(upbeat music)
Hello everybody, welcome back to Phantom Power Music.
This is the inaugural episode
of the Phantom Power Artist Power.
I was gonna do it as a business hour,
but you know, if it's gonna be all about the artists
and we're gonna be interviewing artists,
then it should be called the artist hour.
So, lo and behold, this is a new show for us.
And we are really excited about having Mr. Joe Martin
from Lancashire, Lancashire UK,
I like every American, I'm screwing up
all the pronunciations of beautiful British towns.
I'm sure Joe will tell us how to properly pronounce it.
But we're gonna be talking to Joe Martin
about his journey into music, his journey into Bitcoin,
about how somebody from the UK was able to develop
a country sound and Americana sound,
how he found his footing and all of that.
And hopefully we'll be talking about Bitcoin and value
for value and all that kind of fun stuff.
But before we get into that,
let's check out one of his songs,
called Money for the Needy.
We'll listen to the track and then we'll bring Joe into the show.
So, thank you all for joining us.
Let's check out this track by Joe Martin,
called Money for the Needy, and then we'll bring him on.
Let's check it out.
(gentle guitar music)
♪ He said money for the need ♪
♪ He'd be to hear my story ♪
♪ I wasn't mad like you not too long ago ♪
♪ I said sorry sir, move out my way ♪
♪ I got a need in it, I'm running late ♪
♪ And I drove home by, didn't hesitate ♪
♪ Or even looking in the eye ♪
♪ I don't know why I did a stop while ♪
♪ Hearing my heart even giving smiles ♪
♪ Too cold up in my own life ♪
♪ My job, my house, my kids, my wife ♪
♪ I didn't need to give more kindness to be had ♪
♪ And money for the need ♪
♪ With the same old money, more than I got caught into the office ♪
♪ I said sorry sir, we got to let you go ♪
♪ I said so, it's when he hears means nothing ♪
♪ Water my supposed to tear my wife and kids ♪
♪ When I get back home ♪
♪ So I stung the fat, the local bar ♪
♪ I sat around till it got dark ♪
♪ Bartender said, "This won'ts on me." ♪
♪ I said I keep my pride, you can keep your your pitted ♪
♪ 'Cause I need a broken, I'm no charity ♪
♪ The same money for the need ♪
♪ Wife and I will shout all night ♪
♪ Keep the kids up, but with our fights ♪
♪ About the most and the thing ♪
♪ The most and the money ♪
♪ I said money, try to do my best ♪
♪ When she could do smell the whiskey on my bed ♪
♪ Can see it in my eyes, I'd keep it up morning ♪
♪ She called the children downstairs, they're in there ♪
♪ Tracked them to the corner, lived in a blazing dust ♪
♪ Linger than the knife ♪
♪ And I was a limer on my hands and knees ♪
♪ The crying I could hold and breathe ♪
♪ I never thought this could ever happen to me ♪
♪ Eventually I lost the house, I couldn't make the rent ♪
♪ So I moved out to sofers, I've all friends ♪
♪ And then a park ranch ♪
♪ Well some people ain't got so much, I swear ♪
♪ And give a damn or even care ♪
♪ When I was holding up my hand, this color window ♪
♪ And I said money for the need ♪
♪ You came to hear my story ♪
♪ I wasn't mad like you, not too long ago ♪
♪ And he said, "Sover, sir, move out my way, I got a meeting in it ♪
♪ Running late, then you drove on by, didn't hesitate ♪
♪ And we've all been made in the hour ♪
- All right, so that's money for the needy
and on the line is Mr. Joe Martin.
What's up, Joe? How are you, buddy?
- I'm good to know. Thanks for having me. How are you doing?
- I'm doing well for a Sunday afternoon in Nashville.
Now tell me, how bad did I butcher?
Is it Lancashire? Lancashire? Lancashire?
What is it?
- It's Lancashire, if you're from Lancashire,
or it's Lancashire, if you're from the States.
(laughing)
- Lancashire?
- You did fine, you did good.
You did good.
- Well, I'm from Mobile, it's Lancashire.
- Yeah. - I love it.
- Hey, I mean,
I always love hearing artists such as yourself
who aren't from here,
really attaching themselves to Americana into country.
So how did you get into it?
Like take us back to the beginning of your,
how you got into music and how you landed
into Americana and Country.
- Yeah, well, the kind of brief story is,
I started doing music when I was really young,
maybe about five or six years old,
and I started singing lessons and piano lessons.
And I studied with a great teacher
and I did all the classical stuff first,
which was a great foundation to start with.
And then in my teens, I picked up the guitar
for the first time, acoustic guitar.
My dad plays guitar, so he taught me a few chords
and that sort of got me on my way.
And I'd always been fascinated with songwriting,
and I knew I wanted to write songs,
but I didn't really have enough life experience
in my teens to write anything worth listening to.
- It was hard break songs, right?
- Yeah, yeah, so.
And then I was kind of writing kind of focus stuff.
And I mean, I was influenced heavily,
I listened to my parents record collection,
which was like all '60s and '70s stuff.
But it was really when I was sort of 18, 19,
and had enough to music college
that I really got into country music properly.
And that was through the show Nashville,
which I'm sure you--
(laughing)
- Actually, it's funny 'cause a lot of like UK artists
that are in the country seeing they all cite
that show as being a big moment to them, to get into it.
Like more of the modern country, especially.
So that's really what got me hooked.
And then I started discovering new
a more contemporary country artist and writing in that style.
And I love the lyric side of it.
I'm a lyricist, and I love the storytelling.
And really like the storytelling
that's kind of very plain English, no fancy words,
but they tell a really detailed and descriptive
and compelling story.
And that's what I loved about it.
And then, you know, ever since watching the show,
I was watching it every week religiously
and I wanted to go out to Nashville.
So as soon as I finished college, I was like,
right, I'm gonna go.
And I went out there for the first time in 2016.
Didn't know anyone or anything like that.
And I loved it.
And then the next year, I got a message from the Bluebird Cafe,
'cause I've given a friend of mine a demo tape to take in.
- Yeah.
- CD.
(laughing)
- So I did it.
