Guitar Lessons Business

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Bradley Fish – Bradley Fish Guitar

 

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 High School Audiophile Nostalgia
09:19 Unexpected Discoveries in Madison Clubs
11:31 Odds of Band Success
15:45 Simple Songs, Complex Insecurities
25:21 “Unexpected Gig Opportunity”
29:01 Experience Quality, Higher Cost
34:45 “Exploring Diverse String Instruments”
37:22 Music Recomposition and Innovation
43:37 Affordable Home Recording Revolution
48:43 Music Lessons: No Judgments
54:38 “Musician’s Improvised Summer Journey”
57:45 Bicycle-Powered Musical Setup
01:05:17 Interactive Online Music Lessons

Podcast Transcription:

Bradley Fish [00:00:00]:
One in 40,000 bands will get a major label deal, and of the one in 40,000, one in 12 will actually make money at it.

James Kademan [00:00:08]:
So how long have you been in the music game?

Bradley Fish [00:00:10]:
Thirty years ago. And I started teaching guitar when I was 16. I saw Jethro Tull. I love them as a teenager. Yeah. I love them. And when I saw them live, it was like, like, they’re really human. It wasn’t that great.

Bradley Fish [00:00:24]:
It was okay. A lot of these bands, they’re spending so much to promote, to produce, all that stuff that they’re not really making up with.

James Kademan [00:00:31]:
You’ve seen so much of different people with finger styles, different guitars, different likes as far as music and stuff like that. So, you know, like, oh, you wanna play this? This is what you gotta do.

Bradley Fish [00:00:41]:
So much of the stuff, the instrument makes a big difference. Alright. You know? You play the sitar and it sounds like Indian music just right off the bat.

James Kademan [00:00:49]:
So from a business point of view with you teaching, how long have you been doing this?

Bradley Fish [00:00:53]:
It’s my fortieth year. Fortieth year, dude. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:00:57]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We are locally and written by the Bank of Sun Prairie, Calls on call extraordinary answering service, as well as the bold business book. And today, we’re welcoming slash preparing to learn from Bradley Fish of Bradley Fish Music. So, Bradley, how Fish it going today?

Bradley Fish [00:01:19]:
Awesome. Thanks for having me.

James Kademan [00:01:20]:
Man, we are in your studio, and holy cow. We got all kinds of stuff going on.

Bradley Fish [00:01:25]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:01:25]:
Chris, I mean, you’re teaching me how to play guitar, which is great. And let’s just start with what is Bradley Fish music, and then we’ll take it from there.

Bradley Fish [00:01:33]:
Okay. It’s me, really. It’s just a big name to make

James Kademan [00:01:38]:
it really important. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:01:39]:
We’re done. I’ll talk to you later. Yeah. Yeah. You’ll have to give him some b roll of the of the studio later. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:01:46]:
That’s awesome.

Bradley Fish [00:01:47]:
There’s some there’s a live stream room. You can kinda see through the window, maybe. I don’t know if the camera will show it. But, back there, there’s, like, like, kinda like a dozen cameras and then lots of weird ethnic instruments from all over the world.

James Kademan [00:01:59]:
Yeah. So lots of strings.

Bradley Fish [00:02:00]:
Lots of strings. Lots of grand percussion. You know? And then back there Fish, like, a jam room with, like, you know, a rock band setup, a couple Marshall stacks, couple drum sets, couple PA systems, all that kind of stuff. Awesome. Thanks. And then, this room is actually you were asking me about the speakers. It’s a Dolby Atmos setup. So there’s, like, 11 speakers and a subwoofer.

Bradley Fish [00:02:23]:
And hell. There’s, like, it’s like a new three-dimensional I mean, not super new, but it’s it’s just kinda getting out there. It’s a newer format where there’s you can do, like, a surround sound in three dimensions. So Oh, very cool. Yeah. And so, like, the, some of the new movie theaters and some of the new electric cars, have the fancy electric Calls. They’ll have them. It’ll translate to that.

Bradley Fish [00:02:48]:
So if you’re doing a mix and you want things to move around in three d

James Kademan [00:02:51]:
Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:02:52]:
That lets you do it.

James Kademan [00:02:53]:
So So this is a step above or beyond THX?

Bradley Fish [00:02:56]:
I don’t know what THX is. Is that because

James Kademan [00:02:58]:
remember the the movie theaters? I used to work at the theater years ago, and it was a big deal when THX came out.

Bradley Fish [00:03:03]:
Probably. I know, like Call, there’s, what’s really common, like, a a surround sound like a five one surround Fish common. So this is, like, the next dimension where you also have height. So yeah. And you Call see and you’ve got things behind you also. So you got speakers behind you, above you. Yeah. Alright.

Bradley Fish [00:03:22]:
So, yeah, three d. Pretty cool. It’s like a globe.

James Kademan [00:03:25]:
So it’s funny because when I was in high school, I was a little audiophile. I read the magazines, but I didn’t have the money to pursue. So I just bought some used Erwin Vega speakers. I thought they were the best in the world. I still think they’re pretty awesome. And they had I remember the big ones up front, and then you had little guys in the back for surround sound.

Bradley Fish [00:03:44]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:03:44]:
And then center channel came out and, oh, and then subwoofers, blah blah blah. So this is next level.

Bradley Fish [00:03:51]:
Yeah. Call give level. I’ll give you a tour later. But, yeah, like, that’s your center, left, right, and you can probably if the camera shows it, but in the tops, you’ve got left, right, and then on the sides, left, right, and then behind you, left, right, if you’re facing that way. Yeah. And then you’ve got yeah. At the ceiling so, yeah, it goes all around.

James Kademan [00:04:09]:
And these are all the same seating? Yeah. Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:04:12]:
Yeah. So you get the same kinda they’re they’re you’re not getting color from having different brands or whatever.

James Kademan [00:04:19]:
Oh, interesting. That’s awesome. So how long have you been in the music game?

Bradley Fish [00:04:23]:
Well, I’m getting old. So this is And we Call are. Oh, let’s see. So I’m 300 now. That’s awesome. The I I started t well, I guess I played my first gig when I was 14. I was Really? Yeah. I wouldn’t wanna subject anybody to that gig, but I did.

Bradley Fish [00:04:45]:
Okay. At the time, it seemed like a good idea. And then I started teaching guitar when I was 16.

James Kademan [00:04:51]:
Holy cow.

Bradley Fish [00:04:52]:
And I did a degree in guitar, you know, in college. Alright. And I was doing all sorts of different types of gigs, like theatrical accompaniment dance accompaniment, you name it. You know, rock bands, folk bands, all sorts of stuff. I don’t know if you can imagine. And then, yeah. I’ve just been doing it the whole time. I got into music production.

Bradley Fish [00:05:16]:
I got into a lot of the kind of teaching coaching stuff. And I used to tour, like, with, acoustic type of stuff, sometimes solo, sometimes bring some bands and do, like, college gigs.

James Kademan [00:05:27]:
Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:05:28]:
Or whatever gigs we got.

James Kademan [00:05:30]:
Yeah. Anything that would

Bradley Fish [00:05:31]:
be Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I just kept falling. Call, it seemed like whether I was, like, half half my income would come from performing and half teaching, or half would come from producing and half teaching. And eventually, I kinda realized, like, the teaching part was kinda it just it just kinda fit me. And, you know, more and more, I’ve kinda gravitated into that, I think, for just my personality.

Bradley Fish [00:05:54]:
And you get older, you’re like, I don’t know if I wanna drive to the University of North Dakota this week. You know, it sounded like a great idea when I was 26. Right now, I was like, yeah. So That kinda

James Kademan [00:06:06]:
So when you would perform

Bradley Fish [00:06:07]:
Mhmm. How do you get the gigs? Wow.

James Kademan [00:06:10]:
You just call them up and you’re like, hey. I got a guitar and a personality?

Bradley Fish [00:06:13]:
Right. Right. So, you know, it’s interesting. There was also so as far as the college gigs, I used to sub I would, there’s this thing called NACA. They’re still around. It’s like National National Association of Campus Activities. Okay. And they’re you would submit a VHS tape back in the day.

Bradley Fish [00:06:31]:
I’m sure today it’s all digital. And you would like, if you got selected to to showcase, it was super competitive. You know, everyone wanted to get these gigs because they paid well, and they were kinda kinda high profile. I mean, you know, you play it’d be like the here in Madison, it’s like The Terrace or The Ralph’s Geller. Right? Yeah. And, that’s probably one of the nicer ones. A lot of times, you’re just in the lunchroom of some college or whatever.

James Kademan [00:06:55]:
But Who’s this guy playing?

Bradley Fish [00:06:56]:
Who’s this guy? Yeah. Whatever. But sometimes too, you’d be, like, opening for national acts, and you’d be outdoors, and it’d be a huge party, and it could be really cool. And, back then, I used to get the roving artist showcases all the time, which was kind of the lowliest of the showcase. It’s On but it was I used to do a lot of I was also a street musician. I did that for a living for a couple,

James Kademan [00:07:19]:
You talking about hanging out on the street with your guitar case open?

