Why Authenticity Wins in Business & Social Media | James Maslow DSH #1334

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Speaker 2 So I come to tables quite literally and figuratively like this. And if I speak to someone, they go, hey, cool, but what about this? Dude, I'm more than happy to learn.

Speaker 2 I'm just, you know, if I'm not learning and growing every single day, I'm not as happy. And that's attracted people like David Meltzer, who's attracted people like these billionaires to this table.

Speaker 2 So many amazing people have been attracted into my life because of hard conversation.

Speaker 2 All right, guys, got James here. We're trying to make this happen for for a while.
Good to see you, man. You too, brother.
Hey, good. Been busy.
You've been busy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're doing almost 700 podcasts a year right now. That's your goal? It's a lot, man.
No, that's beyond a lot. That's fucking crazy, but commendable.
That's awesome. I do lie to you.

Speaker 2 You're spending nine months on the road. Almost 700 shows a year, I bet.
Not 700 shows. I'm just lucky that I can spend nine months on the road.
You know, I have been.

Speaker 2 I remember when I couldn't do that as a musician and an actor. And that's the dream to have enough people care, have enough people want to show up that I get to spend nine months.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you're balancing two really hard professions. It's impressive, music and acting.
So I keep hearing 20 years later. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They truly balance me out, you know, and I think that this day and age, people are far more understanding that performers are performers.

Speaker 2 You know, the idea of a double or triple threat back in the day when I started, you know, say 20 years ago at this point, was shunned, was frowned upon.

Speaker 2 I remember agents at CAA telling me like, no, no, no, pick one or the other. People won't understand.
And me going, fuck that.

Speaker 2 And feeling like the black sheep because I wanted to do more than one thing. But you look at the biggest stars of today, you know, The Rock, Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg.

Speaker 2 I mean, they're doing so many things. And that's because they're good at it and they don't stop working and they're artists.
So yeah, dude, that's true.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think times have changed. I mean, Elon's running three billion dollar companies right now.
More than three, right? Doesn't he have seven at this point? Who knows?

Speaker 2 Yeah, with the AI stuff, I can't even keep track with the Neuralink and with the, exactly. I mean, the boring company, Neuralink, SpaceX, Tesla.
I mean, it just, it keeps going.

Speaker 2 I think he's got seven or eight multi-billion dollar companies.

Speaker 2 Hardworking man right there. They're very exposing a lot of stuff right now in the government.
Yeah, that's, that's wild. You know, and I have to take that information with a grain of salt.

Speaker 2 I do my best to try and see the other side of things.

Speaker 2 You know, or somebody pointed out Fred he was he was speaking with recently, and they threw out there like, though, that is such a fraction of a fraction of the spend.

Speaker 2 So then I question, well, is it really doing enough? But you know what? The fact that it is happening and it's starting, that's only in a few months' time.

Speaker 2 I look at that and go, man, we've been wasting more than we were ever, you know, possibly told we could have ever understood. And if somebody's going after bureaucracy, I'm a fan of that.

Speaker 2 And it looks like that's what's happening. So I hope that more stuff gets uncovered.
And I hope that we get to save more and we start getting out of debt as a country. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 How could you not want that? Absolutely. How long, how often are you on X? Cause there's a lot of wildness on that platform.
X is wild, man.

Speaker 2 I find that there's a lot more hate on X and TikTok, unfortunately, especially since I've been outspoken, you know, against terrorism.

Speaker 2 Again, something that I thought we all should be on board with this, right? Terrorists, terrorism, probably a bad thing.

Speaker 2 And apparently that's not the popular or common narrative, especially on TikTok and to some degree on X.

Speaker 2 So I look at it and go, hey, I value that you have the freedom to be an asshole on here, as do I. And I really do think that's important.
But do I enjoy the experience as much? Not always, you know?

Speaker 2 I didn't know TikTok was like. I knew X was like that because I see.
Oh, I stopped.

Speaker 2 I stopped posting content, even just regular content, community content and TikTok, because it completely squashes your engagement. Wow.
They have hated on it so much. I mean, it's really a bummer.

Speaker 2 Like, it's sad for me to say that, that I don't post some of my most valuable and important and personal and meaningful content on such a large platform, but I just don't bother anymore. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because they wouldn't show it to anybody. They actually canceled my account or whatever they call it.

Speaker 2 um blacklisted my account for a little shadow banned shadow banned you know and it was absolute bullshit but it was directly tied to all of the content i was putting out on my experiences in Israel and as a.

Speaker 2 So that sucks. I remember feeling shame growing up being Asian, like being people being racist towards me.
So I can relate a little bit. But yeah, towards the j right now, it's extreme for sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 There's been versions of it for the last, what, three or four thousand years, I think. But I try and come at this with a little bit of...

