#200 Sodajerker
Rae Leigh chats to the amazing team Sodajerker from Liverpool. Founded by Simon Barber and Brian O'Connor Sodajerker is a podcast on songwriting featuring interviews with some of the most successful songwriters in the world. Seems only fitting that this podcast which inspired us to start Songwriter Trysts and helped us shape what we do was by these guys and we are so excited to share this podcast chat between the three hosts to share the positives and oppertunities that have come from this platform of connecting and creating online community for songwriters from all over the world.
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Transcript
Rae Leigh: Welcome to a friends with songwriter trysts and Soda Jerker all the way from Liverpool. I've got Simon Barber and Brian O'Connor. Thanks for joining me.
Brian O'Connor: No problem.
Simon Barber: Thanks for having us
Rae Leigh: I like to start with you guys introducing yourself. Tell us a little bit about who you are and where you come from.
Simon Barber: well, I'm Simon Barber and I work on my podcast with my, my friend and long time friend and Powell, Brian O'Connor and together we go collectively by the name Sodajerker and our podcast is Sodajerker on songwriting. So that's the part, that's the space in which we talk to some of the world's best songwriters about their creative process.
We first met at school many, many years ago when we were sort of 13, 14 years old. And we've been friends ever since. And it wasn't until sort of 2010 that we had the idea for starting the podcast. And between that time. Yeah, well, we launched in
2011. I, I think I was suggesting it for a little while before
Brian O'Connor: see it's it's that long ago. It's it's getting sketchy. I, I recall it was 2011. Anyway, I think summers around this time, 2011 and, and then we took a few months to kind of plan it and, and get everything in place that we needed and, and find some guests. And then, uh, and then we sort of ran the first episode, uh, in November back 2011.
Rae Leigh: Did you do any like tests to see if like anyone was interested before you kind of, how did you kind of test the waters to see if it was a good idea for you to start this podcast?
Simon Barber: Well, we just sent off a couple of emails and got a couple of replies back. Uh, the first person to say that they do the show was Billy Steinberg. Who's a really well respected songwriter. And, um, so he ended up being our first episode, but we were thrilled when he said yes, and it kind of proved to us that there was some mileage in the concept that, you know, people weren't really talking to song races in that kinda long form interview format.
And, uh, you know, we were gonna apply that, that model, that existed with podcasts like WTA or whatever, where you would have sort of indepth insight into people's work, um, certainly in comedy or, you know, what, whatever the field and we were gonna apply that. To music into songwriting and sort of see how those people did the job.
And, um, it seemed to work. There was not that much stuff out there at the time. Uh, certainly nothing that was like ongoing long form interviews with great songwriters. So we, we sort of cornered the market in just being early. I think.
Rae Leigh: Mm-hmm. Well, you had time to refine what you were
Brian O'Connor: absolutely.
Simon Barber: Yeah, well, I mean, we, I, I always do tests from a sort of technical perspective. Like, how are we actually gonna do this? How it's gonna, how is it gonna be recorded and how will it work? And what's the structure in the format and how will we put the show together and where will we publish it and how do you do that and all that stuff.
So I went through a whole process of doing that, which was probably between, you know, the summer where we committed to the idea and the first episode dropping in sort of November of 2011. But, um, yeah, we, we just sort of went by the seats of our pants really with it. And we just, from there, we got our second guess he was Todd Rin.
Um, and we were thrilled that he said yes, and, and we never really looked back from that point, cuz we were able to sort of say, well, Todd undress, just on the show, how about you do the show? And we sort of were able to snowball that sort of guest list into really, you know, a great guest list over the years.
So it was pretty straightforward really.
Rae Leigh: So. You just kind of like, oh, we had this person on, So.
you should definitely be on and kind of just
Brian O'Connor: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It just created its own its own momentum. Really. And as I said, we, we really just kinda learned on the job. Um, you know, we did put things in place before we started, but, but then, you know, we, we learned how to do things better as, as we went along really, and just improve the whole, the whole production elements of it and obviously get better as interviews as well.
Simon Barber: yeah,
Rae Leigh: yeah,
That's a skill. Isn't it like being genuinely interested in
Brian O'Connor: absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's one that took us, you
know, cause I personally had never done an interview in my life before we started
this. Um, So for me, it was incredibly nerve-wracking to start with. It's still a bit, nerve-wracking now to be honest, but I'm a lot more confident with it. Um, but it really is a skill and it's made me much more appreciative of, of really great interviewers.
I'm not saying that way, great interviews, but, um, you know, it, it really, there is an art to it. There's not to make the person feel comfortable asking the right questions, all that kind of thing.
Rae Leigh: Mm-hmm . And do you do much editing? I'm asking from a personal point of view, when you do your interviews, do you feel like you're taking out a
lot?
Simon Barber: Um, well, we record usually for about an hour, sometimes less, and the episodes end up being about 45 minutes long so, or, or sometimes a little bit longer. So it's not like we take out loads of stuff, but we, we typically will prune anything. That's unnecessary, cuz we want the listening experience to be revisit.
You know, we want people to be able to go back to it and enjoy it again and not have long sections where someone got up and walked out of the room or the doorbell rang or there was coughing or like we, we take out anything, that's an interruption to the actual information. Um, but that said again, it depends on the, uh, the guest and how well they speak and if they're good talker or not, whether you're gonna have to make a, a bigger intervention into tagging things up.
And you know, some, some people we do do a lot of that. Like
we might have a 90 minute recording where we'll, we'll put out a 45 minute episode, you know, we have done things like that as well
Brian O'Connor: Yeah, you have to be prepared to be brutal basically with the editing. And that was something, it took me a long time to accept that. Cuz you know, we are do an interview. It would be, say an hour long and then side does the editing. Um, cuz he is supernaturally patient and hard working. Um, And, uh, yeah, so we do an hour long interview and, you know, he'd send an edit back.
It'd be say, 40 minutes. He's like, where's the we've lost 20 minutes. As I recall, it was like an hour of gold, you know? And he is like, no, you think it's that? And then when you listen to it back, it's, uh, it's not quite the case. You know, you can take out, you can take out 10 minutes of pauses and, and sort of people gro 'em for the right words and things like that.
So you can, you know, and obviously sometimes people go off on tangents and, and what have you. So you, you sort of trim those where wherever possible, but, but yeah, you've got to be prepared to, to be brutal no matter who the guest is as well, you know, you might. A Marky guest, but, um, that doesn't mean you have to use all 90 minutes that you, you have with them, you know, it's not going to be all
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And they started talking
Brian O'Connor: Exactly. You know, it's, it's tempt in, in a way, but on the other hand, you're like, well, who cares about this? It's not really jim main to what we're talking about here with song. Great. And so, um, so, yeah, you
Simon Barber: tempt to know isn't it. When you've got a really famous person and you think everything they say must be precious.
Brian O'Connor: that's it. Yeah, but it's not, it's not, it's not the case. Really.
Rae Leigh: not Yeah. I, I definitely noticed, um, with editing, everyone has their own. Words or phrase that they use as like a thinking phrase, like, you know what I mean? Or, you know, or like, and it, you don't realize that when you're speaking to someone, but when you're editing, it becomes really evident because it's happening every two seconds and you have to take it out because it just meant, like you said, it makes it shorter.
Um, so that's, that's really interesting and they're probably more selfish, personal questions that I'm curious
Simon Barber: no. Carry on.
