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You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

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Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We say if it's radical, we cover it. You know what? I'm beginning to know this artist pretty well behind the scenes. I'm happy to have him on today. He's independent country music, all-star. I'll call him an independent all-star because there's either independent music's getting bigger and things like that, but he's an all-star. You'll know his music when you play it. Spencer Crandall, welcome to the show.

00:42
What's up, David? Thanks for having me, man. Hey, my pleasure. I'm trying to get all the country people I can get. I'm a... The show's gotten big enough to where I can like have my like crossovers and things like that. I'm looking forward to talking crossover, but I love having country music artists and talking their journeys. So it's been great. Absolutely. At least behind the scenes, seeing your story and listening to more of your songs that I had already heard. It was like one of those where the name sounds familiar. It's real familiar. Oh, there's a song made. I knew that song.

01:11
I was like on the playlist of Ryan's summer faves. It was on the playlist. Like already. Good to have you brother. How's Nash Vegas treating you? It's good. It's Nash Vegas. I've been here for whatever 12 hours. I just got back in from Maui. So I'm in my weird time zone era where I'm like, I have no idea what time it is in my head. It feels like 5 a.m. Yet it also feels like 5 p.m. So we're here. We're doing the dang thing back in town for

01:41
72 hours and then we're back on the road. I know that I always wonder like with artists, like the time zone thing and just to travel, you got to just be built for it and even if you aren't built for it, you're going to have to get some scars and just used to it. Right? Yeah. There's like a callous in your mind that just builds up where it's, I was on a flight last night and I weirdly, maybe like a psychopath, I was like, this is my home, this is where I belong. I'm always on a plane. So.

02:09
It's real, man. I feel like half of the airports in the United States, they can be like, Oh dude, there's this great chick-fil-a, there's a Jambu right around the corner. Like I know airports weirdly too well. I can sleep anywhere now, which is a super power. I can just take a 10 minute power nap on the floor of any terminal that ever existed. So again, these are like superpowers yet also probably my red flags at this point. Dude, I used, I flew like 200 legs. I used to.

02:34
I lived in Manhattan and worked in advertising and flew like every week. And you kind of get used to it, but you never do. But I'll tell you what, if you weren't a good napper, you're in trouble. Like you have to learn to nap. You're gonna be hurting, dude. You gotta fall asleep at any place, like in the chair or wherever it is. But Spencer Band, let's do some background. Guy from Denver, somehow got into country music. I guess Denver's kinda.

02:56
I don't know the country, town of the West a bit, but People in Denver will eat you alive if you don't say their country, because they are sneaky country in Colorado. Denver specifically, it's like any city, right? You have city folk and then you have, you go, I was in a cool place and this really informs a lot of my music because I lived in a suburb called Hounds Ranch, Colorado and it's 30 minutes to downtown and then 30 minutes this way is like where we would go camping like devil's head, which is like

03:25
the middle of nowhere looking up for miles and it's just mountains and pine trees. So it's this really cool dichotomy of I can be downtown in the hustle and bustle and I can go absolutely nowhere. I grew up camping, fishing, hiking, snowboarding every single weekend. So that's just kind of who I was. I was a Colorado kid and then I moved to Nashville and there's no hiking and there's no outdoors. So that's why I'm frequently in Denver. But yeah.

03:52
I came to it, honestly, my parents are fanatical country music fans. So like Kenny Chesney and George Strait and Shania Twain and Garth, it was just on in the car. It was on when we were camping. It was on during everything. So I remember there's a point in middle school where some of my friends started to play like rap and I was like, I felt like I was raised in a cult. I was like, what is this magical music that you play? And then my older brother was the opposite of me where he was like,

04:18
whatever mom and dad do, I'll do the opposite. So he went online wire and crashed all our computers and started listening to rap and stuff. But it was always country music for me. I didn't know anything different. I love that. And how soon did you pick up the guitar? Was that an immediate thing or is that like later, like 10 years? Yeah, it was a weird story. So I never really did music. I sang in the choir when I was a really little kid. And then my voice changed, like I got the squeaks. Yeah.

04:47
Puberty hit me like a ton of bricks around like 12, 13. So I just thought, okay, singing is off the table unless I want to have a viral YouTube video of me squeaking along to the national anthem or something. I was out then around, I guess 18. They do this thing in my high school called the Senior Project. There's this big emphasis on, you have to have a learning stretch. You got to try something brand new. And I was the football captain, wrestling captain. So...

05:14
I felt like it was cool to try something in musical world. I was obsessed with music just as a fan. I think that's where my love of music really just comes from. I went to concerts as a fan for 20 years before I ever played a concert. And so for my senior project, I learned to play the guitar and write a song. I thought that was a cool way to stretch myself. And I fell in love with it. But then I went to go play college football, and I never thought about it again. I was like, oh, what a fun thing to do for my project.

