From Heartbreak to Harmony | DeeAnn Dimeo

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Speaker 5 Yeah, um,

Speaker 5 the

Speaker 5 beginning, I didn't want to listen to music. I didn't want to.

Speaker 5 I didn't want to sing a note.

Speaker 6 Let's go.

Speaker 7 Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look.

Speaker 8 The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way.

Speaker 6 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 6 We have an incredible conversation for you today with Deanne DeMayo. Deanne has a storied musical career working with some incredible acts as well as a solo career.

Speaker 6 And her most recent album is actually in the jazz genre.

Speaker 6 And we talk about how she has moved through things like pop and country now to jazz, how she was able to do that, why she did it, what her inspirations for that was, where she gets her creativity for.

Speaker 6 But the power of this episode is dealing with tragedy. And in this case, Deanne was faced with the loss of her child three years ago and dealing with her son's death.

Speaker 6 coming through that and how she was able to re-energize her career, re-energize her creativity and pull herself through that moment in order to be the success that she is today, launching a brand new album.

Speaker 6 This is a powerful episode.

Speaker 4 Buckle up.

Speaker 6 You're going to absolutely love it.

Speaker 6 If this is your first time listening to the show, whether you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button so you get future episodes.

Speaker 6 If you have comments, if you have thoughts, if you just want to show support for Deanne, either connect with her directly or leave it in the comments section or in the review section of wherever you're listening or watching.

Speaker 6 That way we can pull Deanne in and connect her with you if you want to do so. Deanne is a wonderful person.
It was such a pleasure having on the show. I know you're going to love this conversation.

Speaker 6 And as always, I appreciate the hell out of you for listening. I love you for listening.
Let's get on to Deanne DeMayo.

Speaker 6 Deanne, so excited to have you on the show.

Speaker 6 When I was researching you, one of the first things that I saw that I found intriguing in a place of connection that we have is that you're from Buffalo yes I am well nine

Speaker 4 actually

Speaker 6 yeah so my entire family except for me I have like 30 Irish Catholic cousins and now all kinds of you know second cousins or whatever you call their kids uh just this huge Irish Catholic family in South Buffalo they all live in South Buffalo so I've been to Buffalo 10 million times my you know we're Bills fans and Sabers fans and Western New York has plays a huge role in my life and I thought that was a really interesting connection point.

Speaker 5 Yes, definitely.

Speaker 4 Buffalo Bills.

Speaker 5 I think we are the only team that four consecutive years in a row.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 6 Yeah, four consecutive years for 100%. Unfortunately, we never came away with the trophy.
But there's a, it's funny, people I find who

Speaker 6 grew up in Buffalo or Western New York in general and were, you know, they didn't have to be huge fans, but followed the team at that time. There's like this,

Speaker 6 there's like this odd camaraderie that you just have to have if you experienced those moments, whether you're like someone who is yelling at the TV or just, you know, there and aware, there's always this shared connection point having suffered or just how much the city suffered during that time, you know?

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's so interesting.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 It's so funny what sports does to us. And we were talking a little beforehand about baseball and your son.
And I want to get into all that. But

Speaker 6 what you were discussing was coaches. And I think of that more, you know, not just not just coaches in sports, but you could have a coach in basically anything you do, mentors.

Speaker 6 You know, I'm interested in

Speaker 6 you came from a musical family. Was that your primary influence? Was there someone else that grabbed you, that that

Speaker 6 kind of pushed you into this life that this was going to be kind of an enormous part of who you are? Like, did you have that coach, that mentor, that person that guided you?

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 when I was seven, I'm one of those where I have that dream. When I was seven, I knew this is what I wanted to do.
And I was playing in the playground in school, and we were talking.

Speaker 5 And I don't even know how it came up, but I said, I'm going to be a singer. And that's what I'm doing.
I don't know why I thought that at seven, but my father, always a singer.

Speaker 5 singing around the house,

Speaker 5 turning me on to jazz music. And I didn't want to listen to jazz at the time because I wanted to listen to pop music.
And

Speaker 5 Barbara Streisen, actually.

Speaker 5 So, I'd say,

Speaker 5 between my father being my mentor and

Speaker 5 it's kind of crazy, but Barbara Streisen was another mentor to me. I just would read about her and absorb everything about her because I was just so enamored with her,

Speaker 5 her passion, and her strength, and

Speaker 5 her

Speaker 5 confidence, and her her drive. And, you know,

Speaker 4 so kind of

Speaker 5 learned a lot from her by reading her stories. But my father, definitely.
My father was from the beginning to the end. He just passed a couple of years ago.
So yeah.

Speaker 6 So ultimately you found yourself in jazz. What brought you back?

Speaker 5 I found myself not in jazz. I mean, I found myself in jazz with my dad, yeah.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 I went into pop. I went into country.
I went into blues, blues, jazz, similar. Countries.
They're all kind of similar in ways, but

Speaker 5 jazz was where you can be free to change the melody and not change the melody. You got to respect the melody of the song.

Speaker 5 So the first time you sing the verse chorus, you always want to give respect to that melody. But if you want to change your own a little, you have some freedom there.

Speaker 5 Where when I sang the pop, you know, it's just, you want to kind of sing verbatim, like what it is.