Rae Leigh: it's nice to meet someone else that gets it. . Um, tell, tell me about, cause you guys said you, you met when you were about 13, 14. Did you start songwriting in high school, straight away from there?
How did that happen? Why do you? guys, like, why are you so passionate about songwriting?
Brian O'Connor: well say you were the songwriter initially, weren't you?
Simon Barber: Yeah, yeah. From an early age. Well, I took up the guitar around 14 and immediately started writing songs because I guess it was just the, I assumed the thing that you did when you had an instrument, I guess, you know, you wanted to produce something on that instrument. So, um, I was writing lyrics and writing songs and things.
And then, um, I had a band at school and Brian became part of that band started playing bass, even though he didn't play bass at the time he took up the bass to join the band. And then, um, as time went on, we just got more and more committed to this practice of writing songs. And we had a, well, it was a giant four track.
Actually. I was gonna say a small four track. It was the size of a mini fridge. But, um, we, we used to just gather in my living room and, and just, um, write songs and record them together. Uh, and we did that throughout school until we got to the point where we were, you know, in bands that would go out and play shows and things like that.
And, uh, we did that, you know, throughout our twenties, we were sort of playing round and driving around in the middle of the night in vans doing gigs and trying to get back to Liverpool and all of that stuff. So, yeah, it took various guys as though. Yeah. I mean, I mean, and it's a sort of unforgiving lifestyle and, and as you get older and you get more responsibilities, you start
to, um, jettison those more ridiculous aspects of it, I suppose.
And, um, that's when we decided we'd just work together as soda Jacob and start writing songs that way. And then we parlayed that into a podcast in order to kind of just engage more people with what we were doing. And it turned out that the podcast was the thing that people cared about.
Rae Leigh: no, I think you still have done a lot of songwriting together. How have you found with the podcast compounding your impact to just network and support the industry, but also then, you know, get your music out there. And how have you noticed that it's taken you away from songwriting or has it encouraged you more?
How has it impacted that side of what you do?
Brian O'Connor: Um, it, it hasn't, it hasn't completely took us away from it in, in terms of our, the, the, the time we have available to, to get together and, and write it has impacted on that quite a lot, because, you know, we're, we're not teenagers anymore. We've both got kids and jobs and things. Um, so, you know, we can't get together in the same room and, and write as much as we used to, you know, we could just do it Willy nearly back when we were, you know, 17, 18, whatever.
Um, but, um, you know, we're both, we're always generating ideas where we're sharing ideas. Um, and you know, we have made a concert to effort more recently, cause a long time when, by where, as I say, we just weren't getting together to do it. So we've made a more concert to effort recently to, to actually, you know, I've been going size actually based down the Midlands now west Midlands in, um, in England, I'm I'm about an hour and a half north in Liverpool where I'll drive down Seguard as you can see that, um, all singing, all dancing studio. Uh, so I'll go down there, we'll get together and we'll sort of pool our ideas and see what, you know, what comes out.
Simon Barber: Yeah, I've been preparing,
Rae Leigh: have like a
Simon Barber: I've been preparing a whole bunch of stuff recently for some
sessions that we've got in August. So I'm sort of. Trying to develop a bunch of stuff that we can jump straight into when he arrives.
Brian O'Connor: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: So what are, what are you writing for at the moment? What are your goals when your songwriting now, you know, performing them or releasing
Brian O'Connor: It's it's just for ourselves at the moment. Um, you know, I, I think, uh, you know, neither of us, I mean, I, I am a self-employed musician, so I, I do go out and, and play, but usually other people's material, um, you know, we've not sort of performed our own material for, for a long, long time now. I think the writing was always of more interest to us than the perform in any way, the creation part of things.
So, um, so just for now, because it's been such a long time, really, since we've written together properly in earnest, we, we just want to get some stuff together that we like to start with, that we, we can get behind that we want people to hear. Um, you know, and we just wanna enjoy doing it as well. Just cuz that's the most important thing really?
You know, it it's um, for us it's not, it's not life or death, you know, it's, it's something we're very into and, and it is important to us in a, in a man we're speaking. But um, you know, we just wanna have fun doing it, see what comes out of it. If we like the results, um, people will hear them basically. Yeah.
So there's no there's no project or anything like that necessarily that we're writing for just seeing if we're any good basically yeah. Having and having fun with it. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: yeah, you gotta do what you have fun with. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. How, how about COVID have you guys found that that slowed you down a little bit? Has it been hard to get together? Has it impacted the podcast? I mean, during COVID podcasting, like that was the motivation behind me doing it because I am a chatter box and I probably would've killed my husband by a talking
if I didn't do something like this.
Um, what, what was that impact for you guys
in the UK? And it was pretty massive,
Simon Barber: It was quite, uh, impactful in terms
of us not seeing each other for a long time. Wasn't it? Right.
Brian O'Connor: Yeah.
Simon Barber: I mean, we didn't didn't get together in person for God knows how
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. We saw each other for about, I think,
oh God. I'd say from the start of
of the pandemic, um, through to maybe last August, we might have seen each other for a total of about 20 minutes when, when Cy popped up to Liverpool. Um, yeah. And not, not, he didn't just, he didn't just come up to see me for 20 minutes.
He had other, other
business. Uh, it'd been a wasted journey. Uh, but yet, so, but obviously we talk all the time and stuff and, and, um,
And yeah.
Simon Barber: Oh, yeah. We're like
ally connected. Aren't we? In terms of like
daily chatter. Um, but yeah, the, the, the way it affected the podcast was completely different though. Wasn't it?
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. Well, I think to start with, we, we
just waited to see which way the win wind was blown, really, cuz you know, we didn't know how long this was gonna be for or whatever. So, um, we didn't really line up any, you know, people were, seemed to be onto the zoom thing very quickly, whereas we sort of. Held back on that for a little, for maybe a couple of months.
Um, and then it was, it became clear that this was gonna be, um, quite a long running thing. so, uh, we started to sort of take bookings over, over zoom. And, um, up to that point, we'd never actually done an interview without the two of us being in the same room. So that was strange. Like we'd always, either we'd be in person with the artist or we'd be together, you know, on Skype or, or whatever member Skype. Um, remember the days of Skype. Um,
Rae Leigh: I forgot about that. Actually.
Brian O'Connor: So, uh, so yeah, so that was, it took a little bit of adjustments cuz I'm not the most technologically savvy
person. So just the idea of having to set everything up myself and record myself was, was anxiety inducing. But after a couple hours, um, I was in the swing of it and um, and yet, and then we just went from there.
We ended up, I think in the. During that whole COVID era, if you like. Oh, I mean, I guess we're still in it in a way, but, um, yeah, the heavy part of it we must have done about at least 50 or so zoom interviews. I think so.
Simon Barber: Yeah, I'd say
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. We're, we're old hands on it now,
but to be fair, we, when we started, we, we started
with using Skype.
So we've been U from about 2011 to say 20, 15, 16. Um, you know, most of the interviews were done over the phone or over Skype. So it wasn't like we'd never used remote, um, technology before, you know, to interview
Rae Leigh: Mm, no, no. Fair enough. And you've gotta adjust. I think everyone went through that adjustment period with technology and like we had a 10 minute delay just getting on here. So, I mean,
it's, it's a mystery technology is I, I just happen to be married to a very technical savvy guy, which is great. So I get to be the creative one.
um, tell me about who you've spoken to and how that's impacted your writing. So I'm not gonna ask you who has been your favorite because you have had so many amazing. And I also would hate to be asked that question um, for my own podcast, but. Do understand that when you talk to people, when I've talked to people, there's been like aha.