- Take in.
And they got in touch with me.
And I thought it was a joke or something.
I was like, I've forgotten that I'd given it to this CD.
This was my friend Terry, who I stayed with
in my first trip out there, family friend.
And then, no, it was legit.
So I was like, all right, I've gotta go back.
- Yeah.
- So I went back and played the show at the Bluebird
and met some more cool people and, you know,
had another great trip.
And then I went out for the last time in 2018.
And yeah, ever since I've been, you know, writing
and like, gigging mainly over here in the UK.
And I've done a few gigs in Europe recently,
but it's mainly been the UK.
And...
- Yeah, you were just over in Holland last weekend, weren't you?
- Yeah, yeah, a few gigs in Holland, the Netherlands.
And that was support in another band.
- Oh good.
- There were good numbers, you know,
there were good shows, you know,
good crowds to play in front of them.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- One of those, those guys.
- It's funny that you mentioned the show Nashville
because a lot of people who have been here for, you know,
10, 15, 20 years or longer, their whole life,
like they say it's that show that really
pushed Nashville to the forefront of music in the States.
I mean, it's always been music city, right?
And actually it was Queen Victoria,
who named it music city, who gave it to nickname.
- All right, to know that.
- Yeah, there was an African American gospel group
that came over and dammit, forgive me
because I forget the name of the university
that they were from here in Nashville,
but they went over and sung for the Queen and she was
enthralled in named it music city.
But yeah, the show Nashville kind of has like a dirty
connotation to it, like everybody knows that's the reason why
it, why the city kind of took off.
But I will tell you from a personal perspective,
like during the pandemic, that was my,
like I watched every episode of that
and I watched every episode of Tiger King.
- Right, like no shame, right?
- I don't know what the hell, I have nothing to do.
But dude, you have the vibe of it down.
I love the point that you were just making about lyrics
because the story you tell in Money for the Needy,
the song we just heard is absolutely right on
and it's very synonymous still with what's going on right now.
Not over here with the economy over here,
but I'm sure it's the same in the UK.
But also with born to die young,
like just great lyrics and great storytelling.
So I agree with you, like you are passionate about the lyrics
and you do a hell of a job with them
and you nailed the vibe too.
Like you got a good Americana Laurel Canyon Nashville music vibe.
So kudos man, nice job.
- Yeah, I've tried to,
well, I've drawn from all my influences,
which is yeah, that Laurel Canyon sound,
and I'm a big James Taylor fan
and I'm a King fan all that stuff.
But I've tried to kind of put my own stamp on it
and I don't try and write from an American perspective.
I write about universal topic anyone can relate to.
- You can't write from a perspective that isn't your own
in Be Be honest.
- I'm so good to try and it doesn't work if you don't live
that life, I think.
- Yeah, I mean, it would be like if I tried to write songs
about being a woman, it wouldn't stick.
- Yeah, 'cause I don't, I don't, right?
I'm like, I have an idea 'cause I'm married.
(laughing)
Yeah, I miss.
So let me ask you, just from my years of writing
and from the work that I did in LA
and the work that I've done here,
as far as your writing process goes,
do you write lyrics first or do you write music first?
- I never know, that's one's a discussion
'cause it's everything really.
I sometimes write the lyrics first
or sometimes write the melody first.
I think it's best when both come together to be honest.
- Yeah.
- Well, that's quite rare, but I don't really know.
I think if I, if I'm going into a co-write,
I will have a few ideas, a lyrical ideas mainly.
- Yeah.
- There's like a theme to write about
and maybe the hook, like the chorus hook,
that's the thing in Nashville,
I feel like a lot of the time I've written out there
with people, they start like a clever turn of phrase.
That's kind of a common turn of phrase,
they twisted it round, but they've done something clever with it.
And then you kind of like working back,
like piecing the puzzle together from there.
- Yeah.
- That's great in a co-write,
'cause that's just a good anchor to start from.
But you've got a bit more freedom when you're writing
on your own, to how you go about it, where you start.
- Yeah.
- I quite like writing without an instrument.
I don't do enough of that.
- Really?
- Yeah, like I think my best ideas come when I've not got
a guitar or my hand, or a piano or anything,
it's like when I'm driving somewhere
or doing some sort of mundane task,
and I'm either listening to music
or I've just been listening to music
and there's ideas going around in my head.
Because you're not kind of soon,
I feel as soon as you pick up an instrument,
sometimes that can constrain you a bit.
It that directs the melody rather than the melody
finding its own path.
- So, yeah, that's a great point.
That's a great point.
- Yeah, I have, I mean, I've pretty much retired
from writing, so to speak, but I was always a music first,
type of thing, 'cause I always wanted to know
like where the beat was gonna fall,
and then like once I had the music done,
then I would be able to slip the lyrics into the process.
And I don't know if it's right or it's wrong,
it just works for me, but I've always enjoyed asking
other musicians and other songwriters,
"Hey, are you music first or are you lyric first?"
But you're the, honestly, man, you're the first person
I've ever spoken to who's like, "Yeah, sometimes it's like,
I don't even, like, I like not having an instrument around me."
That's an interesting perspective.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
So, yeah, tell me, like the co-writing thing,
co-writing here in Nashville is huge, right?
Like for those who don't know, for those who are listening,
like you get together with two or three people,
somebody's got an idea, you pound out a song in three hours,
and then you jump across town and you do another co-writing, right?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Are you doing that over in the UK?
Are you doing it the Zoom?
Like how are you doing it?
- There was a bit of a co-writing thing over here,
but nowhere near the same level is in Nashville.
Yeah, I found it really interesting.
There were some people that I wrote without that
that said they'd only ever done co-writes,
like they'd never written on their own,
which I found really interesting.
But no, it's crazy.
Like over there, you can even,
I think I even wrote my song with my Uber driver.
Not while I was getting taken somewhere.
(laughing)
But he was like, "Oh, I write songs as well, are we?"
Yeah, but you can write a song,
you just, the guy that's pulling your pint at the bars,
probably a songwriter, and you throw a stone,
you hit a songwriter, it's so--
- Yeah, it'll hit two songwriters before it hits the ground.