Bradley Fish [00:07:22]:
Kinda. Yeah. Like, I’d go hit the farmer’s market in Madison or whatever. And, like, I used to amp I play these weird, I do a lot of weird ethnic instruments, so I’d be playing dulcimer, my Chinese zither, or a bunch of stuff at once. Alright. Calls on my feet. Whatever. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:07:36]:
And, like, kind of a one man Call, almost like a drummer, but with stringed instruments mostly. And, like, people ate it up. I made a living doing it for a few summers, so I would kinda take that act to those universities. They come out of the the, elevator at the NACA conference, and they’d be like, oh, this is weird. And, and I would get booked to the a lot of Midwestern college shows. You know? That’s awesome. Yes. Thanks.

Bradley Fish [00:08:01]:
And then Call from doing the street stuff back then, I used to get gigs. And that led to a lot of, like, bar club type gigs. Alright. And that kinda led to opening acts. And, like, I remember I was doing, I’m thinking back when I was, like, 23. I did the Club du Fish. If you remember that place, it burned down.

James Kademan [00:08:19]:
I don’t know. The du Wash. That’s

Bradley Fish [00:08:21]:
Oh, how long have you been in Madison area? Twenty four years. Oh, really? Okay. Okay. Yeah. It might have been before your time, actually. Yeah. I’m that old. So, like, yeah, this is probably, like it probably burnt down, like, thirty years ago.

Bradley Fish [00:08:34]:
Oh, man. Okay. Maybe a little more. It was an amazing complex. But, anyways, I mean so I hosted an acoustic jam, which was kinda like a glorified open mic. Like, it was there were open mic spots, but then there were featured acts that maybe were touring through the area that I could get up there to play, like, kind of acoustic script down sets. And there were guest artists that were, like, pros that I could pay a little bit to to kinda back me up. And Alright.

James Kademan [00:08:59]:
It was

Bradley Fish [00:08:59]:
kinda like a little jam. If someone was really good, maybe I’d go play with them or or whatever. And I would play that. It’s like a really fun little little club show. But then there’d be all these national acts coming through, including guys that I was like, who the hell is Dave Matthews? Like, I’m not gonna go. Or, like like, Alanis Moritz said, I’ve never heard of her. I don’t I’m not going. I I could’ve gone for free.

Bradley Fish [00:09:18]:
I had you know?

James Kademan [00:09:19]:
That’s funny.

Bradley Fish [00:09:19]:
Ain’t that funny? I didn’t even know where they were. There was no Internet. You know what I mean? And you’re just like I don’t know. I never heard of her. So but those kind of bands will be coming through this little club in Madison. And every once in a while like, I remember Merle Saunders from, Jerry Garcia Brad. He was touring, and he, like, had he was doing three nights in a row at the club to watch. And they’re like they and they hit me up.

Bradley Fish [00:09:43]:
They’re like, we’re really sorry, Bradley. Like, we gotta cancel your Monday, jam because he’s gonna do a fourth night.

James Kademan [00:09:49]:
You know?

Bradley Fish [00:09:49]:
And I’m like and I was like, hey. I’d love to open for him, you know, but we have a contract. Like, you gotta you gotta we gotta do something here. Yeah. And they’re just like, and they Call to the promoter, and he’s like, Bradley. You know? And then I’d I’d open for Merle, and then the drummer’s like, hey. That’s really cool. What is that weird instrument? Can I jam with you? Like, yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:10:08]:
Get up here. I’m like

James Kademan [00:10:08]:
Oh, that’s awesome.

Bradley Fish [00:10:09]:
Before you know it, I’m like sitting in with the with, or he’s sitting with me, and then he’s bringing me to sit in with the band on another gig. And these things just kind of evolved. Alright. You know what I mean? And and so, yeah, so I just I had a little bit of in my twenties, I kinda just had momentum with just putting myself out there. I had boundless energy back then.

James Kademan [00:10:26]:
So it’s more the more you get out there, the more you get invited to get more out there.

Bradley Fish [00:10:30]:
Yeah. You meet everybody. It just

James Kademan [00:10:32]:
snowballs. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:10:32]:
You meet the other bands. Hey. Do you wanna do a show together? Whatever. Alright. Yeah. So that was that was really, really, really fun in my twenties. And I was already teaching a lot back then. And I found that, like, even though, like, in my twenties, yeah, like I said, half of my income was performing, half was teaching, but the teaching half was more calm, mellow, a little easier.

Bradley Fish [00:10:53]:
The gigging was like, we’re going to war. You know? Like, here we go. You know? And it was harder. Like, it was just and I realized that. I’m like, wow. This is a really and then you would meet the bands that had been doing it forever. You know, I got to open for, like, childhood heroes that had, like, played Woodstock or were in that scene or whatever. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:11:13]:
And and, like, they’re whining and bitching about can I say that on YouTube? I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah. It’s okay. Alright. So, yeah, they’re they’re whining about, like, you know, the the industry and the tour and, and you’re like, oh my god. This is my childhood hero. Like, this is like you know? And They’re cranky.

Bradley Fish [00:11:31]:
They’re cranky. They’re old. And you’re going, interesting. You know? And I started, like, learning about, like, what’s really going on. Like, back in the nineties, the stats were it was a different thing back then, but the stats were, like, I think it was, like and I remember I was doing these little college tours and doing a lot of gigs and kinda going for it. And I read one day in an article, they’re like, well, one in 40,000 bands will get a major label deal. And of the one in 40,000, one in 12 will actually make money at it. And I wasn’t real good at maths, but I’m like, that’s, like, two in a million maybe about you.

Bradley Fish [00:12:07]:
And I’m like, oh, what am I into? And then, like, today, it’s probably more like one in a million. But the difference is today, at least you can have a little independent thing. You can be like, well, I made $50 doing my little sales and this and that and my hardcore fans. And I only had a thousand people buy from me, but they spent $50. And, like, I’m getting by or whatever. And that could be cool for an artist today. You maybe you’re not On the radio. Maybe a major label would be like, oh god.

Bradley Fish [00:12:35]:
You’re terrible. Go away. But you’re cool. You’re you’re making but that wasn’t such an option back then. It was just dark.

James Kademan [00:12:41]:
Internet has changed the game. Everything. People got YouTube famous or Instagram famous or whatever.

Bradley Fish [00:12:46]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:12:47]:
They didn’t have to go through the label.

Bradley Fish [00:12:48]:
It was different. Yeah. It’s different now. But it’s still a challenging industry because so many people On do it. It it’s, it’s so incredibly crowded. And I found that, like, I I don’t know. But kind of, like, doing the teaching and helping other people that were on that path. But having a lot of experience, like, playing gigs, doing sessions for people, you know, all these other things that were related, it gave me a lot of insight Call be able to help Alright.

Bradley Fish [00:13:17]:
People. Yeah. So and and people that were really trying to make it and stuff.

James Kademan [00:13:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. I was just, what was I watching? I was watching Metallica’s interview with Howard Stern.

Bradley Fish [00:13:28]:
Oh, cool.

James Kademan [00:13:29]:
And it was interesting because from what I understand from the interview, they’re not that good individually as musicians.

Bradley Fish [00:13:37]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:13:37]:
But together and with the writing and stuff like that, they pumped out a pretty good product.

Bradley Fish [00:13:41]:
Oh, yeah.

James Kademan [00:13:42]:
They seem to do okay. Right?

Bradley Fish [00:13:43]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:13:43]:
Alligator moats and all this kind of stuff.

Bradley Fish [00:13:46]:
Yeah. Like right. It’s it’s not always about, like it it’s more about, can you play your position on the team and do a good job? Yeah. Not not like, are you Amadeus Mozart and

James Kademan [00:13:55]:
Right. Right. That’s it. Right? Like, you don’t have to be you have to hit a home run every time you come up On bat kind of thing. Right. Which was interesting to learn that because then you’re thinking like, oh, these guys have skills. There’s

Bradley Fish [00:14:05]:
talent in there.

James Kademan [00:14:07]:
But it’s not like they’re the best guitarist that ever walked the Earth or anything like that.

Bradley Fish [00:14:10]:
Who is? Yeah.

James Kademan [00:14:11]:
So it was interesting, I guess, from my point of view thinking like, oh, these guys, as far as, industry, you’d probably think they’re top of the game or They

Bradley Fish [00:14:20]:
probably are. Like, were. Yeah. Or were. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:14:24]:
But from a skill set point of view, they’re just they’re bench players kinda Kinda. Yeah. Like, I I

Bradley Fish [00:14:30]:
mean, the the lead guy, which I’m spacing Fish name now, who’s the lead guitarist.

James Kademan [00:14:34]:
There’s a Jim in there.