Moments when like the pennies dropped and they've said something that clearly has come from years of songwriting and experience, that's just made me go, oh yes, I have like, I'm totally gonna do that. Now. Have you found that you've as songwriters that's happened and can you tell us who
was that? Which podcast was that?
And is there something that you can
share that you found has really
Simon Barber: I mean, it happens all the time. Doesn't it, Brian, we, we hear interesting things from people and oftentimes you'll hear some advice and you'll think, wow, that's brilliant. And then you'll hear the opposite advice and you'll think, wow, that's brilliant.
You know, like someone, someone will say, you know, like the anchors was on recently and she said, forget about inspiration.
Don't even believe in inspiration, just get to work. And then we talked to Tori Amos and she says, oh, you need to be channeling the muse and, you know, stocking the Sonic pantry with your inspiration. And we think, wow, both of those positions are equally great. And you know, you can kind of apply them if you want to,
you know, honor.
Brian O'Connor: there's other people who, who say like, um, like Colin hay, for example, we had on a few years ago from men at work and stuff, and he said he just sits and does nothing like he, he doesn't pick up an instrument. He doesn't sort of go out on a walk or go out for a drive or he just sits on the couch.
Theres at the wall. Does nothing almost, you know, until his brain starts to sort of activate just from the sheer, like lack. Of action. It starts to generate
Rae Leigh: like boredom.
Brian O'Connor: Um, so, you know, yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's this what we've learned? I think the overarching thing
is just that, that, um,
no right or wrong way with it.
It, it it's, there's just sundry ways to write songs. There's no, you know, there's no, even at the idea that a song should be this or it should be that or what the message of a song should be or, or any, you know, it's just, it's, it's a complete, um, it's, it's a bit of a crapshoot really, you know, you just don't know what, what you're sort of gonna end up with.
Um, you just go down this road, you start off with the gem of an idea, and then you sort of make various decisions until you wind up with this, this song at the end of it,
you.
Simon Barber: And each one depends on the, the specific character of the person I suppose, and their intuition and, and the decisions they make will affect the type of song that you get. So one person writing, it might produce a completely different song or production or sound then the next person. So yeah, it it's just the, it's just an endlessly.
Malleable kind of form. And really, it just depends. Who's who's doing the writing at any one moment as to what you get out of it, you know? Um, and of course that's why you get these really consistent catalogs of material. Isn't it? Cuz someone will have a really specific process or a really specific form of creativity and they apply that on a regular basis.
And then you get this whole swath of incredible songs from this person, which if it's your thing, then you fall in love with their work and so on. But yeah, it's just, it's incredibly inspiring for us to see all the different ways people go about it and that there are no real rules that, that matter. And so, you know, it helps frees up in a way I think at first, perhaps it was like, oh wow, all these people are
doing all this incredible work and it's, it's kind of overwhelming.
But then when you realize that nobody really knows anything,
Brian O'Connor: as William Goldman.
Rae Leigh: yeah.
Simon Barber: yeah. Then you, you just kind of go, oh, okay. So we can just do this. Then we can just do this in whatever way we want. And if it sounds like us, so, you know, it's got our sensibility embedded within it, then that's gonna be the way we sound and that's fine.
You know?
Rae Leigh: I love that. Yeah. I think I thought I was gonna like.
Uncover some sort of mystical code
Simon Barber: So did, so did we,
Rae Leigh: songs.
Brian O'Connor: I mean, there
Simon Barber: it's just,
Rae Leigh: and then, um, Yeah. like you just, you just gotta have fun, right?
Simon Barber: I mean, it's, it's
it's infa, isn't it? You know, people say, oh, I had an apprenticeship with a famous songwriter, like Desmond
child told us, and he sort of learned the craft and he, he learned a whole set of rules from his, um, mentor there, Bob crew, um, other people, they do it through collaboration, whether that's like with a, a partner, like I've got with Brian or in some kind of formal professional setting, you know, where they just go and co-write with people.
Um, some people write for specific genres like K-pop or whatever they're writing for. And then they learn the codes and conventions of that. And then they master that and you know, other people will, will just write whatever comes to them when they're kind of wandering in the field or whatever. It's just, it's endless.
It's infinite really.
Rae Leigh: Do I, I'm a big believer in rewriting now. And, and the fact that you can get better as a songwriter, because I've noticed my songwriting getting better, but also from advice that I've learned from people. But I have had people come on that are like, you know, no, it's spiritual and you just have to kind of go with it and you can either do it, or you can't where
How do you feel about that? Because I, I think, yeah, from talking to so many people now and just doing it myself, I feel like, no, it is something that you can learn and you can get better at if you apply, like you said, learn the
craft. Um, but do you think there needs to be a certain level of skill or talent?
Or how, how do, what do you guys think
Brian O'Connor: well, firstly, I, you know, I agree. I think anyone, anyone can do it any, literally anyone can write a song. Um,
but obviously, yeah, there's a, there's a, you know, if you wanna get good at it, you've got to, you've got to work at it like anything. It's just, you know, it's at like any skill, any craft you've got to put the hours in and the more you do it, the, the generally speaking, the better you'll you'll get, um, I've lost me thread there.
What was I gonna say? Simon, jump in.
Simon Barber: I, I think it's, it sort of depends on how the person's brain is wired as well. You know, like as someone like an and Partridge, just, just such a specific sensibility that when he, when he writes it, it's almost whether he knows the craft or not, he's gonna produce material that kind of reflects the way he thinks.
And he thinks in a kind of very colorful, unusual, interesting way. So I suppose anyone can do it, but if you happen to have a brain like Andy Partridge, then you, you've got a better chance of producing a catalog of material that's distinctive and unusual and interesting. And that's why some people are consistent and consistently great.
And other people can just write some
songs. You know, I think a lot of it comes down to brain chemistry to
be quite honest.
Brian O'Connor: Absolutely. Yeah. And what you said about rewriting? I think, um, yeah, I mean, on some writers are very diligence about that. We'll, you know, do copious drafts of a lyrical whatever, and that's fine. Um, and that works for those people, but sometimes, maybe that first initial expression of the idea is that's fine too.
If, if, you know, if you, if you get something down on the page and you think, yeah, that's pretty much same what I wanna say. That's, that's fine. I don't really need to, uh, Gil the Lilly. Um, then that's fine as well. I think had said that was recently.
So, um, Tim high Decker said it, didn't he? Sorry. We had, we
spoke to Tim high deck recently, the American, uh, comedian and actor and
and musician, and, uh, asked him about a particular song on his new album.
And that's pretty much what he said, um, that he just had a couple of verses and it was a pretty simple, straightforward message in the song. Any thoughts about, oh, she'll go back until I add to it. Or is that a little bit too simplistic in any thought? No, uh, it's pretty much same what I wanted to say. So I don't really need to add anything and a song can be that too.
It doesn't need to be 12 verses, you know, you don't need to sort of, um, overwork it if it, if it's doing, uh, what you want it to do, you know, and you dig it then other people will as well. Generally. Yeah.
Simon Barber: And then I guess from there you need some sort of set of working processes that you can adopt, which might help you to be more consistent and to continually produce stuff. Cuz I think relying on inspiration is. Is also questionable, you know, that the idea that you're always gonna be inspired or that new stuff's always gonna come.