- Yeah. - It's great.
- But that's funny.
That's funny now, you get picked up at the airport
from an Uber driver and you're like,
"Hey man, take me over to Grimeys,
and we got 20 minutes, let's write a hook."
(laughing)
- Exactly, no.
- It's crazy, I asked some great co-writes out there,
and the thing about it out there is it's like,
you could meet someone for the first time
and you're into a co-writing session,
and it doesn't feel weird.
Whereas over here, I feel like if you were just to write
with someone that you'd never really met or got to know,
it would be kind of strange,
but over there, it's just like normal.
I've written a few songs of people
that I met for the first time
and got some good songs out of it as well, so.
- Well here's something I just thought about.
Have you found that writing with American writers
is a bit more honest and forgive me for these adjectives,
but is a bit more honest and soul-searching
than writing with somebody from the UK or Europe,
where culturally, folks from the UK
and Europe, they tend to hold in a little bit more
about their personal lives, right?
Whereas you meet an American for the first time
and in 15 minutes they'll be like,
"Well, you know, I'm an alcoholic, I got three kids in Denver,
and I lost my job last week,
and that got damn with the plummet."
The toilets leaking, Americans will tell you everything.
- Yeah, to be fair, maybe there are a bit less reserved
about Tony that you've got a bad idea, which is good in songwriting.
You need to just like cut the crap and just get to the goods,
feel to throw the bad ideas and not be afraid of saying
that it's a bad idea,
whereas we're a bit too polite over here about that.
But to be honest, I've not written enough
with people over here to actually make it fair comparison,
'cause most of my co-writes have actually been
when I've been in Nashville,
so 'cause I just plaque them in when I'm over there.
- Yeah.
Are you doing any co-writes still with folks over here?
Are you doing it via Zoom right now or?
- No, I've only ever done one Zoom right,
and I didn't like it.
I really do. - Oh yeah.
- Yeah, just could not get the connection.
It's not the same as being in the room with a person.
And maybe it was just, I don't know, a bad experience,
but I was like, no, I'm not a fan of this.
- I'm worth it.
- Yeah, it was okay, so we talked about writing.
Now let's talk about recording.
Where do you do your tracking now?
Are you tracking at home?
Are you tracking in studios?
Or where do you do the bulkier work?
- So it changes every time.
Like, I kind of want that every time I record something new,
I want it to be somewhere different,
and I want someone different to mix it as well.
Just because, I don't know,
I wanna try and get a different sound
out of every new release that I do.
But the album that I just done,
I was looking up to, well, I did half of it,
I did the rhythm section at the bass player
that I would go out with sometimes at his studio.
So we did all the drums and bass, some of the guitar
at his studio, and the rest was done at my manager's studio.
He's got home studio.
- Okay.
- And he's got some gorgeous microphones and everything,
and he just let me do things in my own pace,
and for free as well, which helped a lot.
- Oh God, yeah, that's huge.
Now, you're talking about the record,
empty passenger seat, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Okay, cool, yeah.
- So that was great because it kind of,
I feel like in the studio,
you do need a certain time pressure to get things done,
or you could just be sat round,
just at take 1,200 and whatever,
just keep going over and over,
and you can't decide what you wanna do.
So when you're looking at the clock,
and you've got a bit of time pressure,
it does kind of, it's good for making decisions.
So I felt that that worked well for the rhythm section,
but then when it came to me,
laying down my vocal parts and stuff,
I had the freedom to just try a lot of different things,
and just be really relaxed.
And I thought that worked well.
I thought that was a good compromise of recording style.
- Yeah, you can spend, God,
you can spend hours, days doing guitar parts, right?
And at some point, you just gotta go good enough,
it works, right?
- Yeah.
- And I don't mean that in the sense that
pro tools can clean it up, but like,
'cause you can sit there and come up with six great parts
for the same thing, and it's, you know,
but at the end of the day, for me personally,
like it's always gonna be about the lyrics and the vocal,
'cause it's always gonna be about the story.
I don't care what genre you're in.
I mean, of course, lyrics and the story are top
when it comes to Americana and Country.
Yeah, I mean, you can waste so much time in the studio,
it's not even funny.
- Yeah, and I'm a big fan of recording everything together,
if you can't, if you can get away with it,
and you've got the space to do it.
- Yeah.
- This is like when the musicians are vibing off each other,
and you've just got an energy that you can't capture
when you multitrack things.
- Yeah.
- I'm a big fan, it saves time, saves money,
and I think you get a better, you know, result at the end.
- Yeah, I agree with you.
I mean, I'm old school, you know,
I mean, I started when everything was,
was being recorded to tape.
I was in Los Angeles when the transition was being made
from tape over to Pro Tools,
and it was fascinating to see like Ocean Way and Capital,
and a lot of these studios like start to lose revenue.
And I mean, you know, the big ones are still around,
but a lot of the smaller ones went under,
and there's a lot of benefit, of course,
to do an everything digital,
but one of, to me, one of the biggest losses in that whole thing
is the live feel of it, you know,
just what you were just recording of.
And I still prefer the warmth of tape,
but it's, you know, in so many respects,
it's cost prohibitive now, you know.
- I know that's the thing.
I really wanna record to tape at some point,
but like you said, it's whether I can validate the cost of it,
and all that stuff.
- Yeah.
- The hassle.
- Yeah, it'll, yeah, it'll, it'll,
I mean, you better be on your game,
you know, like you better have your parts, you know, down,
you know, have a really good idea because,
- Yeah, I didn't say.
- Yeah, I mean, tape doesn't lie, man, you know,
I mean, you know, you get some hotshot who just thinks
that they're, that they're amazing,
and, and you can fix a lot of their sloppy crap in pro tools,
but, they lay it down on tape and they suck,
tape doesn't lie, you know?
So, well, let's, let's talk about how you and I really
have found each other, and that's, you know, wave lake,
and, and Bitcoin and value for value.
And of course, and then we'll segue into what you got going on,
with your latest single, which is a,
not only is it a great song,
but it's also a brilliant marketing idea on your part.
But tell me how you got into Bitcoin and value for value
and wave lake, like just get, give me the, the start of it all.
