RSS.
But here's the good news, though.
We are working on a lot of different apps
in Nostr. Right? So I I work in the Nostr Bitcoin world. I'm a the rare breed of a a full time person working in this space with a lot of developers.
So I I'm gonna shout out all Nostr developers at large because after I think it was exactly the day after we did the show in Austin
last December.
Adam Curry, the next day, said, you know what?
I think that RSS and Noster were separated at birth, and they should be together.
And I think things are getting better in the space. It was Barry from podhome.fm
who told me, you know, because I I had to look into it. I I couldn't trust my my homie on my other podcast, Soapbox Sessions, Derek Ross. Right? I couldn't trust Derek because he and I are, like, siblings that just fight, but he was like, why are you still using
your heather larson at fountain.fm
for your boost and your zaps? Like, why are you doing that? I was like, because it's Keysend, and you have to use Keysend. He's like, no. You don't have to do that anymore. And so I checked with Barry, and Barry was like, no. Things are changing in the pod two o space pretty quickly.
You can use an l n URL. Like, you can use a lightning address.
So I'm I'm gonna do that. Probably use my strike.me
address to get some
to get some podcast money off of this episode. So, like, if you send me a couple sats, I'll be really just experimenting to see if it works with a different wallet
because I I don't wanna use Alby and and Fountain to
the the two KeySend issues, I don't wanna get into the technical weeds, but I think key send is a single point of failure because there are only two options, and it's Fountain or Albi. So let's get to the point where we can use our lightning addresses.
Like, I could use a speed wallet or,
which I won't because I'm not a huge fan of Speed Wallet, but I'm I'm probably gonna use my Strike Wallet, right, to get my podcast earnings. So if you send some stats to the podcast, that should go
right this second
to my Strike Wallet. I'm nervous because I haven't done it before. But the point being to this really long story is that, the
the podcasting two point o space is probably moving quickly,
getting better.
At some point, maybe we can nostrify this, which would be my vote. Nothing wrong with RSS.
Can we do both?
Can we do we have to do one or the other? I don't want to do one or the other. I want people to have choice. That's kind of the whole point. So at some point, we'll find somebody who's better
at flowing with explaining the technical aspects of this than I am, but I think things have already gotten better. And And people like Carnage, shout out to Carnage, the Nostredev.
He's working on
getting this to work with the Nostred somehow, so I'm probably gonna have to bother Carnage soon. You've been warned, Carnage. I'm coming for you.
See if maybe well, Carnage let me interview him. I don't know.
But him and and Derek Ross have been working on some some things kind of, like, on their own. Derek started podster.org,
podstr.org,
where you can have your own little you're still gonna have to do hosting. Right? You can never get away from hosting, but you can have, like, a different way
to have a website
with a community
and with Zaps, and that's what we built because we didn't want
when we did soapbox sessions,
our my other podcast. We just didn't want to
outsource the hosting, so we knew we could do it ourselves. And, you know, like, we're using a rack in Alex Gleason's living room and podster.org.
The the Derek Ross built version. The vibe coded version
is what Derek built for Soapbox Sessions.
So that's the story behind that. That is a short story behind that. Like, you probably should get on the soapbox YouTube and or just listen to soapbox sessions, like, if you want the longer version of that story. I tell everything in a very nontechnical way. I wanna bring nontechnical people
into this space
of podcasting two point o, Nostr,
getting paid with Bitcoin,
whatever we end up calling this independent music and and sound money thing.
You know, there's just no easy way to describe it all. So I'm kinda like trying to roll it out into little bite sized pieces, so you can kinda learn how this all goes together, and the music being the most important part of that. So let's get into one more song
from Katherine, and this is another one of her new ones. Smash, there's seven out there now. I'm I'm so
happy and excited that she is releasing new music.
And
what comes next is the name of the song, and what comes next after the song is gonna be the present day interview with Catherine,
where we're going to talk about
this technology,
how she uses it,
why she uses it in the way that she does,
and what she wants
for this space,
the direction she would like to see it take. And we're gonna get some fresh ideas from
a a real life independent
Gen Z
musician who's gigging in Nashville and recording
once a week in Nashville. We're gonna get her point of view after her next song called what comes next.
Okay. So we're we're recording at Bitcoin Park in Nashville.
It is Nashville
three point o, Saturday,
October 25. Woo hoo. And, you know, last time we talked, and I haven't released it yet, but the last time we talked, we recorded you on your first podcast
in Austin, Texas in the Green Room or whatever room that was at Anton's.
Yeah. And that was awesome.