I think if you can set up a structure whereby you're gonna be doing stuff, then inspiration might come out of the stuff that you're you're making. You know? So we have people talk about improvising longer pieces of music and then cutting them down. Or, um, like Matt burner from the national said about getting instrumentals from his band mates and then just randomly generate and gibberish over them.
And listening back to see if any of that gibberish suggests something, you know, an interesting line or a phrase or whatever, and, and sort of deciphering his own lyric from the gibberish. Um, we have people who, who work in a very organized fashion
with Dropbox and they, they put all the tracks in order or they'll, they'll
catalog them so that when they come back years later, they can go, oh, wow.
Remember that demo.
Brian O'Connor: done that actually as.
Simon Barber: that one. And, yeah. So I think if you, if you. I've got a series of processes around your kind of raw creativity. That's gonna help you to be more consistent than if you just kind of flip through the fields, kind of, you know, hoping for some sort of lightning strike
Brian O'Connor: Mm-hmm
Rae Leigh: I love that. Just go with the
flow, let it flow. I actually really like that idea of, um, gibberish over an instrumental, cuz that's probably how I write
Brian O'Connor: it's pretty common that actually I think,
Rae Leigh: and then yeah, no, that's good. Um, I know we are actually running out of time cuz I'm not used to zoom.
Um, but I ask everyone this question and I would like to ask you guys, um, because you know, you're incredible songwriters and you obviously do it for passion and love and you'd have to considering you've been doing it for so long. Um, if you could collaborate with anyone in the world, dead alive, who would
it be and why?
Brian O'Connor: Wow. Oh, that's a tough one.
Simon Barber: Yeah. I always find questions like that. Quite difficult because I don't, I don't tend to make lists of my favorites of things. I do have lots of favorites, but I don't tend to rank people. So I dunno who would be the one person really? I mean, there's probably loads of people.
Um, someone like Tom petty would be great, you know, who's no longer around you just to, to benefit from that kind
of like grizzled wisdom, you know, I would love something like that.
That would be great. But, uh, gosh,
Brian O'Connor: Well, I think
someone Simon mentioned, uh, and Andy Partridge, uh, would be a, a great one. I mean, it'd be quite intimidating on the one hand. Cause as I said, he, he's, he's such a brilliant guy with this, like just very unusual way of looking at the world and, um, and it seems to come so naturally to in the creative process.
So it'd be quite intimidating to get in a room with them. But I think on the other hand, you, you would come out with a song. I think he's one of those people. Think if you went in a room with him for an hour, with the intention of writing something, you would come out with the song at the end of it, whether it be any good there's another matter, but you know, something will happen in the, in the room with that guy.
I don't think he gonna be both of you're gonna be sat there in each other or the wall or for, you know, for very long, um, something will come out or, or someone like, um, maybe Dan Wilson would be great, um, who we've had on the show. Uh, a Grammy winning songwriter was front and a semi Sonic and, and stuff.
And, um, and he's similarly, uh, maybe not as flamboyant to characters as Andy partridges, but, but similarly connected to his creativity. Um, he just he's really in touch with it and, um, and has a lovely manner about him that I think would coax out, uh, you know, any ideas that you might have. So that's, that's too.
Rae Leigh: I like that. Yeah. Cool. All right. This is a question that I don't ask everyone, but because you guys are doing the same thing, um, do you have like people that you would love to come on your show that you would love to
interview and pick their brains? Is there someone that you've got
like goal? I would love to speak to this person
Simon Barber: yeah, the
the loads, isn't it bright. I mean,
since we started, we've always wanted to get those major American stars, like a Springsteen
or Carol King, Dolly Parton, people like that. Barry Gibb. Um, not that he necessarily a major
Brian O'Connor: Randy Newman is as I am my list.
Simon Barber: Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's loads of those people. Um, and you know, as the years go by when those things happen, like, you know, we find ourselves sitting, the Sting's living room table, or, you know, we're face to face with McCartney or whatever.
Um, we thought, wow, you know, last year, this was impossible and now we're doing it. So as the years go by, we sort of think, well, anything might happen. So, you know, as long as you keep going,
you've, you've got a pretty good chance that those things will come to.
Rae Leigh: Those
Brian O'Connor: That's it. Yeah, it's this whole, um, any success that we've had is, is, is really down to
persistence as much as anything we've just stuck around, you know, the moment we stopped doing it, then the chance of us speaking to Barry. Good. The chance of us speaking to Dolly part is it it's gone, you know, so first of all, we just have to keep doing it
until, until we simply just can't do it anymore.
Um, and yeah, I mean, it's it's, but that's really it, you know, we, we, we produce a good show. Um, we've gotten, you know, Much better at it over the years, uh, you know, to the point where it's, it's attractive, you know, publicists for people like McCartney and sting and Paul Simon and whoever. Um, and as I said, you know, we, we really, I think we, we, we did have dreams of that when we started, but I'm not sure if either of us thought that it would, you know, we get to speak to some of these people, but we, we sort of aimed high
Rae Leigh: sure.
Brian O'Connor: from, from the beginning.
Um, and just set about just doing a good job with the podcast and, and, you know, if we did a good job, you know, it's the, the cliche, if you build, if you build it, they will come. Um, and that's proved true as lot of cliches. Do you know? Um, yeah, you, you just got to keep chipping away and, and we've learned really not to. Request them people, we, we really don't request people anymore or very seldom do we send out any requests? That's how we started. Cause obviously we had to, but as time went on, we started to have relationships with publicists and things who would then offer their clients. And, and that's generally how, how it happens now.
So, so someone like sting, you know, McCartney who, whoever, uh, Alicia keys, any of these big stars, they've, they've been offered to us. You know, we, they are people out maybe early in the early days. We, um, we did write to the publicists or whoever and ask and got swift rebuttal. Uh, um, but you know, we stuck around long enough to prove ourselves and then eventually they started to, to come to us.
And um, so if we are gonna get, you know, Barry, Gabe, du Parton, whoever, um, Springsteen, it'll be that way. It's not gonna come from us going, listen, Bruce, interested in coming. It's just not, it just doesn't work really.
Simon Barber: Yeah. yeah,
Rae Leigh: And, and they'll have their own, their life cycle of when they
Brian O'Connor: Exactly when the,
Rae Leigh: and press, when they're releasing something, they've got something to
Brian O'Connor: yeah, that's it, you know, it's got, that's got to be happening in pretty much every time. It's very rare now that someone's just going to fancy being on a podcast for now talking about songwriting, um, you know, it's going to be, they have a product to, to sell.
Rae Leigh: just you. guys
Brian O'Connor: yeah.
Simon Barber: the amount of things that have to fall into
place for something like that to actually happen. It, it is like a lottery willing,
you know, you have to have the artists being willing to a do press do that kind of press and not just say I'll, I'll just do some major magazines or whatever. And then they have to have that put in front of them by the publicist, or has to be committed enough to the idea of your show to put it in front of them.
And then they have to say, oh, that looks good. Yes. And then they have to actually follow through and do it. And all of those things are just like gigantic hurdles. Like you wouldn't believe how many people we've been offered over the years. Like major, major, major superstars where you go, oh, wow. I can't believe this is gonna happen.
And it never does. because it's just the kind of idea or one of those hurdles that I just mentioned just, just gets in the way,
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. And there's just so much, the podcast field is, is very crowded now as well. Um, and so, and as well as podcasts, you've got magazines, you've got radio, you've got television and, and, and these big stars, you know, when they've got a product to, to promote, then you know, it it'll be like, okay, we've gotta do this TV show, gotta do this radio, uh, station.