Speaker 5 You don't want to change it. And the jazz to me was a challenge because I didn't know.
I kind of liked how I had to stay within the lines. And now

Speaker 5 I like that I can go outside the lines and do whatever I want. And sometimes it sounds fantastic.
And sometimes like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that.

Speaker 4 But I learn.

Speaker 4 Every day is a learning process.

Speaker 4 You know, I.

Speaker 6 I've had other jazz musicians, and obviously that's where you are today in your work. And I want to dig into the evolution of that.

Speaker 6 But I've always been so enamored by jazz and blues, particularly, in how

Speaker 6 you can listen to a song,

Speaker 6 the studio recording of any particular song, and it sounds great. And then you could hear a live version or see that same individual live.
And it's almost as if, I think, more than any other genres,

Speaker 6 those two particular

Speaker 4 allow

Speaker 6 the music captures the mood of the artist in that moment and allows them to express it. Where like a pop artist, if he or she's having a bad day, they're going to sing the song exactly the same way.

Speaker 6 It's going to come off, you know, pretty close to what you're going to get. But you could hear somebody just be in a different mood and the same, the same blues.

Speaker 6 tune comes off a little slower with a little more cadence or a little more depth or or vice versa and i i find that that such an intriguing quality of those particular types of music.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. My drummer I used to work with, I do a Wednesday afternoon jazz gig,

Speaker 5 12 to 2.

Speaker 5 And we give people.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 it's a sportsman's, you know, Buffalo, so it's sportsman's.

Speaker 4 Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 I used to work with a drummer who worked with Billie Holiday, and he said exactly that, that she would, it depended on her mood, how the song came out.

Speaker 5 So, one of her songs that I love to sing, Fine and Mellow, it could be upbeat, losy swing, it could be just torture, it could be whatever mood she's in. And she told me that the musicians would,

Speaker 5 they would have to,

Speaker 5 what mood is she in today?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Which way are we doing this song? And you just had to pay attention. But yeah,

Speaker 5 music is such a release.

Speaker 5 And if you want to sing that song real bluesy and more sultry, then you go ahead and do it. Yeah.
You have the freedom.

Speaker 6 I'm very interested in how you transitioned throughout your career through the different genres of music. Because,

Speaker 6 you know, you don't necessarily see a lot of people go pop to country to something else, right? Like you don't, you don't see those moods.

Speaker 6 I mean, people may do different artists, and certainly some artists who've been around a long time have tried different styles. But

Speaker 6 one, I guess, and again, so you know, and I've said this before in the show, I am like not musically inclined. I have this enormous and huge appreciation.

Speaker 6 And I'm sure if I practiced, I could make something come out of an instrument. But at my core, I do not have any like God-given musical talent at all.
So I'm very interested in

Speaker 6 just

Speaker 6 what

Speaker 6 inspiration you had to say, hey, I'd like to try something different. Is it hearing a certain song? Is it just you're in a different place in your life? Is it a seasonal thing?

Speaker 6 Like, how does that, how do you make those transitions or decide or what's your inspiration to make that kind of move?

Speaker 5 That's exactly.

Speaker 5 Well, first of all, let me just say you may have musical talent that you don't know. Because I used to teach pre-K to eighth grade.

Speaker 5 And I used to teach those kids how to sing on pitch because they didn't think they could.

Speaker 5 And many that I thought, ooh, possibly, I don't know if they're singing, you know, if I'm gonna do be successful here, but

Speaker 5 95% of them I was able to. So, never saying that you don't know me,

Speaker 5 but as far as different genres, um,

Speaker 5 I guess it just depends on what's going on in your life, the maturity,

Speaker 5 the you know, where you are.

Speaker 5 Um, pop was fun to me, it was dance music, and I love to dance. Um, so I loved the glorious Stefan stuff.
And, you know, my name was Sound Machine. Her band was just so rhythmetic.
And

Speaker 5 the beginning days,

Speaker 5 like I said, started with Barbara Streisand. So for me, it's about the song.
It's about the vocal because I'm always, that's the first thing I listen to.

Speaker 5 I listen to the production of the whole song, but the vocal is what grabs me. And a song is a song, whether it's in the country vein or it's in the jazz vein.

Speaker 5 but if it's a good song I'm loving it so I think that's how I kind of switch from from different genres because I still love country very much a friend of mine we were just listening to George Jones some of the earlier stuff and I didn't even know about some of his earlier stuff and he turned me on to it

Speaker 5 and I opened up for George Jones singing country

Speaker 5 But then again, like I did the pop stuff and

Speaker 5 and I love doing the dance band and watching the people enjoy that dancing to that music that we were producing so it really just depends what's going on in your life as I matured even more

Speaker 5 I really love the freedom of the jazz and the blues oh the blues yeah just to be able to

Speaker 5 just express yourself and reach someone through your vocal is means everything It's more than the paycheck at the end of the day or how many people were watching you, how much validation you may have gotten or may not.

Speaker 5 It's when someone is so moved from your song, from your vocal,

Speaker 5 you know, especially if it's your original song,

Speaker 4 the best.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so that's why I think I just

Speaker 5 love all genres, but right now I'm very comfortable and happy to

Speaker 5 book as many jazz shows as I can because that's my time now. Like the name of my CD, it's my time.