Speaker 2 jest, you know, and try and and it's it's a very serious topic, but

Speaker 2 the reality is like we have to find ways to look at it and not just be offended by everything and try and have an intelligent, passionate, and respectful conversation.

Speaker 2 And that, I guess, is, if I have any frustrations over it, it's, well, of course, racism towards Asians, towards towards, towards, that's weird to say, towards,

Speaker 2 is going to exist. And it's shitty, but that's just the reality of the world we live.
But the fact that we can't have a conversation about it anymore.

Speaker 2 Whether it's politics or racism or just about anything these days, that is what drives me the most crazy, right? Because that's the only way that you're going going to pop.

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Speaker 2 That's great. Except, that was Aries' time.

Speaker 2 Possibly. Start to understand, start to see change, you know, come to a table and figure out solutions moving forward.

Speaker 2 But if it's either, you know, if I'm right and you're wrong, and this is the only way or and fuck you and there's no other way, like that, that's just, that's my biggest frustration with all of that shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
When I watch shows like Pierce Morgan, it's almost like entertainment. It's not even an intellectual conversation anymore.
You know what?

Speaker 2 But a lot of them, a lot of them are forced to create content that is more entertaining than simply factual and intellectual because that's what most people want to watch, right?

Speaker 2 So how do you bridge that gap? That's what I've tried to do specifically on, you know, the

Speaker 2 Israeli content that I've created, bring some levity to it, even, you know, make some of it into a bit of a comedy sketch, though it's a very important topic, to try and get more people to listen.

Speaker 2 Because the reality is on any topic,

Speaker 2 90% of people, or say 80% of people are going to be in the middle, right? 10% of people are going to totally agree with you, 100%, got your back, you're right all the time, love you.

Speaker 2 10% of people, the opposite, hate you, never gonna like you, never gonna listen. So why even try and change their mind?

Speaker 2 80% of people kind of don't really even know what you're talking about it or care or have much information or just even have an opinion. And so when speaking to those 80%,

Speaker 2 creating content that is going to get them engaged in the first place, whether it's through, you know, a hook that's comedy or something outlandish, that is a way to get people listening.

Speaker 2 And then maybe they're going to pay attention to whatever your message is. And that's the world we live in.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it's frustrating, but instead of just being mad at it and doing what I think I should do and what's right and having nobody pay attention, I'm trying to find a way to do stuff that does hook in the 80% that may just not know what's going on.

Speaker 2 Then feed them with a little bit of information, try and be as unbiased as possible.

Speaker 2 And sometimes it's received well and sometimes it is certainly not. Yeah.
You asked some billionaires for advice on this issue, right? It hits deep with you. I did, man.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was actually sitting at a dinner not too long ago with David Meltzer, who you know. And he's one of my good friends, extremely intelligent, hardworking, compassionate.

Speaker 2 He's a good human being as well, which I think is important. Just making money doesn't really mean much to me.

Speaker 2 But being consistently successful and making money for a purpose beyond yourself to help other people, I think is commendable. And I look up to those people.
And beyond him,

Speaker 2 he has introduced me to so many amazing circles. I don't know as many singers and actors that get to sit down at these dinners with literal billionaires.

Speaker 2 And a huge part of the reason I'm invited is because of David Melcher and the conversations we've had.

Speaker 2 And the long story short, this was a little while ago. This was...
after October 7th. I had gone to Israel in November of 23 and

Speaker 2 just seen

Speaker 2 a lot that wasn't being reported and a lot of which debunked a lot of the narrative that was being put out there that would, you know, is very much these days clearly propaganda, but at the time was just a confusing narrative.

Speaker 2 And to a lot of people, I think still is.

Speaker 2 And I'm sitting down going, man, even me just explaining my experience, you know, of going into Janine and seeing my friends in the West Bank and watching that 47-minute video, which I'm sure you've heard about, that I had to sign away and go to an IDF base to even watch because it's one of the most grotesque, gruesome videos that's that's ever existed.

Speaker 2 It's corroborated. It's Hamas GoPro footage and phone footage they took on October 7th that they posted celebrating the atrocities they committed.
So this is literally then telling us what they did.

Speaker 2 And then since then I've said, oh, no, we didn't do that or it never happened. Oh, and then the next day say, yes, we did do that.
We're proud of it. We're going to do it again.

Speaker 2 So I can understand why it's confusing for people, but

Speaker 2 they did it. They celebrated it.
They posted it. And

Speaker 2 even just talking about that, I'm sure there are people that are going to comment that, you know, I'm a terrible person or somehow I am a baby killer, although the fact that

Speaker 2 they beheaded 40 babies in Israel.