Bradley Fish [00:14:36]:
Well, there’s James Hatfield’s the rhythm guy. Okay. I’m just I’m drawing a blank. I Call see

James Kademan [00:14:40]:
his face.

Bradley Fish [00:14:41]:
But but, anyway, I mean, he’s a talented guy. And he’ll even tell you, like, my early albums, I was just, like, trying to play really fast. It wasn’t that good. Like, I mean, he’s you know, they’re really yeah. They’re very, like, open. But they, like you said, they gave people a product that they wanted. They delivered it. And I think, like, it’s it’s good insight because teaching, you know, it’s it’s like, hey.

Bradley Fish [00:15:02]:
You’re doing this for fun. It’s a hobby or something maybe for a lot of people. You don’t have to be at some insane level to make really good music. Right. A lot of yeah. Yeah. A lot of people Yeah.

James Kademan [00:15:13]:
When you learn the four chords, you’re like, really? That’s that’s 90% of what we need to do.

Bradley Fish [00:15:17]:
I mean, you Call you can do a lot of good simple stuff. So yeah. And people sometimes I just actually I had a student the other day. She was doing all this great great singer, kinda like girl, and she’s learning jazz guitar. And it was really complex, complex stuff. And I was like, you know, what anyway, she was having a hard time with it. She was like, oh, I was forgetting some chords on stage or whatever. She was doing an open mic.

Bradley Fish [00:15:45]:
I was like, why don’t you do a simple three chord blues song or a simple three chord country song On, you know, just go back to some roots. And she was like and it was it was there was, like, a part of her that was a little bit like, oh, it is I’m so bored with that. It is so simple. And I’m like, you have no right to be Brad with that. Like like, it’s not that easy for you. And she was like, okay. I admit it. It’s, like, kind of an insecurity of mine.

Bradley Fish [00:16:08]:
You know? And I was like, yeah. Let’s fix this. You know?

James Kademan [00:16:11]:
Find a ladder.

Bradley Fish [00:16:12]:
Yeah. Like, let’s step back and, like, just do something nice and easy. Three, four chords. Rock it out. Audiences will love it. They’ll love the blues or country or whatever. Jazz will be a little bit of theory. My degree was jazz guitar.

Bradley Fish [00:16:25]:
You know? So yeah.

James Kademan [00:16:27]:
Oh, nice.

Bradley Fish [00:16:27]:
That’s what I did in university. So, like, I’m like, that’s really fun for me. Sure. Let’s do all the jazz tunes, but wait a sec. You know? And anyway. But yeah. To your point, I saw, Jethro Tull overseas overseas, and they were like a childhood. Like, I love them as a as a teenager.

Bradley Fish [00:16:43]:
I just love them. And their albums were so amazing. And so you know? And when I saw them live, it was, like, peeking behind the curtain. I was like, oh, like, they’re really human. Like, it wasn’t that great. It was okay. You know? And and I Call and I’m not putting them down at all. I think they were kinda like, dude, we’re, like, a hundred years old.

Bradley Fish [00:17:01]:
Like, alright. One more show. Like, let’s knock it out. You know? And it was great, though, because I had the CVI On the they didn’t have like, on the albums, everything sounds amazing. All those acoustic instruments are beautiful and, like but when you heard On live, they’re like, hey. I just gotta pick up On the guitar, whatever. Like, you know, they weren’t taking it that, you know, super serious. They had some drummer who was probably the hundredth guy that played drums for him.

Bradley Fish [00:17:24]:
He’s probably getting paid whatever it was, $500 a night for the you know, whatever it was. Like, alright, dude. Some young dude. Like, you got the gig. Like and, yeah. And same kind of thing. They really humanize them. You realize a lot of these bands, they’ve got a lot of amazing production behind them, amazing staging.

Bradley Fish [00:17:41]:
Like, they write good songs, whatever it is. But, yeah, people are really human.

James Kademan [00:17:46]:
Yeah. That’s fair. Because live, it’s depending, it can be like, oh,

Bradley Fish [00:17:50]:
this is

James Kademan [00:17:51]:
not worth more than the CD. I think what ticket prices are now.

Bradley Fish [00:17:55]:
Oh, god.

James Kademan [00:17:56]:
I was looking at, I was looking at the killers On Milwaukee. They’re playing the summer Fish. It was, like, a hundred and $80 or something behind. And I’m like, I like the killers. It’d be cool to see the killers.

Bradley Fish [00:18:07]:
But you wanna spend $200?

James Kademan [00:18:09]:
But a hundred and $80 got me probably a 50 yards away from the stage. Oh. I’m like, that’s not going to see the killers. That’s going to hear the killers.

Bradley Fish [00:18:18]:
Yeah. Right. And you still haven’t gotten there yet. You haven’t bought dinner. Yeah. You know, maybe maybe you wanna get a hotel, say enough to cruise home at two in the morning or whatever and, like

James Kademan [00:18:27]:
You know what was interesting for me? My buddy and I were in Portland. Okay. And we saw oh my gosh. Your name’s gonna escape me now. Because he had saw this woman with his wife, and he said the concert’s really cool. And, I’m gonna say Gladys Knight. That’s not right. I’m gonna remember her name twenty minutes from now.

Bradley Fish [00:18:47]:
Put it in the comments.

James Kademan [00:18:48]:
Yeah. Anyways, it was interesting because she has no one that I would be like, oh, we gotta go see her. We’re trying to figure out what to do that night, and he’s like, there’s tickets here, and there’s floor level. And it was, like, $40 or something like that. Like, in an hour, the concert’s happening, and they just need to get rid of these tickets. So I’m like, alright. Let’s try it out. And it was though I wasn’t a huge fan of her music, from a live music thing, it was pretty amazing.

Bradley Fish [00:19:15]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:19:16]:
The coolest part was the people around you because there were obviously people that were psycho fans.

Bradley Fish [00:19:21]:
Were they singing along?

James Kademan [00:19:22]:
Oh my god. Then she Call down on the floor, and I swear to god, the woman next to us, if she wasn’t 20, she woulda had a heart attack because she was like, I just freaked out in a good way

Bradley Fish [00:19:35]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:19:35]:
And just went running to her. And I was like, it was Florence. Florence,

Bradley Fish [00:19:40]:
And the machine? Yes. Okay.

James Kademan [00:19:43]:
Yeah. And that was, like, good music.

Bradley Fish [00:19:46]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:19:46]:
But it’s got, like, Florence CD, right, or whatever. Okay. Right. But there are definitely people that we were surrounded with.

Bradley Fish [00:19:52]:
The fans were there.

James Kademan [00:19:53]:
Oh my god. Yeah. And that was the cool part. On top of the whole stage and watching all that they had going on there, watching the musicians, like, they had cool stuff going on. But there is a cool thing for me when you go to a concert to be way up front and just be surrounded by the crowd. Yeah. Because that kinda even if the music sucks, you’re like, woah. This is pretty cool.

James Kademan [00:20:11]:
Because they’re having a good time. And I guess On the end, that’s what it’s all about.

Bradley Fish [00:20:15]:
That’s cool. I mean, something always flashes through my mind when I hear all these stories. It’s like, all the bands we’re talking about right now, whether it’s Metallica, Johnson, Dollar, Florida, Michigan On whatever. Like, it’s the one in 40,000 or it might be the last. Right? So, like, all those bands. So, really, the other, you know, 39. Exactly. Exactly.

Bradley Fish [00:20:37]:
And even of those band and they’re probably even the two in a million or the one in a million because, like, they’re the ones that actually succeeded and made money and kept going. Mhmm. So so yeah. They’re excuse me. They’re probably, like, the one in a million. So of the other nine nine nine nine or whatever, they’re not living in that world. You know what I mean? And, like, it’s a different thing. It’s like you’re carrying your own gear to the game.

Bradley Fish [00:20:59]:
You’re like, yeah. You’re booking it yourself. Like, you’re not royalty. You know? You might just be playing in clubs or or whatever it is, and it’s a it’s a different experience. I mean Oh, totally. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:11]:
We went to I took my dad to see John Fogerty

Bradley Fish [00:21:13]:
Oh, cool.

James Kademan [00:21:14]:
In Milwaukee. John Fogerty was, I mean, given his age, he’s still doing well.

Bradley Fish [00:21:18]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:19]:
He’s jamming. But the band the opening band, there wasn’t much of a crowd, so I’m like, what’s the deal here? And the opening band, my dad can’t walk very well. So once we’re in place, like, we’re staying here. And I’m like, these guys suck.

Bradley Fish [00:21:32]:
Oh, no.

James Kademan [00:21:33]:
They’re terrible. We learned later, it was two of the kids of John

Bradley Fish [00:21:36]:
On. Me. Wow.

James Kademan [00:21:38]:
And the one guy that was in the back of that band, he actually played guitar with John Fogarty most of the concert. Yeah. He did really well. The other kid, I’m sure you’re a nice person, but Call,

Bradley Fish [00:21:49]:
I’m not good at it.