Speaker 6 Yeah, what? How do you write a song?

Speaker 4 Like,

Speaker 6 oh that's crazy yeah i mean i just i've never written a song um

Speaker 6 like where does the inspir is it do you is it is it like the jerry seinfeld method where you sit down every day and you're putting notes down and or is it you you're getting inspiration and things are coming to you or are you constantly collecting ideas like how does that work for you yeah for me um it's definitely inspired by

Speaker 5 uh a few things. One of them is just what's going on in your life.

Speaker 5 And all of a sudden, I'll just start speaking something, or I'll start saying something, or I'll hear a melody, and I'll just write it down.

Speaker 5 Or because we have iPhones now, I'll get the voice memo and I'll record an occupational.

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Speaker 5 Pollo version of Acapala without instrumentation. And I'll record that.
And

Speaker 5 so I can get inspired by that. I can get inspired by my one song, Me After You, it's called, was inspired by a very sad love story, Me Before You.

Speaker 5 Everybody's Got a Story, a song I wrote after I lost my brother.

Speaker 5 I was inspired because I was like, Everybody's got a story. Everyone's walking around with something, and you have no idea what they're walking around with.
So you always have to be kind.

Speaker 5 And the bridge is talking about just listen just observe just watch what they're going through because

Speaker 5 when they're snapping at you it's not what you did most of the time it's about what they're going through yeah and you don't know if they just if their husband just upped and left two days ago or they just buried a very special person in their life or they just lost a job or

Speaker 5 there is abuse like you don't know what's going on in people's lives so that's where that sound came from. And just so many of them.
Stay here is another song I wrote,

Speaker 5 Missing Someone Who Left Me.

Speaker 5 So, you know, that's how they get inspired a lot. And sometimes they're written in like two, three minutes, they're done.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 5 everything comes flowing. And sometimes it's like you put it down, you go back to it.
And there's a song called Torn that I wrote.

Speaker 5 I was torn between, do I

Speaker 5 keep trying to pursue this thing? At the time, I was doing a lot of stuff in Nashville. Do I keep trying to pursue this or do I have children? Because I knew my spouse at the time was

Speaker 5 not going to like the lifestyle of music and children, which that happens in a lot of relationships, unfortunately. So I was torn, which way do I go?

Speaker 5 And I ended up going towards having two children, which I don't regret a second of that.

Speaker 5 But again, that song started and it didn't get finished until, I don't know, it didn't get recorded until years later.

Speaker 5 So there's a lot of notes, too.

Speaker 5 Go into my piano bench, you'll see tons and tons of handwriting that we don't do anymore. And you'll see,

Speaker 5 you know, like so many lyrics that I've written throughout the years I may have not, may not have put melodies to yet.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 6 how do you put the melody? Like, I guess what I've never been able to wrap my head around is, does the melody come first? Do the lyrics come first?

Speaker 6 Like, how do you start to match those two? You know, you hear in RB a lot,

Speaker 6 there are producers who all they do is produce beats and drops and riffs and, you know, these different things. And then they find an artist who can put lyrics over the top.

Speaker 4 You know,

Speaker 6 how do you piece all that together?

Speaker 6 Like, what, are you in your mind while you're singing the song or you're you're doing it a cappella, do you also have like a background track going in your head of kind of maybe where some beats are or something like that?

Speaker 5 In my situation, I don't do the beat so much.

Speaker 5 I didn't grow up with that, and I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 I sang my stuff, a lot of it I sang a cappella, or I would accompany myself on piano with some basic chords that I can do.

Speaker 5 And either it goes both ways. Sometimes I can hear the melody, and I'll just start humming it, and then I'll say, oh, I should try to put some lyrics to that.
And sometimes nothing happens.

Speaker 5 Or more often, I'd say,

Speaker 5 I write the lyrics first, and then I try to put a melody to it.

Speaker 5 But in

Speaker 5 also, what happens in my situation, or what has happened for me, is my producer who produced my last three albums,

Speaker 5 I would send him the acapala version of me singing, and then he would surprise me with arrangement around it.

Speaker 5 So he'd accompany it with chords, and sometimes I'd be like, I did not hear that the way you're hearing it. And it's all subjective.
And

Speaker 5 99.9%

Speaker 5 of the time, I loved what he was putting around it.

Speaker 5 And I, even if I didn't hear what he was hearing. So he would start putting the chords around it and some much prettier chords than I was playing.

Speaker 5 And then he might try a different rhythm that

Speaker 5 I didn't maybe hear myself. So it's in my situation, it's been a combination of the producer and myself putting it together.
So that's why I say we co-write the songs.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Your latest album, It's My Time, which you referenced before, is dedicated to your late son.

Speaker 6 One, maybe just as much as you can talk about how that you were able to bring anything creative out of such a horrifying experience and you know just talk a little bit about how that experience shapes your creation process yeah um

Speaker 5 the

Speaker 5 beginning i didn't want to listen to music i didn't want to i didn't want to sing a note i actually couldn't hum for the longest time because i'm always humming

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 5 That takes a long time. And then my producer

Speaker 5 started like, hey, let's do do this, let's do that. And then he'd look at me, you're not ready.
Now I got, yeah, I am, yeah, you know, I'd get defensive, yeah, I am, but I wasn't.