Speaker 2 And they just flip it. They just make it the opposite.
And I'm sitting there going, this doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 You know, I'm looking at my friends going in to an area protecting civilians, doing their best to get their hostages back.

Speaker 2 A war was started and they're going to engage and fight the war, but they're doing everything they can.

Speaker 2 Like I'd hope the U.S. military would, right? We're going to go in.
Somebody launches one missile at the United States.

Speaker 2 You think we're not going in all guns blazing you kidnap one american you think we're not going to get that person back

Speaker 2 i digress obviously passionate about it and so point is even talking about it and talking about it now people are going to jump to conclusions jump to hate which is my biggest frustration not jumping to have a conversation or questioning or showing me another perspective which i respect would love to listen to would love to talk about would just jump to hate and so

Speaker 2 I sat around this table with people going, hey, you have even more responsibility to business partners, fiduciary responsibility, moral responsibility. You make a lot of people money, a lot of money.

Speaker 2 I make a decent amount of people, a decent amount of money. I have partners as well.
I have friends. I have family.
I have my girlfriend.

Speaker 2 I have a lot of people I care about that are getting a lot of hate because of me being outspoken on this.

Speaker 2 How would you handle it?

Speaker 2 And I asked them essentially, is it your opinion that I really should keep my opinion to myself because business comes first and all these other things are more important?

Speaker 2 Or is it your opinion that I should be doing what I'm doing? And I believe that's the right thing to do, but I'm worried about the repercussions.

Speaker 2 And the responses in so many different ways were essentially so long as

Speaker 2 you've thought about the potential repercussions and you're good with them, you still believe that this is something that's important, then you absolutely should do it.

Speaker 2 And pertaining to speaking about my experiences as my experiences in Israel, my experiences with terrorism, my girlfriend and I actually were there in in Israel just visiting three years ago now.

Speaker 2 And we were on Gisendoff, which is like Sunset Boulevard in Tel Aviv, which is an amazing city. People go and drink and party.

Speaker 2 It's like first world, the coolest, you know, one of the coolest places in the world.

Speaker 2 And we were a block away when a Palestinian kid, you know, 18, 19, adult, I don't want to say kid, came across from the West Bank.

Speaker 2 found a gun illegally, you know, however he got it, and went and shot and killed a bunch of kids, 18, 19, similar thing, at a bar we were at the night before.

Speaker 2 And we were about a block away when it happened.

Speaker 2 And that was actually my first experience with anti-Semitism, where when we got, we literally were jumping on bird scooters to go down to Jaffa, which is like 20 minutes away.

Speaker 2 Remember something strange happening with cop cars going by us, the police horses. I've never seen those things gallop and they have them on the beach and such.
They were galloping by us.

Speaker 2 And I remember thinking, that's weird. And we finally get to where we're going to dinner, my girlfriend and I.

Speaker 2 and get ushered in, then understand the situation that there's a terrorist attack, hasn't happened in 10 years.

Speaker 2 It's like something happening in LA and Sunset Boulevard, you know, or right here on Broadway in Nashville. It was a huge deal.
That's not commonplace in Tel Aviv for all places.

Speaker 2 And it had been so safe for so long. And I remember posting about that on Twitter at the time.
I think this was pre-X, or was it X? I think it was still Twitter three years ago.

Speaker 2 Three years ago, a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And just going like, man, it's wild that the rest of the world hasn't spoken about this. It's like the next day and it'd been, you know, 24 hours or whatever.

Speaker 2 And I was like, dude, why is nobody talking about this? This is an ally of the United States. It's a first world country.
There's tons of Americans here at the time.

Speaker 2 There's tons of people from all over the world. Why are people not talking about it?

Speaker 2 And immediately the responses are, you should die, go to hell being because I'm, because I'm saying anything at all.

Speaker 2 So I digress. It's a long story to say.
I respect these billionaires. Their whole point was you stand up for what you believe in.

Speaker 2 You will piss some people off, but you're never going to make everybody happy anyways. That's impossible.
And you should stop trying. Right.

Speaker 2 But all the people that decide to unfollow you, to no longer like you, respect you, maybe hate you, the value of the people people who come to the board and go, I'm actually aligned with you.

Speaker 2 I respect you. I love you.
I'm going to become a new fan. The value of that is 10X.
And I've actually seen that happen. It was very scary at the beginning.

Speaker 2 I lost hundreds of thousands of followers across platforms.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. But I've gained hundreds of thousands back.
Now, we're still probably net down several hundred thousand, frankly, but that's okay.

Speaker 2 They were never really real fans anyways, if they don't like me because of the way I was born. Fuck off.
Truly. Now, if you don't like me because of the things I'm saying, I'm far more okay with that.

