On this episode of I Know This Guy we have professional musician/composer/producer – Scott Mayo. Scott is a woodwind musician based in Los Angeles and has played as a sideman with such names as Beyonce and Mick Jagger, as a band leader of his own projects and producing the recordings of others. We also dig into the effect of COVID on the working musician.
Episode: 39
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Scott Mayo, an Acclaimed Saxophonist, Flutist, Singer, Composer and Grammy Nominated Producer and Musician
Subtitle: “A man’s character is proven in adversity”
Final Show Link: https://iknowthisguy.com/episodes/ep-39-covid-and-the-working-musician-w-scott-mayo/
In this episode of I Know this Guy…, Norman Farrar introduces Scott Mayo, an acclaimed saxophonist, flutist, singer, composer and Grammy nominated producer and musician.
He is a woodwind musician based in Los Angeles and played as a sideman with various artists. He is known for his versatile style within musical genres from Pop, R&B, Rock, Jazz, Classical to Hiphop. In this episode, we dig into the effect of COVID on the working musicians.
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In this episode, we discuss:
Part 1
Part 2
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Scott 0:00
To me, in spite of the sort of internal struggle that I’ve had, and a lot of times it is that internal conversation like you were talking about before, the messaging inside me was, you suck. You’ve never done that. You’re an idiot. Why are you going to do that? That’s dumb and then the external me is just like, well, who cares? Just go for it, just try it. Because even if I get embarrassed, even if they laugh at me, even if I fall on my ass, at least I tried it. So you just kind of got to push through those things and not be afraid of them and some of the things will work out. I really do believe that. But it does take courage. It takes courage, even if the message is internal, and more often than not, it’s not somebody else saying that you suck. It’s yourself saying that you suck and then you’re gonna fall on your face.
Norman 0:54
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of I Know This Guy, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of some of the most interesting people I know. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to I Know This Guy, wherever you get your podcasts. By the way, my kids want me to say something about ringing a bell. What the hell’s a bell?
Hayden 1:28
Alright. Dad, who do we have lined up for the podcast?
Norman 1:31
Alright, so the podcast was a referral from Dori Caymmi and it’s Scott Mayo. So he’s a jazz musician, composer extraordinaire, with a bio about this long.
Hayden 1:46
Yes, it’s pretty incredible. So everyone from Beyonce to Earth, Wind and Fire. I mean, Mick Jagger, it keeps going.
Norman 1:55
You think I can make it under that bio?
Hayden 2:01
Maybe at the very end.
Norman 2:03
In small type.
Hayden 2:05
Small print. Very bottom on the website.
Norman 2:08
Now this is gonna be a good interview.
Hayden 2:11
Yeah, can’t wait. Alright, let’s dive into this one.
Norman 2:15
Alright, Scott. So welcome to the podcast.
Scott 2:18
Thank you very much for having me.
Norman 2:19
I have been waiting to talk to you and I know I already told you earlier that we’re going to dig into your backstory. But I want to know, really what makes Scott.
Scott 2:31
If you figure that out, let me know.
Norman 2:34
I’m gonna leave that up to you.
Scott 2:37
I’m just a musician. I’m a person. I’m pretty passionate about life and I just really try to do the best I can in any situation that I’m in. I just believe in working hard and trying to be present and accountable and all those kinds of things and I’m not the best, but I’m not the worst either. I’m pretty good at what I do and I’m trying to get better at pretty much everything, because it’s important.
Norman 3:02
Awesome. So we’re gonna dig a little bit deeper than that. So where did you grow up? What was school like?
Scott 3:08
I grew up in I was born in a city on the Pennsylvania, New York coast, the border rather called Elmira, New York and the funny thing about Elmira, New York is that Mark Twain lived there and then I moved to Rochester when I was 12 and spent the rest of my childhood in Rochester, New York, and had an incredible high school experience. My teacher, Roger Eckers was one of those really passionate music teachers who I’m still close to this day and he equipped me completely to be a professional musician. If I did not want to go to college, I would have walked out of high school with all the skills I needed to be a professional musician. He was amazing. He really was amazing. I ended up going to University of Michigan for saxophone performance and it was a completely classical education. I studied with Donald Cinta who’s probably the greatest classical saxophonist in history and he changed my life and completely opened up the world of saxophone from a place that I’d never seen it and it changed everything and then I moved to LA and sort of started doing the LA thing and trying to make a living as a musician
Norman 4:13
It’s interesting if somebody takes an interest in somebody, it doesn’t have to be music, it could be anything. But I know that happened to Hayden as well there was a musician in high school, a teacher that came in and we talked about it on one of our podcast recently where kind of just inspired him so I don’t know if you want to pipe in Hayd.
Hayden 4:36
Was your family musical growing up and because I think for me, it was a combination of like having that role model or teacher come into view, but also just kind of like hit me at the right moment as I was just starting to delve deeper into wanting to learn music and especially jazz, specifically.
Scott 4:57
No. For me, I was not from a family of musicians at all, if anything, I was from a family of athletes. So I was the weird one because I wanted to play music and it was very interesting because there was an announcement, I was in fourth grade and there was an announcement that if you’re in fourth grade and up, you can start an instrument and come down to the band room and I don’t know why they were just something about that announcement. I have to go to the band room and so I went to the band room at the end of the day and said, I want to play an instrument and so I came home and I told my mother, I wanted to play an instrument. She said, What do you want to play? I said drums. She said, it’s too loud. Pick something else. I said trumpet. She said it’s still too loud. Pick something else. I said guitars and she said stop picking loud instruments. You’re gonna play clarinet, we have a clarinet in the house, both your brothers quit. So that’s what you’re gonna start on and so I started as a clarinet. It’s because everything else was too loud and then I just was one of those kids. I just really love to practice. I love the smell of the cork grease. It was really strange. I would come home and I grabbed my clarinet and I played along with the cartoons and I really, really love to play. I was the kid that you had to make stop playing. Please put the clarinet down, please. You’re killing us. So I was just that. I loved it.
Norman 6:16
So right from the start, you hear some of these professional musicians that just once they grab that instrument, they never put it down and remember, I’m an old guy, guys. But I remember Johnny Carson interviewing Willie Nelson, way back and he was just saying he couldn’t remember a time he wasn’t with his guitar. He was always playing the guitar. The second that he picked it up. So he and you were similar?
Scott 6:42
Yeah, I really was and then I have really, really patient parents, really supportive patient parents. So a couple years after I played the clarinet, I wanted to play saxophone. So my dad went out and he bought me a saxophone and then a couple years after that, I was like, Hey, I want to play the flute. So he went out and bought me a flute and so now you got three instruments being practiced at the house all the time, obsessively and years later I went home and I was like, Yes. Why don’t you guys keep buying me all those instruments? My dad said, well, because you were getting to the point where you were at an age where a lot of parents were worried about where their kids were at nighttime, and you were downstairs practicing. So I figured I would get a little less sleep. But at least I knew where my son was. So I thought that was beautiful.
Norman 7:26
Did you pick up jazz right off the bat?
