Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hey, guys. Welcome once again to the radical podcast. And this time I'm a bit nervous. Don't know why. I'm never normally nervous on. On podcasts. But yeah, we're doing something different. I've got the.
The taskmaster with me today, the manager and the wife. So we're going to do something different. We're going to talk about our music and our experiences with hair being a manager and her experiences with booking gigs and the whole lot. So first of all, I'll let her introduce herself. Ruby, introduce yourself.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I'm glad you said that you're nervous because I definitely am. And you're just like earlier, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done this. I'll be, you know, think it's because.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I've been running up and down the stairs. I might not be actually nervous. I might just be just, you know, when your heart rate needs to settle down a bit. That's probably why. So, yeah, carry introduce yourself to. Because people who don't know you and people who do know you.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Okay, so I am Raj's manager. I am his wife.
But I suppose today I'm talking the capacity of your manager and the taskmaster. Yes, that's pretty much what I do in both roles actually, as manager and wife. Pretty much. Yep. Taskmaster.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: That's why my beards sort of semi, semi kept and semi done because Ruby's forgot the whip out and stuff like. Yeah, otherwise I'll just be just.
But anyway, sorry.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: I suppose I'd have you in the kurta pajama because it's a bit more, you know, in line with your music like I've always told you, actually, where I got our pajamas.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: What we're working towards. We've been readjusting our studio setup and we've got a new setup coming up and we're only doing stuff in my Mayorfield area. So going forward we can try and do the podcasts in the Mayorfield area. But anyway, Ruby, what we're gonna do. Feel feels weird even telling anywhere, Ruby, as I'm interviewing you. So anyway, guys, I'm gonna. One little disclaimer. Our kids are asleep. Normally Ruby is the one who looks after the kids while I do the podcast. They're asleep at the moment, so we might have to pause it or might have to break this podcast. Do it in two parts if the kids start crying. Ruby's got this monitor there somewhere where she can hear.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yep, there it is.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Yes, she's got baby monitor.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: And we're not sponsored by this Tommy Tippy we're not sponsored or anything like that. So it's a very good product. But anyway.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And anyways. Oh yeah, that's us. So we're going to do something totally different today.
So Rubes, I wanted, I wanted. So I want to delve into sort of when you started. When did we have the idea of you managing me?
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. Wow.
Right. Okay.
It was 219.
Right before lockdown, you said that's when, that's when you said you really wanted to have a go at making it music.
I mean when I met you as your girlfriend, I straight away thought, yep, you're into music, you're a musician. And that was that. And I was always your girlfriend until and then became your wife in 2014.
And then you'd have the band at our house on a weekly or you'd go somewhere. You know, you always did your music. 219. You said you really want to have a good go at going somewhere with it, like making it your full time job, really.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: And then I said that was just before lockdown, wasn't it?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Right before lockdown. And, and, and I mean, why. I remember that. I, I do actually remember the conversation word for word. I'm not going to do it right now. But I remember it because it's. You don't. You're not someone who ever asked for much. You know, you're very like with everything. Oh yeah, yeah. All right. It'll be nice to have that. It'll be nice to do that. But this is the first time you actually were like, I've, I really want to do this. And if I don't, it, you know, I, it would, it would really bother me. You know, that's what you said to me.
And I think from that then at that point I think we both made a point to just work towards it. And then, gosh, I think I became your manager just in the last two years, like since I started booking you gigs, since I started getting in the Miller.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: That's when I. Yeah, I think that's when I, I think that when we first started off, there's a. We're going to talk about our domestics now.
So when first started off, I think it was quite difficult because we're husband and wife to actually define our roles. Did you find that?
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Oh yeah. I think I was like, now this can sound random. You know, like when you've got a younger sibling and you know all your, and you, and you got your mates come around and play and that younger sibling keeps coming and Interfering, saying, I want to. I want to do this. I think I was like the. Obviously, I'm not your sibling, but I would get involved and I'd want. I'd get excited about the whole. Oh my gosh, there's a band here. Everyone's doing music and it was fun. And the thing is about you and the rest of the band, you. You're nice enough to include everybody in the room. Doesn't matter what they can do, right? Doesn't matter what level they're at. And that's what's. That's what's very accommodating about you lot. You, Nelson, Sunil, everyone. You know, Boo Boo as well. Remember when he used to come around and you lot just jam and.
Yeah, it's like I felt a part of it. I always felt a part.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: I think the difficulty I had. Sorry, I'm interrupting now.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: No, no, difficulty I had.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Sometimes I had to say no to you in certain ways that I don't think this is right. That was very difficult because we had a personal relationship and also a professional relationship at that time. Yeah, that was difficult because it could mean that you might feel that I'm not involving you or you might feel that, you know, and it wasn't personal from my thing professional, but it. It almost becomes personal unless we. Unless we sort of find where we got to today where we've got our defined roles and we'll talk about that later. Don't you think it almost became personal even though you don't intend it to?
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Well, it was because imagine like our finances are joint. Right. And music costs a lot. Right. So it's like. It's like when I was doing my unicourse in architecture that, you know, both of. Both of our finances went towards that, you know, and we both got behind it and that's how I got my architecture degree done.
It's not just finances. I mean, even though I think.
Yeah, when, like, like there was a time I just left you to doing music and about. Okay, yeah, you know, I'll come and listen and watch you in the band and have a laugh with you lot and then go off and let you guys carry on. But I think it's. Well, you used to ask me what did I think right. Or I used to come and remember, like in Luke's studio, you know, I was there as I was holding the camera, I was doing something. And then I think it's because you used to ask me what did I think as well, you know, and. And I tell you what I think. Thought. And then yeah, with time it's like, yeah, like, I suppose as a band leader, like which, which you, which you generally are, you have to do that with everybody, you know, and, and yeah, like not, not the whole personal and band boundary with us is clearly.
I mean, it took us a while.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: To sort that, ironed that out, wasn't it?
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And the worst part was especially after kids post postnatal, I mean, I, I don't think I had postnatal depression or.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Whatever, but it's difficult because you've got lack of sleep, lack of personal time and you're sensitive. Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: And I think that was the toughest time because after kids you just think, oh gosh. Or like, you know, when I had it, when we had Renee and life just changed drastically for me where I would be full time at home with her. The only other person I talked to was you.
You obviously have to do a lot more.
The only other adult, I mean, you know, I can have an adult conversation. And I remember obviously you're doing a lot of things at once. You're doing the day job. Then you're also giving me some relief, like looking after her. Then you're doing 10 other things which are related to her. And I think we. When you become a parent, you can appreciate how not. I'm not going to say time consuming children are they, they do take up your life. But I don't want to make it sound like a negative.