James Kademan [00:21:50]:
Brutal.

Bradley Fish [00:21:50]:
Oh, that’s too bad.

James Kademan [00:21:51]:
Brutal.

Bradley Fish [00:21:52]:
You know, so sometimes even from what I understand, they’ll there’s even bands that will their label or whatever will pay to put them on the tour.

James Kademan [00:22:00]:
Oh, just to get noticed.

Bradley Fish [00:22:01]:
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So they’re actually paying to play.

James Kademan [00:22:05]:
Okay. Okay. Me. I suppose you got a crowd right there.

Bradley Fish [00:22:08]:
Yeah. Why not? So Right. Get some On time. Yeah. Get some in the whole thing, but but then they have to pay that back out of their future royalties that they hopefully get. Hopefully, they don’t end up in debt or whatever.

James Kademan [00:22:20]:
Oh, man.

Bradley Fish [00:22:20]:
Isn’t that crazy?

James Kademan [00:22:21]:
What was the story about I don’t know if it was Salt On Pepa or En Vogue where they ended up or TLC maybe.

Bradley Fish [00:22:29]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:22:30]:
They ended up going bankrupt.

Bradley Fish [00:22:31]:
Oh, I don’t know.

James Kademan [00:22:32]:
Because they had to pay for other producers and and the stuff and they

Bradley Fish [00:22:36]:
common. That is insane. Right? You’re

James Kademan [00:22:38]:
like, you’re a household name

Bradley Fish [00:22:40]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:22:40]:
For a generation, maybe two. MC Hammer.

Bradley Fish [00:22:44]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of these bands I mean, they’re spending so much to promote, to produce, all that stuff that they’re not really making money.

James Kademan [00:22:52]:
So where so help me understand the industry here because I have no idea. Because you’re like MC Hammer, how are you going broke? You Right. Keep wearing shirts that said can’t touch this for five years, man.

Bradley Fish [00:23:02]:
I mean, I don’t know his story specifically. But

James Kademan [00:23:06]:
Let’s just say you get that level famous. Yeah. You’re still paying your producers?

Bradley Fish [00:23:10]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:23:10]:
Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:23:11]:
And you and maybe for the past, how many ever, you know, like, you owe the record company that fronted out the money Oh. For all the tour support and all the the the tour boss and the and the everything. You know, the producers, whatever they did to to push you. And now and maybe you didn’t manage your money too well because no one really taught you. We’re not. Four zero one k

James Kademan [00:23:32]:
or whatever.

Bradley Fish [00:23:33]:
You’re like, yeah. We’re partying. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And, and maybe there wasn’t much to begin with anyway. Just look. I I read that, like again, we’re talking about the the one in a million here.

Bradley Fish [00:23:44]:
But I think Bowie, David Bowie, they put him in, like, limousines and tried to make him look like this huge rock star before he really had, like, action.

James Kademan [00:23:53]:
Oh. Yeah. They’re gonna tell you that. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:23:55]:
Yeah. All that kind of stuff. I read that somewhere. I can’t. Oops. I can’t vouch for it, but that’s what I read. So yeah.

James Kademan [00:24:01]:
That is interesting. Yeah. I guess I just assume the record label would be like, we’re paying.

Bradley Fish [00:24:05]:
Call, the

James Kademan [00:24:06]:
You go be famous.

Bradley Fish [00:24:07]:
They yeah. Well, they probably paid for the limos and paid for everything. They’re like and they saw somebody saw, like, okay. He’ll be a good investment or whatever. But for every guy it works for, there’s tons that won’t. Wow. It’s interesting. And that’s that’s where I think realistically I guess we got off on that because I was saying, like, I’d open for these bands and Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:24:24]:
They’d be whining because, like, thirty, forty years later, they’re back in clubs again. You know? It’s like, oh, yeah. You played Woodstock or whatever, but or the Fillmore or East or whatever the hell it was. But now you’re, like, playing this little this little club in Milwaukee. You’re at the club. Opening for you. And, like, and I was like, oh my god. Like, I did a big brother and the holding company.

Bradley Fish [00:24:46]:
It was like Janis Joplin’s little band. Right? Of course, Janis has passed away. They had, like, surrogate Janis’s on each coast and in Japan. They had three of the original members. They had some hot shot young guitar player. And, they had, like, a back line, which just meant they showed up with their guitar or their drumsticks, and all the amps and the drums would be provided by the producer or by the, the, promoter.

James Kademan [00:25:07]:
Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:25:08]:
And then they’d cut maybe be like, dude, we didn’t say we could have that kinda amp. It said in the contract with this amp. Oh, Call, too bad. Play the show. You know, whatever. Get to work. Get get it to work. And, but I remember, like, I traded cards with that guitar player.

Bradley Fish [00:25:21]:
And this is in my, I don’t know, mid twenties or something. And I’m like, wow. Like, stars in my eyes. And and he called me and he’s like, Hey, we’re coming through. We got a gig in Minneapolis and one in Chicago and we’d like to play Madison and we want you to, like, open for us and promote it. And I was like, Promote it? Oh, wow. And and he told me what they needed to get paid. I was like, really? Like and now this Higher though.

Bradley Fish [00:25:48]:
It was low. And, like, now this would be, like, their cheapest connecting gig. Like, so they’re giving me their total low. And meanwhile, like, I had a gig at that date in Minneapolis with my band, which was, like, my high, but my high was higher than their low. And I was like, oh, shit. Who am I? Like, these guys you know? And so I realized I was like, it’s tough out there. It’s really something. And what an industry.

Bradley Fish [00:26:16]:
And so that kinda it kinda grounded me in in teaching. I’m just like, okay. I kinda have this real job, you know, that I could kinda It’s

James Kademan [00:26:24]:
a steady. Yes. Or it’s business. Right? You’re not relying On the market Yeah. Or producers or venues or

Bradley Fish [00:26:32]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:26:32]:
Tastes of the crew. Like, everyone’s gonna wanna learn how to play guitar. Right. There’s never gonna be a need or that need go away. Right? Pretty much. Okay. Call bad the economy gets. People always wanna learn how to play guitar.

Bradley Fish [00:26:42]:
It’s amazing. And, yeah. It it really and I and I would always kinda keep one toe or at least or more in the industry and doing stuff and working. Oh, I worked with this producer. I tried this or did that or now I’m all sorts of little creative projects or gigs or whatever it was. But having that that backup of teaching, it kinda just kept me going, you know, and so that I can still do this now as an old man, you know. Yeah. I get it.

Bradley Fish [00:27:07]:
I get it. Yeah. It’s interesting. I’m just kinda thinking about it.

James Kademan [00:27:11]:
Yeah. It’s I wonder also, teaching, at least for me, when I do coaching and stuff like that, it kinda helps you learn the game better.

Bradley Fish [00:27:20]:
They don’t what do you coach?

James Kademan [00:27:22]:
I do business coaching. Oh, cool. Yeah. Just look not a ton, but it’s enough from chatting with business owners or soon to be business owners or people that are dreaming of being a business owner.

Bradley Fish [00:27:33]:
That’s awesome.

James Kademan [00:27:33]:
They’re still kinda dipping their toes. So I teach them business planning classes and stuff like

Bradley Fish [00:27:36]:
that. Right.

James Kademan [00:27:37]:
And it’s interesting just chatting with people that don’t know anything other than I have this idea, and you walk them through what it takes to get that like, what it’s gonna take for it to come to fruition and what are the finances look like On marketing and all that jazz. And it helps me remember, like, oh, yeah. I was there once a long time ago. But it kinda it grounds you to the point that you remember all the stuff that she had to go through and all the hurdles and ugh.

Bradley Fish [00:28:06]:
That’s interesting. I mean, none of this stuff came natural for me. I was not I was kind of more of a hippie back. You know? I was like, I would teach you a guitar lesson. And, like, you know, but, like, actually, our buddy, Rocker, and he was on your show. Right? Rocker. So, Fish, Maximum Inc. And I think now it’s, I think it’s Maximum Inc.

Bradley Fish [00:28:25]:
Radio that he has now. I think

James Kademan [00:28:27]:
Oh, nice. Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:28:28]:
But, he kind of helped me 100,000,000 years ago. We were in a band together, I guess, after that. But he he kind of got me doing this, like, one free guitar lesson. Right? That’s my little Fish. Boom. One free On lesson. And, and like and when he told me about it, I was like, you’re insane. I’m not gonna do that.

Bradley Fish [00:28:46]:
You know, that’s oh my god. And he was just like, try it. Try it. I’m like, finally, I’m like, okay. Okay. And I did it, and it was so wildly successful. I was like, oh my god. And he kinda, like, talked me through all these different eventualities and all these things that happen.