We've gotta do this, uh, magazine and maybe a couple of podcasts. And we're just one of a number that they could potentially do. And, and, you know, they might go for the, the lead fronted one, you know, um, or, or one that's more high, high profile, um, or something like that. And, and we, we might lose out, um, cuz we're quite niche, you know, in, in a, in our subject matter.
So, and when that happens, we just go, okay. And we just ourselves off and we, we wait for the, the next time round the carousel and um, and then maybe, and that has, you know, a side. Well, we'll tell you, like if that's happened a few times to people, you know, we haven't got them on one album and we've literally said.
We'll get them on the next one. And, and then it's turned out to happen. , you know, we've sort of not, and we weren't even saying it. Yeah. Well, that's it. You've just got to think that way. Well, you know, if we're still around, when the next album's out in
two or three years time, then we'll get another chance then.
And if some, some of these people will never get, and we, we accept that now, you know, cause we've done. We've done pretty well over the years, so we can't complain about the people we didn't get. Um, but you know, I'm sure there's still a few big guns to, to come fingers crossed.
Rae Leigh: I'm I'm sure you will. And it sounds like you're, um, you're having fun. We're gonna run out of
time. Um,
Simon Barber: do you want me to send the zoom link? George? Do you wanna send another one?
Rae Leigh: send,
Brian O'Connor: can do another, another 10 minutes if you want
Rae Leigh: or, yeah.
Okay.
Simon Barber: started the Tempa so.
Rae Leigh: less than one
Simon Barber: If, if you wanna do another 20 minutes, we can do that because unless you've got something right.
Brian O'Connor: I can do another. I can do another 10
Rae Leigh: love to.
Brian O'Connor: yeah. Okay.
Rae Leigh: Um, do you
want me just to send another
link or you gonna send
one?
Simon Barber: Um, probably best that you send you are recording on your
Rae Leigh: I have to record it. Yeah. I'll send another one. All right. All right. Thank you.
Brian O'Connor: I think I just wanted to be in a band. Oh, there we
Rae Leigh: Sorry. You just wanted to be in a band when you were 14. That's why you started
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. Well, it's just fun and it it's just, uh, it's uh, it's like being in a
little gang.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Brian O'Connor: So, um, I, I, so I was in this band with two, two other sort of school pals of OS. And, um, and, and as I mentioned earlier, you know, he to the bass player and I, I'd never picked a bass up before in my life.
I knew three chords on the guitar, I think at that point. Um, and, and the end, I thought, oh, alright, I I'll have a go and something to do. And, you know, it's a little gang to be in. So that was, that was my only, um, thought that at that time. And then I, I sort of got into it as I went along and got into playing bass and they're still still playing now, you know?
And, um, and I got into songwriting a little bit later than side.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Okay. So, I wanted to get two things, the best advice that you feel like you could pass on that you've learned, not just from the podcasting, but just doing songwriting yourself. So each of you can have a turn of that and, if there's anything else you would like to share with people listening, how they can get involved in soda jerker and, and what you guys are doing for the future.
Simon Barber: Well, I suppose the best advice we tend to is. Do with just getting started really? And just putting away your preconceptions and just trying to engage yourself in a creative act for the sake of fun and just having a good time and enjoying it, making something out of nothing is really an attractive proposition and it's fun to do.
And if you can just forget about the internal edits editor in your mind and whether or not you're any good or whether this is gonna be a hit or any of that nonsense, and just make something that you find fun to, to make and, and actually engages you or inspires you in some way then, um, that's, that's really the fundamental part of it and everything else Springs from there.
You know, if you make something that other people like, and it goes on to be successful and great, but, um, starting out with that in mind is a, is sort of an inspiration killer in. Circumstances, I would say so. Yeah. Setting aside a lot of that stuff, just trying and engage in a creative act for the simple pleasure of making something.
That's really the, the thing I've learned. And that's been reinforced by lots of people over the years. Um, but probably most effectively by Jeff Tweedy, um, in his, he's got this book how to write one song and he really just gives an absolutely fantastic
account of why that's a good idea. Just sitting down and trying to enjoy the pleasure of making something.
Brian O'Connor: I mean, I hate to be boring, but i, I just have to echo size sentiment there, to be honest. That's, that's pretty much what I would've said. And yeah, I mean, you, you asked about, or not favorite episodes, but some of the best episodes and, and the Jeff Tweedy one for me is, um, is one of the best ones I would say, just because it.
It's just kind a textbook, you know, when we set out to make an episode of the show, I think it's, it's, it's an episode like that, that we have in our mind, that's how we want it to turn out. Um, and, and yeah, his whole thing is just, um, you know, it's not life or death, you know? Uh it's it's just, it's, you know, it's, it's important to, you know, people do make the living off it and, and sometimes people are writing songs for, you know, the commission to write things or, or, you know, they have briefs and they have to meet deadlines and all this kind of, so there is, I guess, if you're a professional song writer, uh, a deadline element involved, but if it's just something you you do for fun, then that's, that's the key word, fun.
Um, it's not life or death. You don't have to write a masterpiece every time you sit down. Um, Just this, the act of doing, I mean, I find that personally, you know, I've got tons of folders, full of ideas. That'll never be heard by anyone but me. Um, but you know, I know I, I was having a good time when I was doing them.
I don't need the world to hear them, but I, I kind of, you know, and, and, and it's a good reminder as well, cuz sometimes you will be sitting thinking I've got, I haven't got any ideas. I can't really write songs or I know you have to do is just refer back to, well, look at all the stuff you have done, you know, you can do it and you'll do it again.
Um, so you know, it's good to document a lot of people, we talk to, you know, the importance of document and ideas, you know, and you've got this, we're all walking around with a device to, to, to do that very easily that, you know, song great is even, uh, I guess, you know, 30 years ago didn't really have, I guess he had D the phones and things tape recorders, but
Rae Leigh: Little notebooks.
Brian O'Connor: can you tape recorder in your pocket? Yeah. Um, Yeah. Yeah. So hook, but I like that. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: I didn't make that up. That's
Brian O'Connor: and that's yeah, no, I'll have, I'll have to use it though in future. Yeah. But that, that's it, you know, just get, get stuff down and don't throw things away. Like that came up in the recent interview we did about with the artist did, um, basically gone back to songs he'd discovered from 30 years ago that he he'd been given in a box of that tapes and reel to reels and stuff.
And it was like, these are good. Like, you know, I wonder why I didn't put these out 30 years ago and it sort of jazzed them up and, and, and they, you know, he's putting them out as a new album and, and other song writers have told us about, you know, they might be working on a new song and, you know, they just can't crack that chorus or whatever.
And then all of a sudden, they'll remember a song from, oh, what was that chorus wrote in 1987? And, and they'll find it. And, and it'll just slot in perfectly, just dovetails with the verse and the, the pre chorus and, and wow, there you go. The song's done. So that's a, a great piece of advice I think is always hold onto, you know, little fragments of things that you like, but you could never really figure out what to do with, it's always worth keeping those things, because they might just find a home, you know, a few years down the line
Simon Barber: Yeah. quite a bit of discipline involved in that, but definitely
Brian O'Connor: As I said, you know, having like a Dropbox or something, having, you know, it pays to, uh, do a little bit of admin in that respect, I guess maybe that takes away from the fun elements, but you know, to not, you know, just, you know, having stuff just maybe, you know, clearly marked folders of ideas and, and all that kind of thing that you can refer to easily.