It takes up both parents. I don't know how single parents do it, but it was like, I remember, Sorry if I'm digressing, going on a tangent, but it's like I remember getting upset with you when you couldn't make time to talk to me because, oh, I was very sensitive as well, you know, and you weren't doing it on purpose, but it was like the, the background, but the backdrop was, oh, I was getting frustrated, you're not making time to talk to me, blah, blah, blah. Then on top of that. No, Then on top of that, now if I recommended something in music or like something like that and you just kind of heard it, but then it, you know, did your thing of do.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: I listen sort of thing.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Then obviously I'd take that personally thinking, oh, well, you don't listen to me anyway, you know, that's what would happen.
So yeah, it was quite an adventure. But what I would say is I think every couple should do something like that because I think, you know, like we've always had something on the side. It was either it was me doing like the second degree or you doing music and stuff, but it was just nice to focus on something else.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: I'm not saying it's not like if you just have the kids that's fine and you enjoy that. But I think for us it really worked and it, and, and it has been fun along the way. It's had its challenges. But if it didn't have the challenges it wouldn't be enjoyable. I don't think all the winds that we experience wouldn't be enjoyable.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Hi guys, this is Raj Kaul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my music, if you could go and check me out on Spotify or Napa Music and add my songs to your playlists if you like them. Thank.
I wanted to tell everyone how, how you actually started off doing this because Ruby's really, really talented. Like she's done Two Degrees.
She, she, she probably not as it doesn't show that, that she's. She's quite talented that but she actually started. She did my first music video which was Zord and she wanted to do an animated one. And I remember before she came up with a cartoony Mario style animation and I didn't feel that because Ruby has this perception of me that I'm cartoony this and that but that's not actually my music or my image a like a do she thinks I'm like a Super Mario character.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: So you'll warrior.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah, well people might. Different thing. Yeah. You are a Super Mario. Right. Especially the uncle characters come out and it's you know the skit we do. So if you haven't seen that go and check it out on my Instagram and tick tock. So yeah, people might think so Ruby came up with this. This reflects you. But I didn't feel it affected me as, as, as a. And so that was her first difference. But then credit to Ruby she went away and. And did the Zord video. Like she, she really made it cool. I gave it. We dressed up and she. What she did. If I remember Ruby, I don't know the word you use for it but she took photos and then animated over the photos and made those photos come, come, come to life. It was.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: That's pretty. Well, we filmed you doing the sequence.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Is it retrograding school? I forgot the wrong word.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: I'll be honest, I don't actually know what the word for it is.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: There's a word for it. Yeah.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Your work colleague actually told you what it is. But yeah, it was frame by frame it was done. And you know what, I'm sure there's a much easier way to do it. And I, I saw that I've got Adobe Suite and I was as, you know, like our daughter. I get frustrated with things if I don't know how to do it, you know, so I'm trying to learn it. It doesn't come naturally to me to learn these new things. So I just thought, okay, forget it. I'm going to use my architecture, you know, autocad, and I'm just going to draw each bit frame by frame. And yeah, your music video came like that. So it was taking videos of you taking some stills, tracing over your image, then moving it, moving the mouse to make it, you know, look like that. It's actually singing it as well. And I, I remember saying, yeah, it took nine months to make that video.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Remember, you were working at the same time. Were you doing a degree at the same time as all?
[00:14:14] Speaker B: No, I graduated. I graduated. I was job hunting and this was. We went into lockdown making your video.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember we were doing the lot, sending Luke the different versions and getting, Trying to get Zord because Zor actually took a long time to do, didn't it? Because that was our first comeback track and we, we produced that ourselves and it was quite. Okay, do I want this? Because I went for a whole. Looking back, I loved Zor. It's probably one of my favorite tracks. And in terms of musically as well, because everything was played in there. Everything was done. Done by me. But I think it, I think it's, it wasn't contemporary enough in terms of what's in right now. So I've had to sort of make. You can ask me questions, Zar. So by the way, I've had to make it sort of more my music a bit more contemporary and a bit more not as out there as, as I would like, like it sort of thing.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: But do you, do you feel that. Would you have it any other way? Would. I mean, Zor was, is your, is your comeback, like after your hiatus from music?
[00:15:23] Speaker A: I actually thought, because that, that showed a fresh approach to music as well. And it was. I think that's still one of my most popular tracks.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: And I mean, that was the one who, I mean, Sync Licensing, it got the attention of the Sync licensing group, you know.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: No, that was actually.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it was the track that, that actually got us pushed into sync.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Oh, okay, okay, fair enough. Well, there you go.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: It was the track that was submitted and they, they, they loved it.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: But I Mean, it's. But it's you though, isn't it, Zor? It's kind of like. Because you've always said like, ba Fargy is your bread and butter, like Bhangra and singing like that, that's what you did like with Ritz and you know, that's how you learned how to sing before. Before you were like doing your classical training and then you always thought you wanted to do music the way you wanted it. And Zor was that track, that was your debut as. I mean that's your debut as a producer, I suppose as well, in production.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: And I think that the mistake I made and then I should have carried on rather than getting different producers. I think it was time. Wasn't.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Was time. And I think it was confidence as well, like.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: And limited.
What did you use now? This is me being a non musician talking to you. But you, you had software but you didn't. I think you just didn't have enough of it. Whereas now you've got a bit more, you've got the.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: In your studio, you've got more samples and stuff. At that time I didn't have all the samples, like the bungalow sample Punjabi samples which I've got now. So there's no excuse. But it. I, I think that's an actual cop out of me saying that, like looking back. Because there's always a way to do it. Yeah, there's always a way. If you haven't got that, how do we make Zord? Because we didn't have the samples and stuff, we didn't have the, the finances to get Stu still made something, didn't we?
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Do you know what? I'm just looking back at thinking, you know, one my biggest regret with that track is I wish we enjoyed it more.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Like, you know, you know what I mean? Like I, I think I was a stress head because, you know, like you, like you said the other day, we work well together because you're the one who thinks of what to do and I'm the one who gets it done. But then, then very recently actually, when we were making Renee's bed, you said that you're the one who takes a while to do something because you want to do it properly. You read up on it, you won't, you won't move to the next step unless you know fully what you're doing.
Whereas me, I'll just do it. But then I'll probably make a real pig's ear of it, you know, so it's good job I Didn't make the bed because obviously things won't be flush, things won't be fitted. It'd probably be wonky and she probably couldn't be. Be able to sleep in it.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Whereas when you do it, you do take time. So the pair of us come together. Now I remember with Zor you thought. You obviously thought of everything. You know, you. Even the video you had say of how it should be, you know, and even the color coordination. I remember the types of dances you wanted, the types of moves. Moves you wanted classical, you know, dancing you didn't want anything provocative. You know, everything you had say over. But to get things done. I remember I just nagged you through that project. Nagged you constantly. Really. At each stage.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: And yeah, I'm the one. I'm this. Yeah. The stress. The stressy one.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: But I remember Fusor as well. Remember you had Reika in there as well. And I don't know whether. If you haven't seen the Zor video, go and check it out. There's a scene from Rekha from Mukadir Kaskandar. So any Amitabh Bhajan fans will know.