- Yeah, so I've, I've been interested in,
in Bitcoin for a while, and I've been kind of,
listening to a lot of podcasts,
and I've been watching from the sidelines that, you know,
like the lightning network grow and all that kind of stuff,
in mature, and I kept hearing that,
this value for value term being used on these podcasts.
I think the first one I heard it was the Kevin Rook podcast
that covers everything, lightning related.
And, and then I got the fountain app,
and thought that was, you know, great experience
and started zapping, sending sets to these podcasts
that I was listening to.
And then I was kind of thinking like,
I feel like I'm missing out here.
I can't, well, I thought, is there not something similar
but for music?
'Cause I couldn't find anything that was similar
to fountain for music.
And I thought, right, well, the next song I'm gonna put out,
I wanna, I'm gonna put it out as a podcast episode on fountain.
And to see what happens.
And I remember reaching out to Kevin,
and other people and said, you know,
do you think this is a good idea?
Just asking their opinion, they said, yeah, like,
there's nothing stopping you from doing it.
It's RSS, it's open, it's just an MP3 file,
you can upload whatever you want, basically.
So I did that and I posted it to stack a news,
which is kind of like, I don't know.
- Stacker news?
- Stacker news, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah, I just signed up for them recently.
Okay, yeah, good idea.
- Yeah, and I just posted the idea on that.
And people love the idea.
And I don't know, I probably made like 80 or 100 pounds
like in the first couple of weeks of the song being out.
And that was like, that blew my mind
because I hadn't really made anything
from streaming services for that.
And not only that, but the money goes straight into your count,
well, into your wallet, and then you can just send that
wherever you want.
And I was like, okay, this is great.
And then shortly after that,
Sam from Wavelake reached out and said that they're building
this platform, but for music and I was like, right,
well, that's what I was wondering.
That was what I was looking for when I,
before I decided to put it up on Fountain.
So I jumped on the very earliest version of that
that they opened up to people.
And yeah, like, I was like, right, okay, from now on,
I'm just gonna release stuff early on Wavelake
and I'm gonna embrace it
and I'm gonna announce to everyone that
if they wanna listen to my music early, head to Wavelake.
I think I put my live album on Wavelake
because I was selling that just through my website
because so prior to my studio album,
I released a live album, which basically essentially
was to raise the funds to put towards the studio album.
So I only had physical copies of that
because I was like, if I put this on Spotify,
like that's not the point, like the point is people
have to buy a physical copy if they want to support me.
So, and then, so after the studio album was recorded
and everything, I then put that up on Wavelake
but I've not put it on Spotify, I'm not going to.
So, like, so there's gonna be things that I do,
I might do an extended album in the future
and I'll put the extended version on Wavelake
and I won't put it on Spotify
and I'll be releasing everything early on Wavelake
because I think it's good,
and I wanna encourage other artists to do the same
where, you know, because it's gotta have to come from the artist
first to direct people and their fans over to Wavelake
'cause there's not much of an incentive for the listener,
the consumer of the music to switch
but there is a big incentive for the producer,
the music to try and get their fans over on Wavelake.
- Yeah, wow.
So you got into this before Wavelake and Wavelake found you.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- You're old school, dude.
- Well, it's crazy how fast things move right
because this was only a year ago
that I had the song out and Wavelake,
the main sort of platform came out in January,
I think, of this year.
So, if you see how far it's come in a year,
it's just insane.
And I don't know if you've had Charles to play with the iOS app
that they've been...
- I'm on it, I'm on it, enjoy it,
but my wife tells me it works great.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I'm on it, I'm on it, I'm on it.
- Yeah, I am, right on.
- But yeah, it's just incredible how fast it's moving.
And even the amount of tracks that have been uploaded
on a daily basis now is kind of going,
looks like it's going as financial.
So that's great.
- Yeah.
- That's the point, it's already good.
- It's really fascinating.
I think, you know, we needed somebody like Wavelake
to come along and really create the opportunity
for artists such as yourselves.
I mean, we know that it's kind of happening in the Ethereum space
and that's a different show altogether.
You know, we could talk about that.
You know, I'll put some.
- I do, I don't follow any.
- Yeah, and I don't play, I mean, you know,
I know just enough to know that I'm not gonna get involved
in that.
But I love the strategy that you have there,
like, you know, going in the Bitcoin space first
and then, you know, releasing it out on the traditional DSPs.
And, you know, I pay attention to a lot of the bloggers
and podcasters around here in Nashville talking about songwriting
and course and royalty splits and all that kind of stuff.
And I think it like the timing of Wavelake
and the other providers that are coming online
for artists such as yourself to put their music up
in the Bitcoin space, like the time is now,
like it's going to absolutely fricking explode pretty soon.
- Yeah.
There's so much hunger for it.
And it's like, people are just,
in like, so disenfranchised with how things have been
for so long that it's like, everyone's a solution.
Everyone knows what the problem is,
but no one knows seems to realize what the solution is yet.
- Yeah.
- That's how I feel about it.
It's funny.
It's kind of like, you know, I've been promoting Wavelake
to people that I gig with and I know and, you know,
my peers that are gigging on the scene over here.
And it's kind of really sad because when I explain it to them,
they're like, they don't understand the like, what's the catch?
Because the thing is, right, like if you want your music
on Spotify, you have to go through a distributor.
So you have to pay your distributor to upload to Spotify.
I'm sure you know all this, but,
- Yeah.
- So the listeners, you have to pay for your music
to be uploaded to Spotify and then you don't get paid
to Spotify.
So you have to pay to not get paid.
Whereas Wavelake is the complete opposite.
It's free to upload and you get paid.
You can start getting paid in day one and you keep it all.
- With Spotify, you have to pay to not get paid.
- Yeah.
- That's a strong quote by Joe Martin.
But it's true. - And that'll do it.
That'll be the show.
(laughing)
- And so too.
And then like Wavelake is the complete opposite.
And then you explain to people and they're like,
"But what's the catch?"
They don't believe that it's possible.
They're like, there's gotta be some catch here.
And you're like, there is no catch.
There's no catch.