If you're stuck, you can just dip into a fold and go, all right, what's, what's this one, will this work, will that work? If you change the key of this, will this work as a chorus to this, all that kind of stuff is, is very useful. I find anyway.
Rae Leigh: I can totally relate to everything you've just said. And I love how you say you have fun and then just keep writing and obviously keep everything as well. Cuz you're right. You never know when that's gonna be useful or when it might come up. And I've had that plenty of times, like a chorus that went nowhere and then took it into a co-write five years later and boom, there's a song like, um, You just never know.
I, I am curious though, cuz there is a lot of, there's a few different things that have come up and everyone seems to have a different opinion based around it, I guess is there's the one of people just like they just pump out songs like a machine, like three, 400 songs a year and just keep writing. And I think pat Patterson was the one that talks about, you know, just keep writing because 90% of what you write is shit and you gotta, but you gotta write the shit to get the 10% of gold.
Like, so it's kinda like that just it's a numbers game and the more you write, the better you get and the more good your stuff you do. And then, then you get the other side of like, well, some people just want to, they don't believe in that and they just wanna go, no, maybe not just when they're inspired, but they wanna work on a song and they wanna make sure that every song is as good as it can possibly be before just moving on and checking it out kind of thing.
Brian O'Connor: Hmm.
Simon Barber: Yeah, I, I think you've got to be engaged with the process on a regular basis. Haven, if you want to produce your best work. I think, you know, we have had people say, oh, I, you know, I write once a year when I've got a project on, or maybe I'll, I'll leave it for a few years. And then I come back to it and I'm confident enough to know that my skills will just guide me through and I'll, I'll produce what I need to produce.
But I think if you want to really push the envelope as an artist to make really interesting work, you've gotta be doing it on a regular basis. You should be thinking about it every day, really. Um, and that's, that's oftentimes, you know, you'll, I suppose you'll, you'll get. At it are not so good, but you know,
Rae Leigh: like.
Simon Barber: it's almost like, um, the, the, the really great stuff comes from that practice from that regular routine, you know, it's actually like you don't just get the great stuff out of nowhere really.
It's, you know, you have to produce a little bit of ordinary stuff day on day, day in, day out, and then the, the great one
Brian O'Connor: And I think you'll learn from just doing it and doing it, how to identify the great stuff. You know, you, you, when you, if you're starting out, you don't necessarily know what's good and what's not, you just sort of, oh, this is a song, I guess. , and then as time goes by, you can, you can listen to like a batch of, of ideas and, and the, the really good ones.
I know this is the case for me, always jump out. There's always a couple where you go, ah, see those, those are the ones that are staying with me. The others are fine. They've got all the right components and whatever, but they're just not really saying much to me. I'm not, I don't enjoy them as much as these two ideas.
And then, so those are the ones that you take forward to, I guess, record, release, whatever you wanna do with them.
Simon Barber: So as you go on in your career, you've gotta develop a kind of sensibility for your own work Haven and understanding what's good. What's bad, sharpen up your kind of taste and your, your skills. It's strange process. Isn't it, to be able to determine and, and edit yourself and determine what's good and what's bad in your own work. Cuz we tend to love everything we produce.
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. I mean, I think we're, i, I dunno if we're, are we sort of volume people? I'm not, I'm not sure. We tend to sort of, we'll usually if there's just something that comes out in both of us go, oh, you know, like be a riff for record sequence or of whatever, then we'll, we'll work on it. You know, if we, if we're just aimlessly, strumming a few chords and whatever, and you know, we, um, it doesn't really sort of, if it's not speaking to us, then we, we, we just, you know, we, we keep going until something does speak to us and then we work on that thing.
But I think, yeah, I mean the only sort of, um, I guess. What might contradict the whole, you know, you've got to work at it. And that, that is absolutely true. Um, but there are some people who, that they've worked at it so long that, you know, when it comes to time talking about established artists, when it comes time to write an album, they'll, you know, they, they might have not thought about writing for 10 months, but then, oh, shit, better write an album.
And they just, they, they trust that they've done so much work in the past that it it'll come back. It'll happen. You know, Joan Arma trading is a good example. Someone we spoke to, you know, when she's not ne when she's not, um, making a record or, or whatever, you know, she's not necessarily spending or every waking hour thinking about writing songs, she just goes off and do those other stuff and trusts that.
Well, I I've been doing, I've been around the block a few times. I've done made a lot of records, written a lot of songs. So when it's time to write another album, it it'll be there. The, the ability will be there. The songs will, will come. So I think if you, you know, you have got to work at it, but I think eventually, you know, if you'd work at it long enough, you'll get to a point where you don't have to necessarily be thinking about it all the, all the time.
And when it is time to do something, then you know, you've got the tools there. You've got the ability there to, to write. Does that make any sense?
Rae Leigh: Yeah, I think I would, welcome a bit of peace of not writing. I dunno about you, but I I'm that annoying friend at coffee that will just have to stop mid conversation. Like I've just gotta put this idea in my phone. otherwise I'll forget it. I don't mind that and I do have to go, you know, with kids in life.
I'll take time. Between writing, but probably at least weekly. Otherwise I get grumpy. I don't know if you ever get, have you noticed that you get moody? If you like, you need to write something and you haven't had time
Brian O'Connor: I thought.
Simon Barber: probably when I was a bit younger, I would've been like that. These days I'm, I'm just so kind of, used to sublimating my own happiness that I, I, I, I don't, I don't kind of miss it as much anymore, but, um, yeah, when I was younger and I
was like, you know intensely passionate about creativity and then like, didn't get to do it for a while. that would be like
Brian O'Connor: I know that I feel generally better about myself. If I have written something or just come up with an idea, even just one little thing, uh, during a particular day, you know, when I'm going to bed that night, I'll feel a little bit, uh, better about me myself than if I'd, I'd not come up with anything. I think it is, there is something about creating something out of outta often.
So just, you know, just when you go to bed at night, there's something there that wasn't there when you woke up in the morning. I think that's, there's something very satisfying about that. And again, it doesn't have to be that it's a completed song or, or anything like that, but there's just something, an idea.
Is there that, that wasn't there before. So I, I, I know it definitely, it's good for me mentally to come up with things. If I haven't, you know, maybe I'll be a little bit down on myself.
Rae Leigh: I don't think I'd never really considered my mood based on my creativity until, I spoke to Alan Kawell. He wrote the theme tune for the TV show prisoner. He was one of my first
Brian O'Connor: All right. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: And he said that his family, like, yeah. And I mean, he's been a professional songwriter ever since. So like, since the sixties. But yeah, he, he had said that his family knows when he is, got the grumps and he has to go into his songwriting room, write a song and he comes out like a completely different person. And so, you know, after 40 50 years of songwriting, he realized that about himself. And when he mentioned it, I, I started doing some reflection.
I was like, oh, I think I'm a bit like that too. I think I get, like, I get really grumpy because I haven't had like space to express myself through whatever song, whatever needs to come out. And, I was curious, but yeah, I also, another common thing I found was song where song we just did to see, you know, if you guys have found this, I've had some opinion that some people can only write like love songs and, or only write tragedy, sad songs. And it, most people tend to do one or the other and they can't cross over a lot. Have you heard that?
Brian O'Connor: Hmm.