Yeah. If you're. I think it's from.
I think so other that Umrajan, one of the two. It's. It's from Ray Cars in there as well.
Yeah. So if you remember. Check it out.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Do you remember the evening when it got played on the radio?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: That's when I think you and me were like, oh no wait, we actually made something and it's gone beyond what we expected.
Because. Because, because we were like. I mean we didn't have any goals or expectations of what. What's going to happen happen of it. What we did have was your whole family or got behind you and the hype, you know?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And we even had a master Sleem give us a show.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Amazing. Like it's a world global artist. Like a must seem shouting at a track.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Do you know what's amazing about Zor? Everyone came together. I remember even from you wrote it. I remember Booboo, he was like really? He was part of that whole gen. Like when every. We went to. I'm just trying to rethink. We recorded that at Luke's studio, didn't we Zor? No, no.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: We recorded a Banti studio.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Yes. And Bubble came with us.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: Right. And I mean this is. I mean what was exciting for me was this is. I didn't expect. I mean the Banci studio is. It's like a real Indian shop selling pots and pans, some. Some other stuff. And you just think. You don't think anything of it. And then he leads you up these weird backstairs and you're like, oh, there's this recording studio here.
And then. Yeah, I mean, to me, that's really foreign. I just thought, okay, you know, like, I've been to many Indian shops. You find butchers at the back, jewelers at the back. He didn't. I never saw a recording studio at the back. Yeah, and then. And then he's like quite a character in himself. And then Bubble was there the whole time, you know, listening to each bit and advising you. And. Yeah, I was like constantly taking photos for social media.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: And then after that, we told everybody, remember, we got everyone counting down for it. My friend Kamak, she even, who's into marketing, we said, look, you know, could you help us out with using your marketing knowledge? Even though it's not musical marketing, could just be part of this. She gave us advice. She also got part of it, I think. Mum. My mum did. Your mum did.
We had everyone counting down. Do you remember that?
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Absolutely. Sometimes, because you get Norm on the. On the Amazon Fire stick, you get memories of your photos only. So Mom's on there with like four days to go, and you're on there three days to go. And so that was a whole thing, which it's gone up insta at the moment. We've taken. We've destroyed our Insta Instagram at the moment, so we've got just 12 posts on there, I think.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: But, yeah, that was down to me saying, let's copy people like Kanye or Taylor Swift because they just wipe their whole Instagram, start a new project.
But then, oh, well, we. Well, it's on Facebook, I think. We didn't wipe Facebook. So there you are.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: I mean, if anyone. But I don't think anyone's interested in those photos, to be fair. Apart from us. Yeah.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Did you just see. Did you see what just happened there right now? I took a sip of water and then nervously, it took a massive sip and it just went all over. And.
Yeah. I mean, this reminds me of like, again, our relationship. Like, you know how I always tell you, oh, you should do this, you should do that.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: And especially with the reels more recently.
And.
And you're like, yeah, but it's. It's. It's not that easy. And I'm like, oh, come on, of course it is, of course it is. But then when it comes to me trying to do it, because I Remember trying to give you a demo or demonstration of what I expected and it was absolutely rubbish what I did. And I was like, wow, this is actually harder than it looks. So. Right. Yeah. Right now I just reminded myself I'm not that front of camera person completely.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what you're the taskmaster, do you know? But your taskmaster, who doesn't know, not to the job themselves. But he said you gotta do this.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I know. I don't realize, I don't appreciate, appreciate how difficult it is. But do you know what like the thing is with management? You know what I love about this role? It's not so much you. I mean you're lovely, you're lovable. Right. Being married is great. Being your managers, well, it comes naturally because I nag you anyway to do things. But what I enjoy is like, you know how every other part of my life like speak. I'm a speech therapist. It took a vocational degree to do that. There you go. I'm now changing to architecture again, vocational degree. Then you go into it, right, Becoming a music manager. There's no manual, there's no prep, there's no do this and then you become a manager. You know, there's no like, like, like things on social media. Like Damien Keys has been helpful, you know, and then you've got the book, the audiobook that you recommended to me. I forgot the name now, but I am listening to it. That's like the manager bible.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the one.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing, helpful stuff. And then I was even listening to a podcast called by. It was called how do you manage that By Diff. And they're interviewing different music managers of like, you know, big, big names, big artists and you hear all their stuff and even they've just said, yeah, I got roped into this. It's not a job that I expected to ever do. And like me especially not being musically anything, to be honest. I enjoy creativity, but no, definitely not music and just, I mean there's no manual for this. And you know what the Asian industry.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Here we go.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Do you know, like, okay, obviously now I'm, I'm not the Punjabi speaking type and I didn't grow up in the Punjabi community. I was surrounded by it. But that wasn't the only.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Really, really. Let me stop here. Really. Ruby, behind the scenes, she was not. Yeah, but she, she doesn't like revealing that side of herself.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: If anyone knew me, I mean, it's quite shocking that I got married to a Punjabi person who's a Punjabi singer, you know, and it's just because I'm completely. Punjabi is not. It's the home language, but then it's. It's not the language, you know what I mean? Madly enough.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: If you don't know Punjabi. That's it, Jeremy.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And it's like, you know, so Punjabi music did. I knew nothing about it until I met Raj and I've learned more about it and things. I've come to appreciate what good music is. I come to appreciate Rahat and you took me to the Rahat concert and that was amazing. But it's like the Punjabi community as a whole, right? It's like, it's like the maddest thing, like from booking you, booking your gigs, but everything really, you know, like the. Oh, gosh, the requests that I have to put up with for you as well. Because nobody wants to pay.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So. But we're saying this, but we. You've got nothing to compare it with.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: No, it's true.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: Do you know, I mean, yeah, we're having a go at the Punjabi industry, but we need to compare it with something. So if you're from a different industry, like hip hop industry or. Or the rock industry, and you, you have a similar experience, please drop us a message.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yes. And if you have any openings, please let me know because.
Oh, my gosh. Do you know what? It's just, I. I think it's a matter of the grass looks greener, you know, in like we. We grew up being Indian thinking, oh, the Indian man way of doing things, you know, and then you just assume, yeah, the industry is like that as well, and Indians don't want to pay. Especially like, okay, one of the worst examples is, is someone saying, oh, yeah, we'd like the band for three hours only. Right. So three hour set and they have to bring the equipment. So your PA Equipment, mics, guitar, instruments, everything. And then on top of that, you have to. You might as well host the whole night. We're gonna chuck in some other bands as well that you've probably never played with, probably never heard of. You don't know how good they are.