Speaker 5 Then I'd say, probably it was a year later,

Speaker 5 I really wanted to do a fundraiser for him. I wanted his,

Speaker 5 which I've completed, which I'll tell you about it, but I couldn't just let it end there. He was 23.
He was a very smart,

Speaker 5 d-ribbon,

Speaker 5 funny,

Speaker 5 kind of spontaneous, talented in his sports. He thought he can sing, but

Speaker 5 kind of.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 I couldn't let Williams' life end right there at 23 years old. So

Speaker 5 when my producer said, let's put a show together. And we'll raise money for the fundraiser, for the scholarship.
And I said, okay.

Speaker 5 So he puts the flyer together and it says all proceeds go into Williams scholarship. And I was like, I don't have a scholarship.
So wait a minute. We can't put this flyer out.

Speaker 5 He's like, no, you better find a scholarship.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 5 friends really and family really helped me through a lot of this time. So I went to Kinesius High School where my son played baseball.

Speaker 5 He was the catcher on the varsity team.

Speaker 5 I think he joined JB in his freshman year, at a sophomore year. He was already in the varsity team.

Speaker 5 He was a fantastic catcher, which, you know, playing baseball, that's like the guy that's got to watch everything.

Speaker 4 And you got to play with the best.

Speaker 6 Captain of the defense.

Speaker 4 Yep. Pardon?

Speaker 6 Captain of the defense.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 5 And he, you know, I didn't realize how much he has to think about. So

Speaker 5 he went to that school. He graduated seventh in his class.

Speaker 5 A great scholarship to go there. And so during his junior year, he went to, he really wanted to do something.
He always wanted to find purpose in life, which I'm the same way.

Speaker 5 Like, I always feel like, why are we here?

Speaker 5 And he did that

Speaker 5 trip to Nicaragua. It's a mission trip.
And he went for 10 days and he helped them build their church.

Speaker 5 And he stayed in the little house, whatever you call their little houses was like a little hut with the bathroom in the back and

Speaker 5 maybe some dirt floors and their you know this that's their lifestyle they didn't have a lot he watched them

Speaker 5 it was life-changing for him he watched how happy they were and they had nothing where you come back here we have everything

Speaker 5 We have way too much and then we're not happy. We're trying to figure out, well, how do I get happy? And they're just happy with the authentic, simple life.
There's so much love.

Speaker 5 The families are together. So he just saw so much.
It was life-changing for him. So

Speaker 5 that came to my mind. So I went to Canesius and Andy Diall.
I said, listen, you know, I'm... I'm, you know, a morning mother and I need to do something for my son.
He helped me set it up.

Speaker 5 So it's been going for, well, I started it, it's been three years since i lost my son so it's

Speaker 5 um i started it two years ago and within he needed to raise fifty thousand dollars to get it endowed so within a year i raised it and i was just driven

Speaker 5 and um i

Speaker 5 set two boys on the trip so far my first boy james We just did an interview with him, our local news station, and it was fantastic.

Speaker 5 Pete Gallivan from Channel 2, he's like, I maybe you know him from being from Buffalo. He's on the morning show.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 he interviewed James, myself, Andy,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 5 James has said, I'm so grateful. It's been life-changing.
I want to start a non-profit organization now. I want to help other people.
I have a purpose.

Speaker 5 I know there's something in life that I'm supposed to do, and I'm finding this purpose, and going on this trip, help me. So Williams Scholarship will continue to help each individual every year.

Speaker 5 It's an all-boys school, so, and their junior year is when they do their mission trips. And that's what kept me singing.
So, that was the answer to your question.

Speaker 5 Obviously, I'm supposed to do this,

Speaker 5 and I'm supposed to keep this story alive to help others because I know there are many other people hurting just as bad or definitely worse.

Speaker 5 So, if I can help these young men get a change in their life, I'm happy.

Speaker 5 And I'm doing my purpose. Yeah.
And I'm doing it, you know, through singing, through interviews,

Speaker 5 because I share my story with others on stage and

Speaker 5 everyone wants to help and they want to donate and they, you know, so it's all good.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 As much as we give people people, the proverbial people, a hard time, and I think we're all caught up in our own stuff. At our core, I think most of us just want to help other people.

Speaker 6 I mean, when the rubber really meets the road, so many people come out.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you notice anytime there's tragedies, it's so many people are running to help

Speaker 5 in this country, other countries. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And I know I feel the best when I'm helping someone else. I've always felt that way.

Speaker 5 And if I can help them through the scholarship, if I can help them through showing that no matter what tragedies come on, you know,

Speaker 5 and going spiritual now,

Speaker 5 God has a plan.

Speaker 5 I didn't agree with his plan on this one. I still don't understand the plan.

Speaker 5 And I'm just going to have to have my faith and believe that this plan, everything's happening the way it's supposed to happen.

Speaker 5 And I will see him again when it's my time. Meanwhile, I'm singing and I'm taking care of my daughter, who I have beautiful daughter.
She's 23 and or 24. She just turned.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 5 I'm going to still sell my purpose and keep living because that's what I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I think you have to believe, and, you know, I've lost people in my own life. And I think also God-fearing,

Speaker 6 I think you have to believe that

Speaker 6 God needed him for something.