Scott 7:29
No. So no, not at all. I did not pick up jazz. But there was a point in which I was in a band. I was 13 and I was in this band and my dad said it looks like you’re serious about this music thing. I said yeah. I said, Well, then you need to hear some real music and so he sat me down and he played me Miles Davis. I was like, What is this? He said, This is jazz. I said, I hate this music. He said listen to it and then he started taking me to jam sessions. Every Sunday night, there’s a jam session in town at this place called Jason Jones in Rochester and he would take me every Sunday, and I didn’t know how to improvise, I didn’t know anything. He always made me bring my horn and these older musicians were always super encouraging and super nice and they would tell me what to listen to and just being in the environment of live jazz sort of started it for me and that was sort of my journey. I learned jazz in nightclubs the old fashioned way, by talking to older jazz musicians, many of whom were legends, and I didn’t know who they were at the time because I was a kid and I just learned by listening to them and transcribing solos when I went home and learning as much as I could. That was it. I didn’t go to school for jazz. I went to school, and I learned jazz and clubs.
Norman 8:38
Is there any genre of jazz that you like the best?
Scott 8:40
Not really, I’m kind of I think when you become a student of jazz, you sort of expose yourself to all of it and so I’ve done like I played complete avant garde gigs, where it sounds like I’ve lost my mind and I’m in it, I love it and then I played completely inside swinging gigs or doing a lot of calm, basically and I love that I just love the music, all of it.
Norman 9:06
I was just thinking soon as you said swing, I think of a band out of Hawaii, a Hawaiian swing band. Anyways, I hope I didn’t bastardize their name. But as soon as I heard them, it was like old time. Like they just got into the audience, right and this guy, he was Hawaiian and his father used to play to the GIs and the one thing that always stood out is his big set of chompers. He was always smiling and I got to know the band over because I every Wednesday night, they used to play in this one area and he said, Yeah, my dad told me whenever I’m performing, I got a smile, he says and he never stopped smiling while he’s performing. But just an incredible show. But he was Grammy nominated too by the way, the band. It was pretty cool. Cool. So let’s talk about alright, so you’re in high school in Rochester. Oh, by the way, I went through a film. So in college, and one of the best experiences I’ve ever done in my life was going to Rochester and sitting down at the Kodak museum and seeing 500,000 Films sitting there and I could sit there. If I lived in Rochester, I would just sit in front of and watch. Now you could pull any film you wanted out of there. So you went to the University of Michigan, and you were saying that the top sax instructor that you love is time, right? Okay, how did that lead to the next step in your life?
Scott 10:44
Well, it’s weird, because for me college wasn’t necessarily a straight path to sort of success or making a living in the music business at the time, University of Michigan, it was a conservatory exclusively. If you play jazz, it was because you liked it. But there was no school program for jazz. So it was all classical. Consequently, if you were going to do something outside of the classical realm, there was real, there was not a clear path as to what one does to make a living and so I just moved out to LA, I moved in with my cousin and another guy that I went to school with, we moved out at the same time and ironically moved across the street from me and and we just started doing our thing. I joined the musician’s union, and I would go down to jam, I would go to every jam session that I possibly could. I always had my horn in the trunk just to get my name out there just to let people know who I am and that sort of started me being able to start doing gigs in town, just people knew that I was this new guy and then there was a time where I played with this artist, his name was Leslie Drayton, trumpet player, at the time, he was Marvin Gaye’s musical director, and he said, you know what, you need to come over to my house. So I went over to his house, and he literally picked up the phone, and started making phone calls to tell people who I was, I’m this new guy in town, I play all these instruments, and they should hire me and literally, that one man started my career, because he just took a chance and started making calls because he believed in me, and I’ve always been grateful to him for that, because he didn’t have to do that and that kind of kindness really, really went a long way to sort of establish me in this city, and I appreciate him forever.
Norman 12:25
Where are those people?
Scott 12:27
Yeah, they’re out there. I mean, I do think that there are people that are out there that are like that, I just think that they’re so busy sort of operating in the shadows that people don’t talk about them and they don’t want the credit. They just want to help somebody and so I think that they’re still out there. I really do think they’re still out there.
Norman 12:47
So if a young musician comes up to you, you see some talent, are you going to pay it forward?
Scott 12:52
Absolutely. I always do that. I do that a lot with a lot of young musicians that you’d be surprised how many people come over here to the studio, and just want to talk, there’s one guy who called he reached out to me on Facebook, and said that his teacher talked to my teacher and said that he should get in touch with me. He said, I’m coming to LA. Can I come by? So he came by the studio, and we just talked, we wanted to know what it was like in LA making a living and if it was a good time, that’s it? Yeah, come on out and he moved out here and I didn’t know who was here. I went to my son who is a singer and he came to his gig one night and I saw him say, Hey, what are you doing? I moved here six months ago and he’s making a living as a full time musician in Los Angeles and he said, I can’t thank you enough for your encouragement, because the only reason I’m here is because of that talk with you. So I try to do that as much as I can. Because I think it’s really, really important and it really is.
Norman 13:45
Yeah, I was talking about this yesterday, but about the importance of networking, and just giving and one of the big differences between probably quite a few people that go to events is that they try to take, take, take, instead of give, give, give and they don’t realize if they give more, it comes back tenfold and I hear that all the time. But it’s true just helping people out. Just because you want to help people out comes back 10 times.
Scott 14:17
Yeah, absolutely. Things like this artistic life is unique in that I can’t really take any ownership over anything, like anything that I do musically is not because I’m so cool. When I just came up with all my own stuff. I ripped off Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock, and all these people and Beethoven and Brahms and I get everything that I can possibly get from all these people, and I try to integrate with what I do. So therefore I have no ownership over it. So my job is to share it with other people as much as I possibly can, because that’s the whole point of trying to push this music art thing forward. You have to push it forward by giving it to the next generation and letting them do their thing and they’re going to do it that way just like I did, right?
Norman 15:02
Let’s get back to your break. Okay, so you get out to LA, somebody, he calls a few friends to give you a break. Where do you go from there?
Scott 15:14
I just sort of started gigging and I think, if I were to say what was the sort of moment that changed everything was Anita Baker. She moved out to LA to do a record and my ex wife knew her from Detroit, they all grew up together and so when it came time to do this record, a mutual friend was producing the record and so he got my ex wife Valerie, who’s an amazing singer to do all the background vocals. So we ended up singing on the record together and Anita said, Hey, I’m going to do a tour. Do you want to do my first tour and I was like, Yeah, sure. I didn’t know what a tour was. I’d never been on tour. I didn’t know anybody that had been on a tour before. So I ended up doing her first tour. It was from her big record her first debut record and I toured with her for a year and a half of my life and that was great and I sort of thought, like maybe I’m in, maybe I’m finally in. I wasn’t quite in. So I came back to LA and I worked at budget rent a car and then I worked at thrifty rent a car and then there was an audition for Jody Watley and I went to the audition, and a few years later, and then from that point in time, I pretty much had been a full time musician with a few exceptions, but I’ve pretty much been doing it full time since then and that was like 1991 and that was a big turning point, I think, in my career overall.
Norman 16:40
That was a stepping stone.
Scott 16:42
Yeah and then I toured, I toured for a long, long time, I did a tour with a lot of different artists and then came back in town and I did stuff real stealthily. People didn’t know really what I was doing or who I was and I was doing a lot of recording sessions in town. I’d be like the solo saxophone player on a bunch of different records of a bunch of different styles and I would just go back home, and no one knew because I didn’t do horn section stuff. So horn players in LA didn’t even know who I was. They didn’t even know me. But all producers knew me and so that worked out in my favor.