Yeah, we'll provide you food. Oh, yeah. Is that your payment? Okay. You know, and then it wasn't even like. I mean, it was less than what you pay for weddings. Like dual players at weddings are 300 pounds, 350 pounds, you know, for them.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: This is for a full band.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I got offered something like, for your whole band. I got offered best was not more than 250 or something like that for the whole night.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: I were bringing the equipment as I was in it.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: And they'd offer equipment, the whole works.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: That's it. And they didn't. They didn't offer food. They even said, oh, you know, we'll. We'll give drinks. Not. Obviously not the expensive cocktails and yeah, alcoholic ones, you know, maybe.
Yeah, yeah, probably. And yeah, and you were meant to do the whole night, really? And oh, yes, marketing. You've got to do it yourself as well.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah, he wanted us to design the flyer.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, the flyer, do all the marketing. And I just remember having a conversation and he goes, oh, yes. So imagine this was like a verbal conversation. And I said, okay, you know, I was just humoring him, going along with it, going, all right, okay, when. When would you like the band? And he goes, right, these are the Definite key dates. 24th of December and 31st of December. So I remember saying, so you want the whole band for next to nothing to do the whole night for you to do the whole marketing away from their families on Christmas Eve and on New Year's Eve. And you know what?
It's when he said, yeah, he did this evil Dracula type laugh, like, you know, like from a horror movie. Like, like, yeah, you know, like, you know, yeah, yeah, I got you. I definitely. And I'm. And he was serious as well. And I was like. I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll get back to you.
I still haven't got back to him.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: But tell us about the other story.
Don't mention any names. So there was this one guy who, who we were going to do a show with and oh my gosh, he.
He just randomly picked like one of my pictures in India. Facebook, like, cut it. Cut it in Photoshop and snapped it on a. On a. On a thing. And Ruby called him out, said, well, can you put. At least put a proper picture on it? I'll let you tell the story.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: So anyway, okay, I'm. I'm trying to work out a way to not give away this person's identity.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Don't say what type of event it was or any.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: No, no, no. I'm really trying.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Just.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: Just give me a minute. But basically. So I suppose this is a start of when I was getting you gigs. So I'm phoning around to all the events that would have a B act and it. This was bar as well, you know. So I think this is part of the big bar tour.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: 2023. And you gave me a list of what Gigs and you mentioned this particular gig. So yeah, thought ring up. The bloke seemed quite friendly as well and on the phone, very friendly, you know, had this whole. Yeah, yeah, we're Punjabi. You're Punjabi? Oh, we're family, you know. I was like, okay, great. And obviously I was like, well, you're in Birmingham, we're not going to charge you anything, you know, because I'm all about promoting my band.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: So imagine that wasn't the thing. He, he wanted to actually let me finish off. Sorry.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Well, it didn't cost him anything. But he said, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, definitely we're gonna have everyone, you know, and.
But what I would say invite all your family and friends.
Should I go further or should I.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Just leave this I'll take. So you were saying invite all your family and friends. But the, the, the show was ticketed so we don't. He wanted. Then you get one free ticket if you buy five tickets, something like that. So he wanted us to go and get our families because we, because we're performing there and it's a day and dance thing. So he wanted to spend like 100 or 200 pound on these ticket our families to, to dish out tickets. And that was one of the conditions for us to be able to format the event.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: And I remember saying to him, I said, so you know, the only way you're going to allow us to perform is if we buy yeah. Amount of tickets and if we promote it. Because. No, I'm not saying that. I was like, but you're all. But you are saying that without saying, you know. And the problem is apparently I'm not very well Roger tell you, I'm not very diplomatic and I'm a bit too. What's that?
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Straight to the point.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: And yeah, basically I wouldn't do well as a politician. I would just, you know, gosh, start wars. But basically, yeah, this.
So, so, you know, it was a done deal, yet you're booked for this gig provided you do X, Y and Z. And I was thinking, right, okay, how do we tell him we're not gonna be able to come? I'm a mother of. I was a mother of one at the time and.
But yeah, you know, free act. He seems quite happy with us. And then he did put you on the gig poster. And it was the worst part was because by then we had our press pack where we took photos and they were pretty good. They were like, you know, imagine again. Now this is something we didn't done all ourselves. Me not being a photographer took Photos of you. And over time they got better.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: And it was almost press pack with bio and.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And you know, the way you were dressed, the way your poses were. But then. Yeah, what does he do? He picks photos of your most recent trip to India where you're. Was it your. Hold on, whose wedding was it? It wasn't your brother's wedding?
[00:33:28] Speaker A: My cousins in India. My duchess daughter.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So you're wearing this black top and you're wearing this family kurta thingy and you know, and. Yeah. And then there's this guy on this bed behind you kind of thing. You know, you're in this, you know, the most ragged photo ever. You look nice in it. But it was a family photo and.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Do you know the way. Okay, not only did he use a personal photo without telling us and post and posted it, he also, it was, the way it was photoshopped was awful.
Like, it was like you could see.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: The lining of where it's been cut.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Exactly. And it was like you, you know, you were narrowed or everyone was narrowed. And the background and the actual image, the lighting, it just didn't do any favors. It was so like a level looking, you know, like someone who just started using Photoshop kind of thing. Right. And I remember, I remember being polite, right? I was, I was as polite as I could be. Right, because you're always telling me to be polite. We always have to put a. Put our image out there, you know, and represent God.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: That's what I will say. You know, like firm believers in the Lord and, you know, so it's that, that, that's what my awards concern is, always.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: No, no. So I was as polite as I could be, but I was a bit. Okay, I have to admit, I was quite miffed because I thought you could have at least done some proofs with us. Do you know what I mean? But anyway, he was like. And thing is, he didn't. It's not like he made time to ring me and talk to me. He had my phone number. This is all via text. I said, you know, did you do the graphic yourself? I remember saying this term, you know, first I said, oh, okay, you could have used our press photos because my artist has an image to uphold. He goes, I don't know what kind of image you're talking about. I said, well, here's the press pack. We sent it to you. And okay, going forward, if you could use those. But we will use these. But can I ask, did you edit this yourself or who did you use? And I recommend Your graphic designer. Because this is not. This doesn't look polished. That's what I said to him.