- Yeah.
- I'm starting to talk to people about Wavelake
and the other services too.
And you know, you're like, look man,
like there's artists out there in this space like Joe Martin
and you know, Anzli Castello like these guys are making
couple hundred bucks, a thousand bucks a month
in the Bitcoin space.
And they look at you like with a thousand yard stare,
you know, they're like, you know, they have, you know,
and it's like, it's sitting right,
the opportunity is right there in front of you.
And I think, you know, we're gonna continue to face
this uphill battle of people just like being like,
"Yeah, you're like an anti-establishment Bitcoin nut job."
Right?
You know, rather than looking at what the opportunity is
in front of you, you're regardless of the politics,
you're regardless of the technology.
Like, I try to approach it from,
"Hey, this is just another revenue stream."
Right?
Yeah, you're gonna keep doing gigs,
you're gonna go over to Holland and open up for other people.
You're still gonna put your stuff up on the traditional DSP
is that's not gonna change.
But this is a real thing, this is happening,
people are making money in it and it's going to explode
and you need to get on this now.
And people are slowly coming around to it.
Yeah, the thing is, you know, I don't try and,
I never try and sell you anyone on the idea of Bitcoin
or anything like that.
I don't try and convince people either way with that.
I say research it, you know, spend,
is worth spending your time like looking into it.
But with Wave Lake, with this five value concept as well,
that it's one of the few things in life that has no downside.
Yeah.
Like, and there's very few things you can say that about, right?
Yeah.
There is, like, you upload your music to one more
music platform for free, it doesn't cost you anything
and you can suck any paid for it.
So there is literally no downside, which again,
sounds like, that's why people like, what's the catch?
Like, it sounds too good to be true.
But, but you know, you open yourself up to maybe
potentially a lot more listeners that you wouldn't have had
listening away like, and they can send you value
straight away, no one's taking a cut.
Yeah.
And then once they get that, that initial rush of like,
I'm sure in the way you felt, like, tell me about it,
how you felt the very first time you opened up your phone,
and all of a sudden you see, holy crap,
so many just sent me a thousand sats.
Yeah, it was, it was a mixture of emotions really.
I felt like, I had my mind blown and I was like amazed,
but I was also quite angry.
I was, I was angry.
I was pissed off about how much has been taken from,
how much value has not made it to these artists over the years.
Okay.
Just being like, I finned away by the Spotify of the world,
you know, these big stream battles.
Yeah.
And they kind of like, the thing is like,
okay, there's technological limitations to what could be achieved before.
So now we're in a new paradigm, we're on a new playing field now.
So I guess you can't be angry that it's not happened
because it couldn't happen before, lightning.
Right.
But it still made me a bit pissed off because
it just made me think of like, this is what I've been waiting for
for the past 10 years of doing it.
And it's finally here now, which is exciting.
So it's kind of given me like a boost of like, you know,
morale and like, it's going to be in and fight up again.
And using the app that was in the beta app,
that they're about to release, that got me really excited
with how easy it is just to fly through it and just as that people.
And it's just amazing.
So, yeah.
And I think it's, the biggest thing is going to be the mind shift
from people, you know, that are going over to Waver Lake and thinking,
right, well, the music's free to listen to.
There's no ads, but actually no, I have to, you know,
I'm expected to send something back.
Yeah, you got to dump, you got to put some sats into into a,
quote unquote, account at Waver Lake, right?
Like, and then use out from there.
Yeah.
Yeah, people do it.
It feels good to, it feels good to zap people.
If you like it, you know,
it's the one that, that's what value for values about, you know,
I mean, like, it's like a digital tip jar, you know,
it's like you're walking down in Hyde Park or you're walking here in Centennial Park in Nashville.
And, and, you know, oh, look, there's a, there's good looking kid from Lancashire playing his guitar.
Like, I'm going to, I'm going to throw some pounds in his case.
It's the exact same thing.
Yeah, I've got the exact same thing.
I'm going to blog on my website, explaining value, and I've just
re-rejigged it to make it a bit more accessible, a bit more understandable.
And I've, I've tried to use like a real well metaphor for that in that, like,
Spotify is kind of like the equivalent of a big stadium venue.
And it's the only place in town to go listen to it, like music, right?
And you, you pay your 10, 99 entrance fee to get in,
even if you want to listen to a small acts that's playing.
And like the big streaming artists are like on the main stage of the stadium.
And then value for that, and then they're taking everyone's 10, 99 as they walk in.
And then eventually, a few months later, paying it to the artist after they paid
the staff, the skewers, the lighting, the sound, and all these other people first.
Well, value for values, the equivalent of like going to your local small bar,
where there's a tip jar on stage.
Yeah.
You know what you're putting into that jar is going straight to the artist,
and no one else is standing in the middle of it.
That's kind of real well.
Amen.
I've thought of, I don't know if it's a good analogy, but.
Amen.
Dude, I think it's great now that, and I'm looking at it right now.
That's the joe martin music.com/valueforvalue, right?
Yeah.
And the other thing, too, is that like when I think about artists like you,
you know, serious artists professionally aspiring artists who want to make a serious living
in this, I think.
And if I'm wrong or if you disagree, feel free to disagree.
But I think that you're going to have to play in the DSP space, in the, in the, in the
traditional service provider space.
Yeah, you're going to have to play with the teasers and the iTunes and the apples, right?
Yeah.
And you're going to have to keep doing gigs and you're going to have to, you know, even
though radio is dying, it's still valuable.
I think, I think BBC is far more valuable than, uh, I heart radio over here.
Um, but I think that what, what, what, when I think about what you are doing in this space,
the leverage you are creating for yourself, when a major label out of Nashville comes,
knocking on joe martin store there in the UK, the value that you have created for yourself,
the leverage that you have created for yourself in the value for value, lighting payment, Bitcoin
space is only going to make you even more marketable and is only going to, and is going to give
you more power, uh, on the signing table should you decide to sign up with somebody with, with,
with a major label, you know, um, and somebody is going to break out of this space and go mainstream
and the origin story is going to be the, I think, uh, another one of those events culturally
that drives more musician, what more musicians into this space.