A lot of fun. And so since since I I imagine I will tack this on to the end of that interview as I put it out.
You had
released your first song
on, I think it was, was it Fountain or Wave Lake or both? I can't remember.
It was
Fountain.
I haven't ventured into Wave Lake just yet. Okay.
I'm still kind of waiting for an integration between the two, which I know Oh, that's good information. Or, like, either between the two or more of, like
the whole idea about this space is, like, West Wall Gardens.
So
and music for everyone and being able to
pay artists what they deserve as well as give the listener a way to
interact with them. Yes. But I don't wanna create another Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon Music and kind of that iteration.
Yeah.
And so as of right now, I'm just on Fountain. Awesome. Because that was what I was introduced to first. There you go. And And you did it. And so so Sam, if you're listening.
Hey, no diss, no shade. That's right. No, that's valuable feedback. Because I still feel like we are obviously in a very new space. Yes. And we are still, everybody is still building,
you know, and then Derek made an app that This is exciting, though. Yeah. Like Derek made an app that plays both. So he made Derek made an app? He made an app called ZapTrax. No way. He vibe code with ZapTrax. About this. Because he just did. He just did it, like, two weeks ago. That's not Derek.
So He's like the guy that you see, and he's like, oh, yeah. I went skydiving. And then I just I went I have an app. And then, oh, yeah. Check my wife. And you're like,
oh, Derek.
He is kinda like that. You know, it is.
Well, I'm a PhD.
You're like,
you you I just see him every few months, and it's always entertaining.
I work with this guy now. Really? Yes. We work together at Soapbox. It's Oh my gosh. I get to deal with it every day.
Oh, that's cracking me up. So I'm like You get to. You don't have to. I get to. I get to. I get to. It is it is a it is a smorgasbord
of Derek Ross' behavior.
It is it is truly special. Well, we we started a podcast too. Well, you started a podcast. But Yeah. But wait a minute. I'm getting ahead of us now. We're we're a snowball. I'm gonna circle back to circle back circle back to ZapTrax that he made. It's it's supposed to
play both.
Intraco,
like, we would Is there like a
that's something where I would talk to him if there's an artist portal where like artists can release to both. Yes. Because that's also a main like barrier to entry for new artists. That's what we an artist portal.
And I like that idea. Yeah. I mean, cause
apple music, I said that I don't wanna replicate apple music and Spotify, but that doesn't mean that we can't draw
the things that they've done right into what we're doing. Right. So like We can steal from what works. Yeah. And then break down and not do what hurt artists. Right. Like,
because
Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon all have an artist app.
Where you can track your own streams. You can release music. You can do those type of things, which I don't know if you can release directly through the artist app. But something that would be cool is if there was an app
that like Nostr
has all these different
profiles
on multiple different
platforms.
You have an app that has a way to
put music out directly from your phone instead of having to go from
computer. And like you can go from, okay, I'm recording in the studio right now. I wanna release this actually right now. Yeah. And you can go from recording to in app to direct to consumer literally within twenty minutes. See, I would not have thought about that use case. I would have thought there's this big ceremonial release where it has to come from the studio computer. Right. And so you would just totally take the file from your phone and upload from there.
I mean, it'd be cool because I, I record every Tuesday
and I have a guy that I work with that I really like.
And it would be cool to almost streamline that process and say, okay, these are the demos. What five of these 10 do you guys really like? And then I'll go and cut those. Okay. And then I'll give you guys the final version. Okay. Like now I'm just kinda spitballing. Yeah. But I think it'd be cool to kind of work within that. This is what we need to do though. And have like lightning payments and
all of that within it, because if we can just
move the needle
to help artists, but also Yes.
Redefine the system,
but not take away from the art. Like that's the main Yeah. We can't sacrifice the art. Yeah. We want it to sound good. We want you guys to have what you need.
Do you worry about intellectual property as because you're A little bit, yeah. You're a solo artist, but you work with
property as because you're A little bit. Yeah. You're a solo artist, but you work with producers. Because I remember when you released that first song, you split it fifty fifty with the producer of the song. Is that something that is
is it a block that we don't have the IP portion of this completely figured out yet? It's
not a block. It's a calculated risk. No. Wow.
Because
at the end of the day,
if you wanna be on the forefront of something happening, you have to take that calculated risk to say, in a few years, when there could be
laws and mandates and things protecting my intellectual property,
I will want that
to happen, but at the same time,
I know that it's not happening
now, so I can't be upset if something were to happen. Can't be too petty. Yeah. You can't be too petty. And then it's, I think, a little easier for you because you don't have a full band
Yeah. To split with. So I don't have I don't have band splits. I do have because I work with
Jake or Jinx, who's, like, the main producer.
