#48 | Matt Cantu

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, what's going on, y'all? Corpus Christi Originals, back at it again. Coming to you live from the Produce Streamlab studios, downtown Corpus Christi, Texas. We got today, Matt Cantu. [00:00:10] Speaker B: What's up, brother? [00:00:11] Speaker A: Yeah, dude. Glad you're here, man. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Dude, thank you. Thank you so much for having me, man. This is a. This is a huge honor for me. I really love the fact that I'm on the same podcast as names like my homie Alex Ardondo from El Vago Barbecue, and, of course, Michael White. Fucking right. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Which, by the way, which camera am I looking at? [00:00:31] Speaker A: This one right here. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Like, ao Michael White Mac Gunthu, bro. Just want to say you're an inspiration, brother. I love your bars. I love your flow. You're the funniest dude in Corpus. Granted, I don't know a lot of comedians in Corpus, but you're the funniest one. But, hey, listen, I want to get you on a track, brother. Let's make a new metal track, rap rock. In other words, let's bridge the gap between the hip hop kids here in Corpus and the hardcore scene. Let's make it happen. Let me know if you're down. Hit me up in the dms. Let's do it, brother. [00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Hell, yeah, bro. That's awesome, man. [00:01:03] Speaker B: Can you imagine that dude, Michael White on our new metal track? Yeah, I think we could do it, dude. [00:01:07] Speaker A: I think he would wreck any track, bro. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Oh, hell, yeah. If he's heavy or whatever, he's mad talented. Yeah, I think we could. Really. Do you remember when Lincoln park and Jay Z did collision course back in the day? I want to try to do something like that with him. I think it'll be sick. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be. And he was mentioning, too, on the podcast that when mumble rappers started coming out, he started listening to different genres of music. [00:01:31] Speaker B: I remember hearing that. Yeah, I watched his episode. That was funny. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah, real dude, man. For real, man. Same dude in person, man. It's awesome to meet people like that, man. I was introduced to you on TikTok when I was promoting my clothing brand or whatever. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, you showed up on my for you page, and I was like, oh, damn, I love a lot of these designs. And the street wear thing that this dude has going on that's very different. It's very unique. It didn't take long for me to hit that follow button, brother. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Right on, dude. Yeah. And then I guess I follow right back. I can't remember. And then I seen you then. And then I got introduced to Elvago. Also. And then you did a commercial or something or like, whatever spot going to his at the trade center, my budy Elvago and this and that. And I was. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Because when that happened, Alex had actually reached out to me because he had followed me on TikTok as well. I guess he saw, like, I think it was the video that I made for Hiho. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:39] Speaker B: I did a video on Hiho, which, by the way, I don't know if it's still the case, but if you look up the address for Hiho, you'll actually see my TikTok video as one of the. I'm not a food reviewer by any means, but I'm a big boy. I love to eat. So that's why I like doing the food review videos, because with Hiho, I was like, okay, I got a fan base that's very musical. I got a lot of music fans on here. A lot of people love Selena, even from other states. So I was like, hey, here's hiho. This was the know favorite place to eat here in corpus. Check it out. And I made, like, a little bit of a blunder because at the end of the video, I was like, hey, I know I didn't show off any of the food that I ordered, but I was really hungry. I know that's kind of the point, but just take my word for it, it's great. And sure enough, one of my homegirls, her name is Rice, she's the St. Patty's day festival next door. Yeah, my friend Taylor Rice, she's from Nagadoches, which is, like, way up there, like in the area. Yeah, well, she literally made a trip all the way down just to see the Selena stuff, and she had discovered it through some of my videos, too. So, yeah, Alex had seen that video for Hiho. He followed me back, and then he immediately reached out and he was, can you. Can you come by to my restaurant at the trade center and do, like, a food review type of thing? And I'm like, yeah, dude, I'll do it. And then I did it. And then I think it did pretty good for him, I would say. I don't know if he gained new followers or whatever, but I know a lot of people started really digging his food. And then it got to the point where he opened up the restaurant off of a navigation, and he wanted me to go back and review that, too. So that's what I did. I went back, and that's right when they whipped out the, I believe it's called the turdzilla. The burger with the three patties, the brisket and the bacon. I devoured the crap out of that thing, brother. It is so good. Yeah. If anybody's listening, if you're in corpus and you do not know what to eat, please go to Elvago Burger. I guarantee you're going to fall in love with something there. There's a little something for everybody. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah, right on. Shout out to Jason Vilches. TikTok, fam. Caroline Hughes. Hey, they're on YouTube. YouTube right now. [00:05:08] Speaker B: They're on YouTube right now. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Yeah. What's up, y'all? [00:05:09] Speaker B: Yeah, Caroline is lit, dude. Like my profile picture, the album cover for after hours, anything that's, like, drawn or painted or whatever, that's all my. She's my graphic designer. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Nice. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah, she's from Camden, Tennessee. So shout out to Tennessee. [00:05:27] Speaker A: Tennessee. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Go Titans. [00:05:30] Speaker A: Are you a cowboy fan or are you a football fan? [00:05:33] Speaker B: Which team would you pick? I don't really follow football that much. I do fantasy football here and there, but the only reason why I even mess with fantasy football is because somebody told me that it's literally just dungeons and dragons for jocks, and I love playing d d, so I was me as a fan. I mean, I'm probably going to go for the Chiefs. Just know Travis Kelsey, my stepdad, he loves the Eagles, so I know he's an Eagles fan, but my late grandfather, he's always been a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, so rip Jose Delgado. So I think if I were to choose one, it would probably have to be the Cowboys. But when I was in high school, I was all about the Falcons whenever Julio Jones was still playing for them. And this is going to sound weird, but the honest to God reason why I even picked the Falcons as my favorite team is because they're the only NFL team that has the same color scheme as Shadow the hedgehog. And that's the honest to God truth. Yeah. Shadow is my favorite sonic character. I mean, dude, come on. Are you serious, bro? Yeah, I got the tattoo right there. [00:06:44] Speaker A: Hardcore. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, dude. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Stoked for sonic three. I do not care how much of a manchild I'm going to be, but I'm seeing that opening night. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool, man. So Carolina uses from Tennessee. You met her through TikTok as well? [00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I met her through TikTok also. [00:07:05] Speaker A: She said that was a good explanation. Dnd for jocks. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Dnd for jocks. Yeah, it's true if you really think about it. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Cool. I think I played it, like, once or twice one season or whatever. But that's. Man. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's fun, dude. I played it a handful of times with some of my buddies back home. Shout out to my hometown of San Diego, Texas. I played with my cousin Jacob Morales, and then we played with our homie, Bedro Ruiz. Bedro was actually the dungeon master or whatever they're called, and he would come up with these crazy narratives, these insane stories. And my wife even played with us for a little bit, too. We had so much fun, but then COVID hit, so we had to kind of stop doing our DND stuff, and then we just ended up not playing anymore after that. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Oh, dude. [00:07:54] Speaker B: But, yeah, my character was. He was a bard teefling, and I believe a tie fling is, like, an elf or something. And bards are cool because bards are musical. They whip out, like, instruments and stuff. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Wow. [00:08:09] Speaker B: So I would bring out, like, a ukulele, and I would, like, sing my spells or whatever. That's what I would do. And the name of my character was Coles. And can I curse on this thing? [00:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Okay. So I named him Parvis Coles. And it's Latin because if you type in Parvis Coles in Google translate and you switch it to English, it translates to small penis. Yeah. So anytime that I play an RPG, whether it's. I got into jump force for a minute, which was all the shonen jump characters, like dragon Ball, one piece, naruto, they were all in this fighting game together. But Jump Force got horrible reviews because they had a bunch of problems with it or whatever. It's not a great game by any means, but I had a lot of fun with it. And there's a storyline. You create your character. And I named my character Parvis Coles, too. Any game that I play, whether it's like an RPG or anything, where I'm able to create, like a. Just if I can't come up with anything, I usually just throw Parvis Coles. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the go to. [00:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I got you. Or I'll make, like, a funny name, like last name hunt, first name Mike or Jack, last name Hoss. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Shout out Renee Ramos on Facebook, man. Yeah. Jason says big sonic fan as well. You mentioned one piece, man. And my co host Zane, he's into one piece. He wore a one piece shirt. [00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw that, too. [00:09:45] Speaker A: And the creator of not one piece, but of Dragon Ball passed away, right? [00:09:51] Speaker B: Just recently. Yeah, he did. [00:09:52] Speaker A: How do you feel about that, man? [00:09:54] Speaker B: Dude, I'm not going to lie. The day that I found out, my wife and I just left the movies. We're watching kung fu panda four, which amazing movie, by the way. Nice. But yeah, we just got out of watching kung fu Panda four and I got a message on my phone, and I think it was my friend Elaine. She had messaged me and she was like, dude, toriyama's dead. And I'm like, no fucking way. And then I looked at Twitter and I saw the official Dragon Ball account. And yeah, sure enough, it was true. I was, like, reading the statement. And the whole time that I was in the car, I was like, shit. Holy shit. Fuck, fuck. And then my wife is like, okay, who died? Yeah, she already knows. Like, okay, who died? What's going on? And then I was like, babe, Akira Toriyama passed away. She's like, well, who's that? And I was like, creator of Dragon Ball. And then she was like, oh, shit. Because Dragon Ball is a huge staple in my, from, aside from the Tony Hawk series and Sonic the Hedgehog, dragon Ball is probably like the number one thing that I'm a fan of in terms of franchises and whatnot, because I've been watching and playing Dragon Ball since I was five years old. So my whole life, basically, in a way, kind of revolved around this anime and manga. So when I found out that Toriyama passed away, it broke my heart, dude. I cried for a good 24 hours, man. It really broke my heart. I have a lot of good memories with that show. When my grandfather was still alive, he would watch it with me. But of course, the whole time he was watching it with me, he was just complaining because all the characters were doing was yelling, which is kind of true. And he was always pissed off because he wanted to watch the game. But ultimately he would cave in and he would let me watch the show. And Dragon Ball is also kind of like what introduced me to a lot of bands that would end up becoming some of my favorites when the movies were localized here in America. Like in Cooler's revenge, for example, when Goku is turning into a Super Saiyan, change by Deftones is playing in the background. And, dude, like, seeing Goku turn into a Super Saiyan with deftones music in the background as a kid, it was euphoric, man. It was almost like a religious experience. Tens by Pantera that was in broly, the legendary super Saiyan and drowning pool was in there. Dream theater. That's actually how I was introduced to dream theater also. And I think in the Bardock special, they had a superstar by saliva. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Nice. [00:12:39] Speaker B: And that guitar riff, dude. Yeah, that was hard. And I think that's also where amvs started becoming a thing, too, like anime music videos. I don't know if you ever saw them, but it would be like Lincoln park somewhere I belong, and it would be synced to clips of Dragon Ball Z and Naruto and one piece and all these different. It was mostly anime. I guess it's just because for the most part, the music was real heavy, real extreme. So if you throw that in with these kick ass fight scenes from Dragon Ball and Gundam Wing and all these different anime series, it just kind of fits. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good, man. That's cool. Andy Vetta. He says, what's up, Matt? [00:13:28] Speaker B: Oh, hey, how's it going, man? That's my brother in law. He plays drums in a band called Fallen Fears. They just dropped their first single, I think, back in February, February 13, if I remember correctly. No, they're actually based out of Alice, but they're starting to do a lot of shows here. Yeah, the song is called know your time. It's very catchy. A lot of people say that it sounds like offspring, so if you're into punk rock and stuff like the offspring, you might like that. They're also going to be dropping a new song pretty soon called Schizophrenia, and I think it's available for pre order at this time. I don't remember exactly when it comes out. Sorry, Andy, but I know it's going to be coming out very soon. So. Yeah, fallen fears, check them out. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And then psychedelic fruit says one piece is. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Oh, that's. That's my friend Elaine. That's the one that texted me telling me that passed. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, she knows, man. Huge. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Awesome. So, yeah, so you mentioned Pantera and then Dragon Ball. So I started revisiting the southern Trend Kill album, which has tens on it. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Oh, my God, dude, that guitar solo for floods. Oh, my God, man. Dimebag was a beast. Dime is easily, like one of my, if not the guitar, inspiration for me as a guitar player. My favorite guitar players growing up were always, like, dimebag, Daryl. I love Tony Iommi from, you know, Kirk and James, Metallica. I really love Scott Ian as well. I'm not like a huge anthrax guy by any means, but I'm a really big fan of sod. Do you remember those guys? [00:15:12] Speaker A: What's that? [00:15:13] Speaker B: That's the acronym for stormtroopers of. [00:15:15] Speaker A: No, no, not really. [00:15:17] Speaker B: So sod was basically like all of anthrax minus Joey Belladonna. They got Billy Milano to sing for them. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Oh, man, that would sound different. [00:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it was very thrashy, but it was more like crossover thrash. Like, it leaned more, almost, toward the punk rock side of metal. Gotcha, I guess, in a way, kind of like. Kind of like suicidal tendencies, but like, a little more thrash. That's what I would kind of describe the music as. Sod is one of my favorite bands. They have this record called speak English or die, and it's probably not politically correct by today's standards. It's just one of those things where it's, know, you either get the joke or you don't. But it's a funny album, and there's so many hard riffs on there. And the song Milk has a very special place in my heart because it was in the Tony Hawk's underground soundtrack. [00:16:12] Speaker A: That's cool, man. Yeah. What was I to. So how do you feel about Pantera reuniting without the. [00:16:22] Speaker B: Honestly, I mean, I understand where people's frustrations are with that, because without the Abbott brothers. Yes, I know there's no pantera, but the thing that you got to remember is there's people like me, for example, right? I'm 29 years old. I grew up with Pantera, but when dime was unfortunately taken from us, that was 2004, right? [00:16:50] Speaker A: Yes. I can't remember, to be honest. [00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I believe it was 2004. I was, like, nine years old. So there's no way in hell I was going to be able to see Pantera, much less damage plan. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:00] Speaker B: So there are a lot of people like me that would love to see some form of Pantera live, whether that's just not a tribute band, you know what I mean? I understand where people are like, the band should have died when Diamond Vinny died. They probably shouldn't be doing the thing, whatever. But the thing is, if you want to go to the show, go to the show. If I had the money, I would love to go to the show, because that is the closest thing that I'm going to see to playing Pantera live. I understand that Vinny Paul didn't want that. I know he wanted no association with Phil. I totally get where he's coming from, but I feel like this is something that the fans truly deserve. Charlie Benate of anthrax. Amazing fill in for if you sometimes. If you close your eyes and you listen to the live footage that they have, it kind of does sound like Vinny is up there. Guess. You know, Vinny is just kind of, like, in a way, kind of know, blissing him down from wherever he's at. [00:18:02] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:18:03] Speaker B: I know Zach. He's getting some form of criticism because I know he's not playing it like Dimewood. It still sounds like Zach. But the thing that people don't realize is maybe it's because I'm a guitar player and I look at it differently. So the way this works is. [00:18:21] Speaker A: You. [00:18:21] Speaker B: Can have Dime's guitar, right? You could have the actual guitar that Dimebag used, his ML, right? You could have his guitar, his strings, his pick, his cable, his entire gear, his entire rig. You could plug yourself into that with all his settings, everything. You still will not sound like dime. You're going to sound like you. I don't know exactly what the science is behind it. There's some people that claim that your tone comes from your fingers or whatever. Maybe to an extent that's true, but you're never going to sound like dime. If I were to get Metallica's rig, if I were to plug into James Hepfield's rig and just start playing master of puppets or whatever, I'm not going to sound like James. I'm going to sound like Matt. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah, right on. I agree to that, man. For sure. You got your own. Everybody's hands are different. I mean, they might be kind of similar, but your hand. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Yeah, and everybody picks different. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Totally. [00:19:18] Speaker B: It's never going to sound 100% the same. Even when I'm in the studio. If my boy Abe Montoya jumps onto the stream, he could attest to that. I'll be tracking the same riff like two or three times, and it sounds different every time because the way that it works in the studio is to get a beefy sound. You record two guitar tracks for the most part. One of them is panned like hard left, the other one hard right. And you have to record them two different times. Because even if you record it once and it's a good take, if you copy it, it's going to sound weird. It's going to sound double. I don't know why it does that. Like I said, I don't know the science behind audio engineering, but it's true. You have to record your part multiple times. That's just how it works. [00:20:10] Speaker A: Yeah, right on. Anna Trevino, cantu. She sent three blue hearts. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Oh, that's my stepmom. [00:20:16] Speaker A: What's up? [00:20:17] Speaker B: Love you, Anna. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And then Alex Aredondo came in. Hey, we just shouted you out earlier, bro. What's up? [00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, we shouted you out at the beginning of the stream. Yeah, I could really use a brisket burger. [00:20:28] Speaker A: 47 one by that. Check them out. [00:20:31] Speaker B: Hopefully you all ain't sold out right now because I'm hungry. Yeah. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Oh, dude. Hell yeah. That's cool, man. So you're into Dragon Ball Z. Why did you get into that? Why did you get into that? [00:20:46] Speaker B: I got into Dragon Ball at a really young age, and I can kind of sort of remember where I was when it happened. At the time, Pokemonia was a thing that was like 1999, 2000. That's when Pokemon. [00:21:04] Speaker A: Is that the card? This is for all foreigns in me. [00:21:07] Speaker B: So Pokemon was an anime, like a cartoon, in other words. Yeah. So Pokemon was an anime video game series, trading card game. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:19] Speaker B: Pokemon got huge here in the west in 1999, 2000, like, around that time frame. And I was in kindergarten around that time, and I had a friend. They were actually twins. It was andre and John signs from Alice, Texas. And andre and John, they were like, nah, dude, dragon Ball z is amazing. It's so much better than was, like. And they had, like, a dragon ball backpack. And I remember, I still remember seeing it. It was goku on planet Namek, and he was standing all machu and stuff. It looked like he was ready to mess something up. So I was like, this dude looks kind of cool. Maybe I'll check the show. Um, and I was always watching Cartsy network as a know. And then one day I tuned into Toonami, and I believe they were on planet Namek and they were fighting Frieza, and it was Piccolo, gohan, Krillin. They were all getting their butt kicked by Frieza. And that's when my grandpa had changed the channel. He was like, man, I don't want to see this. And I'm like, hey, I'm watching that. He's like, dude, all he's going, good part. He's like, dude, all he's doing is just going, like, the whole time. And then, no, no, put it back, put it back. So he switches it back and literally, it's just piccolo. I shit you not going. Trying to power up. But when I saw the actual fighting and everything, it was just so action packed. There was a lot of energy involved, and it was just something that my five year old self got sucked into. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Nice. [00:22:52] Speaker B: But the reason why I stuck with it, the reason why I'm still a fan, even as a 29 year old man, is because to me, at least, and I'm pretty sure a lot of dragon Ball fans will attest to this, dragon Ball kind of became like a cultural zeitgeist in a way. Yeah, Dragon Ball kind of became more than just an anime or a manga or a video game series. It kind of became part of our culture. Even with latino culture. Dragon Ball in Mexico is huge in Mexico. If you go to Mexico, you will literally find Taqueria's de Goku and stuff. Like. Like when Dragon Ball super was popping a couple years ago, the fight between Goku and the. One of the characters on the, like, a lot of people in Latin America, they were airing that fight on big old jumbotrons, like in parks and stuff. People were lining up. There were crowds seeing this fight. They were marketing it like a pay per view fight, like wrestling, or was. It's massive in Mexico. It's so massive, to the point where there's rumors going around saying that when a new piece of dragon Ball media hits Mexico, cartel activity slows down significantly by, like, two. Know, it's probably just a rumor. I don't have any sources for that. But it's an actual thing that is going, like, when Toriyama died, there were all these tweets saying that the cartel is going to do a ceasefire in honor of Toriyama because that's how huge it is in Mexico. If you look up the countries, like, the top ten countries where dragon Ball is popular, Latin America is at least, like five or seven out of the ten, aside from, obviously, Japan and the United States. But, yeah, no Mexico. It goes hard for me. Goku, growing up, was my superman. You know what I'm saying? When you're a kid, people love Superman, Batman, Spider man. And I'm a huge marvel guy. Love. I love Marvel. I've always been, like, a comic book nerd. You know, anytime that anybody would ask me, like, hey, who's your favorite superhero? I would just say, goku. That was the first thing that would pop up, because to me, dragon Ball, yes, it's a show about fighting, but it's more than just fighting. It's about family. It's about coming together. Like, the very end of the series when they're fighting Majin Buu and Goku says, hey, I need you to put your hands in the air. We're doing a spirit bomb. Lend me your energy. I was a kid, and I was doing the same thing, and my little brother was like, what are you doing? And I'm like, hey, put your freaking hands in the air, man. Goku needs us. And I think the reason why Dragon Ball fans are so passionate about this series is because it's kind of like the equivalent of cheering on for your favorite football team, because you know how, like, Dallas Cowboy fans are very dedicated, so much so to the point where cowboy nation kind of does get a lot of shit from the NFL fan base. It's the same thing with Ball. Dragon Ball Z fans. They do kind of get a lot of negative reception from the anime community because we're so invested in this character. There's always these debates, like Goku versus this person, like Goku versus Superman, who would win? If you talk shit about Goku, Dragon Ball fans will literally come and put you in a headlock. [00:26:38] Speaker A: Man, that's so crazy. [00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so, like, for me personally, I take a lot of inspiration from Goku because to me, Goku is like, through all ods, he could be on a dying planet. He could literally be getting his ass handed to him. But he's still positive and he always comes out on top at the end. So because of Toriyama, because of Goku, that show kind of helped me mold into the man that you see today. Because my family is everything to me. Like my fans, my followers, my friends, I always put other people before me. And in a way, that's kind of why I'm in healthcare as well. Just because through this japanese cartoon show that I saw as a kid, it just inspired me to be a better person. And it's more than just nerd culture and stuff. If you go to the gym, I guarantee mark, I bet you $20 right now, if you go to freedom fitness, you will probably see at least one or two dragon Ball shirts, because that's another thing that Dragon Ball Z did. It inspired gym culture. People were working out because they wanted to get beefy like goku. I remember there was a guy that was wearing a shirt that said, training hard to beat Goku. And in the parentheses it said, or at least krillin. So that's just how it was. And even musicians, um, a lot of today's rappers, they grew up watching Dragon Ball as well. So they either sample sounds from the anime or they sample the theme song or whatever, or they add dragon Ball references to their lyrics. It's a huge phenomenon that, in my opinion, is probably going to be around for the end of time. Dragon Ball was our Star wars. Toriyama was our Stan Lee. [00:28:37] Speaker A: Wow, that's cool. [00:28:37] Speaker B: You know what I mean? [00:28:38] Speaker A: I think it's a new generation coming. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty cool. I think that's what it's going to be. I think it's literally going to transcend the sands of time. [00:28:46] Speaker A: Nice, man. Yeah. And I think one of your latest posts, I don't remember, I was going through your TikTok. You were saying that. I think it was Drake was sampling Sonic or something like crazy? [00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it was on more life, the album more life. Well, it's called a playlist. A playlist by October firm. But it's an album at the end of the day. Yeah. The song KMT, that contains a sample of his world by Zebra head, which was the main theme for Sonic six. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Wow. [00:29:20] Speaker B: And the way that they flipped the sample was really cool because they slowed the intro down, they chopped it up into sections and they created a beat out of it, which is, hey, cool. I don't think Drake himself sampled it. I think that was more so his producer. But it's still cool that it ended up on a Drake track. And there's another song off of what's the record? I think it's called if you're reading this, it's too late. One of the songs on there, I don't remember what it was called, but that contains a donkey Kong country sample. Yeah. So a lot of these producers, you could sample anything. You could sample a tv show theme. You could sample music from a video game. You could sample sounds like wishing well by Juice World. He actually sampled the sound that the dragon Balls make from Dragon Ball Z. Yeah. [00:30:13] Speaker A: Wow, man. I wanted to introduce your music here, man, because we've already been 30 minutes in this is interesting conversation. I like to learn about Dragon Ball Z and all that stuff. And I'll ask you some questions here in a minute. So you recently had a song, the Aqua teens. [00:30:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I did a new metal cover of the Aquatine Hunger Force theme song. And that's the lead single off of my upcoming after hours EP, which is basically a collection of five adult swim theme songs. And I added my own personal flair on them. They're cover tunes, but it's not just a straight up carbon copy of the original. A lot of these songs, like, I. I reworked them to give it, like, my own little matte flair, per se. Certain sections, I added breakdowns. I added bridges because a lot of those themes, they were only like 18 to 30 seconds long. [00:31:12] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So with the brack show cover specifically, I extended that bad boy to at least like two minutes. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Wow, that's got to be tough. [00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:23] Speaker A: What to put in there to make it that long from 18, 20 seconds. [00:31:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And the way that I've been approaching these songs is like, okay, here's the tv show theme song. This is cool, but how do I make it into a kick ass metal song? So with aquatine, it was perfect because the original theme for aquatine Hunger Force, that is just a straight up hip hop track that was done by schoolie D Pioneer, actually. [00:31:50] Speaker A: On the actual show. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the actual theme song for the show, it was done by schoolie D, which is an old school gangster rapper. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:58] Speaker B: And it's just a straight up hip hop song. So I was like, okay, hip hop, new metal, easy. It basically just write itself. Yeah. So that one came very naturally with the brack show. The original theme song is kind of like, kind of sounds like a 60s or 70s style sitcom. And for some reason, I was just like, you know what? I'm going to make this into a metal core song. Because I grew up in high school, I was listening to a lot of attack, attack, asking Alexandria a day to remember things of that nature. Like, a lot of bands that were just doing chugga chugga stuff at Warp tour drop c. So, yeah, there's that. The only cover on the album that's basically just very straightforward is just the C lab cover. But the C lab cover is also going to act as, like, the intro to the record. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Wow. So how many songs are on there? [00:32:54] Speaker B: It's five. The first track is C Lab 2021. And then it goes into aqua Teen Hunger Force, then the brack show, then the boondocks. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Wow. [00:33:03] Speaker B: And then we're going to end the record with space goes coast to coast. [00:33:07] Speaker A: Come on. [00:33:08] Speaker B: The show that started it all. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah, the main one. That's the main song. So we're going to hear part of that ep now. What are we listening to here? [00:33:18] Speaker B: I believe I'm going to show you all the this is the Brack show cover. This is the first mix, so let me know what y'all think. Very punk rock. It's that lead guitar. [00:33:59] Speaker A: It. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Right? When you think it's done. [00:34:09] Speaker A: You it breakdown in there. [00:34:28] Speaker B: That's where the stank basses come in. Yeah, definitely. Shout out to cosmet Williams on the drums, man. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say it. I was going to mention that. So which song is this on the ep? [00:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah, this is going to be on the ep three. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Jason Bilches says sick I them. Wow, dude, that thing's live, bro. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, that's a little sneak peek of the Brack show cover. And like I said, the version that you hear today, it's probably going to differ slightly from when we officially release it because we're still fine tuning the mix here and there. We're probably going to beef up the snare a little bit. Just fine tweak it, in other words. But because I feel like I've been I wasn't expecting to be working on after hours this long, to tell you the truth. I've been working on this project for about a year. So to give people a little something extra while they wait for the full thing to come out, I will be releasing the brack show cover as a single. [00:36:07] Speaker A: Wow, man. [00:36:08] Speaker B: And hopefully we're aiming for April 1 for April Fool's Day. So hopefully it'll come out on that day. If not, it'll still probably come out around that time. So be on the lookout around early April for my cover of the Brack show theme song. And it's going to melt your face off. [00:36:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So where did we listen to it? On spot. I know I found you on Spotify. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it'll be everywhere, man. It'll be on Spotify. It'll be on YouTube music. It'll be on Amazon, Apple Music, Limewire. [00:36:37] Speaker A: Napster, distrokid for that. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I use distrokid, which is cool because distrokid allows you to do cover songs as well. You just got to pay for a cover song license and they take care of it for you. [00:36:52] Speaker A: Wow. It's amazing, dude, how you can just distribute your own music nowadays. That's amazing, man. Those guitars sound low. And you're using the eight string on that one? [00:37:02] Speaker B: No, actually, I used the seven string on that one. Well, the tuning that I recorded it in was actually drop f, but I didn't use the low f in reality. You could probably play it on a six string guitar if you just tuned down a drop b flat. [00:37:17] Speaker A: Oh, right on. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So technically it was recorded in f, but theoretically speaking, it can be played in drop b flat. [00:37:25] Speaker A: So cool, man. [00:37:26] Speaker B: And if you think those are low, wait till you hear the boondocks in space Ghost, because those are in double drop d. Yeah, double drop. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:34] Speaker B: I've been experimenting a lot with aid string lately because when we were recording the aqua teen cover, abe Montoya of Omega Records in Kingsville, Texas, he's a good homie of mine, and he's actually the one producing, mixing, recording, mastering this project. [00:37:50] Speaker A: Awesome shout out, man. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah, he's cool, dude. And he's the real deal, man. I go into his studio, it's like a little barn type of area. But you walk inside, he's got an EVH 51 50, and he's got like a whole rack. And then he has like a quad cortex. This dude's got gear for days, man. [00:38:09] Speaker A: Wow. [00:38:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:11] Speaker A: What do you tell him I want to play on that ev. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Yeah, literally. What I told him yeah. And I think we might have recorded aquatic through the EVH. I don't remember off the top of my head, but I think we might have captured it on the quad. He's been. He's been helping me out significantly through that. And there's a whole lot of special guests that are going to be featured on this project, too. Shout out to my budy, Alan Worman. He plays bass in a new metal band from San Antonio called Agony. [00:38:41] Speaker A: Nice. [00:38:41] Speaker B: He's playing bass on a couple of tracks. My budy, Josh Freeman, he plays in a hardcore band called Modown. He's from up north somewhere. I forgot exactly where, like, out of state. But he's actually playing bass on the brack show. So the bass that you heard, that was all him. [00:39:01] Speaker A: Nice. [00:39:01] Speaker B: And then Cosmet Williams, formerly of Texas Devil, currently in static effect. He's playing drums on 90% of the songs. And then my friend Layton from West Virginia, she's actually going to be playing drums on the boondocks cover, which is kind of ironic because I wasn't expecting to get a white girl to play drums for the boondocks, but it just kind of fell into place. But no, she really threw it down on there. I wanted to give her a shout out because I've always loved her drumming. She goes by groovy ghost notes on Instagram and TikTok and whatnot. And she's got a lot of soul, man, and she tore it up. I really love the drum parts that she wrote for the boondocks. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Awesome, man. Yeah. Just listening to you talk about this, man, for me, it shows your hustle. Have you always been like that, even on your TikToks, bro? [00:39:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:40:00] Speaker A: I'm like, dude, this dude. Actually, you research most of the stuff, don't you? Before you. Oh, yeah. Well, see, that in itself is a hustle, man. Have you always been like that? [00:40:08] Speaker B: I've always been like that. When I was in school, ABC student, didn't really get a lot of DS until I got into college, but hey, yo, shout out to coastal band college, man. Ds get degrees there you was. I was always, I guess, like a scholar. You could say that. My mother, Joanne Garcia, she's actually a teacher. She's an english teacher. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:40:38] Speaker B: So I guess she taught me a lot of stuff growing up. My late grandfather was real big into education. My father as well. He was always like, make sure that you study hard, get good grades, whatever. So I was just always really good at researching things. And when I'm really passionate about something, like when I become a super fan of whatever it is, whether it's a tv show or music or what have you, I don't just become a fan of the property. I want to know every little thing. I want to know. Okay, how was this animated? Who animated this? Who created the show? [00:41:17] Speaker A: Wow. [00:41:17] Speaker B: How was this song recorded? Who are the band members? [00:41:22] Speaker A: Deep dives. [00:41:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I always do deep dives on this stuff, and I think that's also why I'm able to whip out so much fact videos, as I call them, because I just have so much knowledge of my favorite things, and I just want to be able to share that knowledge with the world. And I always try to make sure that if it's something that I'm not, like, 100% sure on, I'll make sure that I do research beforehand, so that way I'm not spreading misinformation or anything like that. [00:41:53] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Granted, sometimes maybe I do get stuff wrong. I mean, I'm human, it's going to happen. But a lot of people have reached out and they're like, yo, dude, I learned so much from your videos and all this stuff. Wow. That makes me feel good, because if my content moves you in a way, whether it educates you or you like my music or what have you, that makes me feel like I did my job at the end of the day, and I've always wanted to do something like this. I've always been an entertainer at heart. I was in plays when I was a kid, as early as like five years old. I was in one act play for a year when I was in high school. And I think we actually made it to. We didn't make it to state, but I think we made it to area or something awesome. So I was always just doing the entertainment stuff, music. When I was a kid, I got really into drawing and I wanted to be an animator. I wanted to create my own tv show. My original dream was to either create a cartoon show or to become a voice actor. I wanted to create a cartoon show and I wanted to pitch it to Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network and see if they would pick it up. But when I was in 7th grade, that's when I discovered guitar. And I kind of, like, abandoned the drawing cartoon side of me, and I went straight into the music stuff, which is why after hours means so much to me, because I wanted to combine my love of adult swim and heavy metal. I wanted to put those two worlds together. And of course, Adult Swim is the perfect thing for that, in my opinion, because we have metal ocalypse which is death clock. Brennan Small. So I think it's just a perfect fit. [00:43:49] Speaker A: That's awesome, man. Bon Marie shout out. She said Mac, two black hearts and 100%. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that's my friend Bonnie. We actually work together at the hospital. [00:43:59] Speaker A: Nice, man. [00:44:00] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's my coworker right there. Yeah, Bonnie's lit, dude. [00:44:03] Speaker A: So you were able to do the show because you work nights. That's what you were telling when it came on. [00:44:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I work night shift. I wouldn't mind doing it in the morning, but, yeah, no. 08:00 p.m. This is where I thrive. [00:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool, man. So your degree is in medical. Did you get a degree or how. [00:44:23] Speaker B: Did you get into. That's a funny story. So I actually do have a college degree. I have an associate's degree in computer information technology. Oh, nice. But I didn't go into technology, but I guess in a way, I'm still using it because I'm, like, editing videos and whatnot. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:44:39] Speaker B: But, yeah, no, I didn't get into it because I wanted to get my bachelor's in computer science, but I would have had to take, like, 72 math classes or something. And the minute they told me, like, bro, you're going to have to take Cal four, I was like, yeah, not, screw that. So I wanted to change my major to something else. And around the time I had actually met my wife, who was just my girlfriend or whatever at the time, and she was already a nurse. She had already been a nurse for about three years at that point. We got together in 2018, because she's been a nurse since 2016, so she's going on almost ten years of her career. And she was like, why don't you try healthcare? And I was like, healthcare is honestly the last thing I want to do. But I took a phlebotomy class. That's the people that draw your blood. So I took that, and I thought that the environment was pretty cool, pretty fun, and to me, it felt like a lot, like there was no math. So in my opinion, it was easier than technology. So I was like, okay, great. I could probably get into this. So, yeah, I worked as a phlebotomist for a little bit. I worked as a dialysis technician for about two years. So I was sticking people that were on dialysis, and that was a lot of fun. I made a lot of great relationships there, but I left the job for reasons, mainly because of management, not going to lie. And that was pretty heartbreaking at the time, because when you work dialysis. You work these really long hours, and you see these patients pretty much every day. You see them more often than you do, like your own family. [00:46:26] Speaker A: Wow. [00:46:26] Speaker B: So you're not supposed to, but you still kind of gain a close relationship with these people just because they kind of act like your family at that point. So, yeah, it was a little heartbreaking to leave dialysis, but I'm in the mental health field now. I work at a psych hospital because one of the other things that I'm very passionate about is mental health. When Chester Bennington died in 2017, that was another death that really took a toll on me, much like Akira Toriyama from earlier this month. So Chester was also my reason for getting into mental health. And granted, I don't really plan on staying in healthcare forever, but I do love the fact that I'm able to make a difference in these people's lives and impact them in a positive light. [00:47:24] Speaker A: Yeah, man, that's good. That's good thinking there, man. Wow. It's amazing. I had no idea. My wife is a paramedic, man. [00:47:33] Speaker B: Shout out to her, dude. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Hell yeah, dude. I can't believe she. I can't believe that profession doesn't get paid more just like teachers. [00:47:39] Speaker B: Oh, don't even get me started on that, brother. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Let's start it, dude. What do you think about that? [00:47:45] Speaker B: Dude? Let me put it to you this way. I don't want to go into the nitty gritty of what I get paid or anything like that, but there are certain professions in healthcare where you're making just as much as somebody that's starting out at know. And I got nothing against McDonald's workers. I mean, I eat at McDonald's every day. That's why I'm a big, you know, I do feel like healthcare workers are very underappreciated because we are very hard workers. We're on our feet for twelve to 16 hours a day, and we give our entire heart, all of our love, all of our care, to these strangers that need way more help than we do. So it could get pretty taxing on the body. I remember, like, dialysis, for example, when I was working at the dialysis clinic, I would always come back with horrible lower back pain because I was just bending over the whole time. And then a lot of nurses that retire, I'm pretty sure they have problems with their ankles or with their joints because you're just constantly going, yeah, for sure. [00:49:02] Speaker A: And when we were getting out of debt, my wife was working, like, 48 hours shifts. Shout out to her man, for real? [00:49:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Shout out to my wife, too, because it definitely takes a special person, special heart to be in that type of profession. Truth be told, I tried going to nursing school. I tried getting my nursing degree. It didn't work out well for me personally, but I still feel like I'm doing great where I'm at. My job is paying my bills, and it's also, you know, funding the entertainment side of me, because I'm going to be real with you, homie. For me, if it ever gets to the point where music and content creation can pay the bills, I'm jumping all in on that. And I got kind of happy because I got my first big check from TikTok this month. [00:50:03] Speaker A: Seriously, bro, that's awesome. [00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not going to disclose the exact dollar amount, but I will tell you this. So I've been monetizing my stuff since I hit 10,000 followers a couple of years ago. A few months back, I did a video talking about skate three, the video game. [00:50:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:24] Speaker B: And it got about, I think, 20,000 views within, like, a couple of days or so, which is impressive. Right? And I got about $17 from that video. So that could kind of give you, like, a rough estimate of where the math is. [00:50:38] Speaker A: Got you. [00:50:38] Speaker B: And then last month, I put out a video that hit almost 400,000 views. [00:50:44] Speaker A: Wow. [00:50:45] Speaker B: And I was telling my wife about it, and I was like, oh, cool, dude, I might get $50. I checked my analytics for that video the next day. $250 for one video. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Nice. [00:50:57] Speaker B: That happened. [00:50:58] Speaker A: Wow. [00:50:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:00] Speaker A: Because I'm on YouTube. I have a personal page. I'm monetized because I'm in the programming, too. So I put some c plus plus videos. Nice. Because I took programming one at Del Mar, and after that, I was using that book, and I was solving the problems in that book, putting them online. [00:51:22] Speaker B: Oh, that's rad. [00:51:23] Speaker A: So different colleges from different parts of the United States are looking at my videos to find for the solution for those problems. [00:51:31] Speaker B: Man, where were you when I was in college? I was probably there. Probably going to have my damn bachelor's. [00:51:38] Speaker A: So I'm monetized to YouTube. I was wondering how it works. So you're getting monetized through views on TikTok? [00:51:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. And there's, like, a bunch of different ways that they factor that thing in, because they used to have this thing called the creator fund. They would pay you based on your amount of views or whatever, but they abandoned that particular program. They abandoned it because now they whipped out the creativity program beta, but now that is being reworked because now they're getting out of the beta phase. But a lot of people were pissed when the creativity program beta came out because now in order to get monetized on TikTok, your videos have to be at least a minute or longer. So anything that's less than a minute long, like the short form content, that's not getting monetized anymore, which is sad because in a way, that's kind of where TikTok built the whole platform on. Yeah, was short form content, but yeah. So a minute or longer. And you have to put it up. [00:52:48] Speaker A: Here, Maya, if you can say what? Sorry. [00:52:51] Speaker B: Oh, sorry about that. Yeah, no, it's cool. Yeah, 10,000 followers at least. And then I think you have to have like a certain amount of views. I don't remember exactly off the top of my head, but I can tell you that for sure. A minute or longer. And in order to even get paid, your video has to hit 1000 views or more. So that's another