Speaker 6 You know, that's what my dad used to tell me, you know, when we would lose lose family members and I would ask questions. He would say, hey, he needed him for something.

Speaker 6 Some unique skill that that individual had,

Speaker 6 you know, for whatever reason. And it's terrible, but I think

Speaker 6 how else do you explain it?

Speaker 4 You know?

Speaker 5 Yeah, you can't really.

Speaker 5 You just,

Speaker 5 you got to have faith. I don't know how I would do this without my faith.
I know that much.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I would be very lost.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I really cannot wrap my head around this idea of there's a new atheism is something that you hear a lot.

Speaker 6 I've listened to the people. They're very intelligent.
I'm very interested in what they have to say.

Speaker 6 I still, despite all the arguments that I've heard, cannot wrap my head around the idea.

Speaker 6 of believing that there isn't something bigger than there's too many experiences, too many feelings, too many moments in my own life, let alone all the books I've read and, you know, all the people you talk to to believe that there isn't something bigger going on that we just can't see.

Speaker 6 And I don't know how you live, I don't know how you live.

Speaker 6 What becomes morality alone cannot be your compass, in my opinion. There has to be more than that.
And I also don't think that without

Speaker 6 a mooring to God,

Speaker 6 it's too easy to excuse away moments where morality doesn't fit. And that's the part that I struggle with, with that concept.
And I feel like that concept falls apart.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it kind of scares me where they're at and all that atheist and stuff.

Speaker 5 There's no hope.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 5 why would you?

Speaker 5 worry about doing anything wrong if you're not going to be punished for it or if you're not

Speaker 4 uh

Speaker 5 if yeah you don't have any morals because why there's nothing after here so just do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it and that's scary thought

Speaker 5 yeah life has changed a lot since i've been since i came on this earth and um i pray

Speaker 5 that we all find a way

Speaker 5 And there's no set, like, I'm not like, you have to be this kind of religion or that kind of religion. Same.
because religion is

Speaker 5 really

Speaker 5 human beings trying to come together and put,

Speaker 5 you know, a community together, which a lot of us need that community to get, you know, to share with each other.

Speaker 5 But still, at the end of the day, your spiritual needs and fulfillment come in

Speaker 5 through here, through your through your soul.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And without, in my opinion, without religion,

Speaker 6 I feel like too much of our lives,

Speaker 6 we're taught. First, we're never actually taught, but we're then rewarded as we grow older.

Speaker 6 Everything, all our rewards are externalities. It's all about external.
When you grow up in a church, and that church can take many different forms,

Speaker 10 you.

Speaker 6 You you start to learn about the importance of taking care of yourself and about what it it means to actually love yourself, be comfortable with yourself, find meaning that's unique and specific to you as an individual.

Speaker 6 And instead of constantly searching for some form of justification or external validation for the things that you do, and that feels to me like the big disconnect between much of what we're seeing in our society today that to me is bananas and

Speaker 6 the individuals that I know grew up with faith. faith it's it's it's a it's it's almost like they just see two completely different realities absolutely their perspective is so different than

Speaker 5 not having something to believe in I was listening to one of your podcasts I don't remember his name but he was talking about

Speaker 5 how we're so busy and we don't

Speaker 5 we want noise around us because we don't want it we don't want the quiet because if we have the quiet then we have to face what's going on in our head.

Speaker 5 And if we face what's going on in our mind, then there's that inner child that needs to resolve things. And if we don't resolve those things,

Speaker 5 we're going to continue to use that behavior with the next relationship, with the next friend, with the job, with anything we do, because we're still trying to resolve something that happened when we were three.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 5 there's so much noise now

Speaker 5 that

Speaker 5 nobody likes to listen and sit and quiet.

Speaker 5 And I'm not saying you got to be quiet as far as meditation and cross your legs and raise your hands, you know, and hum

Speaker 5 quiet, even if you're in the streets in East New York City and

Speaker 5 there's noise all around. You got to get the quiet in your own core.
And I think that a lot of people are afraid to do that.

Speaker 5 And I think many people go through life never doing it, never finding that authentic self, never loving that self, because there's always rush to the next thing, the next movement, the next sound.

Speaker 5 And I liked that podcast, and I didn't finish listening to it. I still have to listen to it.

Speaker 6 I think that was Mike Robbins. I think that was Mike Robbins who said that.

Speaker 6 So it's funny. I'm reading.
I've just, I shouldn't say I'm reading. I just finished

Speaker 6 Eckertolli's The Power of Now.

Speaker 4 Oh, I've read another book.

Speaker 5 I never read. I have it, but I didn't read it.

Speaker 6 It's a good one. You can, my opinion is you read the first hundred-ish pages and you kind of can blow through the next hundred.

Speaker 6 But the concept is fairly simple, but incredibly powerful in my opinion.

Speaker 6 And it's just his one of his core ideas and maybe one of the primary ideas is this idea that all the time we spend in the past and all the time we spend in the future is wasted.

Speaker 6 That right now, in this moment with you, I could be thinking about the four things I need to get done tonight. I'm going to go with my girlfriend to dinner and I got this thing over here.

Speaker 6 And I could be thinking about how there was a question I wanted to ask on the last podcast and I never got to it and I was upset with myself. I could be thinking about all these things.