Then that straight away got us canceled from the gig because he was like, with immediate effect, Raj has been removed from the gig. And I was like, what. What have I said? He goes, you've said too much. And then I was like, oh, what a shame. Would you still like our graphic designer, though, by the way? You know, And I think he thought I was being flippant, but I wasn't. I was like, well, going forward, it's really. It was really awful to flyer. And I thought, I'm so glad. I was relieved when I told you that this is what I did. I got us cancelled. And then you weren't too bothered. You were like, oh, okay, it doesn't matter. Then I was like, okay, fine. I can be. I can breathe some relief.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: He was in Cardiff. He was performing in Cardiff at that time when that happened.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you Miller, your first Miller. But here's the thing.
He wasn't the worst one. Believe it or not. You know, there was someone else similar organizing a similar event who had the same thing, like, you know. So I said, could Raj be a support act? You know, you've already put your artists out there, but could he be a support act? And she said, oh, yeah, yeah. I tell you what, come down on the night. The tickets are only this much, or, you know, table four of, you know, just come down and we might let you be on stage. Obviously that means they won't, you know, so believe it or not, it actually, what I have found there isn't like a. This is the worst one. Yeah, they're all kind of difficult in their own ways, but saying that we've had some very good ones.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Hi, guys, this is Raj Kaul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my music, if you could go and check me out on Spotify when I found of music and add my songs to your playlist if you like them. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. So what. What I will say, guys, is I just want to talk something about. About yourself, Rubes, is that. See, I have all struggled to get gigs because I'm just like, okay, do you want a book or not? But Ruby managed to get. See, I was the only artist which had 1313 millionaire that year. That's down to Ruby. So she so big up, really big up.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: I think from then you then thought, okay, this is your role. You're going to be a manager.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you were. You're Good at people. You're good at booking stuff. You're fantastic, actually. I think, I think people are missing a trick.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: I don't know about good at people because I, I found basically what you have to do is just. You have to start conversations, but good at people. Because, look, the thing is, you're far more patient with people than I am. I can get, I can get a bit.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: But the patience is actually a downside because if a person reply, I don't bother them again.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Whereas I do.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: I feel like, okay, this person doesn't really want to know. So I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not gonna pester them at all. Just let them go, whatever.
I suppose that's a bit of arrogance on my side as well, isn't it?
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Like, I think, I think it's because you're a bloke and you always say this, you always say, I'm not. I don't want to stress the person out.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: So I, I don't know, maybe it's to do with the fact that I'm a girl as well, that it's. Is it more acceptable? Do you know what I mean? Because, I mean, yeah, a lot of your gigs I have just followed up or. And, and even, like, it's taken detective work of like, okay, who are the organizers behind this festival? Like Godiva Festival. I looked up who the, who the counselor was.
It was Coventry Council. Then, you know, I contacted Coventry Council, they put me through to another department, put me through to another department, eventually got to a festival organizer. They then got us in touch with the Asian acts. And then eventually. And then I thought, gosh, you know, oh my gosh, it's taken me ages and it's just going to be a no. But then, thankfully it wasn't. You know, it was actually someone who's like, hey, I like the track Bar Fargi. The thing is though, you say that it was me, but do you know Bar Far again, I mean, I'm not a salesperson. If anyone knows me and Raj, we are rubbish at sales. We're probably like, you know, we can't sell nothing, I don't think. But it's like the product Barfat Gear that was easy to put forward to people.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: I mean, there was a lot of people who put, put the work in that. Sorry to digress. Like, that track was written 20, 20 odd years ago, that track was.
[00:40:20] Speaker B: And, and it's a good track and it's a track I felt I could sell.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, and then John Samuels did the music for it. But Omen was key.
Reminisce was. He added his own bits. And the Omen and Raymond together and. And the mix master was. Was pretty cool. And that. That's the one that I picked up for Sync.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: I think that's the track as well that made you content decide. I'm going to continue working with Amin and Raymond as well. Because, like, I mean, then. Since then, we've had some really amazing tracks from them.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: You know, and like, they understand how you work. They. And you've got that relationship where he tells you do this with your vocals. Reason that. Do that, you know.
So, yeah.
I mean, even now I remember I was saying to you, you should do a remix for it. It was that good. But here's the thing.
It was a good. Is it. I found that it was a track I could sell. But do you know what the mad thing is? I actually didn't like it. I know I personally didn't like it. I was like, really? Okay. Like, I like the first remit. Well, the first mix of it. And then the second time I was like, oh, okay, all right, fair enough. But then I noticed when I put it forward to people, it got you booked.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: They were like, Renee loved it.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: She actually. The other day in the car, right. So your tracks came on and it was. UK Punjab came on, and she was like, this is Dana's track. And I was like, yeah. She goes, I want Ball Fargate.
She remembers that, you know, And I remember. And I remember as well. You're the Valley show. She's the one who wanted to watch that on repeat regularly.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Every morning, those days.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: The other thing was because of your. Because of the hustle that, that, that, that you're good at, we actually got.
We did some amazing shows again. Diwali at Trafalgar Square were one of the only artists, I think Jazzy Bees performed at Trafalgar Square. So not many artists have actually performed at Trafalgar Square. And the other one was New Street.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Station, your most favorite. I thought. What I mean, the Valley. The Valley. I wish I was there, but obviously because I had Renee, the gig was.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: Great, but the organization, I'm not going to mention name was terrible. It's one of the worst organized events.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: But we, like, you know, when you told me, you texted me that, oh, gosh, there was a delay. Don't know how we sounded. I was nervous as anything. I thought, gosh, I need to, like, find some videos because.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Because the monitors. Because whoever was organizing the event, they didn't. There was no sound check or anything. And when we were performing, I couldn't hear the monitors, the first track. So when you can't. When you're singing and you can't imagine, you need to hear the music. So imagine you're singing. You need to be able to. I'm just trying to explain to you what. What the monitors do. So imagine you're singing, but you need to hear the backing track.
Yeah, but imagine the backing tracks too low and you don't know where your vocals are coming in.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: I'll be honest, I don't. I don't quite understand how you not do what you do because you get up.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: But can you understand that concept?
[00:43:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: And you. You know that your. Your verse is coming here, your chorus is coming here. But we couldn't hear that.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: But then you still did it. So that's the thing.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Because whatever. We could hear.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: We had to just like, okay, it's coming in here. We can. Whatever Here, we can make. You can make. It's a bit muddy. You can hear. We had to make fluke it, basically.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Do you know one thing I've always asked you as well is like, you know, after every gig.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: I was like, how was it then? You're like, yeah, it was good. I was like, for goodness sake. Because you know what? It's like, here's the thing now.