05:41
And then when I got hurt in college, I got two shoulder surgeries, tore up my labrums, did all this crazy stuff. Had a bunch of doctors like, dude, stop hitting really big guys at fast speeds. You've got to cut that out of your life. And so I was bored and I was tired and I was burnt out and I would just sat in my dorm room and I would learn covers and chords and just became obsessed. I started skipping class, not even on purpose. I would just...

06:08
look down at my clock and be like, Oh my God, I've been here for seven hours on YouTube, just learning random little things. And so I came by it in a weird way. I went to go play college football and ended up finding a guitar in my dorm room. And the rest is kind of history. I started posting, I started playing these little tailgate parties at my college and just, it felt like free drugs. Every time I did it, I was like, people do this for a living. Like I want to do it for a living. And here you are doing it for a living. The endorphins that come from playing live.

06:38
I grew up with a family of musicians actually. And it's funny when you're talking about that journey and having the brother that did everything counter to parents, whatever. I grew up with a dad that played in bands and not anything big, just local stuff. But very talented musician. And I never was into it. Because it wasn't like I was against it. I wasn't like, but I just couldn't quite get into what dad was into. And then it took me getting into college and learning to play and all that and got it.

07:03
It's funny how you never know how the journey comes together, depending on what it is. But it's crazy, right? Were you a natural once you start? Sounds like you worked at it. Some people are just like, have that natural rhythm. I do think I have a natural ability for music. Like it would be a lie to say, and I sat there and I had to grind it out. I think it came pretty naturally when I got on YouTube and stuff. But I don't think when you listen to my voice from the time I started singing

07:34
Like, I'll show it almost as like a party trick because people are like, what? That can't be you in like a good way. I think I was naive enough to think that I was better than I was. Or maybe there's, there's some healthy delusion early on to be like, I'm good enough to at least just keep going. Cause it really pulled me through. And so I think there was some natural ability matched with some I'm a mama's boy. So maybe there's some like confidence that was given to me on some sort of level.

08:04
from my mom just thinking that I hung the moon or something. And then I think there's definitely some hard work. I think there's also a part of the story where, you know, when you're sitting down for seven hours playing the guitar, it's not every minute is like ecstasy. You're hitting the wrong notes 17 times in a row. That's where most people dip out. And I think doing that with the internet, doing that with songwriting, doing that with touring, like there are parts of this journey where it feels like banging your head against a wall.

08:32
But weirdly, the obstacle is the way. I say that in stoicism. It's like the way forward is just through the pain and through the hard work. So it's a weird mix and everybody's mix is different, but it got me to where I am. So I'm happy about the mix. I'm a big believer in confidence. And I think you have to have it on some level to fuel people that become great, whether it's delusional or not. And there's fine line of confidence and arrogance. And I'm sure you were.

09:01
called both and not everyone that's ever been confident had a little bit of those, but I think it's necessary to push yourself to those further channels because if you lack confidence, it's just real hard to get there. Super hard to get there. And I think the hardest part is that it's really hard to start. Yeah. And I think that's where 99% of people dip out because here's a great example. I'm in college and I start showing up to parties and people ask me what I do. And I just start saying, I'm a country artist.

09:31
And half of my friends are laughing in my face. And I just had this thing in my head. I'm like, I don't know why this example comes to mind. Like when you first start to wear like a different cut of jeans and people are like, what are you doing? That's so weird. And then a month goes by and they're asking you where you got your jeans. That to me is kind of like career choices. Like when people are like, how do I become a country artist? I'm like, ready? Say it with me. I'm a country artist. I want to be an author. I'm an author.

10:00
I think Shawn Mendes said that like really sustain please. If you want to be a songwriter, just say you're a songwriter. That's all it is. It's just you jump into it. And then even though you're not it telling yourself that you are on a daily basis, confirming that with your tribe and your community, confirming it with your actions in your head, that's where you build confidence. So even though I sucked and even though I had no business being like, I'm a country artist, cause when you think country artists are like, you're not Kenny Chesney, but.

10:29
Even Kenny Chesney one day sat down and looked in the mirror and was like, I'm a country artist. And it felt weird. It didn't fit like a glove. So it's that, are you confident or are you like saying that you're confident, which makes you confident? And I just went with, fake it till you make it's definitely a weird thing to say. But at the same time, those first couple of months, you're faking it a little bit and that's okay. There's this kind of growing into it. And that takes confidence. That takes starting.

10:58
sticking with it and having people laugh in your face and then five years later be like, hey dude, I see you playing at this venue. Give me my girlfriend get tickets. And then you're like, you're laughing at me for calling myself a country artist. Get out of here. Uh huh. All right. I'll send you. Same guy. You need to put them on the front row then. I can't do it. It makes me super happy because there's something about that. Just I'll do what I can. And that's like being kind to others. And if people want to do what they do, let them do what they do. Yeah.