Speaker 2 So long as, again, you have a different opinion that's based on history or fact or experience and you want to talk about it. But if you just want to yell and scream at me, I also don't respect that.

Speaker 2 And I love the fucking fans that come to me now going, dude, James, my favorite ones are, hey, man, I don't fully agree with that, but I appreciate your perspective. This is mine.
Still a fan.

Speaker 2 I love that even more than the ones that go like, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 I love, you know, because that to me is like such an intelligent, respectful way of saying, I respect you for taking a stance for your position while I have a slightly different one.

Speaker 2 Man, it's still a fan. And I think that's a beautiful way to look at the world.
Like, let's still be fans of actors and musicians. We like their music.
We just don't like their politics.

Speaker 2 Like, that's totally fine. That's very respectful because a lot of actors and musicians won't take these stances.
They're scared, right? Most of them won't, including ones too, which is also,

Speaker 2 you know, a little bit of a bummer, but I get it. I get it from a business point of view.
Again, yes and no.

Speaker 2 I get it from the initial fear of, oh, I've just lost an opportunity or I've lost followers.

Speaker 2 But the long-term effect of it, I truly believe, is going to be beneficial for anybody who's authentically and truly themselves.

Speaker 2 In a day and age where we have conversations people are going to see in fucking minutes from now, whether it's, you know, social media live or podcasts, like we live in a world where everybody

Speaker 2 can see through the bullshit. Right.

Speaker 2 So the days of being an actor where I can have this opinion just in quiet, just in my, you know, and only be an actor and never engage outside of that are just, man, good on you if you can do that.

Speaker 2 I love the concept of anonymity outside of doing my job. I do.

Speaker 2 I just, I believe that we're living in a different world and i would rather be authentic and honest to my fans than try and put on a face and some bullshit just for the cameras you know i truly hope as a podcast host it gets to that point because i want to have some of these guys on the show but they got pr agents up their ass telling them what to say what not to say and it's like damn they can't even be in the here's my solve just hire prg

Speaker 2 yeah so i feel fear of them but hopefully it gets to that point i think people like you are at the forefront of that movement so you know i hope that i'm a good example of it though because

Speaker 2 David Meltzer is a good example of that, right? You know, part of what, why we connected was because he's seen me be outspoken. Now, this is well before October 7th and well before

Speaker 2 this kind of conversation, but I've always gone on podcasts and been myself.

Speaker 2 I've always been open to having a conversation that might be a little bit tricky because I'm intrigued by it and I want to learn. So I come to tables quite literally and figuratively like this.

Speaker 2 And if I speak to someone, they go, hey, cool, but what about this dude i'm more than happy to learn i just you know if i'm not learning and growing every single day i'm not as happy and that's attracted people like david meltzer who's attracted people like these billionaires to this table so many amazing people have been attracted into my life because of hard conversations nobody of value has come into my life by shutting the up and being afraid i love that How did you keep a good head on your shoulders?

Speaker 2 Cause you had a lot of attention at a very young age, right? Yeah. Like you see a lot of these child stars eventually just fall off or

Speaker 2 it's a strange thing, man. It's a strange thing to be of an impressionable age.

Speaker 2 Having said that, though, I'm grateful that my quote-unquote fame didn't start until, you know, 17, 18. Like I was a young adult, but I was an adult.

Speaker 2 I had gone to high school parties, you know, and done my keg stands and stupid shit and snuck out and had, you know, had enough of an experience, like a real child's kids experience that I didn't feel like I was lacking and missing that.

Speaker 2 I do have a lot of sympathy for kids who are actors and go on sets when they're like 10 and never get to experience that stuff.

Speaker 2 I think that's even more difficult to then navigate who you are and how you see the world and how you're supposed to respond and react.

Speaker 2 And you take someone that had never been to a party and then made millions of dollars and all of a sudden goes out to their first club.

Speaker 2 What's going to happen? Like they're going to overdo it, most likely.

Speaker 2 So I have a lot of sympathy for this world because nobody's really taught

Speaker 2 not to do something. Once you start making it and you're making other people money, you're gaining fans, your star is rising, so to speak, everybody around you says yes.

Speaker 2 You can do no wrong to some degree. And I'm very grateful that my first manager, Billy Huffsey, He was an actor and dancer.
He was on that show fame back in the day.