I, um, did you agree with that or not?
Yeah, I agree with that.
I guess at the moment because there's no other option for independent artists as soon as
they see a contract stuck in front of them for a record deal, like a lot of the time they're
going to just jump at it, you know, because they're like, what else am I going to do?
Whereas if this other model exists and you can get it to a point where you're making
it a good living off a few thousand fans that are sending you a few dollars a year through
zaps and streams, then you, then you're going to think twice about taking on a deal maybe
where you stuck with debt or you locked into something that, you know, you don't have your
rights to your own songs, whereas with this, you can keep everything as long as you're
putting the work to build a fan base over the years, I think it's, it's, it's made a, a
workable model again for the independent artists, you know, is bringing back that middle
ground that's being lost for this, with the streaming platforms and everything, um, to
make a living again, a comfortable living for smaller artists.
I think it's going to bring that back, uh, which is, yeah, it is going to be a lot more
important.
So, yeah, I would agree.
Do you think anybody who is mainstream right now, who is signed to a major label?
Do you think anybody's going to get, get, get, get, get jump into this space while they're
signed to a major label or do you think a major label would go, uh, going to that?
It's hard to say really because it's, it's about who owns the rights of the songs and a lot
of the time like Del have signed something away to the label that, that will stop them
from making their own unilateral decision as to whether that, where they upload their music.
Uh, but I don't really know, I don't really know, but like, I, what, from what I've heard,
like, I mean, the, the labels are in the, back pocket of Spotify anyway.
So it's not even the labels that are getting that screwed.
It is the artist that's on the label.
It's not really the labels.
So Spotify might just turn around to that, to that record label, like you definitely
not doing that.
So it's definitely, it's definitely going to be a grassroots in the artist's movement
first.
And then when it gets big enough, then the labels are going to pivot and it's going to
switch over, but it depends as well how long Spotify can keep chugging along.
Like, I don't, I read an article the other day saying it's, it's lost like $300 million
this year or something and it's, it's like impossible for it to ever be profitable.
And it may should wonder whether like the Spotify and the Netflix is are just a product of cheap
money, like a decade worth of zero in zero percent interest rates and cheap money.
What, you know, that didn't actually need a profitable business model to work.
Yeah.
And whether that day is coming to an end because, yeah, I mean, interesting point.
I mean, you could make the argument that maybe they've been held up by investors, right?
I mean, because I, I agree with you, I, I've read the same things.
I, I've read recently that I think they just finally turned a profit on a quarter, right?
And the consumers, by the way, if you go, you know, I, I don't know if you heard the first,
the first business hour podcast that I put out where I kind of just ranted about the industry
nine things about the industry that I personally believe, but the industry looks, looks at you
guys like you're making burritos like they don't give a damn about the quality of your
art. They just want to know how many burritos you can pump out, you know, in a day.
But I, but I think you can make the argument with respect to Spotify that they haven't really
turned a profit yet for them to stay in business.
They are going to have to raise their fees to the subscriber and they have hundreds of millions
of subscribers.
I'm sure you've heard the news that came out in the last couple of weeks that they're
going to start doxing anybody who doesn't have a thousand spins, you're not going to get
paid. You know, I mean, shit, you weren't getting paid anyways, right?
Yeah.
But they're kicking people off who have less than a thousand spins.
I, I will credit them.
I, I think it's good that they are penalizing the major distributors who are gaming the
playlist system and flooding the playlists with like white noise crap and, and, you know,
tracks that are only 31 seconds long.
Like, you know, they, you know, they have a, they have a tough road ahead of them if they
want to become profitable.
But everything comes and goes, you know, with, with every rise, there is a fall.
And I, I don't see them being able to maintain a dominance in the industry when you have a decentralized
opportunity like Bitcoin, that is, that is going to overtake them.
And, um, then, and then there's two other questions that I had for you along this line.
What, one of them is, um, I went to see Hunter Hayes, um, last weekend, here in Nashville.
Yeah.
And he's awesome.
God, he's good.
Yeah.
But, and he's, he's, he's a complete independent now like here.
He's not tied to a label.
So, yeah, so I was like, I was standing there looking at him like, damn, like that would be a
good get, right?
Yeah.
Like, so it could get him into the space, which led me to, which, which, which, you know,
makes me think, God, there's a lot of people who have been dropped.
I mean, they don't necessarily own their original catalog anymore.
Like Hunter, doesn't own the majority of that catalog, but he just put out another
break record and it's, it's on his label.
Like he's, you know, those people who have been dropped from labels are a prime and who
still have a fan base, they're a prime candidate for value, value and pick one.
Absolutely.
I think it's going to be kind of like a semi-artic thing whether, whether artists like that
that are, have either been dropped or they were just savvy enough to keep everything
from the start and they own their own rights and stuff.
And they're going to move over, like, they're going to probably be waiting to wave like
or something similar to Wabelake has grown to a critical mass wear because it's still so
small in the moment is this is, there's only probably a few thousand people actually on
it and using it.
But it's got, it's, it's being built from the right foundations and with the right principles.
So it's being built in the right way with longevity in mind and it's going to be a case
of like, there's going to be a first mover where you get someone like a hunter, or whatever.
And then another artist is going to see that thing, you know, that's the same level or whatever
and that it's going to snowball, right?
And then, and then it's just going to get to a point where it's like, well, you're not
on Wabelake, but what you leave in, you leave in Sats on the table and what you did.
Yeah, I remember like, I went down there, I met the guys from Wabelake this past summer
at the lightning summit here at Bitcoin Park in Nashville.
It's just so, we're so lucky to have Bitcoin Park, which, yeah, it's a, for, got, how do I describe
it?
It is, think of it as like, we work for Bitcoiners, right?
Like these guys, they're all Bitcoin developers, they're all code writers, they're all brilliant,
they're all brilliant.
And they, they own two houses in, in downtown Nashville on Music Row.
And it's a, it's a private business.
You have to be a member to work there, but they have public open, open house events once
a month and then, you know, a couple of times a year, they do massive events like they had
the lightning summit in July, they just had nocturne November a couple of weeks ago.