But
in those sessions we have at least three or four different producers that come through to work at the studio, that just kind of like to hang out because we're all
friends and they'll add something on it. And then there's like two or three musicians that will come. And at the end of the day, we'll have one song that has like
10 people on it. Whereas if you were in a band, it would always be split between four or five.
Mhmm. So it will always vary.
Whereas
in my mind, there's just a trade off. Like, Yeah. You have constant splits or you have varying splits, but you're always gonna have splits. Always.
To have you, since you're working with all of these people, have you taken this idea
of getting paid in Bitcoin for music?
Have you been able to take this back to people who have not heard about this, which let's face it is the majority?
Yes. I
it's interesting
because when I first got into this space and you can probably hear it in my
voice in, like, the first podcast. I was
so excited, so excited to bring this to, like, so many different people. And I was like, if I can just say it the right way, they'll get it. And if I can just Yeah. I've never worked. Formulate it. No. It's
like You have to wait for them to be ready.
Yeah. It's kinda like talking to a brick wall.
They kinda go,
well and then they bring up a bunch of different political things and I'm like,
okay. That's our biggest marketing problem with with what we do. I know. The stigmas. Yes. Political the identity politics and the stigmas,
that surround
Bitcoin. And and the crypto people aren't helping us, so they're No. They're obnoxious.
And you know, I don't really like Yeah. There's, there's certain things that I'm not in love with either, but that said, like, it's, it's also hard
to bring back what I've learned
to people that I went to college with.
Right. And say,
okay,
well,
the time that we spent in college together,
and we were learning about X, Y, and Z, about publishing, and law and copyright and
business and all of these different things.
All valid, right? They're a little bit out of their field, but what about this? Can I pose you this? And a lot of times I'm met with
meh, kind of gimmicky. Bitcoin has been around forever. Yeah. The jadedness pops up early in the music biz. Like It's very much like, well, I'm doing my own thing and I'm successful, so I don't need you anyways.
Oh, okay.
I I didn't say that you weren't successful. Right. I said that maybe we can add to your success. That's the thing is it's kinda I think we're at a stage where, like, look, for some people, this is working great. And we have those case studies. For the majority of people, like, I don't know that I can replicate,
you know, Sarah Jade's success or Ainsley's success. Like, it it can be a supplement to the traditional music business right now. You know? Like, because you, you know, you record your music weekly. You're putting it out there. You're going to gigs. You travel, like, all summer. You know? Right? This is what I heard anyway.
So, like, you're working
and and you do this. Yes. This is definitely,
like,
right now, I'm still a waitress.
That is
my quote unquote, the main income.
But that is to supplement my music, which I want to do. I want to get there. Bitcoin is that same thing for music for me. Is that I'm currently in the music industry recording, releasing,
writing,
doing all these rounds.
And Bitcoin is the thing that I'm working for, so this is supplementing until I can get there. Yeah. Like until Bitcoin is able
to be the moneymaker and the thing that brings me the most money and I can
take
kind of the more traditional approach out of the picture.
That's what I'm working with. There you go. And
I mean It's a foot in both worlds right now. Yeah. I think that that is also true of Noster.
To switch gears and talk about Noster, I I think you still, as a musician, probably still need that Instagram that every musician has.
You you still need it.
But
Yeah. You want the nostril thing to work because, hey, zaps are built in. You don't have to do the algorithm pleasing shenanigans.
Yeah.
But also the audience isn't quite there on nostril yet. And, you know, let's face it. We haven't quite gotten Nostra apps to
a 100% of crowd pleasing. You know? No nobody's looking at like, when we look at Wave Link and go, god, this is great. Or we look at Foundry, this is great. This is what we want, And which is also, you know, neither are perfect yet by any means. But I I think WaveLakes, for one, can stack up against Spotify or Apple Music. You know? But, you know, I don't know how much the the Nostra apps are a 100% close to being able to stack up against
the things that people are used to. Like, there's there's nothing on Nostra yet that does Instagram stories, and people love Instagram stories.
There's
I think what Instagram
kind of capitalized on
very young is that they captured a young audience and then grew with them. Yes. So they were able to capture people lifelong.