Speaker 2 He was a huge star himself and got into management. He's still like, like an uncle to me these days.
And he he was my first um acting like manager

Speaker 2 and i'm grateful i had him because he literally would knock my head off if i became a little shit like he was that kind of guy it was a little old school but you know he would just be like all right kid you got your first series remember this do your job shut the up go home one of my favorite quotes from billy hofse

Speaker 2 um And I think there was a tremendous amount of experience and insight and value that comes from that because he was in the world and to his point it's like look show up be prepared it's a job you have an opportunity now to build a freaking career am i telling you not to have fun of course not but don't be the last person at the party it's absurd yeah you know and so it just i got so many other good uh good huffsy quotes for you but he uh really instilled a lot of discipline and a lot of reality into my life he wasn't always nice about it but times you need that but i'm grateful man it's it's the hardest experiences in my life much like the hardest conversation conversation i have today that shaped who i am yeah he helped keep your ego in check right oh yeah because at that age you know 17 18 and you're getting millions of views or whatever all this is before views my friend getting old seeing some grays come out here television shows i guess well that's when tv was at its peak i feel like yeah you know uh-huh yeah i was there remember watching tv back in the day but now i don't Yeah, I guess you're right, views.

Speaker 2 Our views were not on social media. Our views were literally the network every Friday.

Speaker 2 We'd get the rating every Monday, whatever it was. How did the episode do when it aired?

Speaker 2 And it's like, like, man, you know, if you got, I remember something like, if you got over 10 million people to watch an episode, and maybe that's still the same today.

Speaker 2 It's been a while since I've been in a Q rating meeting, but it was just phenomenal. And then you think about, you know, YouTubers these days and it's like hundreds of millions, billions of views.
Mr.

Speaker 2 Beast is out doing the Super Bowl now. Yeah.
Wild. Insane.
Good on him. One of the hardest working people, I think.
I've yet to. Did you watch Beast Games? I've seen bits of it.
I've seen bits of it.

Speaker 2 That was a hell of a show, man. I mean, just, I saw the first episode or two and I was just, this is wild.
I'd love to finish that. Yeah, I won't spoil it for you, but that was a good show.

Speaker 2 You got any shows coming up? Television shows or movies? Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, man, between, you know, because of how lucky we've been, how busy we've been on the road, it has made it a little difficult to be on set so much, but I'm good with that because I have plenty of time.

Speaker 2 I was able to work on Blue Ridge last year,

Speaker 2 which is a series. The first season just came out.
I'm on the second season, so that'll be a lot of fun. My friend Jonathan Check leads it, and it's like a modern Walker Texas Ranger.
It's really fun.

Speaker 2 We are working on a Paramount Plus movie for the band. I hate to tease things, but that's already out there, guys.
So I'm not saying anything new.

Speaker 2 I will tell you that we're either going to make it happen or it won't happen in the very near future. And I'm knocking on wood and hoping that we can make it happen because it'll be a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 I think our fans will really love it. This is where the scripts are right now.

Speaker 2 It's good. I love that.
So if we can make that happen, we'll be filming between...

Speaker 2 you know, probably the U.S. and Europe this year.
So it'd be coming up pretty soon. Oh, yeah.
And then I'm working on several other projects.

Speaker 2 I've been developing film and TV projects for about a decade now. Hard to, hard to get funding for things in this industry, as we know, but the one I will mention is called Model Life.

Speaker 2 It's a beautiful story

Speaker 2 about an influencer model living in LA who has everything going on for her, you know, perceived to be living the perfect life, the model life.

Speaker 2 You know, gorgeous friends, invited all the parties, makes plenty of money, tons of followers, blah, blah, blah. And then she gets cancer and her whole entire world changes.

Speaker 2 She realizes that the majority of her friends are vapid and shallow. And I lived a version of this in my experience living in LA, had a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 Then also realized when I wanted to stop partying and going out so much, oh, that's what those friends were for. And that's all they really cared about.

Speaker 2 And ends up meeting, he'd be my character. It's going to be

Speaker 2 a rancher, comes out to LA, happens to be out there for some convention.

Speaker 2 And to some degree, and we're still writing this story, talks her off the ledge, figuratively, and, you know, some ways literally, literally, invites her out to his ranch, goes, hey, you ever want to put your phone down, get your hands dirty, do some work?

Speaker 2 Come do it. And series of events leads to that.
They fall in love, allah, the notebook.

Speaker 2 And I'm not going to spoil the ending or anymore, but I'm excited about the story because it's so, I believe it's such an important message to get out there.

Speaker 2 Now, I don't think every movie needs to have a fucking message, to be clear. It can also just be entertaining.
And this movie is going to be brilliantly entertaining.

Speaker 2 But the backdrop of it is just a reminder of like what's important in life.

Speaker 2 And why I bring this one up is because not only are we creating the screenplay, you know, and hopefully shooting a movie out of Model Life, we're creating an entire novel.

Speaker 2 So I partnered with Level 4 Films. I've got a great team on this.
And as of last week or two weeks ago, we officially have hired the novelist.