Norman 17:16
So let’s talk about some of the musicians you’ve played with.
Scott 17:20
I’m so bad at it. I played with so many great musicians. I played with Marcus Miller and John Patitucci and a lot of recording artists like Bruce Springsteen, and of course, Mick Jagger, and Earth, Wind and Fire, which was huge in my life.
Norman 17:33
By the way, I saw that.
Scott 17:37
Really?
Norman 17:38
Yeah. It was incredible. Again, thank you to YouTube. But I watched that. I think it was about an hour long, wasn’t it?
Scott 17:51
Probably.
Norman 17:52
Anyway, there’s a YouTube video out there, that if anybody listening wants to check out Scott, check it out. It’s great.
Scott 18:03
It’s fun. It was a great time of my life. It really was. I love having been a part of that band. It was a literal dream come true.
Norman 18:11
Wow. What would have been like being with Earth, Wind and Fire?
Scott 18:17
Well, for me you sort of have to imagine that as a kid, I was a fan of the band, like a huge fan, to the point where I had posters, because inside of each album, they would have a poster and so I had posters stuck to my ceiling. So they were literally the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night, and so I always used to tell my everybody in high school, I’m gonna play with Earth, Wind and Fire someday. I’m gonna play with Earth, Wind and Fire and all my friends were like, Okay Scott, great, great. Whatever and then the opportunity came, ironically, because I did a Philip Bailey record and he was there. He was at the studio and he was impressed with what I did. So he said, Hey we might be needing another saxophone player. Are you down? I was like, for what? He said the band. I was like, Earth, Wind and Fire? He’s like, Yeah. I’m like, Yeah I’m in, of course and I started doing it and it was really, really wonderful and it was literally a dream come true. I had been in the band for maybe two years and at one point, we were in Osaka and we’re doing After The Love is Gone and I remember I’ll never forget this I was in. So I’m in the band, two years and we’re playing After The Love is Gone and I’m playing and I’m looking at Maurice White and as I’m looking at him, he’s looking at me, and I looked at the audience, and I was like, Oh my God, and I turned around, and I looked at the rest of the band, and I turned back around, I looked at Maurice. I’m like, Oh my God, I’m in Earth, Wind and Fire and at that moment, I started to tear up because it all hit me like, Oh my God. I talked about this in high school and it was pretty, it was an amazing moment and I never took it for granted because I really always felt that it was a really special thing to be a part of such a rich musical lineage and that I am now a part of it and that’s huge, that’s huge to have it, those kind of moments in your life. It really is.
Norman 20:04
When I look at successful franchises or corporations or entrepreneurs, I see this type of culture and it’s not just from the top down, although you’ll hear that all the time. But it’s people buying into the culture and when I hear about Earth, Wind and Fire, the one thing I love about it, is that they’ve got just this wall of energy, and it’s just incredible. Again, I love the band. Did you find that kind of ooze throughout the band like that type of culture that you could just kind of buy into?
Scott 20:41
Oh, absolutely. I mean, the amount of excellence, at every position in the band was pretty heavy. I’ve never been quite so driven by a group of musicians to be a badass. I mean, every single person, I remember one time we were walking out on the stage, and we were gonna do Boogie. I hadn’t this idea for Billy Wonderland and so I said, Hey guys, when we go out to do Boogie Wonderland, let’s put that last hit on the end of four. They’re like, Alright, cool. No one really even looked at me as I said it and Boogie Wonderland was 45 minutes into the show, we never talked about it again and we got to that last hit and it was perfectly on the end of four, as opposed to where we had already put it and that level of focus really spoke to the musicianship and in that band, and that was every night, everywhere we went. We never had a bad show, ever. Because the musicians were so good and I’m just super proud to have been in that band, especially that particular group of musicians at that time, it was great.
Norman 21:46
Go ahead Hayd.
Hayden 21:49
I feel like with a lot of larger touring bands, like, normally those types of decisions aren’t made on the spot that with that specific circumstances, like did you or did you have the freedom to make those choices on stage?
Scott 22:02
Yeah. I mean, there were definitely things that were locked into place for sure. I mean, because we had choreography, we had lighting, so definitely, it wasn’t a jazz gig. But there were moments, there were definitely moments in the show where you were allowed to open up and do your thing and just flow and go with the moment and that was just one of those things where it wasn’t going to be significant. It wasn’t an effect, the lighting, it wasn’t an effect of choreography or anything like that. So I knew it and I was like, Hey, let’s try this tonight and it was really, it was a really cool thing. But we had those moments in the show where we could
just jam and we would for a long time and the audience loved it. It was great.
Norman 22:42
Alright. So you’re with Earth, Wind and Fire. Let’s talk about some interesting moments. So do you have any fun moments or funny moments that you’d like to talk about?
Scott 22:52
With that band?
Norman 22:53
Yeah, or just in general?
Scott 22:55
Yeah I mean, I’ve had fun. We’ve had a lot of fun. When you’re on the road, you meet a lot of very strange people and people wear strange things. They say strange things. They do strange things. We’ve had people come backstage after the show and when we walk into the green room, we’ve seen people faint. There’s been a lot of crazy things. There was a woman that came backstage after the show, and literally took off her panties in front of everybody and I was like, whoa, whoa. Okay. So there’s a lot of crazy things that happen on the road. It was fun. We had a good time. Yeah.
Norman 23:43
That’s great. Alright. So, whenever I see, or I talk to musicians. New York, LA. Why?
Scoot 23:53
Honestly, the reason I chose to move to LA versus New York City was because of the weather. Honestly, I’d had enough; it was literally the weather. It was 1977, I woke up and I thought my dad put something on the windows. So that’s interesting and so I went to the bathroom, and there was something on the windows like, Oh, that’s weird and I went into the living room, and I was like, Oh my God and I said, Pop wake up and he woke me up. Oh, you gotta be kidding me. I didn’t know that snow had covered the whole front of the house. We had this huge Blizzard that came into Buffalo and Rochester and we had to go out to the back of the house and dig around to the front of the house just to get through the driveway and it was like the parting of the Red Sea when we were finally done. Because the snow looked like it was like 10 feet high and so my brother was like, Hey Pop. Where’s my car? He’s like, where’d you park it? It’s where I normally do. So my dad climbs up on top of the snowdrift and he takes a shovel. He’s like cluck, cluck. Here’s your car right here. I was done. That year I said, I’m done. I said, I’m not spending my life in this way. I refuse and so that was literally it that made the decision to move to LA.
Norman 25:15
I don’t know if this was the same storm. But I know Buffalo got hit and I woke up and I heard we had a bad storm here. But because of lake effect, they had seven feet of snow and this was around 76-77. So it might have been the same storm. But then the next day, they got seven feet of snow. I don’t know if that was the same thing, but oh my gosh, it was crazy.
Scott 25:43
Yeah, I can’t, that was it. That was it for me and I’ll tell you the one thing that was weird was when I was a kid, and I would watch the Rose Parade. It made no sense to me. I’m like, I don’t understand how is it 75 degrees there when it’s 18 degrees here? How is this the same landmass that makes no sense to me. Now that I live here, and I live in Pasadena and I go to the Rose Parade. I’m like, Oh it’s 75. I’m so glad it’s here. So I love living in LA. I really do. For all the obvious reasons.
Norman 26:18
You can take that knife out of my back right now because I’m just looking out the window, the snow is there. The lake’s frozen.