This market is completely different because you're going after people who have the brain capacity to understand what's going on. So you're not going after, like, the 12, 13 year olds with an osteoarthritis. No. Truly. Like, I mean, you could get there. Yeah. But it's not the main form of social media. Yeah. Interested in it. And there's also an area of responsibility. You have to have personal responsibility to hang on to your your personal keys. Like, you have a sit here and, you know, maybe maybe 13 year olds aren't into that. You know, like, Right. You have to have, like, a password manager. But I mean, the thing is but
but we say that. When I was in fifth grade, I was creating a username, password Yeah. Everything. Like, I I knew how to do all of that because we grew up with technology. Yeah. Native digital natives. Yeah. So it could be In gen z. Five, ten years,
little Kelly's walking around with a digital key. Exactly. But and her digital key gets her school out, like, food at lunch. Yeah. At school. It gets her on the bus back home. Oh, ten years from now, for sure. Just not
Not today. Yeah. It's so it's hard to
farm people and to kind of Yeah. Getting in the the the early going into the the Gloucester is very much for early adopters right now Yeah. Of which which you are one.
So
my question to Ainsley at Nostra Valley,
and remains the question that, you know, I don't know if we have an answer to this. How
do how do we get
more Gen z folks to embrace all of this technology that we're doing, whether it's Bitcoin,
Noster, or both?
How do we reach Gen z? I think it's a marketing issue.
But I just I think baseline,
it's a marketing issue. Because
at the end of the day, Gen z is very punk. Very much no government. Very much
I wanna manage my own money. That's what we're doing. And it's exactly what an Oscar is. Yes. So, like, it's just
getting the right message to the right people,
but
doing it in a way that's not, like,
underwriting
TikTok or, like, underwriting things. Like,
you can't,
because
I at one point posted a TikTok video trying to explain not stirred Bitcoin and all of these things.
This was also in the midst of when TikTok was like about to shut down. Oh, so this would have been right after Anton's. Literally right after Anton's, and I posted a TikTok, and I was like, oh my gosh, like people will get rid of this. And the majority of the comments were,
I'm not falling for this TikTok lookalike, like blah blah blah blah. I'm not gonna jump ship to another thing. And I was like,
oh, okay. Maybe this was just not the right time.
Yeah. This was just maybe not the right time. People are married. They were very married to TikTok. They were very much like, what are we going to do without the TikTok? And if we spun up and and people are working on, you know, vertical video, nostril apps, like billboard from next block, and then there's show shows and testing. And and so people are spinning up those types of things, but how do you compete with years and years of TikTok? You know? So, like, we gotta, you know, we know our land. We know we know we can't have that amount of content up overnight of variety. It'd be great. You know? I mean, it would take
I mean, marketing is the main thing. Money is also a thing. It's like if you have enough
money, you do a huge Bitcoin show and you do, like, a festival type thing. We got,
like a Monro or an Ultra or Country founder. Like, you do something like that and you bring in
artists that are willing to get on a ticket as
Bitcoin or crypto performers,
and
you do it that way. And I think you just have to pull their audiences.
But it would take an in person thing because you can't
there's no marketing online
for Noster
or for
any sort of
like, you have your market and you're speaking to the people who already know about you. Yeah.
But there's no marketing that you can really do on other social media apps because you're trying to be a social
Yeah.
So
the only reason that you're well, the only way that you can get people to come to you is in person
and very punk. Like, if you put up a punk
show that was Nostra Punk
and you brought out those people,
you would have at least
25,
like, 2,500
at that one show Yeah. That would then download the app, become Nostra Ads because that's the ideology
as well. Like, there's so many similarities that it's just reaching
Yeah. I would think the right people with the right marketing. I would think Country Thunder too. And then we we say so much that this is, you know, free of politics. It's agnostic or neutral. And, you know, we don't wanna get into the identity politics.
However, you know, having been to Country Thunder and and seeing the audience Yeah. You know, the audience
loves this kind of thing that that, like,
conservative beer, you know Yeah. Beer and guns. Yeah. You know, don't turn on me kind of audience seems to really want this. And whether that's I don't know what to call it because it
we get into both sides of them in this country where there's this side versus that side. But I think when you start getting into, you know, the the conservatives lead to the libertarians, and there's some audience share there who kind of they kind of get it to where it's like, okay.
Freedom money, freedom tech. Freedom money is probably an easier sell because freedom tech is still,
I think, kinda complicated if you're gonna go out to a concert where everybody's drinking Budweiser.
And sometimes it gets a little late. Freedom tech.
Right. You know, I don't like that social media. Right. You know, so, like, it's it's I have my monitors since the eighties. Yeah.