11:26
But you know what? It goes back to if you want anyone else to believe it, you got to believe it first. So, absolutely. It made my manager talk about that all the time. Like sometimes I can feel frustrated even in the songwriter room or whatever. And a lot of times the things that I end up like messing up or the things that I'm not satisfied with it's coming from me. Like I am this engine and my manager and my PR team and my publisher and my agent and all these people, they're only multipliers of me.

11:56
Like if I'm giving zero, they can't. A hundred X zero is zero. So it has to like come from this core, which is me. And that can be frustrating at times because you're like, I want, I wish there was like a stunt double where this person could come in and play the show or write the song, but that ain't it, man. It's gotta come from this one place and you got to exude the confidence because if I'm the captain of the ship and I'm like, we're going there, that's how people get behind you and blow more wind in your sails.

12:26
You know what, Spencer, you really opened something for me. I didn't ever think about this, but I'm not sure I own four businesses. And, but every artist is truly an entrepreneur. And what you just described is like being the captain. It is, and I don't know why I never thought about it that way, because I was taught on the team and whether you're independent or not, you've got all these people like, no, but you're actually the big boss man. And it's all behind you. And if you don't have the ideas, the energy,

12:53
the drive and all of those things, then it kind of starts and stops with you. And you can feel it. There are certain artists where, there are certain artists where they, they don't have a plan and people tell them what their plan is. Yeah. And it just never quite works the same when it's coming directly from the source. And so it's fricking real, man. I talked to a lot of people who are getting into this and they'll ask me about my journey. And I frame it as,

13:22
There is the art and there is the commerce and they don't have to compete. They actually beautifully work in and out of each other. And to become not only an artist in your head, but there's also a day in my mind where I went, I'm a country artist and I'm a CEO. And that's gonna sound douchey to people because there's this hustle culture and everyone has CEO in their bio. But the reality is, if you have a business and you're making the executive decisions of that business day in and day out, you are paying people's electric bills. You are

13:51
putting people in positions where their job is on the line, you gotta think that way. And I think there's something really cool about flipping that switch, specifically for artists, and then even more specifically for independent artists, to go, there's nobody coming, there's no rescue mission to come scoop you up and put you on star mountain. You gotta wake up in the morning and go, what are my finances? What is my schedule? What do I wanna say as an artist?

14:18
Nobody's going to come tell you that. So you have to wake up and flip that switch every morning, go like, all right, this is my baby. If I don't want it, no one else is going to want it more than me. So I got it like almost re up my contract with myself on a daily basis. And be like, all right, I love this thing. I want to say this. I want to sound like this. I want to tell this story. I think it's what great CEOs do as well. Very insightful, a lot to unpack there. And I want to go down the independent.

14:46
versus signed artist thing. But before we go there, I do want to enlighten people because you're a very insightful, bright guy. I interviewed, this is like episode 360 for me. I've interviewed a lot of people. You're very well-spoken and very bright, and you will do great, even if you, even if the music never out, you'd be a CEO somewhere. You already got to figure it out, those parts. Let's talk, I do want to talk. It hasn't been all roses. So what have been?

15:13
the biggest pain points of the journey thus far before we kind of go down that independent label route? You know what's funny, because I think that's almost the same route because in so many ways, I came to town, I thought the answer was, I'm going to sign this giant record deal. People are going to come scoop me up and take me up to star mountain. And everybody looked me in my face and said, go home. You don't belong here. This isn't for you. Like,

15:43
We have enough of you. And I felt just ostracized in a lot of ways. And so I don't recommend this, but I also, this is the superpower that me and my manager found is that when you get kicked off the island, or like more if you get banished to the island and you have to learn how to survive, you learn how to do it for real. And there's a difference between.

16:07
I want a song right because it'd be nice to have a hit song versus I have to song right because I have to make this work for me. There's nobody to come get me. And that desperation was the hardest part, but also it's like such a driving factor and it's why and where I am. But it keeps me up at night. It definitely, there's been moments on this journey where it feels just very overwhelming to go, you're telling me I have to.

16:35
write the song, edit the song, produce the song, mix the song, master the song, market the song, put the song out, distribute the song, tour the song, play it at VIPs, do podcasts, do make the TikToks, edit the TikTok. There's so much to do. And there's only 24 hours in a day. There's only so much bandwidth that my brain can handle before it feels like it's just overwhelmed. And I think last year,

17:03
Like we reference this in a, in a joking way, but in a serious way as well in my camp of, let's not go back to September, 2022. And everyone just goes, correct. Which is we all were just burnt to a crisp. We were so tired. At that point it was six years straight of just 14, 15 hour days, no weekends off.

17:30
And I'm looking in the mirror going, I love this thing, but it's eating me alive. It, my balance was so off. And that's the problem with the hustle culture is you can be led to believe that you have such little time. There's no such thing as patience. You have to go today. And in fact, I just robbed myself of filling my well up as I went. And then the injury that happened and I use injury kind of intentionally.