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Speaker 2 And the screen playwriter to start working off of, you know, we create our 50-page Bible for it, basically. Wow.
And so simultaneously developing, you know, dual IP. And it's exciting.

Speaker 2 I hope that the world gets to read this and see this film in the next year, two years. That's cool, man.
I've never heard of that approach, a book and a movie at the same time.

Speaker 2 You've heard a lot of people taking books, you know, and licensing them and finding them and making movies out of them. But

Speaker 2 in lieu of having just a fund of millions of dollars to go and buy good IP, which is what it takes,

Speaker 2 we were like,

Speaker 2 why don't we create our own if we have a good enough story and we have a team to do it? And so that's kind of the concept.

Speaker 2 We want the book to come out first, have people go and read it and hopefully develop some sort of cult following, love, and then go and do the movie,

Speaker 2 hopefully do our own project justice that way. That story is relatable, man, because I used to throw parties growing up.
Yeah. Like promote parties? No, like throw them in my mom's basement.

Speaker 2 Shout out to my mom. Okay, she was.
So like a low-key promoter, like an unpaid promoter. Pretty much.
Yeah. But then when I stopped, I realized I had no friends.

Speaker 2 They were all just using me for my charlottes. So I'm definitely going to check that one out.
Why'd you stop partying? Was it a specific moment in your life?

Speaker 2 I got to give my girlfriend Caitlin a lot of love for this. When she came into my life about six years ago,

Speaker 2 she kind of made me look around and realize a lot of the people I spent a lot of time with were really just there for one reason.

Speaker 2 And I defended them to a degree for a while and, you know, kind of, kind of always knew too. I've always been the guy that still woke up and still got my shit done.

Speaker 2 So no matter how much I drank the night before, had fun or went out, I would still get up and do my shit. And so to me, I'm always like, well, that's just part of being in your 20s.

Speaker 2 Like I kind of justified it. Like I.
would look around the people in LA I was around and go, well, I drink less than them. I go out less than them, but it still was just too much.

Speaker 2 And so meeting her and then quite frankly, having bigger and bigger goals.

Speaker 2 The more that I accomplish what I want in life, the more I get excited to swing for the fences bigger next time, because the more I realize the possibility of what I can do, we can do.

Speaker 2 You know, every single, every little thing that works gets me more excited to get the next little thing. And the truth is, I just don't have the time, the energy, the want to be hungover anymore.

Speaker 2 Like that was directly correlated to slowing me down and in no world conducive to actually helping me.

Speaker 2 So instead of, again, instead of complaining about, you know, not being in the shape I want, not being as focused as I want, things not working out, I'm like, well, I can control that.

Speaker 2 I know that doesn't help. So fuck off.
Yeah. And it went from taking off, you know, several months to last year, seven months to this year, I'm doing a full year.
Wow.

Speaker 2 Because literally there's no reason why I need to have that. You know, I'm an adult.
One day I want to go to a vineyard in Italy with my girlfriend and have some wine. I mean, yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 But then again, maybe not. I'm committed to a full year.
We'll see how I feel after that. Well done, man.
Yeah, I will say as I've gotten older, I start to feel hangovers.

Speaker 2 I used to be completely immune. Yeah.
I mean, everybody is in their 20, but I don't know if it's that we're immune or we simply don't have as much shit to do, you know? Good point.

Speaker 2 So you're good with feeling groggy and being less focused, right?

Speaker 2 But as soon as you got a, you know, if you had to come in and knock out freaking three, four, five, 10 episodes today, whatever you're doing, and you weren't clear, like, I don't know about you, I get frustrated myself.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'd be wrecked. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It just makes life too hard. Yeah.
And it's so much more fun to be clear-headed.

Speaker 2 I guess one of the worst things I can think of is somebody asks you a question and you're like fighting for the words to respond. I feel like an idiot.
I hate feeling slow. I love feeling sharp.

Speaker 2 I love that, man. Yeah.
Cause you, you're juggling a lot of stuff, man. You got businesses, you got the acting, got the music.
Yeah. Well, and to that point, one last thing.

Speaker 2 God, don't you love how short my answers are?

Speaker 2 One last thing I'll add to that is it helps so much.

Speaker 2 The lack of not drinking, not drinking, not partying, helps me emotionally and spiritually be able to deal with problems, with the inevitable problems that come with business.

Speaker 2 So it just allows me to be a better bandmate, better boyfriend, better friend, better business partner, all my other businesses, because I can manage everything else.

Speaker 2 When I'm like hung over and then dealing with problems, it's inevitable that I'm going to be a little bit shittier to deal with.

Speaker 2 I'm going to be a little bit shorter, a little bit more of a temper, a little bit, and I don't want to be that way. You know, I've done enough of that.