Speaker 4 Or

Speaker 6 I could be 100% in this moment with you, listening to you, responding to you, connecting with you, and developing in the short time that we have together, a connection that allows you to feel heard, to share your story, and for the audience to understand that there's a real conversation happening and that it's not just a business transaction where you come on and speak and I speak and we wait for our turns, right?

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 how I decided to try to practice that, because

Speaker 6 I will say that I'm not the best at this particular thing.

Speaker 6 I do these ruck walks. You ever see people with the ruck vests? They wear weighted plates in the vest.

Speaker 6 Okay, so I wear a ruck vest. It's a 40 pound, 20 in the front, 20 in the back.
And

Speaker 6 I love it. It's a, it's, it's a fantastic exercise.
I highly recommend it for anyone. It strengthens all the small muscles that you,

Speaker 6 that you kind of bypass when you walk without weight. So I, it's an exercise, I love it.
But what I used to do is I put a podcast on. So now I'm listening to someone else.

Speaker 6 Someone else's ideas are in my brain. I'm not really in myself.
I'm kind of listening to them while I go for this walk and I'm walking through and I live in kind of a wooded area.

Speaker 6 So it's kind of beautiful kind of place that I live in. And one day I just took the AirPods out and I left them at home and I went for the walk without my phone and without my AirPods.

Speaker 6 And I went, I go for about 45 minutes and I came back and I had,

Speaker 6 it was a completely different sensation. I don't want to say.

Speaker 6 I don't want to say better or worse necessarily because I do enjoy also listening to podcasts when I go on my walks, but I said, I'm going to start working this in once or twice because

Speaker 6 the stuff that starts to pop in your brain is kind of crazy. Like when you give yourself space, like without music and without someone on their voice,

Speaker 6 these thoughts and ideas and whatever start popping in your brain. I was like, ooh, I wouldn't have expected to think about that right now.

Speaker 6 Or I didn't know that that was in the back of my mind somewhere. And it was just a...

Speaker 6 It was just a really interesting experience in trying to be present for a 45-minute walk.

Speaker 5 That's funny saying that because around my block, I have a wooded area

Speaker 5 and they built a path there and it's probably, oh, it's probably a couple of miles.

Speaker 5 And I used to go with the pod, you know, podcast or music constantly.

Speaker 5 And then one day I took them off. Same story.
And I said, and not that it's worse or better, right, like you said, but it made me stay in the moment.

Speaker 5 It made me look for the deer and check out the cardinals that were flying by and the rabbits that were jumping over and, you know, the butterflies.

Speaker 5 And then listening to

Speaker 5 the woodpecker, you know, and I'm like, this is so much

Speaker 5 where I want to be when I'm in the woods like that. I just want to listen to the, I want to listen to what's going on right now.

Speaker 6 I'll share another quick experience with you that's similar.

Speaker 6 I live,

Speaker 6 now I live in Albany, and

Speaker 6 Lake George is about an hour and a half north. Lake George is this gorgeous.
Gorgeous.

Speaker 5 They've been there.

Speaker 4 Beautiful.

Speaker 6 A hundred years ago, it was like the spot for New York City elites to come up and they'd camp and do all this kind of stuff. So it's like got this kind of old world, but beautiful.

Speaker 6 It's a really cool place. And

Speaker 6 we rented a

Speaker 6 cabin as like a week vacation, even though it was close, you know, whatever. And a bunch of my uh she's not my ex-wife, but a bunch of her family member came in.
It was a great experience.

Speaker 6 And there was a moment where

Speaker 6 at night, uh, when you when you look up there, you see 10 bazillion stars because you're far enough away from any light pollution. And people, other people in the country, live in these areas too.

Speaker 6 But for me in Albany, I can only see a few stars. Like, there's not, it's not this starry sky.

Speaker 6 And you look up and you're like, oh my God, look, like, it's insane on a, on a cloudless night what what you can see and i had this moment where i thought to myself like

Speaker 6 imagine you know a hundred years ago 200 years ago 300 years ago

Speaker 6 you didn't have airpods you could bring with you radio didn't exist well i got 100 years ago you guys 300 years ago radio doesn't exist right

Speaker 4 you are at all moments

Speaker 6 You have to be completely present because there's danger, right?

Speaker 6 All over the place, everything from animals to other people.

Speaker 6 You have this vast world of sounds and noises. You have very little control over your light, your lighting situation, right? Maybe you have a campfire or whatever.

Speaker 6 You have all these inputs from everything from stars to landscape to all this kind of stuff. None of it has been really cultivated to a certain extent, unless you're in one of the few urban areas.

Speaker 6 And like

Speaker 6 how much different

Speaker 6 their brains had to operate and how much more present they they were forced to be in every moment than we are today. You can live your entire life today

Speaker 6 checked out from the present moment. And I think a lot of people do.

Speaker 5 I was going to say, I think a lot of people do.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 It was just, it was like, I don't know.

Speaker 6 I mean, I don't know why that came to my head, but just through our conversation, I was like, I just, I had this moment where I was like, oh my God, like these people had to be just everything that's going on from make, you know, the campfire dies, the wolves come in, right?