17:58
Because for the last six months, I've been battling burnout, almost like an injury, like a bum knee of, dude, I can't even play the game I wanna play because I'm like scared. I'm scared to go out there. You see this in football guys who go and break their femur and then they go to be running back again and it's not the same. I feel like I'm over that hump now, but there was probably a few months at the beginning of the year where I was like, I don't even, I don't wanna go right. I don't wanna play shows. I'm just gonna get sick. I'm just gonna feel burnout.

18:27
And that's really hard to overcome. And that comes from, it's cool when good things happen and you're the guy, it can feel awesome. Cause everyone's, you did that. You're the man, no one could stop you. But when you're burning out and drowning alone, it can feel very isolating and it can feel very, just it's a lonely road. And I think that's, nobody talks about that because there's not a lot of us on the lonely road. Yep. Where the road few have traveled. Yeah, it's freaking real.

18:55
All right, I'm going to ask you this. I think I've asked every country artist this that I've talked to, or if I didn't, I meant to. How do you not party every fucking night? I like, it's a, I was thinking, I was like, you're doing a show and it's a party. It's everybody's party they're at. You're there, you're trying to be pumped up. You're throwing the party. You're throwing the party every night. And I know that some people do, and this is why the artists like completely burn out. They either make it or they give it a hump or they do it like. But.

19:23
How do you make it? What's the balance of that? Dude, for me, I don't do balance as well in a lot of facets of my life. So I have to make tough decisions. And one of the tough decisions I made six years ago was just to give it up, because I couldn't do it anymore. I was going so hard. I moved to Nashville and I, for the first six months, all of a sudden I woke up and I'm like, am I going out five, six nights a week? Like, my goal is to play at football stadium.

19:50
but I'm writing a song a week because I'm so hung over, I can barely move. And I would do it in the name of connections or in the name of networking. The reality is I was doing it because I had this kind of addictive personality to be in the life of the party and going out and this job will already spit you up, chew you up and spit you out kind of thing. And for me, I had to give up alcohol. So I've been sober for six years, but I don't understand.

20:16
God bless the people who can do that every night. Cause I, I already find so much struggle and just how hard it is doing this sober. I can't, I don't understand. God bless these people who can get messed up and then wake up the next morning and sing again. Like it, I don't think it's hard. A lot of people do it. Don't they? Don't a lot of the people in national do it? You probably know that so many of my good friends and they don't have drinking problems. They're just having a good time. But.

20:46
I do think it's a heavy factor in burnout. And I think a lot of people that I've talked to have started to wean off a little bit because I think at the early levels, you can get away with it. The higher up you get, man, it's no longer just for funsies. There's mess up a weekend by getting too drunk and you get sick or you lose your voice. Some of these guys...

21:12
you're giving up half a million dollars to a million dollars to go have a party. The sacrifice is real. And I think for me, I just felt like if I really wanted to live this dream of mine and I had mapped it out, starting at the end goal and working backwards, the, I couldn't get the math to work out where I was still drinking and partying. So for that and many other reasons, I hung up the cape.

21:36
a few years ago. Congratulations for seeing and sticking with that. That's not an easy thing to do, man. It's not easy. It's definitely not easy to do. And three nights a week, you're throwing the party and people are handing you a shot on stage. So it's a weird job. It's a weird way to make a living specifically when you're throwing the party and you don't party. Has it gotten easier? It's gotten much easier. I think year one is really tough because it feels like you could.

22:04
say, oh, I took a break, but now I'm back. Now I think I actually take a lot of pride in my sobriety. So to give up my six year number just doesn't feel worth it anymore. And I've had the benefit of watching countless nights now where it's, yeah, I went to bed early and I feel fantastic and I got to work out in and.

22:24
My voice feels good and then my buddies get up and they're not feeling the same way. So in a lot of ways, it's, you just reverse where the pleasure is, right? You reverse their pleasure instead of being 11 or 12 at night when they think they're having all the pleasure. You're up at eight and you've had a good breakfast. You feel good and you want to attack the world, right? Yeah. Sometimes I feel like a spokesperson for sobriety because I've just seen the benefits of it. So I got to be careful because there's lots of people who can just drink for fun and have a great time.

22:53
If you're one of those people, keep doing it. If you're not one of those people and you're wondering if is it worth it, I would actually say it's pretty worth it, man. It's been pretty life changing for me. I appreciate that transparency, man. I think that a lot of people can relate to that. So let's talk independent versus non-independent. We got so much going on, man, with social media and all these other outlets now. But let me just, you're gonna tell us, cause I wanna hear your point of view on it, but do you want to remain independent?

23:21
I think that question, it reminds me of a similar question, which is, do you want to get married? Which I think the answer is an obvious yes, but I don't want to get married to get married. I don't want to get married because my friends are getting married and I don't want to get married because I have a fear of not getting married. Yeah. So let's translate that over to labels. I don't want to sign to sign. I don't want to sign because my friends are getting signed and I don't want to sign because I'm fear never signing. Yeah.