Bradley Fish [00:29:01]:
And like, I learned from it, you know, and how to process it and whatever. And but it just but the concept was really strong, you know, because it’s like, Call right, I’m a little more expensive, but I’m giving, like, a higher quality product. Let people just experience it for themselves and see if they like it. And then most of the time they come over and they’re like, oh, yeah, I On do this. You know, maybe they’re like, oh, I don’t have budget or whatever, but everyone’s having a good time. And, like, they, generally, people sign up. And so and I did it here. I did it when I was overseas.

Bradley Fish [00:29:30]:
It just the principal just kinda worked. And, but he got me into that. So now I’m running it again. That was kind of it was good timing because, actually, I’m just about to launch this, like, in the next day or so. Oh, nice. So I was like, oh, perfect for the podcast. I’m gonna be like, one free guitar lesson in Madison. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:29:46]:
If there’s some prairie people watching. You said you’re what? Like, ten, fifteen minutes away or something like

James Kademan [00:29:51]:
that? Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:29:51]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:29:51]:
Not even. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:29:52]:
Yeah. Cool.

James Kademan [00:29:53]:
Day. It’s hop, skip, and jump.

Bradley Fish [00:29:54]:
Great. So yeah. And that’s been it’s been fun. It lets people check out the studio. It’s and myself. It’s no obligation. Make sure you love it. Helps me find people that are fun to work with and wanna learn.

Bradley Fish [00:30:07]:
And yeah. It’s been and I actually I did, like, I I just put together, like, a I didn’t even know what a marketing funnel was until until, like, a month ago. Like, if you would ask me, like, I don’t know. It sounds scary.

James Kademan [00:30:19]:
Been doing this for a couple decades and marketing funnel

Bradley Fish [00:30:21]:
Never knew. Never knew. Never heard of it. You know? Whatever. Maybe I heard the word, but I was like, I don’t know what that means. You know? And, but I finally I built one. You know? And so, like, you click on the little, like, text thing, and then it takes you to this cool little website, tells you some of the experienced people I played with or recorded with or whatever and about lessons and what I do. And then, like, you click on that, and then you can schedule, like, a Zoom call and be like, we can, like, customize your first lesson, make sure it’s a good fit, whatever.

Bradley Fish [00:30:49]:
And then you come in for the lesson, and everything’s like, that’s it’s kind of a funnel, and we’re gonna add we’ll add video and new pictures and whatever as we go, and probably different ones. I do a lot of weird instruments. I do music production. So, like, oh, the ukulele or whatever it is. We’ll we’ll add different ones. But I just made this, and it’s it’s really exciting. But even before launching it, which is, like, this weekend, I just told people like yourself on the phone that called me. Like, hey.

Bradley Fish [00:31:15]:
I want lessons. I found you on the Internet. I don’t know. And I was just like, tell you what. I’m gonna be running the free lesson right at the good. So I told you, like, just come on in and check it out and and whatever. And, yeah, it’s been great. Like, everyone’s kinda, you know, most almost everyone’s signing up, basically.

James Kademan [00:31:30]:
That’s awesome.

Bradley Fish [00:31:30]:
Thanks. So, yeah, it’s been really fun. And, at some point, I’m gonna be like, okay. And it’s been, like, over a decade, I think, since I Brad this. So

James Kademan [00:31:38]:
Oh, wow.

Bradley Fish [00:31:38]:
Yeah. Things were just chugging along so nice. And then I started traveling. I was I did a little teaching while I was overseas and running around Asia this winter. But mostly, I didn’t answer my phone for, like, three and a half months. Oh, no. Two years in a row. I was like

James Kademan [00:31:52]:
So you get a little dry skin?

Bradley Fish [00:31:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was I was still doing fine, but I was like, I should probably mark it. That’s the guy. I should probably be you know? So you’d not be, like, a lazy musician. Like, alright. Let’s go. So, yeah, that’s great.

James Kademan [00:32:05]:
Got it. That’s awesome. I imagine when people work with someone like you versus just working with a 16 year old kid that’s like, ah, just do this. You’ve seen so much of different people with finger styles, different guitars, different likes as far as music and stuff like that. So, you know, like, oh, you wanna play this? This is what you gotta do.

Bradley Fish [00:32:24]:
Totally. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really interesting to be able to people get some like, different things really trigger people in a good way. Like Mhmm. You know, I had a guy the other day who was like, I really wanna learn slide. And, like Oh.

Bradley Fish [00:32:36]:
I think he thought it was gonna take him, like, a million years. And I just was like, here. Have a dough, bro. We’re gonna open tune it. Do this. And he was just, like, mind blown. Like, I got him he’d already could play a little guitar. So Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:32:48]:
He just and and that’s what I like to try to do. It’s just in the we might have done that. I don’t remember. Maybe that first lesson, didn’t I have you kinda with one finger doing some yeah. Like, playing some simple songs, open tuning guitar. Like, oh my god. I can play a three chord song immediately. That’s awesome.

Bradley Fish [00:33:03]:
It usually takes, like, six months or whatever. I’m like, no. Let’s do it today. And that that builds confidence and Oh, totally. Fun. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:33:11]:
Yeah. Where it sounds somewhat like

Bradley Fish [00:33:14]:
You like music? Progressing. Yeah. Totally.

James Kademan [00:33:17]:
Like swimming or as long as you can stay afloat, we can learn how to swim.

Bradley Fish [00:33:21]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:33:21]:
You assume you’re just gonna sink like a rock.

Bradley Fish [00:33:23]:
Right. Right. It’s like, it doesn’t have to be though. And and I also like I like to meet people where they’re at, but Call, like, whatever their, tastes are. So if you’re into Metallica, yeah, let’s do some metal. You know, if if you’re into folk music or you’re into whatever it is, blues, I’m pretty eclectic. I like to play a lot of styles

James Kademan [00:33:43]:
Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:33:43]:
And blend them and stuff. So

James Kademan [00:33:44]:
I was trying to see a pattern here. I don’t see a pattern. You got everything. I

Bradley Fish [00:33:48]:
mean, look at the All those weird inserts that are hiding from the camera. Yeah. There’s we’ll do a little tour later if you On. My my messy studio. But, yeah, the instruments from just all over the world. And and, I kinda there’s a few that I really, really specialize in and then a lot that I just I’m like, this is so interesting. I wonder if I could play this. I’m like and you just get On, you know? And each instrument kinda like, you get like, I got when I got a sitar, you know, it was like, that’s how they do that.

Bradley Fish [00:34:19]:
Like, you play the saturn, it sounds like Indian music just right off the bat. You know? It’s like, wow. Cool. And, like or, like, when I got, like, a real nice eighties metal style guitar was, like, the the hardcore Floyd Rose Whammy Bar. And you can bend the notes like bet, like, the strings go floppy when you do the Whammy Bar. I was like, that’s how they do all that eighties metal. That’s how it works? Yeah. Like, so much of the stuff, the instrument makes a big difference.

Bradley Fish [00:34:45]:
You know? And so when you get your hand or you try a fretless classical guitar or a banjo or whatever it Fish, like, oh, it sounds like a banjo. It’s a Brad you know, all these things. And so I just it’s been so fun to experiment, and then people actually wanna take lessons on the mandolin On the the ukulele or whatever it is. And so I teach a lot of this string stuff and I’m a pretty quick study even if it’s not my main thing. You know? And I did a lot of loops for Sony, some for Apple, and and other smaller companies. But, like, they would have me record little parts, and then a producer could take my riffs and put it into their, like, hip hop track or their EDM or whatever they’re doing. That was, like, another gig I got into.

James Kademan [00:35:27]:
So those loops, did you create them, or they told you what to play?

Bradley Fish [00:35:31]:
Or They gave me a they gave me a lot of leeway. They’re they’re just kinda like, we like what you do. Go nuts. Make us a bunch of so, like, Sony, I did three loop CDs for, and it was just, like, lots of variety. I’m doing, like, Wawa Electric Banjo, or I’m doing, like, Vietnamese or what? Anything you can imagine. And I’m just jamming. And then we’d one time I had an intern do it with me or another time I do it myself. I would, like, cut the loops into, like, little pieces that then a producer could take that.

Bradley Fish [00:36:04]:
And, you know, maybe it’s just like, who knows? You know? Whatever it is. And they’re like, oh, cool. I’m gonna take that. I’m gonna pitch shift it. I’m gonna make it go backwards. I’m gonna do whatever I want. I’m gonna put this beat under it, and they could just blend it into their music. So So it’s I got into that, and that got me into, actually, I got well, I started doing a lot of production for people, just even a lot of hobby stuff.

Bradley Fish [00:36:27]:
And then once in a while, like, maybe playing on people’s recordings that actually were doing something in the industry. But a lot On times it was just for fun, you know, people, singer songwriters, my students, whatever. And then, I got hit up by, David Doman and he D. A. Doman. He’s a producer and he is doing like, oh, god. Everybody. Tyga and Eminem and, like, Beyonce.