Norman 26:28
You probably talked about this a ton and there’s a lot to say what’s happening right now. Hey, this musician, COVID killed it for gigging for a lot of musicians, you want to talk a little bit about that and what you see for the future?
Scott 26:45
Yeah, for me, it’s funny because I actually did some writing about this, because I tried to figure out like, what am I feeling in COVID, because I didn’t really feel like creating, I don’t know if I was depressed, but I couldn’t figure it out. But then I realized in a strange way, what was bringing me comfort was that it wasn’t personal. I didn’t lose the gig because they didn’t like me, we all lost the gig, everybody lost the gig. The challenging part of COVID was that it wasn’t just one or two gigs and then that I could make some calls to get another gig. There were no gigs, everything came to a crashing halt and so it was really like, Well, what do we do with our time, and then because of not just because of COVID but because of the shutdown, I can’t even physically connect with the musicians that I’m used to being connected to. So your sense of community was sort of gone and it was really very bizarre as to what do you do with your time and so for me, thankfully, I have the studio. So that was a blessing and that I could continue to work. I had a place that I could work, I could write and then people that were like me that had facilities to record, you could record and so there were still portions of the business that still needed to be done and so musicians like me, were thankfully able to record and get some work. But if you were a gigging musician for example, you were just dead in the water and there was nothing to do. So I’ve just really tried to encourage musicians to practice as much as they can, grow in areas that maybe they felt like they needed some growth, it was like a personal growth thing, read some books. If you want to learn a new instrument or language, do that now. But don’t just sit around and be depressed about what’s not there. Because what is going to come, it’s going to come back, I really believe that very strongly, it’s gonna come back. But I do think it’s important to keep moving forward in some aspects of your life, because at least you can own it that way. But it’s been really challenging. I mean, I had a whole year’s worth of gigs and sessions cancelled in 72 hours.
Norman 28:53
72 hours?
Scott 28:55
72 hours. It was just email after email, call after call, Oh, you gotta be kidding me and it was pretty, it was pretty shocking and this was going to be a particularly good year for me, because I worked with Sergio Mendez and his record was done. I have four songs that I wrote on that, they just did a documentary on that we were about to start a big, big tour, and all it was cancelled. So all that was cancelled. But it is what it is and so you just have to sort of try to be strong and keep pushing in the midst of it.
Norman 29:25
Scott, what about mental health?
Scott 29:26
I think that sort of goes back to what I was saying about our sense of community. Because really whether you’re a gigging musician or a recording musician, no matter what you are, you’re still connected to those people and when you don’t have those connections anymore, you do start to feel very, very isolated and very, very lonely and so I just really, I try to stay connected with musicians as much as I can just thankfully over Zoom or FaceTime, or whatever it is just to see people’s faces. So I don’t feel so alone and sometimes it’s important to just talk to people about Hey, I’m in a block right now, I don’t want to practice. I don’t want to write anything. I can’t listen to music without being really mad. Am I weird? Is there something wrong with me and invariably friends like, Nope, I’m going through the same thing and somehow there’s comfort in that, that we like, we can build each other up, because you realize you’re not alone. But you’re not weird. There’s nothing wrong with you that this COVID thing is real and it’s big and it’s affecting all of us in different ways and so talk to people about that’s what I really try to encourage people to talk about it.
Norman 30:31
Even yourself, talk to yourself.
Scott 30:35
Yeah, absolutely.
Norman 30:36
Yeah, there you go. But a mental health check. Like how are you doing, and if you’re not doing well, get some help. Because so many, so many of my friends, I’ve had some lost their lives to suicide. But just day to day, there’s a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety and you can help that by just reaching out and talking to the right people and especially in your world because, like you just said, your whole life for gigging for that one year was wiped out in 72 hours.
Scott 31:13
I think it’s also hard, it’s a little harder for us, because we’re emotional beings than the artists are in the week, we operate in that realm all the time. So we tend to be much more sensitive in those areas and so we get affected. The hit of those things is a little harder on us than it is for non artists people.
Norman 31:32
So, one of the things in music, it’s so important for an artist to find their own voice and just to let it out, do you think you’ve achieved this?
Scott 31:42
I do. Yeah, I do. It’s the thing that you have to really take the time to be sensitive with who you are and like how you would sing the song, versus how Aretha Franklin would sing it or Willie Nelson. Like, they’re great. They’re amazing artists. But what would happen if you were to combine those two styles? What would you sound like? What would that sound like? So you try that, I just think that like developing your own voice really comes from listening to a lot of different music. Just keep listening and the advantage of recording is that you can hear yourself back, you hear it back, because like, I sound a little too much like Willie Nelson. Huh. Let me try it again and so I think that developing your own voice is really important and I feel like I’ve done it. I pretty much know who I am and I know I am on every instrument. So if I hear myself in a recording playing flute. I’m like, yeah, that’s me. I can hear it. There’s a way that I play the flute, there’s a way to play clarinet.
Norman 32:44
What about forging your own path in life, have you been able to do that?
Scott 32:50
Yeah, I have. I think the problem sometimes with us is that we give a gig and we let our whole world revolve around that gig and then when that gig ends, then we’re lost and so I think it’s important to be diversified artistically not just stylistically diversify, but maybe incrementally diversified. If you can sing, learn how to play bass, you can play the bass, learn how to play the drums. So I think that all of those things make you more valuable in the marketplace, and then do your own thing. Try this, try that, try this. If you have a long term gig, keep that gig, but still do other things so that you’re not beholden to that gig. So when that gig ends, you still have other stuff you can do and that way, you can sort of forge your own path and do your own thing, whatever that means. It’s going to look different for every single person. But I do think that it’s important to try to do your thing, whatever that is. If that’s arranging then go arrange, you arrange music and arrange the hell out of it and kill it and do that no matter what people think, girl, she’s a great bass player. Well, that’s great. Yes, he’s a great bass player too but she’s also a great arranger so I think that it’s important to just try your own thing and keep doing it no matter what anybody says and I think I’ve been able to do that. Thankfully.
Norman 34:07
You’ve done a lot of touring, you’ve had lots of accomplishments, when you achieve these things. So let’s say you come off of a big tour or something big in your life happens. Do you find that hard to accept because it’s over to move on to the next thing? Do you ever get depressed because of that? Or do you have a different emotion maybe when a tour ends?
Scott 34:29
I used to. I used to feel really unsure. When I was younger, like, Okay, so now what do I do? Here’s the challenge, when you do long tours, in particular, like a year and a half tour or something like that. These people become your family. You can buy books for them. You can buy shoes, you can pick out clothes, you can pick out a mate. You really really start to get to know these people and then when the tour is over, and you come home you’re like you feel very disconnected from those people because now they’ve gone on they’re doing their life They’re back with their friends and their family and you’re not connected with them anymore and it feels very strange and very lonely. But then as I got older, and I started to do more things, I started to plan. So now you know the tour is ending and so you start to make calls. So that’s like, I’ll be back in town in March, let me know if you need me to do any and so you start to line stuff up so that when the tour ends, it’s not quite so jagged to you. It’s just the ending of a tour, and then you move on to the stuff that you have here in town. But yeah, I mean, it used to be depressing, but it’s not anymore. Now, you just treat everything like it like it is what it is, it’s a job and you do your job, and then you move on to the next job.