23:47
So it really needs to be a good fit. And I think a lot of the miscommunication between me and record labels has been thinking differently, just about how business and life and these things work. And I think people are getting a lot more creative, so I feel more hope than ever. I saw that I just signed a publishing deal, which is really exciting. And Warner-Chapel got creative with us and they got realistic with us. And they started talking about making music and...

24:15
writing songs in 2028 instead of 2000. That's the difference. And I think nowadays artists have so much to do and they have so much agency and autonomy. So to give all that up, it has to just make sense. And it has to be with people who, the ideology is aligned perfectly. And I think we've come close. I think we've talked to some awesome people, but it's like dating. Like I've gotten some great dates. I've even had some long-term relationships that are really nice.

24:43
but I've never felt that I gotta get hitched and I gotta get hitched tomorrow. What does it open up? Like in today's world, what does, I know what it meant 15 years ago or 10 years ago, maybe even seven years ago, but what does signing open up for Spencer Crandell that you don't already have at your beck and call? It's a great question. I feel like in country music specifically, there are a few key factors. One would be just pure capital, right?

25:13
We can't ignore the fact that if I want a million dollars, I have to wait till I have a million dollars. If I'm with a record label, I can take out a million dollar loan against myself, which is a whole nother conversation, at any moment. And so I can go do things today that I couldn't do because I have that upfront capital. So that's important. They operate as a bank and that's the game that they play. That's how they make money.

25:38
And it actually does benefit a lot of artists because they can go record the album now. They can hop on the tour bus now instead of waiting or just not being able to do it in general. So that's nice. I always say this and. I need it in a loving way, but there's like a Game of Thrones aspect to labels. There's these five humans, honestly, if it sounds conspiracy theory, but it's not. It's like there's really max 10 people and there's trading favors back and forth.

26:07
So it's like, we will give you the Morgan Wallen tour if you give us the Insert Other Cool Artists tour, because there's just this kind of trading and ability to leverage favors against each other. And I don't have that. So when you look at a lot of these people on these really cool tours and they're crushing it, they don't have, and this is not even like to talk shit. It's just, there's like a reality in the numbers here.

26:36
I have better numbers than a lot of these people on these tours or all these artists to watch lists. You watch like 20, 23 hottest artists and I'm going through and I'm going, my monthly listeners are all of these people combined yet we can't get on the list. Oh, let's go down the list of people. Sony, Universal, Big Loud, Sony, Big Machine, so like they're all signed. Of course, I just missed out on those opportunities and those opportunities.

27:07
industry facing, fan facing, and letting those cups pour in and out of each other. So when you get on the billboard, you take that to your people and say, look what we did that this is our thing. And they blow it up and they stream the music more than you take that to the industry and they go, look, this is our thing. Look what we're doing. And that cup pours back and forth. So I missed out on a lot of those opportunities and they put you in the best rooms in the world or some, something to say about like the best rights, the best producers, the best everything I can't get in some of those rooms. So there's just more locked doors.

27:36
And I would say time, I think labels can buy you some time and let you skip some steps in some ways that maybe aren't real, but they help you get there where Jeff is my manager and Jeff and I, a lot of times we just go, cool, we'll do the same thing in a year. And we just have to be okay with that opportunity cost. Fascinating. I've asked that a few times, but the bank analogy.

28:05
is it really crystallized for me. I don't know why no one has quietly framed it that way, but that makes a ton of sense. That I can get out on tour, there's a lot of things, and not throwing your whole entire life savings and every person into it, so much risk. You can use other people's money to kind of get out there. Right, now what you're giving up is what you get back from that. So if you want to borrow a million dollars, they'll go, cool, for sure. Now you make six pennies on every dollar because we need to make our money back.

28:34
The crazy part about what we do is I make freaking 93 pennies on every dollar. And so when something really blows up and it's happening organically, what I can do is actually, I think there's a lot of benefit to speed. Some of the cons of labels are like, all of a sudden you have 17 cooks in the kitchen and you want to just get one album are approved and it's two cooks say no, the whole thing gets scrapped.

29:00
Now you're waiting seven months for an album art and the song is already dead on TikTok. What are we doing? So that's the old guard. That's people who don't understand how the internet works, how really the world works today. So you gotta find this kind of hopefully, the goal is to find somebody who understands what we do, what I'm good at. And then they go, look, you do what you do. We'll do what we do really well. We can give you more money. I can open political doors, but I'm not gonna stop you from being able to.

29:29
play the game like you need to play the game. Yeah, that's really interesting. What's your favorite song you've done? Interesting question. Bet you haven't had that one. I feel like I don't have children, but I've heard that songs are like children and that you love them the same yet differently. I've had a few songs where like change things for me, which is incredible. And I think that's.