Speaker 2 Not a ton of it, but enough of it to go, man, I didn't like how I was in that situation. I don't want to be remembered that way.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know the exact percentage but i'm assuming a lot of bands break up or fail right i think probably most of them yeah and that's probably any business you got a bunch of people with different opinions trying to run something and especially out in the arts and the egos and uh it is it's very well known that it's a tough thing right being in a band so has there been like a rock bottom moment for the band where you guys didn't know if it would work out

Speaker 2 Well, we stopped. We took a good eight years off.
Yeah. And I certainly didn't

Speaker 2 know that we were going to come back together for the first several years of that. In fact, for the majority of that time,

Speaker 2 it was not super fun at the end of the first round of BTR. And, you know, I can say that because any of the guys would say that it's frankly not even anything personal.

Speaker 2 We hadn't had more than a couple of days off a year for several times. We had to then eventually fight for like Sundays or one a week.
It just,

Speaker 2 we were so burnt out that it's inevitable. You know, you spend that much time around anybody you get that burnt out it just it becomes

Speaker 2 you know untenable for to some degree coming back though taking that time off everybody having their own opportunities to go and some start families some of us go off and do a bunch more film and tv projects uh

Speaker 2 travel make other friends but live a little bit of life right

Speaker 2 that allowed us when we got back together, which has now been four or five years ago, to come to the table as adults. We were children thrown into this situation.
Teenagers.

Speaker 2 And we came back as adults. And furthermore, we came back, found the brand big time rush dormant.

Speaker 2 Our manager, who I asked to be our manager, Jared Paul, who is very much the glue that keeps a lot of this together as well, I asked him three questions before I brought it to the guys of like, hey, I think this might be the right time.

Speaker 2 I think this might be the right team.

Speaker 2 Is there any demand in the market for us? He said, you know, let me go ask and check.

Speaker 2 Would you want to manage us? Fastest yes ever heard from that man's mouth. And he is a very analytical and very smart.
And that was a huge compliment. And the last one was, how do we own it?

Speaker 2 And he's said, I don't know, but let's figure it out. And we did.
We found an amazing team. The guys and myself found an amazing team.

Speaker 2 They were able to go and essentially license the brand and give us a shot to bring it back. Little did we know it would grow to be larger now that it was back then.
Wow.

Speaker 2 So coming to the table after that much time was the best thing that could have happened to us.

Speaker 2 Working together now as adults and co-owners and business owners, business partners, yeah, there's, you know, there's struggles there as well, but it's much more respectful and it's much more clear-headed.

Speaker 2 And best thing ever happened to us was taking an eight-year break. Yeah.
I didn't know you guys were larger now than back then. That's, that's impressive.
Dude, we never sold out the garden back then.

Speaker 2 We never did the forum. We're playing the Intuit Dome in L.A.
this summer. Like it's, it's, it's crazy.
So it's like your old fans mixed with a new era of fans. Exactly right.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of people that obviously come because of the nostalgia, because of

Speaker 2 the TV show and what man I grew up with them. But we, I can say this with full confidence and humility.
We put on one hell of a show. We pride ourselves.

Speaker 2 Those guys on stage with me, I mean, the four of us on stage, that's where we're the most comfortable.

Speaker 2 Every time we go out to a tour, we go, look, obviously we want to make money, but we're not going to sacrifice the quality of the show.

Speaker 2 And every time we go out, we spend more, do more, build a bigger set, bring more people, more production, change it up, new choreography, because we really care. And I think.

Speaker 2 It's fair to say that there's still a lot of people for the nostalgia, but there's also a lot of people coming back. So they went, dude, that's one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen.
Wow.

Speaker 2 And to us, that was always the thing. It's like, we want to build a business.
We want this to grow from where it's at, not just do a couple of tours and cash in on a nostalgia check.

Speaker 2 And now four years later, still touring, still selling out the Zego dome in places that are just insane to think about. I think that we can fairly say we say fairly we've done that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 We want to keep doing it too. I know you take pride in your marketing.
I saw a clip on your Instagram saying how if you're an artist, you need to have a marketing background these days. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree with that because there's so many talented artists being in Nashville. As soon as you land, there's some talented artists in the airport.

Speaker 2 Dude, I've heard some of the best singers ever just playing cover songs at the airport. And you would never know who it is.
Hopefully one day you will.

Speaker 2 But yeah, it's not

Speaker 2 like the old days, and I hate saying it, but that's the truth. Even 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it was the old days.
Things move so fast where labels and networks would invest into development.

Speaker 2 A lot of labels and networks these days want to limit their liability.