Bradley Fish [00:36:54]:
Like, he’s kinda worked with that whole, like, world of, like, rap and now R and B artists. And when I started working with him, he was, he he wasn’t that well known, you know. But we did but he had, like, a minor hit in England, and he was starting to grow. I remember at one point, he was like, dude, do you wanna do some more loops? I’m the number two producer in the world. And I was like, what? And I started looking at him like, oh, wow. Like, he had a hit with Eminem, and he had a hit with Ty this Kodak Black and all this. I was like, holy cow. So I and Chris Brown, whatever.

Bradley Fish [00:37:22]:
All those kinda rapper people that I wasn’t that aware of, but I was even I was kinda like, oh, I’ve heard those names. But he would have me sometimes do little loops like that that he could put into his music or, he would have me compose. So, like, he would actually do this thing where he’d be like, listen to this Beyonce song, learn it, then do so many chord substitutions that it’s unrecognizable, which I guess I guess Van Halen used to write like that too. Like, they take popular songs, substitute substitute substitute Call something totally different. And then he’d have me play, like, my some weird ethnic instrument on top of that. Like, I’d do it on the guitar and then, you know, a Greek bazooki or whatever. And then he would, like, produce that with, like, hip hop beats. And so I’ll play some of that if if you On b roll.

Bradley Fish [00:38:06]:
Oh, I don’t know if we can use it there. But, anyway, I’ll play it for you. But, anyways, so I got into that, and none of my stuff made it, unfortunately, with him. But he he was good. Yeah. Well, he would do that’s, like, a great example. Like, Heap probably has done over 10,000 of what you he calls them joints. They’re just like these little musical, like, you know, three, four minute beds that a rapper could rap over or a singer could sing over.

Bradley Fish [00:38:30]:
And out of those, let’s say, 10,000, you know, maybe he’s I don’t know exactly. Maybe he’s sold 50 and maybe 30 were hits or something. I don’t know. So the odds, I mean, he’s just cranking them out, cranking them out with tons of not just me, tons of writers. And so

James Kademan [00:38:46]:
So he’s got his funnel.

Bradley Fish [00:38:47]:
Oh, he’s got yeah. Big time, dude. I mean, it’s massive. And at some point, I was kinda like, okay. Cool. I’m bowing out, but it was interesting. I learned a lot. You know? I learned a lot.

Bradley Fish [00:38:57]:
It was kinda like going to grad school and having, like, a producer, and he would just be like, tighter, tighter. I’m like, what? Like, something that was totally rock and roll tight was not r and b rap type. You know, they they On it it’s almost gotta be plastic. It’s gotta be perfect. You know? So so I had to, like, play perfect and then edit more perfect and just

James Kademan [00:39:16]:
So when they say tighter, what does that mean?

Bradley Fish [00:39:18]:
Like, exactly on the beat. Exactly on the grid. Like Okay. Like, to a microscope, you know, zoom in on the computer and shift it over.

James Kademan [00:39:26]:
So On electric guitar is a little bit of one in either direction kind of thing.

Bradley Fish [00:39:30]:
I mean, it’s how you play it. So but, like, you could play the electric guitar or whatever it is super tight, and, like, it would make it on a Queen record. No problem. But for one of these records, they’re gonna be, like, go in there, edit it, quantize it, move it over a little bit little bit more. Like, just make it microscopically surgical. Yeah. Like, you programmed it with beats On the computer. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:39:51]:
And that’s a lot of times they’ll do that. They’ll, like, trigger like, you play a riff on a guitar or whatever, and they’ll just hit a button to retrigger it.

James Kademan [00:39:58]:
Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:39:58]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:39:58]:
I see Ed Sheeran do that

Bradley Fish [00:40:00]:
Oh, yeah.

James Kademan [00:40:00]:
Live sometimes.

Bradley Fish [00:40:01]:
Right? I think you’re talking more about looping. So Okay. Yeah. So he would do that with, like, a foot pedal. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I got into that too. That was a whole another, like, little back there, I had the whole studio, like, Call stage of, like, looping all these weird ethnic instruments.

Bradley Fish [00:40:14]:
But little different because Okay. The producer, he’s hitting little pads. I but they’re like, you know, oh, yeah. Like On that keyboard behind you, that’s lit up. I don’t know if it shows up. But, like, basically, you know, so you could be like, hello. Hello. Hello.

Bradley Fish [00:40:28]:
Or whatever. Alright. And and then you let the computer quantize that so that the rhythm becomes perfect on the grid. And so it’s just a different style. It was interesting. I learned a lot, but it kind of that whole relationship evolved out of doing the loops for these different companies. And I guess that kind of evolved out of me just being into weird instruments and stuff.

James Kademan [00:40:51]:
Who’s got one of these?

Bradley Fish [00:40:52]:
Yeah. I do. I do. I do. I’ve got one. I probably do back there somewhere. Like yeah.

James Kademan [00:40:57]:
Oh, that’s funny. Yeah. So from a business point of view with you teaching Yeah. How has that evolved over? How long have you been doing this?

Bradley Fish [00:41:06]:
It’s my fortieth year. Fortieth year teaching? I started when I was 16.

James Kademan [00:41:10]:
Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:41:10]:
Yeah. I’m, like, 55 a half. So, yeah, I can say forty years complete On half a year.

James Kademan [00:41:16]:
Nice.

Bradley Fish [00:41:17]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:41:17]:
So, I mean, that’s On I imagine that’s changed because music certainly changed since then. The availability of music has certainly changed since then. What people like, the training lessons change over the course of that forty years because

Bradley Fish [00:41:31]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:41:31]:
I mean, you’re a 16 year old kid. You got chairs. They got a guitar, and you’re like, okay. Do this.

Bradley Fish [00:41:35]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:41:35]:
And now they got a guitar and a chair, and you’re like, do this. How has it evolved?

Bradley Fish [00:41:40]:
Yeah. Some of it’s really similar and and or the same. And some of it’s changed a lot. I think one thing is like there’s a lot of, like back then, very few people even had books, let alone like YouTube videos and free Internet tabs and stuff. So it’s a lot easier and quicker. Now when someone brings in a request, like, I wanna learn this song. The first thing I do is I’m, like, on Google or whatever, and I’m pulling up the chords or the tabs or whatever. And even if it’s not perfect, it’s so close usually that I can, like, fix whatever mistakes are there.

Bradley Fish [00:42:16]:
And I can learn it. So it’s really fast. I don’t have to do everything from scratch by ear. Saves a ton of time. Also, like, people do learn a lot online nowadays, which is I think is great. Even if they’re like a lot of times they call me and they’re like, I’m kinda confused. Like, I’ve been learning all this stuff, but I don’t know what to work on. And I they hit plateaus, but that’s okay.

Bradley Fish [00:42:38]:
Like, cool. You learn some stuff. You know, you got some basics. That’s great. Like, it saves me a lot of the most, like, maybe mundane stuff of just having to teach people to begin. It’s like, oh, you learned a few chords on YouTube or whatever. Great. You know? Cool.

Bradley Fish [00:42:53]:
Let’s go from there. Some people don’t. Some people do it, but but that’s like, I kinda work with that so that I can help people go to the next level and try to put it all together. Like, okay. You learn that Call? Awesome. Now let’s learn how to jam. And then there’s a certain amount that it’s hard to get from the Internet. Like, having a good groove, having, you know, rhythm.

Bradley Fish [00:43:13]:
Like the the book or the video won’t be like, dude, you’re totally off beat. Let’s work. You know? Right? But but I will. But I’ll try to be nice about it, but I I’ll tell them, you know, so tactful. Let’s say so, but I let people know and so that they can really work on that stuff. Also, like, it’s really everyone’s got access on their phone. You can have a drummer now. You know, you pull up GarageBand or Loops app or whatever on your phone.

Bradley Fish [00:43:37]:
And I’m like, jam was Kyle there On your GarageBand on your phone. That’s your new buddy. You know, all these cool cheap pieces that or free pieces of technology that weren’t there before. So much harder. So we’re getting people into recording and production, you know, for, like, yeah, like, you know, a hundred, $200. Somebody can get into, like, recording at home. And I’ll be like, man, like, I’ve done a lot of remote teaching where I’m, like, teach people how to produce and they’ll, like, record the rhythm guitar and the lead guitar and and the bass On maybe even on their guitar On whatever it is saying. And you can produce your own album in your bedroom or or just even learn guitar that way.

Bradley Fish [00:44:16]:
I think, like, that kind of stuff really evolved. Also, I kind of evolved into doing more group rock band type classes and bluegrass band classes, acoustic, whatever, like little jam bands that I can pull my students together to play together.

James Kademan [00:44:31]:
I love that idea.