Hayden 35:38
That concludes part one of our interview with Scott Mayo. Make sure to tune in later this week to hear the rest of the episode. If you’re a fan of the show, make sure to follow us on Facebook and YouTube and anywhere you get your podcast. It really helps us grow the show and keeps you in the know. That’s enough for me and I’ll see you later this week.
Norman 0:00
Hey there guys and gals. Welcome to part two of our interview with Scott Mayo. If you have not heard part one yet, make sure to go back and check that one out. You don’t want to miss it. Scott’s full of great stories and we definitely had a blast throughout the whole thing. So we want to make sure that you check it out. As always make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps us out and keeps you up to date with everything I Know This Guy. That’s enough for me and now for the rest of the episode.
Norman 0:37
Yeah, I was just watching that video you had, I guess it was pre Grammy with Mick Jagger.
Scott 0:43
Oh, he’s amazing. Mick Jagger is amazing. Period. He’s just amazing.
Norman 0:56
So you know what, let’s talk about that. Because I saw the video. He’s coming out of the car. I’m sitting there. If I was in a Sound Studio, all of a sudden this guy comes into the studio. What was it like to meet him?
Scott 1:12
First of all, he’s super gracious, super gracious. He walked in, we were already rehearsing and so he walked in the room and they told us he was coming. Like Mick is five minutes away and he walks in the room by himself with one security guard. Who, because he’s got one security guard he can probably beat everybody up and the whole room. So he whispers in the room and doesn’t stop us, we keep playing and he grabs a harmonica, just like you see in the video and eventually when we stop he’s like Hey everybody, I’m Mick and we’re like, Hey Mick, how are you doing? Then he walks around to everybody in rehearsal and personally introduces himself and asks everyone their name and he remembers everybody’s name, really and like every day was like that. He was just really gracious and at one point where in the video you’ll see me talking to him. He said, What did you do last night at the rehearsal? I said, I went home. He said, What did you do? I said, I just watched some TV. So what did you watch? I said, Really? He said, Yeah. What do you watch on TV? So then I ended up having a conversation with Mick Jagger about what I watched on television and it was just a wonderful thing. So the whole time that we were together, he was really super gracious and then for a week after the gig, every day, there was another knock on the door that a package from Mr. Jagger. He kept sending everybody in the band, a different little gift every day and then the last day, he sent every single person a personalized note of thanks for doing the gig. Who does that?
Norman 2:43
Yeah, who does that?
Scott 2:44
Who does that?
Norman 2:46
That’s incredible. I wish I was there and I’m not sure if you’re into this music, but you have to give it to the composer. I grew up listening to Frank Zappa and last night, I saw this incredible documentary that he and his family, I guess, put out called Zappa.
Scott 3:11
I heard about it, I haven’t seen it yet. Is it good?
Norman 3:15
It’s better than I thought it would be and it really gets into the guy which is really cool. Like, his mindset and what I like always saying what makes Frank, Frank. Well, you get it. What an incredible documentary. So if you get a chance to take a look at it, it goes right from the beginning, right through to the end and they talk a little bit about the battle with his prostate cancer and what he did during that time the last concert, and he wasn’t this drugged out psychopath. But if you talk about Zappa, you hear a lot about what he’s just he doesn’t represent. Which is kind of interesting. These personas that people have about different musicians when, if you ever took a second, if you ever had a chance to hear him talk, he was so anti drug, he just loved music for the purity of music. So it’s really cool.
Scott 4:19
Frank has always been a bit of an enigma to me, but I know many musicians that have come through his band, and they are among the finest musicians I’ve ever played with and so I definitely want to watch that because of that.
Norman 4:34
You know he didn’t know how to read music.
Scott 4:36
Yeah I know, which makes it ridiculous. Even more ridiculous.
Norman 4:42
I think Hayden grew up on Frank Zappa music. Alright, let’s talk about pushback. Have you ever faced any pushback either musically or personally?
Scott 4:54
Yes, yes and yes. Life is weird. I’ve definitely faced a lot of musical pushback, which is, you think you’re good, you think that you’re doing the right thing, or you think you have the right vision, and then you get pushed back and then and so it becomes very discouraging. So I went through that a lot, where as a songwriter, I knew that I had songs for certain artists and they would, everything would seem like it’s going in the right direction and then all of a sudden, like, Ooh, that’s not quite what we’re looking for. I’m like, but that’s what you said. So I wrote a song based on what you said, and so that you get enough of that happening and of that sort of rejection, and you’re like, ah, maybe this isn’t for me and I went through a lot of that, I think, a lot of rejection, where I just felt like, maybe this isn’t for me. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing and then you go through personal stuff in your life, like you hit major roadblocks in your life, personal thing. You go through loss, you go through loss of relationships, or loss of friends and family, and it hurts and it affects you. But then the sort of challenge of that is, what do you do with that? Do you keep pushing? Or do you let it beat you down and say, I’m done and there’s wisdom in both because I know people that have, like, I’m done. I’m done with the whole LA thing. I tried making a music business and it just didn’t work out. I’m going back home and they find happiness and peace where they’re at. But for other people like, Yeah, okay, that one didn’t work out. I’m gonna keep trying and so you take a step back and you just keep pushing. It really depends on who you are and where you are. It’s very subjective.
Norman 6:35
Hayden, wasn’t it Dori Caymmi when we were talking with him? That said, he went into a recording session with the police and they wanted him to play sort of Bossa Nova, right or Brazilian guitar. Yeah and somebody said to him, No, don’t you get it? We want Brazilian guitars. Something like that. Oh, that was funny. That was funny. Yeah, you’re telling a guy like Dori, that no, no that’s not Brazilian.
Hayden 7:11
Actually, Scott. What is that relationship like when people come up and reach out to you to have you write a song for their album, lke, is it all you or do you like, pitch them the song and then they have feedback and then you kind of work together? Like say for Sergio Mendez, how does that work?
Scott 7:31
Well, he and I, we write together. So I literally will go over to his house and he sits down at his piano and I have my keyboard and actually he has a keyboard, I have a keyboard and I connect my computer and I have a video camera on just so that we can capture any sort of B roll of the idea and I just press record on the computer and he and I will just literally start playing and talking, he’ll usually have an idea, or I’ll have an idea, we start with a little seed of something and then we just start to create and we see where it goes and what happens and a lot of it for me is collaboration. There’s stuff I do where I’m just I’m alone, and I submit it to people but as a rule, it’s very collaborative, which is always better because then it’s not so sort of myopic in his perspective, you get a lot of different viewpoints and I kind of like it like that.
Hayden 8:22
So that’s like for most of, like most of the songwriting gigs that you have are kind of similar to that?
Scott 8:30
Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. I mean, I can write by myself but there’s something different there’s a different sort of, I like it better when I get to write with other people. It seems to sound a little fresher to me sometimes and so I like it that way. I like the collaboration. I really do. I really do.
Norman 8:51
You found a Yin to your Yang?
Scott 8:55
Yes and No. My Earth, Wind to my Fire.
Norman 9:10
What I meant by that, though, of all that, that can be taken two ways, right? What I was talking about is the perfect fit to the puzzle. Not so much the assignment in the Garfunkel.