They're probably some old days. We need to be having these conversations and suggestions, you know, because I wanna tap, you know, you, Gen Z, you know, Katie and and Ainsley and, you know, the the folks who there's very few of you young women who are on Nostra. Mhmm. Can't say that. Like
Well, it's a I have gotten some interesting DMs
for, like, the the personal things. And I just kind of my favorite is just to read them and not reply. Because it's just so I never read them. No. But, like, you don't even read them, but, like, you just the message will show that you've read it and you haven't sent anything back. Yeah. That's the ultimate fuck you. It's just the ultimate, like, Pearl, what are you saying? Yeah.
What are you doing? I think that younger women deal with that problem
more than those of us who are in our I'm in my mid forties, so I'm just like, you know, I don't I don't get that level of weirdness
from master
DMs or or from men in general. Like, even if I'm working with men face to face,
I've seen you aged out
of the system,
where the the men try that. Take me with you. Right? Yeah. You've got at least twenty years to go, my friend. Oh.
But, you know, I've I've that's one of those things I've done since I'm getting older, but I really want the younger people to drive this because it is for you. And and Gen z is like, you know what? We are the punk generation. We are like, you know,
fuck all this dumb stuff that that's happened before us, before we came along,
because we're not gonna take it anymore. And that's what I like about you guys. You're like, you know, we're not gonna get wasted every weekend. You know, your generation's drinking less alcohol. You know? Well, drinking less alcohol, but I don't know who we're doing less drugs. That's true. Well, you have
something that we didn't you haven't many of y'all have legal weed, which I did not have at that age.
I was definitely,
in in the illegal entertainment
category. Yeah. It's very but but but I was also I mean, I've been sober a long time too. So, you know, I
my generation,
you know, we we had both, but just one was illegal.
Right. We also didn't have vaping yet, so I had to smoke real cigarettes. Oh. I want a lot of life. Right? The acoustic version. Yeah.
Have you heard that? The acoustic. Like, acoustic and electric? Have you heard that? No. I haven't heard that.
That's great.
Thanks, Sigrid. We need to get your generation some freedom, and that's kinda, like, why we're doing this is is to get,
freedom tech into the hands that need it. Because if you guys don't have this, if you don't have that you know this. I'm preaching with choir. But if you don't have that freedom tech and that freedom money
and you don't have the ability to, you know, organize a protest
or say what you want
and not have your speech censored
as maybe there's more and more government overreach.
If you guys don't have an avenue for that, you know, what because I I'm in my mid forties. I'm still young enough, but I also think about what happens to the kids after I'm gone? What happens to my nieces
and my nephew? What happens if if I croak and my energy is off this planet
and you guys have no historical resource? You know,
Google being what it
is. You know, there's there's something about having older people in your life, and and we we know that, you know, my generation is a slacker generation, but, you know, the one before us kinda kinda really screwed things up.
And, this is how we got here. You know? And and so, like, you guys being able to have the off ramp,
the the freedom to stay away from totalitarian control, the freedom to stay away
and not be burned by, like, the February
as we were.
Like, that would be really amazing for your generation
to have an edge that even we didn't have. And so that's kinda what we're working for is we're all working for our kid. We all can't see your age. Yeah. So
so we're all kinda working for the future for our kids. It's not about us anymore. Like, you will reap the benefits of this. I will see it in my lifetime, but Yeah. You guys and and after you you're the generations
that need this more. So it's, you know, that's my my TED talk about who this is for and why we do that. Right. I mean Because, obviously, there's, like, there's not really a lot of money in this. You know, we're doing open source software here. You know, we're not doing this. It's it's not Silicon Valley VC funded, you know, life that we're living. We're no longer trying to hit an IPO here. It's really Doesn't mean it doesn't have to be. If you are Silicon Valley funder
Then we're not gonna spend some extra cash. We're not gonna say no. We're we're certainly not gonna say no. This is our pitch. This is our speaking of Silicon Valley, well well, have you seen, what title has done for independent artists?
I have not.
Okay. I,
the only reason I remember the title,
was, like, there was a little thing the title came out with, like a player, like a music player. Yeah. And, like, that's the only bell that that rings whenever I Oh, yeah. Got there. They they started allowing I don't know if they do it in app, but you can upload your independent music to Tidal, and then people can use Cash App to pay you in US dollars.
Oh, that's cool. So, you know, Ainsley did that, and I I can send her a dollar with Cash App.
So it's not quite
the Bitcoin lightning network. Right. But it's closer. It's a it's a good it's a good idea. I think it's It's almost like a connector. Like, we have our force to, to one that forms, but like,
If you
make people do that.
It will be easier to push than pull into the nostril or system. Or like the Yeah, like a turning wheels. Yeah.