Speaker 2 And they want to make sure that you got things going on you know that you kind of take the first step and figure it out then they'll come in

Speaker 2 so um

Speaker 2 if you don't understand the basics of marketing you're going to be amongst the many many many more talented people that people never know of than the few talented people that people end up knowing and i just marketing is a big part of that and within marketing like anything else there's no guarantee that just because you understand it it's going to work but if you do understand it you'll probably put more effort into it you'll probably do more of it you'll probably stay the course for longer.

Speaker 2 And then your chances of it working are a hell of a lot higher than if you didn't understand it in the first place. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 And I know we were talking negatively on TikTok earlier, but when it comes to music, a lot of songs blow up because of TikTok. Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I was on the only negative thing I would say on TikTok is just the shit talkers that don't like

Speaker 2 that they seem to promote and they seem to put down content. Otherwise, dude, I mean, I love the platform because of its ability for virality, right? Everybody gets a shot.

Speaker 2 And with music, and of course we have the band's music. I've also been writing for my own music.

Speaker 2 No set date on that, but I have a project I'm so proud of and so excited to bring to the world because it's just authentically me. And I want to do it with BTR because it's different, right?

Speaker 2 I'm not trying to do that and leave the band. Not the goal, not the plan.
I don't want that to happen.

Speaker 2 I would like us to live where they just, different fans can have different music. But I'm looking at TikTok already in terms of strategy and like, hey, this is really cool.

Speaker 2 I get to create shit that, hey, maybe the first 10 or 20 or 100 videos don't work, but it can take one video where all of a sudden millions, hundreds of millions of people can hear one of my pieces of art, one of my songs, and otherwise never would have had that opportunity, the ability for that.

Speaker 2 So double-edged sword like anything, man. Social media takes a lot of time.
Sometimes it's annoying.

Speaker 2 A lot of artists don't want to have to do it, but you look at it as an opportunity and right now a free opportunity to get the entire world to know who you are, then you should do it. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Was that a tough conversation for you saying to your bandmates, you want to do some solo stuff? No, because everybody's done it.

Speaker 2 The tough conversation is frankly like timing, you know, like how do we do it?

Speaker 2 Where everybody still feels that, you know, we're not doing it in place of the band. You know, how much time should I allot to writing my music before the band goes?

Speaker 2 Well, you don't spend time writing band music. And I think I balance it pretty well.
My solution to that is just to write more music and not even put a label on all of it.

Speaker 2 Like I'm going to go to a session and write something that feels good. And if it makes sense for the band, great.
Makes sense for me. Great.

Speaker 2 But every member of this band has put out their own music over the years. We got one member that's doing it right now.
And it's just, you know, it's a conversation.

Speaker 2 Everybody knows we're going to do it. Everybody has the opportunity to do it.

Speaker 2 And I have always been a huge proponent in our group conversations of like, guys, when we do that, can we support each other more? Let's actually go in.

Speaker 2 I think that's the coolest way you could look at it. You know, Jonas Brothers.
I think a good example of that. Rick Jonas, Joe Jonas, they go off DNCE, his own stuff.
They give each other love.

Speaker 2 They do that for a while and then decide, hey, let's come back. Let's do Jonas Brothers for a while.
So a lot of respect for them, how they've done it.

Speaker 2 And I'd love to, in some ways, follow their footsteps and how this band operates. Yeah.
I love them. I grew up in Jersey.
So Jonas Brothers are from there. Very cool.
Yeah. Legends.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Have you had discussions with those guys? You know, met them throughout the years very briefly.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it'd be cool if we did something together at some point. I'd be legendary.

Speaker 2 Jonas Brothers BTR. Well, dude, it's been cool.
Anything else you want to close off with here or promote? Well, when does this episode come out? It'll be about a month.

Speaker 2 Oh, well, then we did something together. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Got it. So, so nervous to say things like this because I want the band to be like, James, dropped the, spilled the beans and stuff, but we're definitely not coming out before this weekend, right?

Speaker 2 No, not this weekend. Okay.
Well, then by now, we've flown to JonasCon. They invited us to go and jump on stage and do a little

Speaker 2 random clad. They're going to sing some of our songs.
We're going to do a little show for their fans. Let's go.
Which to us is such an honor because, you know, we grew up around the same time.

Speaker 2 They were in the Disney Channel for some bits. We were on Nickelodeon, of course, and they have just crushed it.
They're insane musicians.

Speaker 2 I haven't heard a bad thing about any of them in my entire career out here. So I'm real excited to get to go and hang with them this weekend and play some music together.
It's legendary.

Speaker 2 Can't wait to see that, man. Swear to God, if you post this before this weekend, I'm coming for you.
Yeah, your PR team don't be a lawsuit.

Speaker 2 Well, we'll link your stuff below, man. Thanks for coming on.
Dude, pleasure to see you. Thanks for having me.
Check them out, guys. See you next time.

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