Well, again, being the manager is great because I get to experience something that my life wouldn't allow me to experience. I don't know what it is to get up on a stage and have everyone respond to you, you know, like that, and you be that focus of attention. Right.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: That's not every gig. I'm some gigs. We've said it brilliant. Like.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: No, but. No, but here's the thing. It's like, okay, so I, I, you know, like, do, you know, just like, you got all these, like, Trafalgar square was for 4,000 people or more, and they were all. It was packed out, right? And you could see that they were there, but you couldn't see because it was so dark as well. And. But you knew, you know, that crowd, I remember they were really quiet. They were actually listening to the music.
And, you know, so I'm just like, gosh, as a manager, like, through you, I suppose I get to taste what this world's like. Do you know what I mean? To have everybody looking at you like, there's nothing in my life that will suggest I'll ever be in that situation. I don't Think I want to be in that situation because I'll probably do something like right now, you know, earlier I'll do something stupid and wish that I'd never done it, you know. So it's just. Yeah, I. I mean, the new Street Station gig, I think you loved it because it was the first time when it's. It was Birmingham, it was the first decently paid gig.
They respected the musician.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, right.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: And the way they asked you. They asked you to do what? You were a compare as well.
And James, who was amazing, like, you know, you. They were just so accommodating. The sound people were on it as well. Everybody was on it. They were asking for your tracks the night before. So organized. They said, right, this is the first time we got.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: The only thing. They were organized. But it was the comparing.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: No, but like. But things like Pat Testing, Nobody, no other gig asked us to do Pat Testing. This gig asked us to do Pat Testing. It was all official and they thought we were annoyed by the fact that they asked us to do that and we weren't. We're like, no, no, this is proper stuff, you know, this feels like it's legitimate, you know. And I remember what. What was amazing about that, because I got to see that was just how people who weren't coming for a gig stop to listen to your music. The crowd, they were so amazing. That elderly lady, right, who just started dancing randomly, that boy who started break dancing. And it was. It was. You got to put all your tracks out there. You've got. You put zora out there. You saw Bar Farke was great, you know that. Do you remember that Singh started dancing as well, doing bhangra, you know. And then other. Other people started dancing. Like, some, like, like around me, there were girls, like, saying to the other half, oh, hold my coat home. Okay, I'm gonna in and dance. And then the crowd just kind of got bigger and bigger. And this is people who weren't attending a gig. They were just on their way somewhere waiting for their train.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: Waiting for the train. Yeah. So there you are, guys. If you want to check it, we'll put some footage out actually for it, because it was out. It was, you know, where the, the, the. The signs, the digital display of what. What are they called? Where you can see what. What. Yeah, no, actually in. Boring. In. In. In Grand Central. And you've got the big display of this. Trains coming here. This. The main display. We would write under that for Diwali. And. Yeah, so that was phenomenal. I don't think we've ever done. Me and Nelson was there. We have never done anything like that.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: What you did, what you didn't see was because, you know, like you could see on the escalators in the different levels, standing on the balconies. The crowd was thickening from where I was standing. I was like looking around. My phone didn't capture it. You know, I kept trying to like, think, right, let me just film all this. Like, everyone's watching right now. Everyone's drawn to your music, you know, And I, I personally think, like, my personal favorite track of yours is Sa.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: And right. Right now it's like the numbers, it's starting to snowball. You know, someone's picked it up. It's in Delhi or India.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: Big in India. Yeah, it's not as big here, but in India it just constantly. You see the numbers growing behind. So do you want to tell the sad story? That's a really good story.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Gosh, we can both tell it, I suppose. I mean, so the. I mean, gosh, wow, this is lockdown. And this was like when we were proper full on lockdown. Everyone is stuck at home.
And that's when that app Clubhouse, which if no one's familiar with, is like a social platform way Twitter spaces, is now. Exactly. And that just took off. And yeah, that's where we. I mean, you, me, there was two other people. It was a small space we were in, right. And we're just chatting away. And I remember we were chatting to people in India, some people. And I remember saying something like, oh, gosh, you guys, that your insects are like the size of our kutte billionaire. And then that's when Ish Bector came into our group and he was listening to our. Had random conversations.
Then he noticed you're an artist. So yeah, take it from there. Really?
[00:49:10] Speaker A: I don't remember. All I remember was he was asking for new. Like, he goes, I'll send you a beat, see if you can write something for him.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: And he knew you were a lyricist. Like, we had Zor. We had the video for Zor and we showed him the video for Zor and he commented on. He liked the track, he liked the lyrics.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: So basically he sent me the beat for Sar. Like a. Like a dummy beat for it. And then I recorded something over. I think he. He produced something for it and it was actually sounded unbelievable.
Anyone who heard it, they couldn't believe it. But Clubhouse was a bit toxic as I wasn't it like you had people like, quite like who were not from the industry or they're trying to get into, oh, no, you should do this instead, do that instead. Everyone was like, almost like. Like. Like acting, you know, saying Hindi, like, with. Not with me, with Ish. Because they knew he had, like, links in Bollywood and because I don't know whether you guys know about Ishpecter. So Ishq was back in the 2000s. He. He had massive, massive tracks. Not. Not UK tracks, but in Mumbai, in India. They were massive, like, millions of things.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: He.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: He did tracks with Sunidi Jahan and, you know, massive artists. He had a hip hopper, which, as. As I said, it was the. The tracks never broke through into the uk, but they were big in India, so people knew that and they thought, okay, you know, this is our chance to think you. But we were even. We. We. We had that impression slightly, didn't we? With.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Well, I think it's everyone, isn't it? It's like, you just think, like, when I first met you, you told me that you're a bhangra singer, and I didn't believe you. I thought, abby, you know, you're just doing. You're just saying whatever. And then you showed me a video of you singing for just Ritz and I. And my assumption was that if you're someone who puts all this commercial stuff out and puts professional music out, yeah, you're. You're a big deal, you know, and you've got. You've got all these links and industry links or whatever, right? And I think even we had that assumption that, oh, wow, this guy's just worked on Gully Boy. Yeah, he's worked on Gully Boy. And he's the one who bought the song Air Hip Hopper.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: Like he. Rolling Stone India said that he bought a sound to the.
He introduced the sound.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: He worked hard. Ish, to be fair, if you. If. When speaking to you, Mish, he's a lovely guy. He's.