Speaker 6 Like, so you're waking up in the middle of the night to throw wood on the fire. I mean, mean, there's just, they had to be present in every moment of every day.
And you think of the

Speaker 6 determination and the

Speaker 6 creativity and all the things that they had to do to survive. And then you contrast that to today.

Speaker 6 And there is a large portion of our population that lives checked out every moment of every day for almost their entire lives. And it makes me very sad to a certain extent that that's the case.

Speaker 5 Well, because I think, again, because

Speaker 5 you know, you become a parent, and most people become a parent. There's no book on how to become a parent.
I mean, there's a book on how to nine months pregnant

Speaker 6 books.

Speaker 5 I read that

Speaker 4 none of them tell you the truth.

Speaker 5 Every kid's different, every parent is different, and that parent's bringing their experience in to this new child.

Speaker 5 And whatever they teach this new child, good or bad, that child is going to grow up and

Speaker 5 relive it.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 5 it just recycles.

Speaker 5 And I think, yeah, because there's so much more around us, social media, crazy, crazy. I did not grow up with it at all.

Speaker 5 They don't know how to go out

Speaker 5 in the backyard and figure out how to play a game. So I just think because of the combination of all the stuff that we have around us, yes, we just shut down.

Speaker 5 And, you know, we were just talking about this last night, some friends, DoorDash.

Speaker 5 Like

Speaker 5 the city of Buffalo is full of traffic with DoorDash. My daughter does DoorDash.
I'm like, why don't you just go get the groceries and cook the food? Because DoorDash can do it in a second.

Speaker 5 So like everything is instinct gratification.

Speaker 5 And you can, you know, you don't have to pay attention to the now versus like you just said. You got to keep the fire lit.
You got to watch for the dangerous animals. You got to get the food.

Speaker 5 You're not going to a grocery store back then.

Speaker 5 You can't call DoorDash.

Speaker 5 So yeah,

Speaker 5 you want to feed your family. They lived in the present.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 We

Speaker 4 opposite.

Speaker 6 Last anecdote on this topic. And then I have one more question that I want to ask you.
This has been tremendous.

Speaker 6 I'm reading this book now. I'm kind of a big reader.

Speaker 6 It's called First Principles, and it outlines the first four presidents of the U.S.

Speaker 6 and not not necessarily, it doesn't tell, doesn't talk necessarily about them specifically, although it does. It's more about

Speaker 6 what was influencing them to become the people they were. So it's a really good book.
I highly recommend it. I think the author's last name is Ricks.

Speaker 6 I forget his first name, but it's First Principles, the name of the book. But in there, to your point, they have this anecdote where one of the early

Speaker 6 performance reports for George Washington when he was still

Speaker 6 fighting with the British before the Revolutionary War was that he had the capacity to

Speaker 6 continue with adequate performance during long periods of hunger.

Speaker 6 Oh, so like you think about that, like these guys are traveling, you know, to deliver a message to the French in some outpost and they got to travel for a month to get there.

Speaker 6 And one of the like, I mean, imagine today, like the, you get your performance evaluation from your boss and one of them is, can perform adequately over long periods of hunger.

Speaker 6 Like, they wouldn't eat for days. And some people could handle it.
Some people couldn't.

Speaker 6 And I just found that like astounding that like part of his performance evaluation was his ability to continue doing his job despite probably days of hunger at that point. Yeah.

Speaker 6 And I just think, you know, we're so disconnected from that.

Speaker 5 Yeah, totally disconnected. We wouldn't, I don't think we'd survive.

Speaker 4 No. So, okay.

Speaker 6 So this has been absolutely phenomenal. And I appreciate you.
I have one final question. and really, this is maybe will end on more of an uplifting note to a certain extent.

Speaker 6 You know, so many aspiring musicians out there, you've had multiple decades-long careers spanning multiple different genres.

Speaker 6 I've been in Nashville, you've done all these gigs, you've done all these things, created your own album

Speaker 6 multiple times, and now the most recent one, it's my time.

Speaker 6 If I'm an inspiring musician and I'm struggling with the automated beats and the this, and I'm worried about AI music and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 If I was your mentee, like, what would be your advice to me in finding my unique style, my unique voice, the thing that's gonna like pull the best out of me?

Speaker 6 How do I work towards that?

Speaker 5 You know, I always thought that was kind of simple to answer, but it's really about knowing yourself.

Speaker 5 It's about loving yourself like we talked about in the beginning. It's about knowing who you are, staying grounded with who you are, and

Speaker 5 where your passion is.

Speaker 5 So if you're trying to imitate someone else

Speaker 5 because you don't know who you are, the music's going to come out that way. If you're trying to impress someone because that's what they want to hear, my best music, and I'm still working on it, and

Speaker 5 I will work on it to the day I die, is always something that just comes from my heart.

Speaker 5 Whatever's coming from my heart,

Speaker 5 people are feeling it.

Speaker 5 And if you can't find that authentic self in your own mind and in your desires and your talent, it's not going to come out that way.

Speaker 5 So that's the bottom line: they just have to figure out who they are, what they want,

Speaker 5 and strive for that no matter how many distractions are coming in the way, because they will be. And rejections.

Speaker 5 And the music is so full of, it's subjective, it's so full of rejections.

Speaker 5 And if you're not counting on the validations from these people, and if you're just giving up yourself, you just keep doing it. And you just keep doing it until the day that you can't do it.