Bradley Fish [00:44:32]:
Thanks. It’s really fun. Yeah. I can give them a longer session, and they get that like like, wow, I’m playing with real people. Like, there’s drums and bass and two guitars and, oh, I never thought I’d do that. You know? And and there’s things that are hard to teach one on one, like playing dynamically, like, you know, volume or or, you know, really listening to other people. Like, some of the most important things are harder to teach one on one, but in a band, you it just you’re like, hey. You know? Like Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:45:03]:
Just yeah. So those things change. I’m trying to think what else. That’s a really good question. I’m kinda going, what’s changed? But but some of but but some of the stuff is really similar. You know? It’s like, yeah. I mean

James Kademan [00:45:17]:
Still guitar and chords and yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:45:20]:
It it really is. Yeah. Also, like, I guess another thing, I just recently had some some kids in here, 13 year old kids that unrelated On was coming for guitar, one was coming for drums. But what they really wanted to do was music production. Oh. They, you know, whatever they wanted to be like the rap producer, you know. And even though, like, I was on the other side of it with the producer I was mentioning, the, like, I got a good taste of what he did. I know it.

Bradley Fish [00:45:51]:
And certainly for a 13 year old kid, I mean, I can really help them, like, you know, oh, you wanna make beats? Oh, yeah. And I was more the guy playing real instruments with a like, a rap producer. But still, I know how to do all I like his end of it kinda so, so I can show them, like, how to program beats, how to use software, how to, you know, how the music fits together, how to use the keyboard to create their tune, and how to be creative. Like, just have On. You know? Make up a cool set. Have your dad record the sentence. Okay. Let’s, you know, let’s sample it now.

Bradley Fish [00:46:22]:
Whatever. And they love it. You know? So it’s it’s like a whole new thing that didn’t used to exist. And now a kid can get started for, oh, you got a laptop? You’re willing to invest? I don’t know. You know, hundred bucks? Like, let’s go. You know? You’ve got a a little mic and a little audio interface or you know? And that is crazy that they can do. And it, honestly, it’s a little more fun for the kids sometimes, and they don’t have to be quite as disciplined, you know, to, like Alright. Get good at it.

Bradley Fish [00:46:50]:
Like, an old fashioned instrument takes a little bit more focus, you know, which is it’s a good thing, but Call, why not? If someone just wants to make, you know, more modern style music. So that never existed.

James Kademan [00:47:02]:
So the end result is a song Yeah. But there wasn’t the level of talent to get to that song.

Bradley Fish [00:47:07]:
Yeah. I mean, it’s

James Kademan [00:47:08]:
An argument could be made that it’s not as strong Absolutely. Playing an instrument.

Bradley Fish [00:47:11]:
Sure. But, you know, it’s funny. Like, think about, like, auto tune. Right? Like, people kinda, like, that’s auto tune. You know, they didn’t have that when I was a kid. Boo. Right? But then, like, I was thinking about it. Like, the Fender Precision Bass, which is like a normal electric bass by today’s standards, I think it came out in the fifties, I think.

Bradley Fish [00:47:32]:
And that was like the Fish, as far as I know, fretted bass. Like it had frets. Before that, basses had no frets and you just slid around kinda like an upright bass, you know. Okay. And I I don’t know this for a fact. I’m totally hypothesizing. I need to find an old dude to talk to and, like but, but, like, I bet back then they’re, like, frets on a bass. Boo.

Bradley Fish [00:47:55]:
You know? Come on. That is a dick and a talent. You know? I have no idea, but that’s kinda what it’s like really. Because then the the frets are kinda like auto tune, you know. And, it tunes your you don’t have to be out right on the target. You just put your finger anywhere in the right area. And, you know, and so and yeah. And, with a guitar, with chords, you almost have to have those frets because too many fingers, everything can’t be right in the right place.

James Kademan [00:48:20]:
You gotta figure out where you’re supposed to be.

Bradley Fish [00:48:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I I think there’s levels of that, but the people that are making that music, they’re making cool music. People are enjoying it. They’re getting paid. Like, who am I to criticize it? You know? And I think it’s like a teacher too. I mean, or even if I’m producing, you know, it’s like people everybody else can be a music critic. That’s not really my job.

Bradley Fish [00:48:43]:
Like, I’m not there to like, you like Taylor Swift? You’re a 13 year old girl and you wanna learn. That’s awesome. Let’s learn Taylor Swift. You know? You hate Taylor Swift? You love, you know, Metallica? Cool. Let’s learn some Metallica. Like, I’m not there to be like, I don’t like that kind of music. Like, I’m like, I like it Call. And if and you’re gonna end up learning a lot of the same fundamentals and the same chords whether you’re learning Metallica or Taylor Swift, same chords, same notes, a lot of the same scales and everything, but, like, who am I to say which is better?

James Kademan [00:49:16]:
I’m not teaching you that. That music sucks.

Bradley Fish [00:49:19]:
Yeah. Right. Right. A lot of teachers will probably do that, but that’s not right.

James Kademan [00:49:22]:
Your money’s green to get another Taylor. So Tomorrow, Call like to tell you to throw a couple of girls.

Bradley Fish [00:49:27]:
It’s funny. Yeah. I mean, I I might even be like, wow. The snare drum sound on that Taylor Swift song. It’s pretty cool. Like, I Fish I look for the good in it, and there’s always good in it. I mean, there’s a reason these people are really popular.

James Kademan [00:49:39]:
There’s musicians in the presumably, there’s musicians back there. It’s not just some computer pumping out. Oh, yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:49:44]:
So And even if it Fish, right, like, cool. That’s really some of that music’s so interesting. I learned a lot checking out DJ’s and electronic music people like, oh, how do they do that? You know, it’s it’s fascinating.

James Kademan [00:49:57]:
I remember what was the movie about the DJ? I think it’s We Are Your Friends or something like that. There’s a little scene in there where the guy is describing the beats per minute.

Bradley Fish [00:50:06]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:50:07]:
And, like, that scene the rest of the movie is whatever. But, that scene was pretty interesting because I had heard, and I like a lot of dance, techno ish house music, whatever like that. I didn’t know anything technically about it. I’m just like, hey. Use a computer, whatever. And it was interesting how he’s going through the like, this is a 50 beats per minute. This is one seventy. In that scene, I was like, oh, that’s what I’m listening to.

James Kademan [00:50:33]:
Like, oh, okay. There’s an actual science to it. Oh, yeah. Almost instead of just some guy just

Bradley Fish [00:50:39]:
Oh, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And the guys that are really good like like, DA, the producer I mentioned who’s working with all those rappers, like, he I mean, he was a drummer. He, like, studied drums or whatever as a kid. And he studies now, like, jazz piano

James Kademan [00:50:57]:
just

Bradley Fish [00:50:57]:
to learn all these chords and, like, you know, takes lessons with some guy who’s probably amazing in LA. Like, he studies composition. Like, he he takes it pretty seriously. Nice. Yeah. Even though he’s probably self taught, and he, you know, did a lot. And but but, like, there’s a lot to learn there. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [00:51:14]:
You can get it.

James Kademan [00:51:14]:
It’s incredible. Yeah. Yeah. It’s Call. But I get what you’re saying about different even if you don’t necessarily like the song, there’s little pieces that you can pick out of there realignment. Absolutely.

Bradley Fish [00:51:24]:
Absolutely. And and if there’s, you know, if if, yeah, someone comes in with different maybe it’s not something I would listen to at home for fun or whatever, just chilling out. But but, yeah, Call always find the good in it. And if I’m like, oh, that’s pretty like, that’s at your level. Like, maybe it’s a beginner. I’m like, that’s easy. That’d be pretty and you love it? Let’s do it. Because I wanted to show you those chords anyway, and it’s got three of them.

Bradley Fish [00:51:48]:
You know?

James Kademan [00:51:48]:
So Oh, nice. Yeah. Definitely.

Bradley Fish [00:51:50]:
So I’m always kinda just strategically looking for stuff that p my my students like that will help them kinda, you know, walk up the Nice. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:51:58]:
That’s cool. Thanks. That’s smart. That’s smart. I love it.

Bradley Fish [00:52:01]:
It works. Yeah. And then I might be like, hey. Let’s jam on that song. Like, let’s learn how to improvise. Yeah. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:52:07]:
That’s cool. Tell me a story. I wanted to ask you about the building.

Bradley Fish [00:52:10]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:52:10]:
So when you’re 16, you didn’t have a building for people to

Bradley Fish [00:52:13]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:52:13]:
Students to come in.

Bradley Fish [00:52:14]:
I used to go to people’s houses to teach.

James Kademan [00:52:16]:
Yeah. So how tell me about how that evolved over

Bradley Fish [00:52:18]:
the course of time. Studio. Yeah. So this studio is, like, 1,500 square foot. It’s like the side of the house. Yeah. And this room has low ceilings, but all the other ceilings are super high. Right? So it’s awesome for jamming.

Bradley Fish [00:52:32]:
I love it.

James Kademan [00:52:34]:
When did you decide to get it?

Bradley Fish [00:52:36]:
This building and I just rent. It’s not even mine. But, this is my it’ll be ten years, I think, in November. So I think, November 2015.

James Kademan [00:52:48]:
Okay.