Rae Leigh: there.
Simon Barber: I don't. I mean, there are people, obviously we've had on who've written classic love songs, or, you know, memorable, upbeat up tempo songs. But I think what we tend to find these days is that there, a lot of people are making use of a contrast between like happy music and sad lyric or vice versa. And, and that's a lovely tension.
And a lot of people put that into practice. We find don't, we brag that they'll have, um, a song with a kind of slightly tragic lyric, but it's, it's underpinned by such upbeat music that you sort of think, where am I, how am I supposed to feel about this? You know? And it
makes the song more sophisticated and more engaging in some way.
Rae Leigh: perfect
Brian O'Connor: mean the the cliche, I've all yeah. Well, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. The thing I've always, yeah, the the, cliche that that goes around is it's it's, you know, it's much easier to write. A sad song or a ballad, um, than it is to write an up tempo happy song. And I think maybe that's true to some, to some degree.
I don't know. I don't know why that is. Maybe. I dunno. Yeah, it's, it's hard to say, I think, yeah. I dunno. Maybe song writers, just prone to melancholy more than other, other people that I've. I have no idea really, but I think, yeah, maybe it's those open, minor chords fall more easily under the, under the fingers when you're
Rae Leigh: they do feel good. Don't they
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's something about
Simon Barber: Or, or maybe it's just a, a more obvious, more relatable emotion, you know?
Brian O'Connor: maybe I think there's so yeah, maybe it's people feel are not being authentic. Uh, Enough, if they write something happy or upbeat or, or just a piece of kind of, you know, feel good fluff, they feel, oh, I'm not a real songwriter, unless I'm like plucking out the pain.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Brian O'Connor: Um, you
Rae Leigh: Yeah. I think I noticed, with new songwriters, like when I've been to conferences and different events, like a real fresh songwriter, a lot of the time for me, I've noticed a really sad, like, like miserable songs, like slit your wrist type songs. And that, that more, you know, as you write more songs that kind of maybe so maybe it's like, they just, you know, we don't talk about sadness or depressing things as much in society, cuz it's not something you talk about at the dinner table.
Everyone wants to have a laugh and whatever. So maybe it's just that initial, we've gotta have some sort of way of expressing our emotions as human beings. I don't know in my head, I'm thinking maybe it's just something everyone has to go through. Cuz my initial songs were definitely tear jerkers and all pretty depressing so I, I don't know.
Maybe I just relate to other people, but I definitely think once you get out there and you, you're kind of doing it all the time, like you said, being consistent, I'm noticing that that's where you get the variant of emotions coming in. But it, I, I found it interesting when people said that you, you know, some people only do sad and some people only do love songs. I was like, I don't know if I agree with that, but I'm interested as to whether that's a thing or not.
Brian O'Connor: I'm sure.
Simon Barber: Yeah, I dunno. I think people, people are pretty multifaceted in general, aren't they? Um, I'm not sure that we found that rices are limited to any one particular
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. I mean, I guess you, you, know, I guess if you, if you, maybe a Nick cave, you know, tends to write quite down, beat things, dare I say it, um, you know, you won't hear a lot of sort of, uh, dance floor fillers from him and, but, you know, people maybe specialize in a certain kind of, um, yeah, a certain kind of emotion, uh, that just comes to them more naturally maybe in, in their, in their work than, than happiness does.
I don't know. It's, it's a, it's a weird, it's a weird
Rae Leigh: that's all right. All right. Well, I'm taking up heaps of your time, so thank you very much for, having a chat to me and, and I just wanna keep supporting and share with everyone to go check out your podcast. What have you got coming up? What are your plans? How can people get involved? What would you like them to do?
Simon Barber: I think the, the thing they could do to help us the most would be to subscribe
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. or, follow as it's
Simon Barber: or, or follow as, yes. Yeah. If they don't like subscribe anymore, do they? But, um, yeah, just following us is the best way to, to engage with the show. And we put our shows on a regular basis and we've got probably six or seven in the queue at the moment. So there's lots on the way. And. That's yeah. Soda jacob.com or your, your favorite podcast
Brian O'Connor: Follow us on the socials as well, if you like, but, but you'll, you'll find That's mostly bad puns, from me, especially, especially Twitter. But yeah. So did you on, on Twitter, Facebook instead? Yeah, I know you can donate to the show if anyone likes what they hear and they wanna, uh, you know, help us with, because it's an fully independent show.
We don't have ads or sponsors or anything like that, so people can donate it. Soda, jacob.com/donate if they so wish, but there's no
Rae Leigh: so do you, you do a hundred percent, donation and you're doing it for the passion and love of it, or is there another thing that you're getting out of doing the podcast
Brian O'Connor: It it's.
Rae Leigh: kind of
Simon Barber: I mean, it opens up all kinds of amazing things for us, really. You know, we, we make the show, obviously it's a labor of love. We put in a lot of work and, um, we don't put. You know, slather it with advertisements or sell mattresses or raises or anything like that. But,
Rae Leigh: think it would be really funny if you guys sold raises, I'm
Simon Barber: a result of
Rae Leigh: all
Brian O'Connor: Yeah,
Simon Barber: Yeah,
Rae Leigh: but,
Simon Barber: But you know, as a result, we've gotten to meet all these people that we love and we've gotten to, you know, give talks and do events and, make a documentary for the BBC and, you know, all these crazy things that we never thought would happen.
So, uh, we get a lot out of making the show and we learn a lot, that we, you know, can then apply to our own kind of creative work and craft and stuff. So, it's, it's a hugely rewarding in that sense, but I mean, you know, that doesn't mean that we don't want to grow the show in a commercial sense as well.
And I'm sure at some point the right fit will come along in terms of, you know, um, having partnerships with people and stuff like that. And, you know, take taking it to the
Rae Leigh: like some sort of talk show, network
Simon Barber: but, um, where.
Rae Leigh: Netflix, soda
Simon Barber: Well, maybe yeah. We're but we're that would be nice. Yeah, but we're not impatient for that kind of thing because we're, we're so much kind of, orientated around quality and trying to produce something good and something that has insights in it and, and something that people can, really enjoy.
So, you know, if, if something comes along that helps us to ascend to a superstardom, then we'll we'll ride that wave. But until then, we'll just try to keep trying to
Brian O'Connor: Well, that's it. That's ultimately all, all we ever wants to do is just make something
good. It's fundamentally like a passion project. It's still let all this time later in spite of, you know, all the people you've spoken to and the other opportunities that have come along, it's still ultimately two guys from Liverpool, just doing a DIY eh, podcast.
It's still very much that, you know, the technology's slightly better, but it's not like we're, we're suddenly doing it from. Some Swiss studio, somewhere in London, you know, it's still ultimately, um, made homemade, it's a homemade show. It it by two enthusiasts that that's really still what it is at its core.
Rae Leigh: Well, I love it. And that's what I do. I'm in my bedroom right now, and that's where I record everything. And you just gotta do it for the passion and the love of it. And, I wanna thank you very much for showing me that it can be done. And, uh, you do, you do such an amazing job. So, you know, you inspired me think. Yep. Okay. Maybe this is something that I could do too and put my own spin on it. That's
Brian O'Connor: that's, that's. We love that because, you know, I think there's a, there's a tendency
of late from certain quarters to, position podcasting as something that's like maybe unattainable or a, an elite thing that you can only do. If you have got a post studio in London, you know, that you're paying through the nose for, and staff of dozens of staff and you, we listen to some of these podcasts and there's like a, a cast list of credit lists, like the end of Titanic, you know, and like, what are all these people doing?