He used to tell me that when he went to India before he. Even before he. He. He made those tracks, he was doing, like, donkey work for producers and stuff and doing mixing and mastering and just anything he could in Mumbai, he was doing it. But musically, I mean, just to clarify.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: So, yeah, so, I mean, well, he grafted. And the thing is, when. When you hear him talk about how he grafted, like, what I liked about his story was he talked about his failures more than his successes.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: And how many failures it took. And what I admire is that he didn't turn back. He actually physically moved from a western country to India, which is not easy I don't think. I think it's. It's. It's fine. The other it. Well, from what I've been told, it seems to work the other way. But then when you and me were talking about moving to India, it was just something we thought we probably wouldn't be able to hack it really. You know, but he actually done that. And even though he had loads of shortcomings, he had quite a few failures.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: He.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: It's not like he turned around.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: No.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: To go back, you know, which I can imagine that if we had done like. Well, I don't know. Obviously we've not done it, but, you know, it'd be very tempting to turn around. But then the success that he was met with was great, you know, so he obviously grafted for what he done and that's that. And that was inspiring. But yeah, I remember. Here's the thing about that track Sar. Right. So he gave us. He showed you two samples of beats and he was on this like, you can see why he's a success because he was doing something called Dirty 30 where he was gonna like produce 30 tracks or. And. And not. Not just beats. He was gonna do full tracks.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: In what, a month or something. He gave himself a crazy deadline.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: And the thing about him is like, I remember when we were chatting to him on Clubhouse, he was like, he was also working out while he was chatting to us. He was doing something. It was always something productive. And he seemed like one of these people who's like very focused on his music. And he was. And I think as well at the time he became a dad for the first time. So he was a stay at home parent. His wife said, yeah, we used to.
[00:53:52] Speaker A: FaceTime with him and show us here.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And. But you can see how committed he was. Like, you know, so I remember this one bit of visual like he's got. He was wearing a sling like I was wearing where I think the baby. Newborn babies, like on his, you know, on his neck kind of thing or like chest area and he's got that sling. But then he's got his shirt on top and then he's just at his production, whatever, what have you. Console or whatever. Right. And then that's what he showed on social media. And I was like, okay, that's dedication that, you know. So, yeah, he's definitely committed to music. And yeah, he was just doing some crazy stint of day 30 doing 30 tracks within. Within an X amount of time. He showed you two sample, doesn't it? There was two.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: Show me a Few, really. But one I wrote. I wrote a separate track for him which he released himself.
[00:54:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And. And he. And he credited you for it. But the thing is, with, like, Sa, when he gave you the beats, I think you picked that beat. Right. But it was like, then I think you. You were working on another track at the time. It wasn't international beat. Or was it. I don't. I don't rem. It might have been international beat and. Or no. Notch Nuts, remember, We were locked down. Notch Nuts was our lockdown track. Right. You're working on that. I think we were halfway through that. And I remember because we were doing 75 hard and we'd go on regular walks out. This is because we were like, oh, this is a spectre. This is a Bollywood link. We're not gonna. And. And the way he works, he would work. He would just get the job done. You know, like, if we said, right, really fast, and we thought, we have to pick up our pace. We can't just dawdle. And I remember that evening, we just stopped everything or whatever we were working on and we went for a walk. And that's when you were writing the lyrics. I still got footage of that.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: Where obviously, I'm not helping you with lyrics. You're just bouncing them off me. You know, you're thinking of lyrics or walking.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: I mean, you used to pull up with crazy lyrics, I think.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: And I'm not open dumbbell speaker. But no, but I think. I think that's when I learned, just be quiet and let him do his thinking. Because I think sometimes I would come out with really stupid stuff and then it would just throw you. But then sometimes it helped. Like, okay, one lyric I'm going to take credit for is, you know, in your song in Saunia.
Madhubala.
Yeah, I said Madhubala.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: You can take credit for that.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, there's a lot I can take credit for. But anyway, I'm not gonna. Anyway. But yeah, one thing is, I will take credit for Sarsa wasn't going to be made if it wasn't for me.
[00:56:39] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: Because, okay, you wrote the lyrics, so you sent him the lyrics, the guide vocal and whatever. And he. Then again, just like lightning did whatever he did. Then the thing is, then the ball was in our court where we had to things are properly get it recorded and then sent to him.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: But no, sorry, when. So. So you sent him the guide vocal. He sent it back and it sounded great, but then he left it there, didn't he and you.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: And there was no mention of it. And then I just said, raj, why don't we take it on?
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: And that's when we bought the whole thing from him.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:23] Speaker B: You know, that's, I think that's our most expensive track today. And I'll be honest, I'm really pleased with it. We would have bought more tracks from him, but I think those beats, nothing, he, he presented with really good beats. Like, you know, they were amazing.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't feel them. I, I, I thought, like, it's great. He's a great producer. But the beats that he gave, I don't think they were the same vibe.
[00:57:46] Speaker B: No, they weren't. They didn't, they didn't.
[00:57:48] Speaker A: But they want the same vibe as, as that they want the same level as, as sa.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: They were amazing. And I'm sure if we could have probably made, you could have made amazing songs from. But that there was just something about SA that wowed us and because I think the other thing was the fact that we saw, considering how expensive SAR was, we couldn't, I mean, we, we couldn't afford to just get something we were just about happy with.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:16] Speaker B: Where SA, we believed in.
[00:58:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: You know, sa, I'll be honest. I mean, again, this is my naivety at the time, I thought, right, sar's gonna get released, we're gonna get mega famous. When I say we, you can tell that I'm totally on board. Like, you know, I'm thinking about myself here.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
But saying that SAR is that kind, I, I still think SAR is that kind of track anyway, that if we had like, say we had a, like a thousand pound budget marketing, it would have, it would have blew up and it still probably will one day, you know, so I, I got faith in that. But unfortunately people haven't got thousands of pounds lying around.
[00:58:57] Speaker B: Do you know what, though? I'll be honest. Like, from what I've learned on this journey with you, I think it, I think what we're doing is, I mean, because we're like, like now that we got kids as well, I think kids have focused us. Right. Because we're only going to spend time doing something that's worth doing, otherwise we're not going to do it. And I know speaking of time, we've got to, I mean, we, we actually.
Because yeah, my, my day job calls, which is obviously my night job, but basically what I'm going to do, I mean, this is quite bold.
I'm gonna say we close it with marking.
I start saying, stating where we're going to be. Right. One thing I gave this a lot of thought.
Sar's gonna be the track like, you know how Punjab BMC's Mundi, it didn't just release and then that was it. He was a superstar. It released and then years later it was picked up by mainstream and then it blew up and they went, took him abroad and everything SAT is going to be, I predict, are going to be the tracks that propel you to that next level. Okay. So one thing I'm going to commit to is that considering where we were in 219, like we didn't expect your daily track Zord to get on Asian network and get played and, and whatever and get sync licensing. We didn't expect any of that. And it did. Right.
And it got you loads of interviews as well. So, you know, we did as well.
[01:00:37] Speaker A: Sorry, sorted as well.
[01:00:39] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
No, but see now I'm gonna predict because of what we've learned so far, like, you know that, that. Yeah, we have to like, you know that you can't just collab with one famous person. They go. It propels you.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:56] Speaker B: And one hit wonders don't just happen. Or they could happen, but it's like a really long. It's a long shot also, you know, we've learned a lot. Really.