And I have, I'm so thankful to be near that and to have learned from those guys and they're
just so generous in there and they're so welcoming.
And that's where I met the guys from Wavelink and I met Sam and everybody and I remember
sitting in a presentation that they did on Friday morning and there were a bunch of people
in the room that were saying, look, like the only thing the movement needs is like, we just
need to get Taylor Swift to come over to, to Bitcoin.
I'm like, there's no way in how Taylor's going to come over to Baylor.
She's doing just fine, you know, but you do need it, it would be nice to get somebody
like a Hunter Hayes or even somebody who's still signed, you know, to, to come over
into that space because that's really going to be the game changer for everybody.
So yeah, yeah, I think, I don't know, I guess like, there's excitement with the people that
know that know what it is and we're already on board, but people just need to start hearing
that the idea of value and wave lake and all these other things found in.
And the UX just has to get to a point where it's just like as good as if not superior to,
you know, your traditional like platforms.
And then it's just going to be like a, it's going to be like a no brainer, I think, for
like people.
I mean, it's no brainer for me now, like why would you?
I don't understand why you don't load your music to Spotify, let them keep the money instead
of loading it, like, you keep the money, like, well, you said it earlier, buddy, people
like to pay it and I can pay it, right?
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, this is a nice segue into the, to the, uh, single that you just released.
So tell us about, uh, the song we're, we're going to hear here in just a couple of minutes.
And, um, I, I got a lot of questions about it.
So I will, and I think it's a brilliant idea.
You have the floor, sir, tell me about the new single.
Okay.
So the idea came from, I was speaking to a guy that goes by the name of JD, um, who's,
uh, got a company called CypherPonk Cinema and he's based in LA.
And, uh, we, we sort of like gone on a Zoom call and we were talking about what we're both
doing.
And, uh, I said, what, I said to him, oh, I don't want to write, I don't want to start
writing Bitcoin songs like, like, that's not cool.
I mean, it is cool.
Like, I don't know.
I don't know the topic to write songs about, but it's kind of like, I don't know if he
was like the first artist on the internet and you're writing about the internet, writing
a song about it.
Yeah.
You've been pretty cheesy.
It doesn't hit as hard as like a love song.
It's like that.
So, um, and I said, well, you know, I don't, I don't want to do that.
And anyway, I'm quite subtle with my song writing.
I like to write with, you know, allude to something that, or writing metaphors or whatever.
And he said, well, write your version of a Bitcoin song or something.
Like, I don't know.
So, I did it through the lens of the Jetsons.
I don't know.
This idea came to me of like, right?
We all want to, I want to write a positive song.
I'm always writing depressing songs.
So I want to write an optimistic song for a change.
And so, I mean, I will say bored to die young is pretty damn sad, dude.
Yeah.
So I'm going to write an optimistic song about the future.
And we're either going to go while it's two ways.
You know, it's going to be dystopian or it's going to be utopian.
Maybe, I don't know.
Um, so I thought, right, I'll write a song about a Jetsons future.
And how are we going to get there?
And, uh, I think, you know, without technologies like Bitcoin and Noster and these freedom tools
that are being built out for each person to, you know, kind of like claim their own rights
in the digital space.
It's, it's, we're not going to get to a Jetsons future.
So it was kind of like a tribute to all the people that are building on the orange and purple
networks.
Um, and then so I had this idea for the song and I thought, right, I'm going to, I'm going
to do this in a different way.
Um, I'm going to go with a producer on this one, um, because I, I want it to be more like
pop, poppy, like a bit more produced than my other stuff because it felt like it needed
that.
So I knew the exact guy that I wanted on it to produce it.
He's called Matthew Garcia and he's a French producer and he's based in Manchester near
me.
So I reached out to Matthew and, um, I didn't tell him exactly what the song was about,
but I told him what I wanted from the song and I just put down an acoustic part in a vocal
and I kind of left him to put what, you know, what he thought it needed on there.
Um, because I trusted him.
I love what he's done before the, you know, other artists and I guided him a bit on it.
Um, but yeah, he did, he did.
He's a very in the, but you're very in the lead here, dude.
All right.
You're very in the lead here.
Like what's the, what is, how did you come up with the idea of, um, and how did you implement
giving away a million sats?
Well, I had this idea a while ago, maybe even before I wrote the song, I was like, I want
to write a song that's got a seed phrase buried in it.
And this song like needed that.
Well, it was, if there was going to be a song, it was going to be this song because it's
about, you know, alluding to Bitcoin and Noster and stuff like that.
So, um, it's funny.
Like, I got the, the bit 39, uh, word list.
And I actually, before, I, I'd already written the lyrics, like, I didn't even think about,
uh, a seed or anything or, you know, what words could have been allowed as, as, as seed words.
I just wrote the song.
And then I went back to the song with the word list and found the words already in the song,
but innocent.
What?
Yeah, yeah.
You didn't have to, well, did you have to swap any of the lyrics out?
I had to swap one word.
No way.
Because, yeah, so I don't know if you know, but a Bitcoin seed, the 11 words that you
shoot that, that are chosen, uh, with entropy, like randomness or if you choose them yourself
out of the hat or whatever, uh, that the first 11 words informs what the 12th word is, which
is the checksum, uh, which makes, which make valid key.
So the 12th word, uh, was actually, I had to change, um, in the song for it to be valid.
So, so when you wrote the lyrics out and you created the wallet, you entered in the 11th
word, or excuse me, yet you entered in the 11 words and then the 12th word was generated
and then you had to go back and go, all right, I got to find a spot in the song for this 12th
word.
Yes.
Okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
And then like, yeah.
All right.
So then now that the song is out, what are you doing to promote it and to get people to,
uh, figure out the, the 12 words or the order, the 12 words or whatever and, and what's
the prize?
Right.
So, obviously, there could be like a trillion combinations of what it could be.
So unless people have a bit of guidance, they're never going to find it.
Um, so, yeah.
So I'm basically putting out five clues and I thought it became kind of neat to release a new
clue every time there's a difficulty adjustment, uh, which for those who don't know it around
every two weeks, the difficulty to mind new Bitcoin either goes up or down depending on how
much compute power comes onto the network.