Like literally, you know, with us, we've done everything for like 11 years, you know? We book the guests, we do the prep, we record it, we edit it. Post-production all that stuff. We promote it ourselves. And, and that's not to give us a big party pat, on the back. That's just to say that it's, it can be done. Um, you can make a good show, just, uh, you know, without need to, um, sort of, you know, a staff of dozens and, you know, uh, incredible premises or anything like that.
You can just do. Yourself. And, you know, I wonder if some, some people are pull off from that sometimes by the, the preponderance now of, of, uh, of celebrity driven podcasts and, or all this kind of thing. Um, I think it might, if we were coming into this world now or thinking about it, we, we may just think, oh, we won't make the, the tiniest splash, you know, it's just, what's, what's the, what's the point.
It's hard. I, I, you know, I, I don't envy people coming into it, but at the same time, you know, if again, it comes down to the fun thing as well. If it's something you enjoy and you get something out of it and then other people enjoy it too, then, then great. You know, if you, you don't have to think about, is it gonna be a money spinner?
Is it gonna get millions and millions of downloads or anything like that? Is it, you know? Well, do I like doing it? Do other people enjoy it? Then you start from that basis before you think about anything else, basically. Sorry, we're on a bit of a
Rae Leigh: no, I, I agree.
Simon Barber: You don't wanna be selling, you don't wanna be selling t-shirts after
Brian O'Connor: I've heard that. Well, I've heard that happening, like six episodes into a podcast, like, by our mugs, by our merch. It's like, you know, well, maybe establish yourself as a good show first and then maybe a bit further down the line starts selling the t-shirts and mugs. Um, but yeah, you know, ultimately it's, you know, if, if you just enjoy making a podcast, then that that's fundamentally why you should be, be doing it.
I think some people maybe get into it for the wrong reasons these days.
Rae Leigh: a lot of them do. I mean, there's what I think the common number of episodes is like six or seven and then people give up, um, which, which is, you know, that's sad, but also I I've definitely had people go, oh yeah, I'm gonna do it, but they don't have anything specific that they wanna talk about. And they think it's gonna be easy and not take a lot of time. and I laugh at that.
Brian O'Connor: Well, that's it. Yeah, that that's, I mean, that sure points out yet. Like obviously, you
know, you can do it yourself, but it does involve a bit of planning. As we explained earlier on, you know, we spent a few months sort of getting stuff in place and, and figuring out how to do things, but once you've, you've got all that in place, um, then from that point on it, it becomes relatively straightforward to do, um, like you've just got to put the groundwork in and then, um, and then once you're off and running, then it's, it's
sort of a, it's a, it's a pleasure. Really. There's still, you know, there's, there's work to, to be done. If you want to create a good show, you, you gotta, you know, you wanna have high production, values and things, but it's all very achievable, basically. That's where I'm here today.
Rae Leigh: That's good.
Brian O'Connor: Tell your listeners.
Rae Leigh: No, I love that. And also, I think it's also sobering for people who are thinking about starting a podcast. No matter what you wanna talk about is also good to be aware that don't do it for the money. Cause I do know that there are podcasts out there that, you know, Spotify buying podcasts for millions of dollars or whatever. And I mean, that is possible but I'm a big believer if you're doing anything for the money don't don't do it.
Brian O'Connor: Yeah. No. Well, if, if that had to been the case with us, then yeah, we, we wouldn't have made the past six or seven episodes, you know, ultimately we just enjoyed it and, and it, it, people started to get onto it and, and they seem to like it and it just gathered its own momentum really. And it's just, it just keeps kind of rolling on. We can't stop. It's outta control.
Rae Leigh: just, I just love talking to other people that feel and think the same way I do about songwriting. I mean, obviously we're all different, but, you know, you don't, we don't live next door to songwriters. I don't know about you, but like for me, songwriters are very far and few between, and this is something that makes me feel less crazy. Or, or obsessed, I guess, because songwriting is, is a passion art form, but it's a silent one. It's nice to connect and, and interact with other people that are just as passionate and excited about it as I am. , so yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much for jumping on and sharing. Is there anything else you guys wanna say before we finish up? you
Simon Barber: Not really? No. How are you doing how's things going with you and your music
Rae Leigh: Me. Yeah. Good. I mean, I, I, I'm still surprised that people are even tuning in and listening. If I'm honest, I'm still kind of like surprised, but, it has, I, I get together monthly with a group of people and we do co-writing, which is really nice. It's an opportunity for me to get outta the house and actually write. So that's been really good and just, yeah. Collaborating with, I, I actually got my first number one hit song because of the podcast, because I wrote a, a comedy country song with two guys that I met through the podcast. And, and then it just happened to do really well in Australia, went to number one on the radio charts over here.
So I mean, like that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't have just kept talking to people and, you know, doing that sort of stuff. So, yeah, it's been good. And yeah, I've definitely, I've definitely grown as a songwriter and so I just wanna keep doing it and, keep getting better. Yeah, that
Simon Barber: Brilliant. It's amazing. Isn't it. Our lateral step into podcasting can actually help your
Rae Leigh: yeah, it's a form of creation in itself, I just wanna create whether that's being in a film, I got to be in the elvis movie, which was really fun, so. Wow. Yeah. you seen it? I'm just like a
Brian O'Connor: Not yet. No.
Rae Leigh: I've told my friends, you gotta play. It's like where's Wally, but it's where's Rae Leigh because I watched it the other day and it's like with my husband and I was like, there I am. And he is like, by the time he looked, it was gone. But, um, so, so I'm in it a lot.
Brian O'Connor: I'm interested to see it. Actually. Those, those look
Rae Leigh: They did a really good job with it. Um, so yeah, no, every now and then I'll sing every song and I'll tell people about how I got to kiss Elvis and they all look really confused cause I'm way too young to have kissed Elvis, but yeah, that like that fun stuff like that. So I'm hoping. Um, and I got like, I got this other acting job where I got to play a country singer in young rock, which is like a.
TV show that's a comedy show about, the rock going to be president of, of America. Have you heard of that? It's like,
Brian O'Connor: No, I haven't.
Rae Leigh: like the number one hit TV show in, in America, it's called young rock and it's about Dwayne Johnson. It's about his life and they, they have this scene,
Brian O'Connor: oh, yes, no, I have heard about
Rae Leigh: yeah, so they have this episode, episode four, season two, he's in a honky tonk bar and they had a honky tonk singer and I got to be the honky tonk singer, cuz they're filming it down the road for me. I'm the honky tonk singer. so, so like, and just even just being like a
Simon Barber: that's cool.
Brian O'Connor: Excellent. Well, thanks so much for having us on. We
Rae Leigh: I appreciate it.
Brian O'Connor: your,
Simon Barber: Yeah. Very nice. Enjoyed meeting
Rae Leigh: I'll do what I can to support you. I'll put all your links and socials into the description of the podcast and we'll also, um, link it all on the website as well. We've got like a whole
friends section, um, cuz yeah, I believe we should support each other.
Brian O'Connor: Excellent. Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll give it a plug on all the, all the platforms.
Rae Leigh: Well, thank you again. Stay in touch. All right. Lovely to meet you. Bye Simon. Bye
Simon Barber: Take care.
Brian O'Connor: Bye
Simon Barber: Bye bye.