Because I don't know, like for me, it's the connecting the people to the product,
but also
the idea
is bigger than just the product.
So it's encompassing
that. Yes.
And
that's been really hard. It's kind of like Mhmm.
You just need to bring the right people into the white space and even like
Nashville.
Like this is a great spot. Here we are in Nashville talking about how do we get this to Right. Like this is a great spot with the musicians,
with the tech, with the people that know how to kind of put it in place.
And I think it would be interesting to
like, see more events like this, because
the thing is I
looked up
Bitcoin. I looked up Bitcoin Park. I looked up,
Bitcoin today prices, blah, blah, blah, blah, everything on Google, on safari to see if I would get any Google ads or any social media ads or anything that was targeted to me for Bitcoin Park, because this was a big event. Yeah. There's t shirts made downstairs. There is like, there there's a lot of stuff for this event. And
I got nothing. Yeah. Because nobody's buying ads on Google. Nobody's buying,
you know And if I'm somebody that's looking for an outlet or looking for
a place for these ideas,
and if I'm not having any of those things pop up for me, like,
if there's no marketing towards it, how are you gonna find this? Yeah. Like, I wouldn't have known about today. This is the hill I'm gonna die on, and I'll I'll say this publicly on my podcast, is that we we do a lot of these events.
People find out about them if they're lucky because
Right. That's how it feels. They get thrown together at the last minute.
Nobody nobody but me is a marketer.
I obviously have my own marketing to do for companies that I work for. I can't,
I do what I can. Like, I made the flyer, you know, like, for this event, like, that you saw on Auster and and and Twitter. That's awesome. So yeah. So I do what I can. Right.
But we we squandered.
Yeah. I mean, it was just would somebody like to come intern for me? And
I I don't want people to work for free by any means, but if somebody wants to, we need all the help we can get. But if somebody wants to If somebody wants to to to work for free, I'll give you, you know, all kinds of, you know, college support or whatever that I that I can give. I'm not gonna pay for your college, but I'm just saying, like, I will, you know, support your your credits your credit hours. But,
that's the biggest issue is that we throw things together at the last minute.
There's no marketing on ramp more than, like, a week or two out,
And we we kind of put together a flyer. It was really hard. We're very punk. We're very Right. Like, this is this is all very punk, and it's the best. Yeah. But if you you just need to have the market
for it. Like, if this We need it. We're not reaching the right people. If there was a Belmont Bitcoin if there was a Belmont and Bitcoin Park
event Yes. Go ahead. Hit the big college.
Hit the colleges.
Do the same
thing. Yeah. I wanna hit ASU. I wanna hit them all. You know? Far. We all have a college in our backyard. Yeah. That's where the young people are. Like, that's Well, that would be also
That's the strong us out there. Young
educated
individuals are gonna be more receptive
to the ideas of Bitcoin.
Literally anybody else. Yeah. Thank you. Literally anybody else. Yeah. So y'all aren't as jaded yet. I think your generation's pretty jaded.
Wisely on guard against stupidity. But I mean, you go through what we grew up in. Born in the wake of the mountain.
Oh, god. Yeah. Grew up in the two thousand eight
recession. Yeah. Housing crisis. Nasty.
Graduated high school into COVID.
And now you're you're got the most inflation of any We're dealing with inflation
and
an authoritarian regime.
Right? So it's kind of like, okay.
Yeah. '23. I'm a little bit jaded. A little bit jaded. Just just five bit. Yeah. How do you make future plans in the middle of survival?
Right.
But
I don't know. Like,
it's it's all of that. And it's like, woah. And I'm 23.
Trying.
23. Can't say I'm not trying.
Right. So to sum it up, you know, we've we you and I met in December in Antone's in Austin.
Recorded a first podcast that I still haven't released because I've had a crazy year. Yeah. So we're gonna we're gonna put this all together as one.
But what's what's your we've obviously gotten your thoughts, but, like, to sum up the last year of your life coming into
this, this space where we use Bitcoin and we use Nasr and we use RSS and we're trying to put all of this technology together for the benefit of the artists.
This is your platform. What do you want people to know about what you've learned in this last year and what you'd like to see next? What I've learned
is
never expect anything to be concrete.
Yeah.
Because
I mean, and that's referring to, like, the industry
before I knew about Bitcoin. That's referring to it after I knew about Bitcoin.
That's like
it's just you can't expect something to be concrete,
period. Yeah.
And that's just life in general.