Scott 9:22
I mean, I don’t think there’s one perfect fit. I mean, I think that there’s different things like Sergio and I, we write really, really well together for what we do. But I’ve had a couple of those in my life. There’s a singer songwriter here in town, his name is Wil Wheaton and we used to write great songs together. We had great success as a writing team. In fact, we wrote a song together for Earth Wind and Fire called Round and Round. It’s a great song and that’s an example of this stuff that the two of us have done together. So you find these people that you lock with, and you stay with them like Will, he and I lock in terms of R&B, with Sergio he and I locked in terms of Brazilian music. So you find all these different people. There’s another friend of mine, Alex. She’s a singer songwriter, and we wrote a few songs on my last record together. She’s great. She’s a great songwriter and a brilliant singer too. So they’re out there.
Norman 10:21
You got a new release coming out.
Scott 10:24
I do. My first Brazilian album is called Meu Brazil, which translates to my Brazil and it is my perspective of Brazilian music. I’ve been around it for a super super long time, like 30 years, something like that. I’ve been playing Brazilian music and I really wanted to just do this record and I’m so blessed because Dori is on it. Sergio Mendez is in it, Sergio’s wife who’s the voice of Sergio Medez. I see him. Sergio’s whole band is on the record. There’s really another composer and guitarist Ginga, he’s on the record and it’s just a great record and that should be out in the spring and I’m super excited about it and Sergio sounds amazing. Dori sounds amazing. It’s great. It’s a great record.
Norman 11:09
When was that recorded?
Scott 11:12
It’s been recorded over the last couple years. Because I mean, the blessing of my life is I’ve been able to make a living as a musician, but that takes time away from me just being solely focused on my music. So now, big thanks to COVID I’m able to fast track this stuff so it’s been three years or so getting this record done.
Norman 11:33
So let’s talk a little bit about the inspiration for this record.
Scott 11:36
It’s funny, we were at dinner one night, Sergio’s band and he said, so what are you going to do? And I was like, ah, because I just got done playing on Dancing with the Star, they did a long term run on Dancing with the Stars, and it was over. So he said, What are you gonna do? And I said, I’ve always had this crazy idea about doing a Brazilian record and he’s like, Are you serious? Can I play? I’m like, Well yeah, but I can’t afford you and he said, Afford me please, I’d be offended if you tried to pay me, I want to be on this record, you have to have me on this record and so then his wife was like, Wait, are you going to do a Brazilian record? So I’m thinking about you, I have to sing on it, I have to sing and then the next thing the band was like, Hey, are you gonna do a Brazilian record for real? I’m thinking about it, they said, Well, we have to be on it, we’re in. So by the time dinner was over, I guess I’m doing a Brazilian record and that sort of started it and it started by just wanting to do a bunch of covers of famous Brazilian songs and now it’s maybe 70% original, and 30% covers and I’m really proud of the record. It’s a good record. The band sounds amazing and I can’t wait for it to get out for people to hear.
Norman 12:41
I gotta check it out. So when it does, make sure you let us know.
Scott 12:44
Absolutely.
Norman 12:46
Oh, that’d be great. Hayden and I were talking about this before, just before the call, but do you have any thoughts on music streaming, and the advantages or disadvantages to this new model?
Scott 13:01
The advantages are that it gets your music easily in front of the world and instantly, that is a huge advantage. The disadvantages, because of the royalty rates, it’s pretty challenging to be self sustaining as a musician. If you’re only depending on streaming royalties, it’s next to impossible. You have to get that put one of his royalty statements up online a couple years ago, and he had gotten something crazy like 40 million plays of Happy and he made $40,000 I think, and again, not complaining but just 40 million plays, and he made $40,000 and that’s just insane. Because if you were to get 40 million plays on terrestrial radio, you’d be rich and so it’s a real challenge to sustain yourself, if you’re depending on that, but the advantages your music is in front of a lot of people, it becomes doubly hard in COVID, because now you can’t go gig and sell your product at the gig. So like, Ah.
Norman 14:19
I guess I mean, I and I don’t know too much about streaming music. I know about eCommerce, asked me about that, I can tell you anything, or a lot of things. What about merchandising? Do you have that setup? Is there any way that you can get something out of the streaming rather than this piece of almost nothing?
Scott 14:37
Yeah, well, they do have like on Spotify in particular, they have a merchandising sort of platform where on your own channel, you can sell merchandise from your channel. So that is an option that some people take advantage of. I don’t see a whole lot of people taking advantage of that, but I do see it on some people’s channels.
Norman 14:58
Hayden, do you have any thoughts on that?
Hayden 15:01
Yeah I mean, where do you think this is leading to? Because I mean, it’s relatively new and I feel like streaming music is in its infancy. You see Spotify coming out with new features almost monthly. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on where this might lead the music industry?
Scott 15:18
No, I don’t and I was recently talking to a president of a label and he was just as he has, I have no idea where this is gonna go, I really don’t know, because it’s also affecting their royalties as well and so their bottom line is being affected by streaming. I don’t know where this is gonna go. My hope is that someone will come up with a streaming model that is fairer to the creators of the content. At this point, the way it’s working out I think I just heard that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex just signed a deal with Spotify for $35 million to do a podcast and this is after Joe Rogan signed a $150 million contract to do podcasts on Spotify. So one could argue that all of our money as musicians, which is the essence of Spotify is being given to these people to do podcasts and I’m not hating on them, and I wish them nothing but success. But at the same time, I would love to have had a piece of the $35 million pie that you gave them, would have been great and so that’s a challenge so I would love to see that somebody comes up with a streaming platform that allows the content creators like us of music, to be able to make a living.
Norman 16:46
It would be really nice and I don’t know what it’s gonna look like, like you were just talking about, what is that hybrid model? Where it doesn’t go back to the old way, this new way is definitely not working. But what is that hybrid?
Scott 17:02
I’ve thought about that. I really have thought about that quite a bit and I don’t know, I have no idea what it is. I don’t know if that means to invent a new piece of hardware that supports this new streaming thing. I don’t really know what it is, I really thought about, like, what is the next thing that we could do? That would open up the windows of sort of heaven financially for artists, I don’t really know what I don’t know what that is and it’s very challenging. Because the challenge with technology is that it’s constantly moving really fast and so you find yourself sort of artistically behind the technological eight ball of like, Oh no, like, soon as you sort of get yourself in position, something new happens and so we got to find a way maybe to marry the the innovations of technology, with the creation of the artists as well. I have no idea what that’s gonna look like and if you figure it out, please call me let me be the first artist to try.
Norman 18:00
Oh, boy. When we were looking into the different music that you’ve written and composed, you’ve written albums, but you’ve written a lot for TV and movies. What goes into writing for TV? Yeah, what is the different mindset writing for your own albums, or composing somebody, a song for somebody, compared to a TV show?