29:58
It's been a really crazy journey to go from the guy learning to play the guitar in my dorm room to having people show up and sing the songs and stuff. I have a song called My Person and that song is really special to me. It's the one that led the way for so long, opened all the locked doors that I couldn't get through. I have a song called Made that for me just really says something cool and sounds the most like me. Because I think there's so many love songs in the world, but to have a song that talks about how hard work

30:27
or love takes hard work, excuse me, I think it's really special. And I think I'm really proud to be a part of that message. And the fact that it did so well with like a subversive messaging like that is really cool to me.

30:40
How does that have to like made? That's all on my playlist. And that's my favorite song of yours up until I will say what I didn't do is going to be a smash with Cooper Allen. I already, we're already going to go down that road, brother. I want to hear the whole thing. You got to send it to me like after the thing I'm done. Yeah. I don't want to stop waiting. I like, I gotta have at least a little inside something here. Like it comes out in two days. I think we'll go. I will talk more about that in a second, but I do think change is big. But back to the independent thing. So it was like, like made comes out.

31:09
and it gets on serious, it's on serious. Is it hard to break into this, like how do independent artists get on serious? Dude, welcome to the game of Thrones. We had a buddy over there, his name's JR, and JR changed a lot of stuff for me because he just believed in me as an independent artist. And so he stuck his neck out, put the song on XM, to test it and it did what it did. It went number one on the highway and that's where it's crazy because...

31:36
without a label, I'm getting played to whatever series' audiences, like 30 million people or whatever. And that's a game changer for that song to sit on the Hot Country playlist on Spotify. That's the biggest country playlist in the world. It doesn't get bigger than that. Did the labels get mad when an independent artist is sitting there? I know they do. I'm not going. Absolutely. It's because they've spent $2 million on somebody and they can't crack them on one of the small playlists.

32:03
And this is why some of the label stuff doesn't work because a lot of it is just trying to conflate a career versus laying bricks, like real bricks, fan, stream, tickets, that shit that nobody can take away from you. So I'm really proud that we've done that. And then you watch people who are this inflated version of what you're trying to be not get the things. Yeah, people get pretty angry.

32:31
pretty quickly. And that's the difference. I can't sit on hot country for two years like some of my friends do, because the labels start to throw a fit and they find a way to get their people on those lists because it's trading favors. They're like, yo, we'll get you this if you get us this and it's not I'm not saying that in a mad way. I'm also not saying I wouldn't do the same thing. Yeah, it's just the reality of the business. I'm not jaded. I'm not callous. I don't have my middle fingers up.

32:58
I'm always going to be independent. Like the machine works. It's just when you're on the outside of the machine, you get steamrolled by it pretty quickly. So there's an easy way for people in this town to start to not like you because you're taking things from them and that's real. I talked to Michael Hobby from A Thousand Horses, him and Caroline have become good friends and he talked about the pressures of making the next hit.

33:28
And I'm sure you can relate to that. It's, that's back to what you talk about the art versus the commerce. You've got, you have the talent, you know how to write and you have what, what comes natural and all these things, but then the balance of, okay, what's hot and fresh right now, what's going to move the needle. What's going to pop off. Talk about that pressure. Man, it's so real and it's so hard to, we live in this like TikTok world, this TikTok era, and I've benefited from it almost more than anybody. You watch my career and.

33:58
pre-TikTok and pre-the internet where it is today. I had some success, but nothing close to what I have now. And I think I've been able to strategize these apps and market myself well. And now when you go to make something, it's hard in the back of your head to not think about that while you're making something. And Rick Rubin, who's like a freaking musical genius, and he's produced everything from Jay-Z to like the Beastie Boys, right? He talks about,

34:28
making a thing in a vacuum and really taking the commerce out of it and trying to impress yourself. I always say that the rule is, am I listening to it in the car? When I get in the car, am I listening to this song like it's one of my favorite songs? Do I get the kind of addictive feeling that I got just as a fan of music when somebody put out a song and you get in the car and you're like, ooh, I got to hear that. It's just that part of my brain.

34:55
That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to really make stuff that me and my friends and my co-writers, my manager, when it's 7 PM, you've clocked out of music and you're on your way home from dinner, you just want to listen to it one more time. And once you do that, then the hope is, okay, then it's also marketable because you have this incredible thing, but to do it in a vacuum, to like really not focus on, is this going to go viral? Is this going to?

35:25
do whatever, and especially when you're writing something about life or something about a breakup. Those things aren't as marketable on paper, but if it's from the heart and you feel it and you connect with it, the hope is there's millions, potentially billions of other people who have gone through the same thing, and the gift of music is giving someone language for something they didn't even know they needed to say, right? Oh my gosh, I felt that way, but I didn't even know that I felt that way. So to capture that in a bottle.

35:54
without the pressures of, is this gonna be my next maid? Is this gonna be my next my person? Is this gonna change my life? Is this gonna pay for my car? Nope, take that off the table. Be a fan of music. What do I actually wanna listen to in my car? Why is this different than Luke Combs? Why is this different than Justin Timberlake? How do I take all the things I love, like use alchemy to boil them down and then take Frank and Simon back together?