Speaker 5 And I feel like the day you can't do it is when you're not breathing.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, I'm, yes, I've been around for a while and I'm not stopping because

Speaker 5 I don't know. I just, I feel like I'm growing

Speaker 5 all the time. I'm learning more and more.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I say this to, so I, I told you,

Speaker 6 you heard the thing. I coach my kids, 10-year-old baseball, eight-year-old baseball.
And

Speaker 6 I tell them all the time, and this is just slightly, but like.

Speaker 6 So many, so many of the people that we admire are imperfect, yet we feel feel early on, especially early on, and I've put sports as a creative endeavor as much as anything else.

Speaker 6 We look at our imperfections and we're like, oh, if only, if only. And it's like, so many of the best in anything, sports, music, art,

Speaker 6 it's the imperfections that we love. And it's like, if you can love those imperfections, that's...
Where the magic is. I don't know.
It just feels...

Speaker 5 You have to love all of yourself because you're not perfect. There's no way you are.

Speaker 5 none of us are. But they appear perfect.

Speaker 5 And before social media came out, you know, you would just see pictures in the magazines and you'd see them on TV and they're in their most perfect pose because the camera's on.

Speaker 5 But you don't see them without their makeup. You don't see them struggling.
You don't see the struggle in their own mind of what they're going through.

Speaker 5 You just see the perfection and you think, well, I'm not like that. No, we're all the same.

Speaker 5 We just need to.

Speaker 5 That's another podcast I'm going to listen to you,

Speaker 5 changing the negative thought. So,

Speaker 5 and the gentleman that I listened to earlier that I told you about, he said that when the thoughts are coming in the mind, you know, you have to learn how to control it. And so, we have to,

Speaker 5 when those negative thoughts come in,

Speaker 5 and it's going to happen a lot in music because you're putting yourself out there. You're letting someone listen to you.
And they're going to give you their opinion.

Speaker 4 And it could hurt.

Speaker 5 But you have to know that you are being who you are and they don't like it. That's fine.
So you just have to learn how to, when those thoughts come in your head, same thing. Thoughts come in.

Speaker 4 Okay,

Speaker 5 I'm not really crazy about that thought. Well, why don't we try to change that thought? Why don't we instead of, I heard this one before, because I have a lot of...

Speaker 5 I have a lot of land in the back, so I have a lot of weeds in the gardens. And I used to look at it as, oh my god, I gotta go get all those weeds out of the garden, it's just so much work.

Speaker 5 And now I'm like, wait a minute, I have a lot of land, I'm blessed with land, and once I pull those weeds out, my garden is going to look so much more beautiful.

Speaker 5 Like, it's just a way of you change your thought,

Speaker 5 and that's not easy, especially if you're raised with

Speaker 5 the negativity, then you got to learn how to change those thoughts because you can't stop the thoughts and I did it with my own son like it constantly I would I would get the thoughts of you know what I saw what happened

Speaker 5 and and finally I had to start working on that too I had to say okay

Speaker 5 he's not there anymore you're here on this earth reliving that thought he's not he's not at that place he's not doing that He's in a beautiful place where you're going. So let's change our thought.

Speaker 5 That was the hardest one for me.

Speaker 6 Deanne DeMayo, this has been phenomenal. I'm so happy that we had a chance to spend time together.
Where can people learn more about you and get the new album?

Speaker 5 Okay, so first of all, thank you. I was really looking forward to this interview, especially after I listened to your podcast.
I need to let others know about,

Speaker 5 I love what you do. I buy a lot of the books that what you talk about.

Speaker 4 Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 5 I can't remember the title of it. My son actually bought from me before.

Speaker 5 I can see the red cover. The four-letter word is on there.

Speaker 4 Oh, the subtle art of not giving a fuck.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 That's a great book. They gave me that book.
And

Speaker 5 I definitely read a lot, but I also put it on audio book. So I listened to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 But, yeah.

Speaker 5 I thank you for having me, and it's such an honor. And

Speaker 5 my website gives most of it. So my website is dianmusic.com, which is d-e-e-a-n-nmusic.com.

Speaker 5 Awesome. And it gives all the social links, it gives my bio and lots of videos, and it'll bring you to my YouTube link.
So, I kind of have it all in that one package. I'm on

Speaker 5 Spotify and

Speaker 5 Apple Music, and Amazon, and Pandora, and all those different platforms out there. And those are under DN.
It's my time.

Speaker 4 So, if we just

Speaker 5 google that, you can get that too.

Speaker 6 Tremendous. Well, guys, we'll have links in the show notes.
Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening, wherever you listen to podcasts, I'll have links to Dean's website.

Speaker 6 And I hope you guys will follow along in her journey because the music is great. You're wonderful, and I appreciate the hell out of you.

Speaker 5 Oh, I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 6 Let's go.

Speaker 7 Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Speaker 8 Thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show.

Speaker 8 Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 7 Here's a quick podcast for all you true crime fans: the case of the missing Reese's.

Speaker 13 It was me at the store with my mouth.

Speaker 7 Motive?

Speaker 13 Um, they're Reese's. What was I going to do?

Speaker 8 Stop myself?

Speaker 13 Tune in next time to see if I do it again. Spoiler, I will.

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