Scott 18:31
Well, when I’m writing a song for myself, I can take as much time as I need. If I’m writing this song for somebody else, I have a little more time. If I’m writing for television, I need to have it tomorrow. I have literally been on a show, we’re doing an episode of Dancing with the Stars and the musical director was playing a song and I’m not really paying attention to what he’s doing and he’s like, and he looks over at me. He said, Can you make this a big band arrangement? I said, What ? Can you make it this big man arrangement? I was like, Yeah sure. When do you need it? He said tomorrow. Is it tomorrow at rehearsal at 10 o’clock? He said, Yeah. I said, It’s midnight. We’re still on the set. I’m not home yet. He’s like, Yeah I know. So we got home. I think I got home at one o’clock. They sent me that little thing that he was playing on piano. I stayed up until five to finish writing it and went to sleep for an hour and a half, and grabbed my computer to do a little bit more and on the way to rehearsal which started at 10 o’clock. At every stoplight, I was editing the chart in my car and had my laptop next to me on the passenger seat. Every single red light I was editing. Every single red light and then of course we get to rehearsal. He’s like, Let’s start with Scott’s song. I’m like no. Give me a minute. Give me a minute. I’m not quite and and by the way to make it more pressure. When I asked him I said, well, who is this for? He said, Chaka Khan. I’m like, gotta be kidding me. So literally, I had to finish a big man arrangement overnight and that was pretty typical of what life is like writing for television, you can go crazy and the further on you get into the season, the smaller the windows of turnaround time become and it’s just crazy.
Norman 20:23
How do you do it? That’s a feat in itself.
Scott 20:26
Yeah, you find a way. I mean, you just find a way, and you stay up late. You get up early, you get a little less sleep. You get on the set, and every break, you’re sort of napping. Yeah. So you just have to do it. I mean, or you say no, this is that simple. You say no. But working in TV can be it can be lucrative, especially if you’re doing what I did, I played all the doubles, which means I played saxophones, flutes and clarinets and everything else and so there’ll be shows where I’d be surrounded by instruments, but I’m also still doing five and six arrangements for that very show. So there was a lot, there was a lot on my plate. So you add all that up, and you start to make some decent money. So you don’t want to say no, cuz we’re artists and a gig is a gig and yeah, the turnaround time gets to be a little hectic. A bit much. Coffee becomes your best friend. Yeah, cold brews really become your best friend. It’s crazy. It’s really crazy.
Norman 21:30
Alright. So I’m naive when it comes to this. But you’re given a task, the task is almost impossible. You get it done the first time. What happens if you can’t get it done? It’s impossible. What happens if you don’t get it done?
Scott 21:47
I don’t miss deadlines. I literally don’t miss deadlines. I will inconvenience myself as much as I have to. But I don’t miss a deadline. If I tell you I’m going to do it will get done. Come hell or high water is going to get done. I do not miss deadlines. I take great pride in it. I get less sleep but I don’t miss a deadline.
Norman 22:08
Join my team, please. Music to my ears. Alright, so let’s say there’s musicians, young musicians out there. Composers? Can you give him any tips?
Scott 22:28
Yeah, work hard. Really work hard. Be inconvenienced. Stay up late, get up early. Listen, as much as you can. Ask questions from people who are older and better at you. If you see somebody that does something well, that you’re not so good at, just say, how do you do that? Can you show me? Most of us are pretty gracious and want to help. So just ask us how we do it. The only reason I do what I do at this level is because I’ve asked a lot of people for help. How do you do that? Well, you’re really great at that. Can you show me how to do that? Every single time like Yeah, sure. It’s no big deal. Let me show you and listen, as much as you can listen to music, lots and lots and lots of music. Never ever stop listening, that’s the best thing that you can do as a musician is to listen to as much music never, ever stop. I’m still listening to stuff. This whole COVID time I’ve been listening to all these great classical pieces that I maybe never heard or never had time to really just sit down and focus on it’s been great. So even me, I’m still listening to music. I’m listening to a lot of Count Basie, a lot of John Coltrane again, still just keep listening and just keep growing and working hard. Really.
Norman 23:47
In business, there’s a lot of mentoring going on here about people talking about mentoring, you see that a lot in the music scene?
Scott 23:54
I don’t see as much as I would like to see, I think that this sort of goes back to that same thing. I think sometimes some musicians feel as if they have to be a Revit individual and they don’t they don’t reach out to more experienced musicians and ask them for help and thanks to Instagram, I think that people think that there’s a quick fix and because you have 30,000 followers, why do you need to listen to me? Like, I don’t need to listen to you. I got 30,000 followers on Instagram, like, Well, okay and so I think that’s another sort of problem. I would love to see more mentoring, because through mentoring, you start to see that the thread starts to elongate and so the things that somebody started before me that he taught, he or she taught me, I can continue and then I can mentor somebody else and teach them that and so you have this thread of continuity that continues and I would just love to see more of that. I don’t see enough of that in the music business. But for musicians, I do see it on the business side of the music business, but I don’t see it on the music side of the music business and I’d love to see more of that. I really would.
Norman 25:02
With everything that’s happening in the music business right now, do you have to become a full business person as well as a musician handling the marketing or more so than before?
Scott 25:16
it much more so and that’s pre COVID. That’s just the times in which we live. Social media is really important. You grow your business through what you do on social media and so I don’t want to brag about when I’m working with this person, but if I don’t show that I’m working with that person, I might not get this next client. So I think it’s really important. Yeah, you have to be concerned with marketing. You have to be, but at the same time, you can’t be so concerned with marketing, that when you show up, you suck. So I think it’s really important to balance being excellent at what you do so that the thing you’re selling is top notch because I think sometimes people get confused with that. They try so hard to market. But then what are you marketing? You’re marketing something that you’re not good at. So take the time to be good at that thing, and then market that, so that the excellence that you’re bringing to the table becomes much easier to market and that’s what you get known for. But yeah, you have to do all of that. Because if you don’t do that stuff, your business doesn’t grow. It just simply doesn’t grow
Norman 26:19
Any social platform that you would recommend one over the other?
Scott 26:24
I tend to be more active on Instagram. I do think that Instagram has become the platform to be on right now. More people use it. More people like it. TikTok is starting to take over a little bit, but not so much with musicians, I don’t see so many musicians involved in TikTok. I see much more musicians involved in Instagram, even more so than Facebook, they just are not really doing the Facebook thing as much. But in terms of a social media platform, Instagram seems to be the place that more of us are sort of residing at this point.
Norman 26:58
Alright. Have you heard of Clubhouse?
Scott 27:01
Just two days ago. What is Clubhouse?
Norman 27:03
You have to get on Clubhouse.
Scott 27:05
I just heard about this thing. So what is it?
Norman 27:09
Oh my God. For musicians, it’s incredible. So right now it’s in beta. You got to get an invite. I can send you an invite. I have one.
Scott 27:17
Please.
Norman 27:18
Yeah. What it is, is all audio, you go in, you can lecture you can talk, you have these rooms that you can just set up and start talking about jazz. You talk about anything. But then you start to get followers and right now it’s at the beginning. It’s like getting your first being the first on Facebook.
Scott 27:41
I mean, that sounds fun that I literally just heard about Clubhouse two days ago and I just didn’t understand what it was. But I had a feeling something about it. I was like, Huh, I wonder if this is the next thing.
Norman 27:50
It’s going to be the next thing. Oh my gosh, it is growing rapidly and it’s still in beta.
Scott 27:58
Now hit me up, I’m down.
Norman 28:01
Alright. Let’s talk a little bit about hurdles that you’ve overcome. I don’t like using the word failures. But one of the things that we talked about on this podcast is people who are successful people, interesting people. People have to understand it takes time and it takes effort and you didn’t get to where you were just because you walked into the position or just walked into a job and so how did you get there? So not only that, how did you get there? What hurdles did you have to overcome? That’s the question and how did you get over those hurdles and what did you learn from them? Three questions.
Scott 28:42
Oh man, hurdles.
Norman 28:46
Other than the seven foot snowdrift that you had to dig out of.