36:22
with this thing that I'm freaking out about. It's hard to do, especially in a world where everyone's asking you, how's your TikTok? How's your Spotify streams? To make something incredible, a lot of times, I have to, it takes time. And people in today's day and age are going like, hey, we want more right now, this second. We want it yesterday. When's the pre-save link? When's the next album? I've put out two 20 song albums in two years.

36:50
I guess over the course of three years, three or four years. And I got to the end of that and I was like, dude, I have nothing else to say. I gotta go live some life. I gotta go talk to people and fall in love. Do all this stuff. Develops more feelings. Create great music. So it's tough to do it without the pressures of the world. You know, how slippery is the slope for you in today's world? You have the sound with your voice and that we talked about this pre-episode and you brought up the big JT, which is what I thought of when I listened to a couple

37:20
of your songs that crossed over a little bit. I was like, this guy's, this guy could, you could 100% be a pop artist that never hit Nashville. You have that voice, you have that sound. But is it a slippery slope of holding true to the country artist and wanting to be a part of that community versus the crossover? Or is it, I know it's open and welcome now because you have so many people going back and forth. But, but do you have to be careful with that?

37:48
Or would you be fine if your label and your opportunity just somehow went back with that direction? That's funny because I've just never, when I think of country versus pop, this is usually how I delineate between the two. Pop music is the soundtrack to the movie and country music is the script. So pop music is...

38:13
there's a really happy moment going on. It's not getting in the way of that moment. It's supporting that moment or emphasizing that moment or sadness or whatever, in certain motion here. And country music is the script where it's like, you hear the clacking of the boots up the gravel driveway. He's wearing a red shirt against his old Silverado. It's real life and it's just real stories about real people. And that's what's been so addicting to me.

38:39
And I think most of my songs, especially the biggest ones, I can whip out an acoustic guitar and tell you that story just with a guitar. You can take away the 808s, you can take away the background vocals, you can take away any of the non-traditional stuff. The reality is, it's a guy spilling his heart out in a song using image-driven lyrics, taking on a journey, a story A to B. I think that's what country music is. It's about real people and the real world.

39:08
So much of rap and hip hop and pop is more fetishism and this daydreaming of life, like what it could be, or like that soundtrack versus the story. And I think country music wins when stories are really good. And so that's what I wanna do. I wanna tell incredible stories with my music. I wanna honor country music. I don't wanna be the guy who like calls himself a country artist and it's laughable. At the same time, I don't wanna do

39:37
what Luke Combs is doing, because Luke Combs does that really well. I don't want to be a Diet Coke Morgan Wallen. I want to be just me. And somewhere along the last couple of years, I noticed that my fans don't give a shit about genre. They just want great music. They want country music to be respected, and they want authenticity. If I continue to do all those things, I think I'm going to be okay. I know in my heart that like...

40:03
Country music is where I belong and country music is the most impactful in my opinion because of the storytelling. So that's what I want to keep doing. You talked about the song I have coming out in a few weeks. To me, although we use some elements that aren't traditionally found in a country song, that is exactly what country music is about. It's telling your story, telling your truth in a way that people can identify with. So I used to give it a ton of thought. I think the conversation becomes...

40:31
more and more convoluted. It gets a little boring as you get into, is this instrument country? Is this like album art? Like in my humble opinion, and I'm just a guy sitting next to his Peloton, who gives a shit anymore? We all listened, we grew up with limewire. We grew up with these iPods, where you'd go Justin Bieber to Ludacris, to Alan Jackson, to Eminem, to Shania Twain. We all were infected with multi-genre love of music.

41:00
And so I think it's important for award shows. I think it's important for the iTunes charts. But other than that. People don't care. I don't know that people care. People don't care and it's more about, people are starved for authenticity. And so if my authentic voice is country music meets this kind of funky or soulful pop thing, then it will work because it's authentic. And if it's not, it will also not work because it's not authentic. And so.

41:28
Those are the North stars I continue to chase. It's not about genre, it's not about awards, it's not about streams. It's not about, it's about making something I just really want to listen to in my car and something that I think hopefully helps people, whether that's help them have the best night of their life and party, whether that's get them through a breakup, whether that's make them wake up and realize they have one life, whatever. That's the gift music has given me and that's the gift that I want to give people through my music. What's on your playlist, Spencer?

41:55
So who do you, who's on the regular Spencer Crandall playlist? Trying to think right now. Dude, I'm listening to a lot of Ben Camino. Okay. They're still good. I'm listening to the new version of speak now by Taylor Swift. Taylor's version. Yeah. Swift. Hopefully things work out for her little. I know she's struggling. Really hope that she finds some life tunnel. Poor girl. Yeah. Let's see.

42:25
I'm back on my John Bellion kick. He's awesome. Speaking of that, John Bellion just produced the new Jonas Brothers album. And the Jonas Brothers album is fire. It is one of the best pop albums I've heard in many years. Jelly Roll, Jelly Roll is killing it, man. He's just so cool to watch. Like another guy talk about genre. What genre is Jelly Roll? Who the freaking knows? Jelly Roll doesn't know. And that's why it's working. Exactly. You know, what genre is hearty? Yeah. It sounds sick.