So I thought that's like the difficulty adjusting is like me releasing a new clue to make
it easier to find the words.
Yeah.
So I think, I think five clues is enough.
I think once the fifth clue is out, I think people should have a fairly good chance of finding
it because I don't really want it to be stuck there forever, even though that would be cool
because like the song would hopefully just grow in value forever and ever and ever and
it would create more incentive to do your campaign.
Yeah.
I'm going to get that damn song off the internet.
I'm tired of hearing it.
It would create more of an incentive over time for people to listen to it and it becomes
its own self-fulfilling marketing budget because like the thing is people easily drop like 300
pounds, 500 pounds on marketing like for an hour or so and all of it.
So I thought, well, why can't the song be its own marketing budget?
God, dude.
That's what it is.
So like the thing is it's like, I thought, oh, this is a cool idea and it would just
get more and more so as the value goes up over time.
That's really great then.
So I'm going to say like if for whatever reason it is never found, people will have to take
my word for it that I promise not to tell anyone and I won't claim it myself.
But if it's not claimed after like, I'm going to say 21 years just to say, just for 21 years,
I'm going to give it to a worthy charity and I will reveal what the words were and then
people can go and check.
They can enter those words and check with those notes that it was there.
Of course they can.
I mean, that's the beauty of the technology.
So yeah, so are you getting some good play out of it or are you getting some good activity?
You know, some good marketing activity from it?
I've just had people commenting saying it's a neat idea that it's really cool.
I mean, I don't know if it's ever been done in this context in the song.
I know people have hidden seeds in like artwork and stuff like that.
Yeah, I don't think anyone's ever hidden them in a song lyric.
So as far as I know, if anyone has, please let me know.
Oh, it's fantastic.
I was like, oh, be cool to be the first person to do that.
Yeah.
Well, now, Sir, are you mining Bitcoin as well?
Do you have a node at home or?
I've got a node, but I don't mine.
I don't mine.
I find some of those little nerd minor things.
Those little tiny ones I know if you've seen them.
Yeah.
Like one in a truly enchants of finding a block is me.
More chance of winning the lottery.
And I don't play the lost reason.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
No, I don't mind.
Fair enough.
Well, listen, we'll play the song here in just a minute.
But I really want to thank you, Joe, for coming on and taking the time to talk with me.
You're the first artist I've spoken to in the Bitcoin space.
I'm hoping to get this podcast posted within a couple hours this afternoon.
I know it's getting, it's pushing eight o'clock over there.
So hopefully it'll be out by midnight your time tonight.
But so tell everybody where they can find you on the inner webs and all that kind of fun
stuff.
Yeah, you can find me just at Joe Martin Music on any of the socials.
Joe Martin Music.com is my website.
I'm on Noster as well.
I don't know my end part of my head.
You can find that through my Twitter or X or whatever it's called.
And yeah, thanks for having me on.
It's an honor to be the first guest on your new show.
So it's a pleasure to do that.
I really enjoyed the conversation.
I really love your music.
I love your writing.
You got a great voice, too, man.
You really got a great voice.
And like I said at the beginning,
like I, you really have the vibe down.
You got the sounds down.
I mean, I was just listening to born to die young on a wavelength before you jumped on
the call here.
And I mean, the acoustics, the slide, the lap, and your voice in the, in the lyrical story,
you know, I'm in the unique position as a blogger and a podcaster that I really only talk
about artists that I like.
And you're definitely one of them.
You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of garbage.
There's a lot of crap out there in the industry.
And that's part of the problem that you and every other unsigned artist has.
You got to deal with all that crap, you know, people who think that they, that just because,
as I alluded to in another podcast, that just because somebody tells them, oh, they're
really great.
They get this false sense of security and they, and they're not.
And they suck.
And they shouldn't be doing this.
But you, sir, are damn good at what you do.
And it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
And, um, dude, next time you come to Nashville, man, you got to look me up.
I will definitely get into it.
Yeah, yeah.
Hopefully I'll be back out in the near future.
So I'll drop your line when I'm out there.
That sounds great.
All right, buddy.
So that is Mr. Joe Martin.
And we are going to check out the song here called The Jetsons, where if you are paying attention,
and you take good notes and you pay attention to Joe's social media, you will be able to
unlock a million sats.
So here we go.
Here's the track, Joe.
Thanks again, buddy.
Thanks, Alan.
You'll tell him about the future, what do you say?
Is it an ocean of color growing exponentially, what keeps me up through the night time gives you
a dream and through the day, is that the goddess of wisdom is only in block away?
I wanna fly with the chestnuts, I wanna shoot past the stars,
I wanna think even till the flames never bend before,
when I've been raised like purple and orange,
you can count the colors, the water, fly with the chestnuts,
I wanna shoot past the stars,
what's done, this done,
before we live and die by the number 21,
where energy is flowing through the sheets that are all known,
and the lightning, I'm sure it's a sin,
I wanna fly with the chestnuts, I wanna shoot past the stars,
I wanna take you to a place never bend before,
when I've been raised like purple and orange,
you can count the colors, the water, fly with the chestnuts,
I wanna shoot past the stars,
with you, with you,
12 words in my head, and without you, I'm on the sid,
I'm afraid in my mind, better on a man,
I wanna fly with the chestnuts, I wanna shoot past the stars,
I wanna take you to a place you've never bend before,
when I've been raised like purple and orange,
you can count the colors, the water, fly with the chestnuts,
I wanna shoot past the stars,
with you,
I wanna fly with the chestnuts.
Absolutely love that dude's voice,
and such a pleasure to have him on the show today,
for the first ever Phantom Power Artist Hour,
just one last note about his voice,
it's always fun to hear somebody singing voice in comparison
to their speaking voice, and he just has a lovely voice on both accounts,
so thanks y'all for listening,
don't forget to send some sats,
we're splitting this episode with Joe,
and as well as giving 1% back to the web hosting company on this one,
which is RSS Blue,
and Happy Holidays,
guys, happy Thanksgiving to everybody here in the States,
and don't forget to smile for the mugshot,
see ya later.
Thank you very much.