But
Mhmm. Also Especially this time. Right. Like, especially this. It's kind of We're building the foundation. It's a little a little shaky, but we're trying to build a solid foundation.
Right. And I think my main message would be,
if you want to be involved with how it's shaped, now would be the time to get involved. Get involved now. I mean, seriously If you wanna just enjoy the benefits
and kind
of see how it looks out, wait a few years. Yeah. Well, I'm Stop where you're set. I'm begging people to get involved. Please get involved. Build something. Shape something. Give us your input. Something. Build something. But Help me. Intern with me. I don't care. You know? But build an app. And I think what I'm saying is also, like,
if you don't wanna be involved, that's fine. But then you can't be the same person that was whining that they didn't get Bitcoin.
Yeah. You can't complain about really earthy. Yeah. You can't complain about what we're building if you don't get involved. But I it's it's
it's all open source, so it's surprisingly easy to get involved.
So, like, if if you are a person who doesn't wanna talk to people at all and you wanna chill on GitHub and rip code and build apps You don't need to talk to anyone. Do that. Yeah. Like, there's there's something for everybody, I think, in this space. If you're a a Catherine or Katie and you want to make music and put music out there, if you wanna build the next Wave Link app, talk to Sam Means. You know, if you wanna get into marketing, this bizarre niche,
that I market and you wanna learn about it and it's ridiculous and, you know, we don't even have all the tools we need as marketers yet, you you know, be my guest. If you want
to do live music shows and and, you know, for What are you and Derek?
Derek and I work for a company called Soapbox. And Derek is our dev rel, and I'm the marketing director. And so we are working on bringing people,
to community in a variety of ways. You know? We have our Soapbox technology, and, you know, you could,
build, an app like Twitter, and we call it Ditto. So you can make your own Ditto.
That is one thing that you can do. We have an AI,
conversational AI builder named Shakespeare. So you can you could build your music website with Shakespeare.
You could build a site that takes zaps. You could That's really cool. Create
a band web page.
There are a lot of applications, I think, or use cases, I should say,
for what you could build with Shakespeare. You know, one one thing that I would like to to do is is make a cool music site, you know, like rolling stone for a new generation. But
say Heather puts it up. Right? I'm talking about myself with a foot brake. But then you say I put up a website for Radio Detox,
and you can go there and see Radio Detox, my music recommendations.
And then you go, that's cool, but I don't like her music. I could do this better with music I like. Be my guest. I'll have it there for you to remix the app or the site, whatever you wanna call it. And you can put up your own, you know, Katy Soul Music
website Okay. That's cool. With something to promote your podcast and your music and customize it. So this is how I wanna get an army of Gen z's. Like, here's the tools. They're easy to use, remix with AI,
you know, using our Shakespeare.
And so we we have the technology.
We're gonna be working on creating
some more, you know, community apps that will will solve a lot of these community problems we have Mhmm. With community building,
because let's face it. I think we all want our own community. We want a niche community. We don't wanna see,
I think a lot of people don't wanna see content that doesn't appeal to them. And then, and ads, oh my God, you know, and so like Yeah, no, yeah. You know, and if you can build your own version Hey, you're claring.
There we go. Like, you could ideally,
if you wanted to build, you know, Katie
version of Twitter using Ditto, you know, you could call it you know, Alex Leeson has his own. He calls it Lisa nator. You know? So you could call it Katie nator or something. You know? That's cool. You're talking about saying don't do that because that sounds terrible. Katie nator. Katie nator. But I mean, you could kinda like, we wanna put the power into your hands to create the kind of thing that you want your way and and empower you
with a completely open source AI builder so that you're not stuck
in an expensive subscription. You know? Because like you mentioned, you're still, you know, trying to support a music career with with a day job. And so, like, we want things to be
more easy,
less time consuming, more affordable. We don't want you to be locked into something. And, you know, like, you don't have to
understand code, but you will own your own code. Right. You will be able to take that with you. And then when you make it big and you've got a a web team,
you can just say, hey. I made this site. Here's the code from it. I made it from Shakespeare.
You know,
make it make it better. Have fun. Here. I made it big. Here's a whole bunch of money. You know, that's ideally in a perfect world. Right. Right. It goes on like this, but that's that's what we do at Soapbox is we wanna empower people to be able to build their own community. And especially
somebody like you who's gonna have, you know, a fan base to manage. Maybe you wanna build a ticketing site. And there's Right. There's gonna be so much shit you would be able to do by just telling Shakespeare what to build. And then we have Derek to tell to answer all my dumb questions
about Then the next thing that I would build in that specifically for music, like, just taking it down that way, is if there's a way to get directly
connected to,
like,
theaters and venues.