thing that people got to get, that people kind of have to get used to. So that's why, luckily it works well for me because all, if not most of my videos are at least a minute or longer. Yeah, I don't really do any short form stuff anymore just because at least in my experience, when I did short form content, it didn't really get the reach that I thought it was going to. With the exception of this one six second video that I put out that hit like almost 7 million views. [00:53:46] Speaker A: Oh, crazy. [00:53:46] Speaker B: Which I never got paid for, unfortunately, because that was before I was able to monetize my stuff. So, yeah, that video didn't get a single cent from that. And you could probably still find it on my page. It's a video of me dropping a candle at Ollie's. There's like a sign on the thing that says, don't grab candles by the lid. And I'm like, don't tell me what to do. So I pick it up and then I almost dropped the candle and then I catch it. My phone. So it kind of like acts like as a jump scare toward the viewer. [00:54:14] Speaker A: Oh, crazy. [00:54:14] Speaker B: For some reason that thing got 7 million views. And I'm like, dude, I make all these fact videos. I make music. That's the thing that you all gravitated toward. Fuck you guys. But honestly, I don't want to downplay that because that particular video changed my life. A lot of people started following me from that and I thought they were just going to follow me because of that. One funny video. But, no, they actually stayed. They actually stayed and they were still interacting with the music side of me. The whole thing, it's like a person. [00:54:49] Speaker A: Like a personal brand. What was that you had up, Maya? He put up something about the TikTok bill or something like that. Do you know anything about that lately? [00:54:57] Speaker B: Oh, is that the TikTok ban? [00:55:01] Speaker A: Yeah. What's happening there? What do you think about that? [00:55:04] Speaker B: I had a feeling y'all were going to ask me that. Okay, dude, Maya back there, I'm going to say this. Okay, you guys ready? [00:55:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:12] Speaker B: You guys ready? [00:55:13] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:55:13] Speaker B: Okay, I'm going to say this. If you have more wrinkles on your face than the California fucking raisins, you should not be telling us what we can and can't do on the fucking man. So now this TikTok ban thing, it's not new news by any means. They've been trying to ban TikTok for the past, like, three or four years, in my opinion. I don't know why Congress decided to expedite this particular, like, we have a massive homeless population, especially here in corpus. If you go down Morgan Avenue, those people could desperately need homes. We have human trafficking. There's a whole lot of other issues that I feel are more important than a social media app where people just lip sync and. But, yeah, their whole thing is TikTok is, their partner company is ByteDance, which is based out of China. That's all it comes down to. They're afraid that China is getting our info and this, that and the other. They're stealing our data. What have, honestly, Facebook, Google, Twitter, all these guys, they have our data already. And I'm pretty sure some of those companies, they probably sell our data to other countries, other sources. But I do not understand why China specifically is the problem, because last time I checked, I mean, this was made in China. This was made in China. My choinas were made in China. So why is this an issue now? We're still doing business with China. Why is this application a problem? This is just my opinion, but I think they just don't want us to be talking to people from other countries, because I have people that are following me from Australia and the UK, like, all these different countries, and a lot of people are getting their news in real time because CNN, Fox News, they're going to not alter the stories per se. I'm not saying that, but they're going to try to put out a certain narrative. They're going to try to tell you what they want you to know instead of the truth, per se. So with TikTok, it's people just, like, filming on their phone, and they upload it. Granted, sometimes people are really good at editing, but some of the stuff that you could see, for the most part, it's true. It's out there. You can't really backtrack from that once it goes down. And another criticism that TikTok faced was when this bill was in Congress, they whipped out this mass notification with a little search bar where you could put in your zip code, and it gives you the representative in your area that you could contact and tell them not to ban this thing. So they twisted that around, and they were like, you see, this is how they know alter the algorithm to show us stuff that's going to benefit China and whatnot. And I'm like, dude, y'all are blowing that completely out of proportion, because that's not something that TikTok is new. Like, you could literally just go to Google, type in who's your representative, and the search bar will pop up, too, like on a government website. The only difference was they integrated it into the app at that point in time. [00:58:47] Speaker A: Wow. [00:58:47] Speaker B: That's the only difference. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Wow. So crazy poppy game. Chachi said. Amen to that. What you were saying about the raising face looking people. Poppy game is going to be on here. She's a rapper here out of corpus. [00:59:00] Speaker B: Oh, really? Yeah. Jump on a track with me if you want. [00:59:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So you were mentioning. Yeah. That makes me think about how, because you advocate for bands that are on people that are on TikTok, you know what I mean? And it reminds me of how it's making its way to where the tv shows aren't the only thing that are being shown to people. [00:59:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:23] Speaker A: Now it's what you're doing. What I'm doing. [00:59:26] Speaker B: You know what I mean? [00:59:27] Speaker A: That's the new tv. [00:59:28] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And truth be told, a lot of people have been asking me, like, hey, if TikTok does get banned, what are you going to do? And honestly, it will be very heartbreaking to see TikTok go, because at the end of the day, what they want to do is Congress is saying that they don't want to ban it, but they really want TikTok to separate from ByteDance. If TikTok does not separate from Bytedance and sell the company to, I assume, somebody American, then they will ban the application. But I will say this, if something does happen to TikTok, nothing, and I mean nothing, not even the government, is going to prevent me from putting out dopest. Fuck music and dopest fuck content for my people. Because those 34,000 followers that I got, they didn't happen overnight. I had to really work and grind to get them. But if something does happen, I'm going to go hard in the paint on other platforms, I still got Instagram, I got YouTube, I got Twitter. So for some of my followers that are listening, if you're really afraid of the TikTok band, my username on everything else is exactly the same. Matt Gunthu music. If you just do a quick search, you'll find my stuff. [01:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So do you mind if we keep going? We usually do an hour, but this is an interesting conversation. Can we keep talking? Is that okay with you? Yeah, I'm fine with, like, it seems like Instagram and even Facebook are even kind of regulated to where you have to do ads to push your stuff more, right? Yeah. [01:00:59] Speaker B: And that's exactly why I don't really have the reach on Instagram or Facebook that I probably should have when you compare it to TikTok, because TikTok's algorithm is, for me at least, it's more user friendly. And that's the only platform that I'm able to monetize on, because their whole thing is we're giving power to the creators. And granted, yeah, I don't get a lot of money from TikTok by any means. I'm not making six figures off that thing. If I was, I wouldn't be in healthcare right now. But honestly, truthfully, it does help me out. Even if I just get, like, $20 to $50 a month from those guys, that's twenty dollars to fifty dollars that will prevent me from being overdrafted at the end of the month. You know what I mean? Especially with the way inflation is going right now and the cost of living, all that stuff. TikTok is literally a second source of income for a lot of these people. Like small businesses. Uh, like Alex. For like Alex, I'm pretty sure he got a lot of his business from that particular platform, as is the case with me. As is the case with restaurants and record labels, I'm pretty sure. And just a bunch of different businesses, they all use this platform, and it's very beneficial, very educational as well. [01:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. How do you find yourself creating a good social platform for yourself? [01:02:38] Speaker B: For me, I think what helps me out is just the fact that I guess you could say that I'm a bit of an attention whore, if you want to call it that. I'm not afraid to be in front of the camera. I'm not afraid to talk to strangers, which is why you and I are having the conversation that we are. And I've always been like that. What happened was, when I was a kid, I wasn't like this. When I was, like, in second grade, and I had to do, like, an oral report, I would literally just shiver with anxiety, and I would just start crying. I literally had to go to my teacher, Ms. Farias, at the time, so that she could hug me and everything, and she'd be like, no, Miko, it's okay. But shout out to Farias from St. Elizabeth School in Alice, Texas, because she kind of helped me get out of my shell, per se, and I became more charismatic and whatnot. So I'm not afraid to be in front of the camera. And when you put a face to the content, I feel like that kind of helps you out, too, because now it's getting to the point where I went to the mall the other day, and I ran into one of my followers there. [01:03:42] Speaker A: Wow. [01:03:42] Speaker B: He saw me at Spencer's, and he's just like, hey, I followed you on TikTok, like, two weeks ago. How you doing? And I'm like, hey, that's rad. And then there's this guy called Ville. Ate it on TikTok. He's, like, a food reviewer. He's based out of corpus, too. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Nice. [01:03:57] Speaker B: And he ran into me at the mall as well. Yeah. Now it's getting to the point where people are recognizing me out in public and everything. When I went to the shattered sun reunion, so many people came up to me. It was cool. And like I said, at the end of the day, if I'm able to move at least one person, if I have one fan say they're having a bad day and they see one of my videos and it cheers them up or something, or I play, like, a favorite song of theirs on guitar or whatever. If I make their day, even if it's just one person, then my job is done. [01:04:32] Speaker A: That's cool, man. It's awesome. What's some of the future goals that you're, I guess, trying to do? It seems like you're obviously going to continue doing this. [01:04:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, for sure. I'm not going to stop making content, because when I play my guitar, when I do music, when I make these videos, when I do research, that's my happy place, per se. Music and content creation, that's what keeps me at bay. That's what keeps my mental health in check. There was a time in my life where I was kind of in a dark place, I guess you could say I wasn't doing very well financially. I had to sell all my instruments at one point, and I was very depressed because I needed to try to get back on my feet again. And my wife, who was, like, my girlfriend at the time, she was like, we really need to save up and get you another guitar or whatever, because it hurts me seeing you like this. Wow. I wasn't suicidal or anything like that, but I was very sad all the time because I didn't have the thing that was giving me comfort. Kind of like a security blanket in a way. [01:05:49] Speaker A: Right? [01:05:50] Speaker B: So when I was in high school. This is a true story, by the way. My father gave me a seven string guitar for Christmas, and I played the crap out of that thing all throughout high school. I did, like, two or three shows with it when I was still in high school. [01:06:07] Speaker A: Nice. [01:06:07] Speaker B: And I still have it to this day. But that was one of the guitars that I sold back in 2019 when I fell on hard times. And I sold it at a pawn shop in Alice, Texas, and my wife's family is from there. We were already living in corpus at the time. A couple months had passed. We got back on our was like. I was like, hey, babe, you know what? Let's stop at that pawn shop. I just want to see if my guitar is still there. Well, we went there, like, a year later. My seven string was still hanging on the rack. It collected a bunch of dust. One of the knobs was missing, but the value had depreciated so much to the point where I was actually able to buy it back. [01:06:48] Speaker A: Was it an ibaness? [01:06:49] Speaker B: It was a shector. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Shector. [01:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a shector. Omen seven. And the funny thing about that is, I think I sold it to them for, like, $300, and I bought it back for 100. And I went up to the cashier, I was like, hey, that was actually my guitar, and I'm buying it back. And she's like. And then she looked at the history. She's like, oh, yeah, this was your guitar. And, yeah, so I still made a profit off of them, and I still have that guitar to this day. I need to take it to the good people over there at sound vibes because I need to kind of revive it a bit. It's got some intonation issues with it, but if it gets to the point where it's completely unplayable, I already told my dad I want him to sign it, and I was going to put it in a shadow box? Because that's easily the greatest Christmas present that my dad ever gave me. [01:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I had an ibanez. My first seven string wasn't Ibanez. Floyd rose. [01:07:42] Speaker B: Oh, damn. [01:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it was, dude. My parents. Then they hooked it up, bro. We did a gig. My dumb self didn't even take care. It got stolen, bro. Stolen. [01:07:58] Speaker B: My heart breaks for you, dude. [01:07:59] Speaker A: It does. Oh, my God. Oh, man. Just thinking about it, dude, the case was smooth. They had, like, a red velvet kind of like this color right here. [01:08:07] Speaker B: Oh, man. [01:08:08] Speaker A: Oh, man. I saw. So dumb, dude. Anyway, that was my first seven stringing in there. But I was thinking about your wife, man. How she. Well, she was your girlfriend at the time, but she stuck with you through hard times, bro. [01:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:20] Speaker A: And you all got married. [01:08:22] Speaker B: That's why I married her, because she met me at a time where I wasn't quite the man that I am today. I was in between colleges. I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do, career wise and everything, but she saw something in me, for whatever reason that I guess nobody else saw. And I felt kind of bad because at the time, it kind of felt like I had to prove myself to her family, because they're like, this dude's in between colleges. He's not working because he's trying to study. It was one of those things. But I told him, I was like, no, I mean, you don't understand. Yes, I'm from San Diego, Texas. Yes, I'm from naked. Like, yes, I'm from naked city. Sort of like, yeah, I'm from the hood, but I'm not that kind of guy. I'm smart. I'm educated. I'm just in a rough patch. That's all it was. So when it got to the point where we were getting really serious, that's when I started really doing everything that I could for her. So that way I could prove to them your daughter or whatever. She's in good hands, I promise. I'm not like some of the other guys that you've probably met. [01:09:46] Speaker A: Wow. [01:09:46] Speaker B: I know. They were saying that maybe one of her sisters or whatever had dated some horrible people, and I was like, no, I'm not that guy at all. And I had told him straight up, I was like, look, I was in an abusive relationship in 2016 with a woman who shall forever remain nameless. And I went through hell with that person. 2016 was such a blur because I went through so much stuff with her, and it's not really something that I like to talk about publicly, because it's like, oh, you were abused by a girl? Like, you're a big ass man. Why did you let that happen? I'm like, dude, that's not me. Yeah, she would hit me and everything, but I never once struck back at her because I was always told and raised. [01:10:29] Speaker A: That's how you're raised? [01:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Never raise your hand toward a woman, even if shit is hitting the fan, for lack of a better term. So that's just not the type of person that I am. And it got to the point where, like I said, I told him, no, she's in good hands. And then we started getting more serious, and we moved to corpus in 2019 and then in 2020, that's when, right smack at the beginning of the pandemic, that's when I got the bright idea to propose. [01:11:00] Speaker A: Wow. [01:11:00] Speaker B: And I was actually going to take her to the water gardens here in town to propose to her because I've always been in love with the Corpus Christi area. Even when I was a kid, I would always tell myself, like, hey, I'm going to move to corpus. One had that. She gave me that urge to do it, and she wanted to move, too, so that's how we got over here. [01:11:25] Speaker A: You weren't living here? [01:11:26] Speaker B: No, we were already living here. Yeah. But we both collectively decided that we wanted to move to corpus because. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Nice. [01:11:33] Speaker B: I've always wanted to move here since I was a kid, and we were actually at Quasar's arcade one day, and we got out of the arcade, and then my wife was like, you know what? Why don't we just move here? And I was like, dude, it's been my dream to move here. So, yeah, we came here October of 2019, and then I think by March 2020 or so or April 2020. I forgot when. That's when I proposed. Wow. But we actually didn't get married until April of 2023, so we're getting ready to get on our one year anniversary. But congrats, man. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Shout out to my wife, Claire Kanthu, because she was the one that really saw me for who I was, like, the entertainer and the music guy. And she's always encouraging me to keep making more videos, keep making more music, whereas some of the other people that I dated, they were like, you're wasting your time. [01:12:29] Speaker A: Wow. [01:12:29] Speaker B: This, that, and the other really discouraging stuff. But she gave me the courage to truly be myself and be whoever I wanted to be. And it's cool because in past relationships, I always felt like I had to change to fit the other woman's narrative, if that makes sense. But with Claire, I felt like I didn't have to change myself for once in my life. I felt like, hey, I can actually be a nerd. I could know, be a musician, all that stuff. I would just go on these crazy tangents, kind of like how I do my TikTok videos where I'm just like, hey, did you know about this, that and the other, and I would do that and then I would stop myself, and I'm like, oh, wait, sorry, you probably don't want to hear that. She's like, no, I love it. It's very interesting. And I'm like, okay, shout out to Claire. I love that woman to death, man. [01:13:28] Speaker A: It's awesome, man. Yeah, my wife got me this shirt. She's like, you heard you wear this shirt for the podcast because you was wearing hoodies or whatever. She's like, I was like, are you sure? She's like, yeah, I wear this shirt. Yeah, she's awesome, bro. My wife's awesome. [01:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I went to the mall earlier, too, because I bought the hat at the mall, but I picked up this jersey at Burlington because for some reason, I guess because I've been trying to work on my image a little bit, and I've been wearing a lot of baseball jerseys lately. [01:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I noticed that. [01:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't play baseball at just. They just look cool. So I guess in a way, I'm kind of like a poser when it comes to baseball, because with me, I really love the late 90s, early 2000s, which is where my love of new metal comes from. So