Scott 28:50
Exactly and that was only a hurdle. I think for me, a lot of my hurdles have just been sort of personal hurdles, like how do you confront some of your fears? Like I’ve had areas of fear, where on the outside, it looks like everything’s going great. But on the inside, I’m really afraid, really afraid to take a chance and try this thing because I’ve never done it before and what if I fall on my ass and everybody starts laughing at me? So I’ve had a lot of those, a lot of areas where I just, Oh, I’ve never done that before. Oh, what happens? But to me, in spite of the sort of internal struggle that I’ve had, and a lot of times it is that internal conversation like you were talking about before, the messaging inside me was, you suck. You’ve never done that. You’re an idiot. Why are you going to do that? That’s dumb and then the external me is it’s like, Who cares? Just go for it. Just try it. Because even if I get embarrassed, even if they laugh at me, even if I fall on my ass, at least I tried it and so for me, I sort of think about what Einstein talked about where he talked about a rubber band like life is like that, that once you stretch a rubber band, it will never go back to its original shape ever and I feel like that would love it, you have to be willing to confront those hurdles and to not be afraid to say, this might not work out. I might actually suck and in my case, because of what I do, I might suck in front of a whole lot of people. I really might and this might be pitiful. But it never does and it seems to always work out and even if it does suck in the midst of sucking, you’d be surprised how sort of because I did something one day. I played a saxophone that I don’t play. At the time, I didn’t play the saxophone and I wasn’t good at it and I just didn’t want to do it. But the person I was working for said, you have to play it and it was live in front of 50,000 people and it wasn’t good. I have to admit it was not good. I was not proud of what I did. But in the midst of that, as I’m playing, I’m like, that’s up, that sucks. That wasn’t so bad. It was pretty good. That’s up. Try that again, do less of that, do more of that and all of a sudden, like I was so keyed into what I was doing that though it wasn’t perfect. I was like, hmm, you know what, maybe I can do this again and try to not do the things that I didn’t like and do more of the things that I did like, and I got better at it because I just had the courage to take that step. But yeah, it was pretty horrible. At first, it was really not good. So you just kind of got to push through those things and not be afraid of them and some of the things will work out. I really do believe that. But it does take courage, it takes courage, even if the message is internal and more often than not, it’s not somebody else saying that you suck. It’s yourself saying that you suck, and then you’re gonna fall on your face. So for me, I just try to push through that doubt that I have inside and just keep going and just try it and things will work out. You might fall on your face, but it’s okay. It’s better to fall in that fall and have doubt.
Norman 32:10
Right. Yeah, that’s great. Now, let’s swing it around to the other side. What’s been your greatest success?
Scott 32:20
Okay, this is gonna sound super cliche and I don’t mean it to sound like that. But I honestly mean this. I think my greatest success is that I’m a really good dad. I’m a really good dad. I’m really good at that and no matter what happens in my life musically, I’m like, I’m a really good father. I’m really present and I think I have a relationship with them because I’m present and I listen to them, we have an actual relationship where it goes both ways. So I think I’m a really good Dad, I’m proud of that.
Norman 32:55
How old are your kids?
Scott 32:56
28 and 33. 32 actually, 32 and 28.
Norman 33:01
That’s great. The one thing I forgot to ask you about are some quotes that you live by.
Scott 33:10
There’s a couple. It’s funny, because it seems like during COVID more than any other time it sort of really is applying itself like Martin Luther King said, “A man’s character is proven in adversity” and I just see more and more of that as sort of the adversity of COVID comes against people, you’re starting to see people’s true character come to life like Whoo, wow. I didn’t know that about you. I think that if you are a giving person, when there’s pressure, you’ll still be giving, you just may have to get less give less rather, but you’ll still be giving. If you were a butthole when things were great, when things aren’t so great. You’ll still be a butthole, you might even be more. Exactly. Exactly. So I just really find that that really does apply to a whole lot that we’re going through in this life.
Norman 34:04
Yeah, I can’t agree more with that quote. I’ve seen that in so many, from friends to business associates where everything’s good until there’s a fear or greed and then the person’s true personality comes out and it’s scary. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere. But yeah, nice quote.
Scott 34:29
I’ve experienced this as a songwriter. Like there were three of us that write a song together, for example, and we get it placed on an album by a fairly major artist, and then all of a sudden, well, I actually wrote like 40% of the song. I’m like, are you serious right now? I thought we went into this thing saying that we’re going to be even now you want more than the other. Really? What is going on? So it’s funny like money does that to people, money can reveal character.
Norman 34:59
Yeah. For sure and we’re not going to get away from that.
Scott 35:04
No, not at all.
Norman 35:05
I wish but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Okay, so is there anything else that you’d like to touch on? Anything that’s happening, anything in the future that’s going on with your life. We’re winding down the podcast right now. So I’d love to hear anything else that you’d like to talk about.
Scott 35:24
I’m working on a couple of different things right now. I’m at work with this wonderful composer, Paul Buckley and he’s writing for this new show that’s coming out on Netflix, it’s gonna be an animated show called Go Dog Go and it’s coming out I think in the spring also and I’m really excited about that, because I get to play all the woodwinds, so I play Piccolo and flute and clarinet and bass clarinet, and all my saxophones and it’s really fun and I love doing animated music because it’s so hard. It’s really challenging. But it sounds so good when it’s done and I did Apple, I did a thing for Apple television last year called The Hipsters, which is a joint venture between Apple and Sesame Street. That was fun. I did the same thing for that and I’m just trying to work as much as I possibly can, try to stay engaged with new artists that are looking for what I’m bringing to the table and just stay engaged with music in general, music and life and just try to enjoy this process. Whatever it is, and wherever it’s going and it’s a journey. I have no idea what tomorrow is gonna bring but I just try to be the best me I can and embrace it.
Norman 36:30
Hye Scott. What’s the name of the new album coming out?
Scott 36:32
The new album is called Meu Brazil. M e u Brazil will be out in spring.
Norman 36:37
Fantastic. Alright. So at the end of every podcast, I always throw one question over to our guests. Do they know a guy?
Scott 36:46
I know a guy. I do know a guy and I think you guys should talk to him. He’s one of my best friends on the planet Earth. His name is Romeo Johnson and he’s done a little bit of everything, everybody needs. Super, super interesting.
Norman 36:59
Fantastic. So we’ll definitely reach out to him and thank you Scott, so much for being on. It was really interesting. Like I told you before, I just kinda was browsing the internet, and I saw this thing with Mick Jagger and went holy and that caught my attention. So I did a ton more digging and it was fantastic. I really enjoyed this.
Scott 37:22
Well, thank you very much. I did too. It’s great. Really great.
Norman 37:27
Alright, sir. So we will see you later and thanks for being on the podcast.
Scott 37:32
Absolutely. Thanks so much.
Hayden 37:34
Thanks for listening, everyone. That concludes our interview with Scott Mayo. Now, next week’s guest was a bit of a surprise. Larry put us in contact with Anthony Melchiorre from Hotel Impossible. I know my dad and I have spent many a holiday binge watching that show. So it was pretty amazing to be able to get to ask him all the little details we’ve always wanted to know. He also ended up having a really inspiring story that I had no idea about. So if you’re a fan of Hotel Impossible, make sure to check that one out. Anyway, that’s enough for me, and I’ll see you next time.