42:56
He has metal drums and screams in his songs. When he did that STP Stone Dibble Pond's cover, I was like, that's perfect, that's him. He was more STP than they were. I don't know, it was like. Half these guys in country music are like scene kids, like emo kids that grew up, their dad would listen to country and their friends would be in mosh pits. And then all of a sudden they make this thing that's authentic to them. And I think that's really cool. And the stuff that I end up loving.

43:25
is usually what if this and this had a baby? What if this was this, but flipped upside down? Like, I love stuff like that. Keith Urban's always on my playlist. Kenny Chesney's always on the playlist. Trying to think of other people right now. I would say Jonas Brothers and Jelly Roll, a lot of that. Yeah, I know. What brought you and Cooper Allen together?

43:47
I think it's just the shared weird experience of being independent artists. I think the song, there's just a reality of if you don't have a good song, there's no reason to do a collab. It takes too much work, it takes too much planning. So we got really lucky that Coop just loved the song. And when we sent it to him, he was like, yup, I'm in. Because it's something we both want to say. But I'm really proud of that song, dude. It's one of those...

44:13
I hope on my deathbed people continue to find that song. I think I'll be really proud of that one. Yeah, what I didn't do, right? That's what it's called, what I didn't do. Yeah, so the hook is just, I'd rather regret what I did than what I didn't do. And that whole first verse was literally just me speaking into my iPhone. I literally just said, sometimes I catch myself living like I'll never die. And then I said something else and I didn't have a rhyme, but it was like, then I'm gonna be down here forever. And then I get to just live again. And...

44:43
That's just not real. Like you get, as far as I know, we get one shot. And you, I did the math on this the other day. It was like spooky. I have, if I only live till 80, I only have some thousand more days left in my life. And it's, that's not like we, in our heads, it's like, we have millions. We just have millions of more coffees and a thousand Christmases. No, you get 80 if you're lucky. If you're above average, you're getting.

45:11
80 summers, you're getting 80 Christmases. Why do we all act like it's just not gonna be over so fast? My existential crisis led to writing this song that is more about, like Drake said, YOLO. I think that's my version of this. It's like, I would rather go and try everything. I would rather kiss the girl and stay up late and go on the vacation and tell people I love them because your deathbed is sooner than later.

45:40
And I think to have no regrets in that moment, or at least if your regrets are I tried or I failed, I think I can live with those. So that's what the song's about. And Cooper just, I think, feels the same way. And we have this kind of trauma bond about being independent artists in 2023. Nothing would be more fitting, though, would be two independent artists and that just blowing it up. And I think it's got sound to do it, man. I always listen to it. And all I've had is like these.

46:07
22nd teasers, but not had the whole thing. But I'm like, that's a hit. It sounds like a hit to me. Smells like a hit. Looks like a hit. Sounds like a hit. Yeah. Is a hit. Yeah, I think it is. I think we will. The Rack has, and Ryan Oliver is going to help blow it up too. Let's go, dude. We appreciate you. And it sounds like you have a good ear for music if you're having all these guys on. So I'm honored to be in the lineage. Oh, yeah. I'll add it immediately to the playlist. So you're going to have to send it to me. When's it come out?

46:37
Like July? Yeah, July 14th. 14th. I don't know what today is. No, I know. That's this week. Is today July 10th? Yeah, so I know we're recording on the 10th. So if you're listening, it may or may not be the week that you're hearing it. It'll already be out. If you're in the future and it's July 14th already, you can go stream Didn't Do It with Cooper Allen right now and see what that is.

46:59
That's right. It will already be a hit by them. We're going to, we're going to will it to win. I think you got to believe it. You're invited to the number one party. Hey, see, I want to be there. Exactly. Right. That down. Grace put it on that number one party. Ryan offered is invited in Nashville. Absolutely. VIP baby. Exactly. Where can everybody keep up with all things Spencer Crandall? Just at Spencer Crandall and all the things you said for Twitter. I'm at Spencer boo. Cause I made it when I was 14, but

47:28
other than that at Spencer Crandall. And yeah, say what's up. I'd love for anybody that hears this podcast, like just shoot me a DM, say what's up. Awesome, man. I really appreciate your authenticity, your openness. We have a lot of guests that come on. I feel like there's a little bit of a wall up and I haven't felt that way at all for Spencer. So it's been really great. Good, dude, thank you. Yeah, man. Hey guys, you know where to keep up with us, theradcast.com. Search for didn't do, you'll find all the highlight clips from today's episode with Spencer Crandall, the soon to be number one hit.

47:58
from the independent artists with Cooper Allen. You know where to find me at Ryan Alford. I'm blowing up old TikTok too, just like Spencer. We'll see you next time. Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.