I really want to start investing in those flame shirts. You know what I'm talking about back in the day? [01:14:21] Speaker A: Like, silky. They're like kind of silky shirts. [01:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to get, like a neon green flame one and a blue one. I want to get all these different colors, and then I want to get, like, I don't know what they're called. I guess not jenkos, but I guess like rave pants or whatever. Like trip pants. [01:14:40] Speaker A: That's what they're called. [01:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to get those, and I want to start rocking those on stage because my musician Persona is obviously going to be a lot different than just my going out in public Persona. But, yeah, people don't realize that your image, it might not seem like a very important thing to a lot of bands and a lot of musicians, but it actually does matter in the long run because that's one of the things that's going to make you stand out from the crowd, as opposed to just having kick ass music, because you already got the kick ass music, especially the scene here in town, like, the metal scene, the hip hop scene. There's a whole lot of great bands here, amazing talent. And there's some that have the talent and the image, and those are the ones that are, like, making the rounds, like, shout out to, you know, the Raul Ayala band. [01:15:36] Speaker A: Sounds familiar. [01:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So, Raul Ayala, he's this little kid. I think he's, like, 21. [01:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:45] Speaker B: Or I think he just turned 21. [01:15:47] Speaker A: Or. [01:15:47] Speaker B: No, not even. I think he's, like, 19. I think he just graduated high school last year. [01:15:51] Speaker A: Young dude. Yeah. [01:15:51] Speaker B: He's a guitar player from hell, dude. Like mad Shredder. Immensely talented guy. And his backing band, like, the guys that he jams out with, amazing dudes. Chris Ivory is a guy. I don't think he's playing with them right now, but I know he was playing with them at one point. Amazing keyboard player. Yeah. Immensely talented band. And when I saw them live, they had a look already. Chris was coming in with these nice suits, like, real pressed iron suit and tie type of thing, and just, like, doing his thing on. And then Raul has, like, his prs custom 24, which Raul. I'm still very jealous, man. I need that in my life. If you ever sell that bitch, hit your boy up. But, yeah, they look like a professional band, and they're a bunch of kids. There's another girl. Her name is Nat Flores, and I think she's young, too. I think she might even still be in high school. She's probably, like, 18 or 19. [01:16:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:16:50] Speaker B: She sings in a band called censored. I haven't seen them live yet. I'm trying to really make it a point to see them live pretty soon, but she's, like, real. I don't know what she would categorize herself as, but she's, like, real goth looking. Like, she wears the dark makeup, and she has those hats that I guess look like witches hats or whatever. And she rocks the trip pants and stuff on stage, and she looks like a performer, you know what I'm saying? And that's what I'm trying to get at. [01:17:24] Speaker A: Like, the image is part of your brand. [01:17:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:26] Speaker A: Personal brand. [01:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I have merch, too, and one of my most popular shirts is the San Mateo shirt. [01:17:34] Speaker A: Okay. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Which is kind of like a character that I play. [01:17:40] Speaker A: Oh, you play a character? [01:17:41] Speaker B: Sort of, yeah. So the way that originated was San Mateo came about because at the time, my wife and I, we always do couples costumes for Halloween. [01:17:51] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [01:17:52] Speaker B: So one year I went as nacho libre and she dressed up as encarnacion. So she had the full nun get up. And one day I was just like, I'm going to try this thing on. Because I grew up Catholic, I went to catholic school. And that's why I always tell people, like, when I die, I think I'm immediately going to go to heaven because I already served my time in hell, which was catholic school. But shout out to my catholic brothers and sisters, man. I'm still catholic through and through, even though I'm not necessarily practicing anymore. But yeah, I put the nun headdress thing on and I threw up these double peace signs. I did like a selfie. And the San Mateo thing just came out right after that. So I was like, you know, maybe I could run with this. So we turned the image into a PNG and we added like the stained glass background. And I put it on a t shirt, and on the back it says the patron saint of riffs. And on the description I think it says something like, wear this shirt when your riffs are trash. And they'll become slightly less trash. And eventually. I haven't done it yet because I've been slacking, but people actually want prayer candles made of my face or whatever. Yeah, I really want to get them made. I know it's going to piss off some people. I totally understand that. It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. My mom definitely does not like the San Mateo stuff. I still love you, mom. [01:19:19] Speaker A: It's cool. [01:19:20] Speaker B: But at the end of the day, I got the San Mateo thing, I got my logo, which is a madagram, which is just the letter m wrapped up like a pentagram. But I'm not a satanic artist or anything like that. I like the dark imagery and my thing as a Catholic, a Christian, if you have a solid foundation, if you have a solid relationship with God, then the enemy shouldn't scare you. A lot of people back in the day, like the whole satanic panic thing with 80s bands like Slayer and all them, they got a lot of crap for their satanic imagery. They were pushing that agenda onto people. Whatever. [01:20:03] Speaker A: Slayer purposefully did that just. [01:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Tomariah had said in an interview, like, we just did it to fuck with people, which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm just doing it to fuck with people. [01:20:14] Speaker A: I'm sorry, you were saying that that shouldn't scare you because I guess your belief system. [01:20:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I personally feel like I have a solid relationship with God. I still pray every night. I'm not a christian artist by any means. I just so happen to be christian. I just so happen to believe in God. But my brand, my content is not christian by any means. I curse on this podcast. My music has cursing in it. And then I got the imagery on the merch or what have you. But the reason why I'm doing it, the reason why I'm running with that is because people like it, and I want to give people what they want. [01:21:07] Speaker A: You have a market. There's a market that you have. [01:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And I have a bunch of other designs, too, if people don't like that stuff. I teamed up with caroline Hughes obscure arto on the gram, and we came up with this zombified steamboat Willie t shirt because steamboat Willie is in the public domain now. [01:21:28] Speaker A: Cool. [01:21:29] Speaker B: And I wanted to do a neon cartoon monster merch because in the warp tour days like 2010, like that era, a lot of metal core bands were doing neon cartoon monster merch. It would be this ugly looking monster with like, a neon green shirt. And that's what I was trying to replicate. And I think we got it down to steamboat Willie. [01:21:49] Speaker A: Who's that? [01:21:50] Speaker B: It was the very first Mickey Mouse short that came out where he's like on a boat and he's whistling the. As of January 1, 2024, he's officially in the public domain, which means that we could do what we want and Disney can't tell us anything. [01:22:10] Speaker A: Right on. Anna Trevino, cantu. Thank you for commenting and being participating in the Facebook chat. She put three baseballs on there, Jason, also, thank you for participating in the chat, man, and everybody else, but yeah, man. That's awesome, dude. Happy for you. And I like your TikTok and I hope keep growing, man. And hopefully I hope one day that you can actually live off of it. That would be sweet. [01:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah, man. I hope the same for you, too, brother. I'm a really big fan of your brand and your street wear. Eventually I do plan on picking up a couple of t shirts and some stickers and stuff. You got hats too, right? [01:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I got some hats. Yeah. Okay. [01:22:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll definitely be picking up that as well. [01:22:50] Speaker A: Awesome, man. Yeah. [01:22:51] Speaker B: Shout out to Corpus Christi originals, man. [01:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah, Corpus Christi originals. Oh, yeah, Corpus Christi originals. Y'all check out the merch. Help us support this podcast. Keep it going. But, yeah, man. So I guess we're wrapping it up here. How do we find you if we're looking for you online? [01:23:04] Speaker B: So you could find me on pretty much every social media app known to man. My username is Matt Cantu. Music Matt Gunthu music TikTok is obviously the platform that I'm most popular on, with about 34,000 followers. Seven of my videos or so have hit a million views or more. So I definitely recommend you check that out, but definitely do follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my YouTube, follow me on Twitter, all the other socials, just in case shit hits the fan with TikTok, and I got to start doing other stuff. [01:23:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Come on. Come on. All right, man. Well, thanks a lot, you guys, for watching the show. Stay tuned for the next couple of times. We got a droopy m coming up. Johnny Martinez, some other people coming up for these next couple of podcasts. Shout out to Maya, the producer of the show, and produce streamlab studios here downtown Corpus Christi, Texas. Matt, thank you, man. [01:23:58] Speaker B: Have a good one. [01:23:59] Speaker A: Bye, y'all. [01:24:00] Speaker B: Let me know when I could come back. [01:24:01] Speaker A: Yes, sir.