[01:01:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. There's some misconceptions so to, to.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: No, no, go for it.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: I think there's misconceptions. Like we had the option groups, didn't we? Like to. To go and spend this much money on a video.
And we've seen artists do that. To spend 2,000 pound on a video. We haven't got 2,000 pound line. We got kids and stuff like we pay a mortgage and stuff like that. Straight up. So they've been 2,000 pound on a video. 2, 2, 3,000 pound on a video. And you know, and expecting that's going to think the industry doesn't work like that. You've got to. You won't get income like that because how many. So each single, if you're doing a single a month, to say single every two months, that's like 2,000 pound a video. That's like how many, how much? Two times 12,000 pound. Maybe if you did, if you did one track every two months.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah, so like. Yeah, yeah. And like the video including.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: That's including excluding the music, producing the music, mixing, mastering and all the marketing.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: Advertising, costume as well. Like your outfit as well for each video can't just be, you know, it.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: Doesn'T work like that. And. And I think that's one of the misconceptions that artists have. Think that you're going to need to do a video a week. We've got this far. Ollie. Ollie's already did a video. Not. So you did the video for not to. Not in the Attic.
Yeah.
[01:02:32] Speaker B: You know, Renee was asking for face paints today, and then the other day there was a box, and that's got all our Glow in the Dark stuff.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: Anyway, you know what? I'm gonna hold off. We can do a part two of this when. When we've got no guests because our guests dropped out, which is why we're doing this. But we can do a part 2 if you like it. Guys, make sure you leave your feedback back.
Rubes. Sorry.
[01:02:55] Speaker B: No, no. What I was gonna say. I was just gonna make a marker of this episode. Right? That. Look, I doubt anyone's gonna listen to it, but one thing is our kids will one day say mom and dad. They're awkward.
This is how they used to chat.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: It was great. Great chat.
[01:03:11] Speaker B: No, no, but obviously, you know, so.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, guys, if you could.
[01:03:17] Speaker B: What I was gonna say was that this is the marker that, you know, what will make it. We're gonna. We're gonna make it to the next level. We're gonna go beyond what we've done. We're gonna make music your main job. We're going to be.
[01:03:37] Speaker A: This is almost like the vlog, isn't it, what we were talking about?
[01:03:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm going to use this footage, right? So. No, seriously, I'm not going to say something like delboy, like, this time next year, we're going to be millionaires. Nothing like that. But we are going to go to the next level.
This is a very bold thing, but I will get you to Glastonbury one day. As your manager.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: I'm not actually bothered about Glastonbury.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: I am.
[01:04:03] Speaker A: Again, this is the same as the video bit. What's going to happen? You're going to go to Glastonbury, right?
[01:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: And then what.
[01:04:09] Speaker B: No, no, it's not Denmark.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Is that we get our. Our. Our streams, our music out there. More play.
[01:04:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That is important.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: But that is important thing.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: That is important. But what is. I think I believe it's a rite of passage, you know? Okay, look, so like, it's. It's like the. I'm not a religious person in that respect, you know, I don't think there's anything spiritual about it. But for every artist to have gone on the stage of Glastonbury. That's something you can't. You can't say to people who've been on Glastonbury that there's nothing. It's something, you know, I mean, I'm gonna get, okay, I'm gonna get you on that stage one day, whether it's even sneaking on there or even nicking the stage and have you perform somewhere else. Do you know what I mean? I'm gonna get.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: I'm not bothered.
[01:04:57] Speaker B: It's a marker for myself, right? So, okay, as a manager, I want to have got you to Glastonbury, okay, Or on the Glastonbury stage. Basically. Like, you know how you were saying to me, we should really define our goals, right? So, like, you know, for example, by this day hit this many subscribers or have this many streams, you know, So I suppose in my mind I'm like, right, okay, specifically the band, you, Nelson and whoever else is part of your band is going to play a track by yourself on the Glastonbury stage. I'm not saying it's going to be officially where Glastonbury people book you. I might even nick that wooden bit of stage and, you know, we do it somewhere. Do you know what I mean? But basically, that's. I've defined the goal like that. Anyway, I'll let you sign us off.
[01:05:48] Speaker A: So, yeah, so, guys, if you want to part two of this, make sure you drop a comment.
[01:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it'll be. It'll be me dropping a comment.
[01:05:58] Speaker A: Normally I say, like, if you've got anything positive to say, say to say it to the guest. But if you got anything positive, say to me, if you're getting anything negative to say, sit to the wife.
[01:06:07] Speaker B: Because I'm the manager, so it makes completely complete sense. So, yeah, absolutely.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: And if you've got part two of this, guys, make sure you leave a comment and if you don't like it, just. Just drop us a comment.
[01:06:20] Speaker B: I want part two of this because I think this is the one conversation I've had you within ages that's not been related to nappies, children, shopping, the.
[01:06:29] Speaker A: Podcast to do it, isn't it?
[01:06:31] Speaker B: So, yeah, and this is. This doesn't count. This doesn't count as a date night.
[01:06:34] Speaker A: By the way, Rubs, where can we. Where. Where can the listeners follow you?
[01:06:39] Speaker B: Ruby, Call management. I suppose they can go to your bio and. Because you've actually written me as a manager. But guys, don't follow me, follow Raj. That will make my all this worthwhile. So please do that.
[01:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And also We've got some amazing guests coming up. I've got a very special guest. I've got recording next Wednesday.
[01:07:02] Speaker B: We do. We've got two guests lined up with.
[01:07:05] Speaker A: One of the biggest. This guy is one of the biggest.
He hasn't released anything recently, but went back in the day and he's one of the biggest. And he's one of the nicest guys in. In the industry, full stop. And he's one of the probably most clued up guys in the industry.
[01:07:21] Speaker B: He hasn't released anything, but he's. He's like. He was one on the panel for the baftas as well.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:30] Speaker B: And he's, he's, he's quite big, really.
[01:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you can guess who it is.
So, guys, peace out. Even if that's the thing, I'm shattered now, so. Yeah, so I want to go to sleep now. So got work in the morning. I've got. I'm gonna try and get some more piano practicing, which I don't think I'm gonna. I'm just gonna sleep, so. I know. Yeah.
[01:07:53] Speaker B: No, come on, get to it. Come on. Glastonbury stage.
I'll make you a coffee right now.
[01:08:00] Speaker A: Okay, guys. Anyway, thank you so much for listening and please leave a review. Please leave some comments. I've already said that. And God bless you all. And rubes, you can stay back on the line. Actually, I'm just going to cut it off because we can talk downstairs afterwards, all right, Over a cup of tea. All right, God bless you all and peace.