Oh. Like, if you were to get in the app and say, I'm trying like, tell Shakespeare, I'm planning a tour
Mhmm.
From New York to
Miami
Mhmm. In
two months. Mhmm. What venues
would I go to and where to contact?
I wonder if it would we'll we'll we'll ask Derek Ross in the Vibe Coding workshop today and be like, hey, this is an idea we came up with. It'll be after you leave today. It'll be 05:15 as he starts it. So yeah. So yeah. Well,
what what we need to do is just task Derek Ross with making more apps. Derek. Because he calls it nerd sniping where he's
Nerd sniping. He calls it a nerd snipe where, oh, god. I was gonna do this one thing, but then I got nerd sniped, and now I'm gonna make an app for Katie. Yeah. You know? So, like, that's that's kinda where we're at. It's like, we have I feel like we have it. We have this amazing technology. We've hardly scratched the surface because we just need to get it in more hands and have people work with it and go, okay. I'm a rock musician or, okay. I'm a soul singer. Because, like, one thing that you you could build with it would be, like, you know,
you could put up, like, a little iPad kiosk if you wanted to and have, you know, an app on there where people just scan a QR code. You know, like, well, like we saw downstairs where people can scan a QR code on our system, you know, pay for an Osterville three point o t shirt. Or maybe Katie's, like, join my fan club website. Here's a QR
code. Or, you know, buy this shirt, buy this ticket. My tour is coming up. Like, I I wanna find a way to, like with all these events that we do, Yeah. To keep people coming back. Because I feel like we throw together an event,
and then we we market it barely. And then this people, you know, show up so we get enough crowd that it's, you know, deemed a success. And then what happens next? Right. And then there's no resources for after. Yeah. So, like, I gave a a talk at Nostra Valley last week, Vibe Code on a website with all the list of Nostra websites. Just Nostra for creators, you know. If you you know, like, I can teach yoga on Nostra. Yeah. Right? So I use HiveTalk. So So how do people find that out? Do they know that it's hivetalk.org?
The the apps are always getting improved as the devs work on them. So sometimes, like,
do I do HiveTalk Honey? Do I do HiveTalk Vanilla? And ideally, we wanna use HiveTalk Honey because that's the new one. But if you go to the original website where some of these things are listed, maybe it's not up to date. So why don't you just make it out? Let me make something that's easy to give to people so that they can say, okay. What was that thing she said again? Right. Oh, yeah. I scanned her QR code. It's on my phone. Good. I can go look at that website
and see if I'm a blogger
what app I wanna use. Right. Like, I think a directional you could you could call it 411.
There you go. Like the old telephone system. Oh, gosh. You you know that? Yes. I used to call 411.
I feel like that's a lifetime ago. Landline. Oh my god. Ew. That's funny. I would call 411 to, like, call my friends'
houses. Okay. I did hope. On their phones. So, like, I thought your generation so totally did not ever ask 411. No. I remember calling because also my mom made me.
She was like, she was like, oh, you don't know your friends find them there? And I was like, no, but you have their mom's phone number. She was like, no. You can call 411. Oh, that's cute.
Okay. So we're not that technologically,
far apart from each other. I like that. My parents,
granted, my parents are also
of the boomer generation. So we kind of
they kind of skipped a generation with Okay. So you got you have boomer skills. So I was raised, well, I was raised more like a millennial than I was in Gen Z. So, like, I am 23,
but I say
good grief and golly gee
in my daily day, like Oh, yeah. Day to day. No. You don't talk like that. For shippers, sometimes, like Oh, so weird. Goodness gracious, I say that every day. Yeah.
Would you
do you think a Gen Z that says gat all the time?
Like, every Gen Z I know, like, Ainsley included says like, t. T. T. Not.
Yeah. Yeah.
Slay. Slay. Yeah, exactly.
From the boots to the whatever. Mostly the house boots down. There we go. I, I mean, you guys have all had to tell me that 35 times every time I see you how to say it. And I still like, this is, this is how you know. Okay. I do need to go to work. Okay. So we have to end we have to end the podcast
once again, and, thank you for entertaining me with all of your thoughts and ideas. We're gonna put this out in the world and and see if people Somebody take them. Somebody take them. I'm giving you permission. Please. Yes. We need we need that in this space, Catherine.
Love you. Love you more. It's so good to see you. And in Nashville. I know. I never see you anywhere but somewhere. You're in my city.
I know. Thank God. I'm all over The US together. Thank God for Nashville and Nassar and all this.