Bradley Fish [00:52:49]:
So Were you you were

James Kademan [00:52:51]:
from nothing to this?

Bradley Fish [00:52:52]:
No. I had another space, and I Brad just come back, and I was traveling. I just come back to the country after a bunch of years. So I was, I was on the West Side, near West Side, kinda on Mount Street. There was a little building that was getting torn down, so I had to and that was much smaller, but it was cool. And previous to that, when I was like, I was out of the country for a while, but when I was in Madison, I would tend to rent a whole house, and like teach out of there. Oh. And, that was really cool too.

Bradley Fish [00:53:26]:
Actually, that was really nice. And I could like play with my band and like, you know, do that stuff. This place, I think I just was looking, and I I I Call the the landlord. And he’s like, you know, have you heard of, so and so? And I’m like, yeah. He’s like, oh, yeah. He’s an engineer that used to have the space. I’m like, really? And he’s like, you heard of so and so? I’m like, yeah. And, like, she was an engineer that I was like, this sounds kinda serious, actually.

Bradley Fish [00:53:52]:
Like, you know, and and sure enough, I got here. Yeah. There’s the window to the control room, and they Oh,

James Kademan [00:53:57]:
this Fish already laid out?

Bradley Fish [00:53:58]:
This was laid out. Yeah. I added a lot of the, some of the soundproofing and color Call color and whatever, but it was actually already set up. Oh, nice. I didn’t have to do that. And, that was, like, it was kinda turnkey kinda. I had some work to do, but that was awesome. And, actually, like, when I first it was funny.

Bradley Fish [00:54:15]:
I’ll tell you. You got me thinking when I first got to Madison. So I’d been teaching I did a degree in guitar at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, and they had a great music program. Anyway and I came up here. I was playing on the street. I’m sure grandma was proud, whatever. He’s like, oh god. He just finished college.

James Kademan [00:54:36]:
Let’s see music. You can’t sing. Right?

Bradley Fish [00:54:38]:
Yeah. But things evolved really Fish. And I, like, I came up with, like, a pickup truck full of instruments. I had, like, a hundred bucks in my pocket. I had some posters for guitar lessons, that, that I did on my parents’ Brad a copy machine inside loads. I had my buddy’s phone number because he had a house, and I I had a tent. I put my tent in his backyard, and I was playing, at the farmer’s market and stuff like that, State Street. And by the end of the summer, I had, like, you know, saved up a bank account of money that I could show a landlord, be like, no.

Bradley Fish [00:55:10]:
Really? I can live here. And, like and I had a full full, schedule of students that had just seen me playing out there. And, it was amazing. And then and, yeah, ended up just kinda getting into more you know, getting an apartment and then getting a house and all that. But Alright. It was pretty cool. Like, it just Madison was very welcoming, actually. Nice.

Bradley Fish [00:55:30]:
Yeah. People were very, very kinda supportive and just liked what was going on. So

James Kademan [00:55:34]:
Tell me a story about the street musicians. Yeah. Because that’s always been to me, I feel like you have to have some skills to do that. We were, where are we at? We’re in the Twin Cities, and we’re walking by this guy that was a street musician. He was banging on a bucket.

Bradley Fish [00:55:51]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:55:51]:
And I don’t think he had any skill.

Bradley Fish [00:55:53]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:55:53]:
And I figured, man, if you’re gonna be a street musician, you’re banking on tips. Yeah. Like, you should

Bradley Fish [00:55:59]:
You should be good.

James Kademan [00:55:59]:
You should be good.

Bradley Fish [00:56:00]:
Well, there’s all levels. Right? So that there’s definitely people that you know, it’s probably kind of almost, like, what’s the word? Like, kind of a begging kind of thing, you know, where it’s just kinda like, I’ll pay you to leave. You know? Whatever. Like The

James Kademan [00:56:16]:
rule that I had was if you stop to listen Mhmm. Then you should throw something down.

Bradley Fish [00:56:21]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:56:21]:
But if they’re not good enough for you to stop or you got stuff to do, like, you’re on your way, like, we don’t need to pay anything.

Bradley Fish [00:56:28]:
Yeah. But

James Kademan [00:56:28]:
if you’re gonna be like, let’s check this out. Sounds kinda cool.

Bradley Fish [00:56:31]:
That’s a nice role. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a mix. Right? You get there was a guy out here, Josh Cohen that I never got to see him live, but he was busking On here. And I think the city stopped him, and it was kind of a Okay.

James Kademan [00:56:44]:
That was gonna be my next question. Yeah. Are there some kind of license? Or

Bradley Fish [00:56:47]:
So it’s tricky. I I think yeah, and it’s really limiting. And this and I think I never had to deal with it. They were always really nice to me. I’d get crowds. People were cool. The cops were just like, great. Like, everyone’s happy.

Bradley Fish [00:57:03]:
It’s peaceful. It sounds good.

James Kademan [00:57:05]:
Just bringing some culture to

Bradley Fish [00:57:06]:
the scene. Right. They’d Call by. But this guy was I I even though I didn’t see him live, I saw some video, and I’m, like, he’s really talented. He was doing, like, two headed tapping on a bass. And, of course, he’s plugged in, you know, and kinda jazz style. And I think they they find him. And they they gave him a ticket or whatever it was.

Bradley Fish [00:57:25]:
And, I don’t know the whole story, but he ended up leaving. So I don’t think he was gonna fight it, and it was a whole thing. But I guess my point is things may have changed by now in 2025. I don’t know what to expect. But I I put together I’ll show it to you later. Maybe we’ll film it. I put together a crazy rig with, like and maybe you Call see the umbrella from here. I don’t know.

Bradley Fish [00:57:45]:
We’ll we’ll go look at it. But it’s kinda Mary Poppins, you know, and it and it’s got, like it’s a bicycle trailer with a bunch of my weird instruments. And, and then I’m gonna have an amp and there’s even a solar panel if I want. And there’s, like, yeah. And I Call do the bells on the feet and the shakers on my feet and all that stuff. And, and I it’s kind of a lot to bring around, but I kinda wanna do it just to, like, excuse me, to, like, hearken back to the old days.

James Kademan [00:58:12]:
Yeah. The one man band.

Bradley Fish [00:58:14]:
Yeah. And just do it for fun and and kinda get a vibe. And since I’m doing my little free guitar lesson promo, so I’m I’m talking about it now so that I make myself do it. Because a part of me is like, am I really gonna do that? But I think it’d be fun. You know, get one Saturday morning when the weather is great. Yeah. Get down to the farmer’s market and just have fun.

James Kademan [00:58:29]:
Be blessed.

Bradley Fish [00:58:30]:
Yeah. I think it’d be cool.

James Kademan [00:58:32]:
It’s weird. So in my head

Bradley Fish [00:58:34]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:58:35]:
I’m gonna give you an example. It was just in Austin, Texas.

Bradley Fish [00:58:38]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:58:38]:
Austin, Texas, I was in there ten years ago, and they had Rainy Street. And they have Rainey Street. Rainey Street is a bunch of houses turned into bars, and you have bands and stuff like that. Like, band will be on the deck. Band will be in the kitchen. And a whole street, few blocks, super awesome bars everywhere. Ten years later, so I was there last year, and I think it’s the tallest building in Texas is being built on Rainey Street.

Bradley Fish [00:59:01]:
Oh.

James Kademan [00:59:02]:
So, ironically, they’re just destroying Yeah. From my point of view. Like, it’s progress, but they’re destroying the culture. Yeah. Like, Austin, Rainey Street was an attractant. So from my point of view, this one man Brad thing, that’s gonna be something, like, even amongst the skyscrapers and all that crap, whatever the city’s gonna have, the dollar stores and the whatever, that it’s it’s bringing something cool and unique to that city.

Bradley Fish [00:59:26]:
I hope so. I mean, they may be like, no. You have to do it this way, and you have to, like, have us hire you, and you have to but I think, like, that would take the phone out of it for me. Like, I would be kinda just like, I don’t want you to pay me. I just wanna, like I mean, I guess I’d keep an open mind, but, like, I just wanna show up if I feel like it that I’m not in the mood. I’m not gonna go. Yeah. I’m in the mood.

Bradley Fish [00:59:47]:
I’ll do it. Like, I’ll do it when I feel like it. That’s kind of the beauty of of it. You know? You’re not you don’t feel like you’re like, oh, got it. Oh, fifteen minute break. Gotta get back there. You know? It’s like Run

James Kademan [00:59:56]:
from one to 01:15.

Bradley Fish [00:59:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. You better like, if you wanna chat with someone, chat. It’s just super laid back, and it’s on your own terms. And I think that’s what’s so neat about that gig, and I always loved it. I used to do it outside of, Grateful Dead shows. Oh, no. Nice.

Bradley Fish [01:00:11]:
Awesome. People would always give you a free ticket and, like yeah. That was super fun back in the day.

James Kademan [01:00:16]:
That’s cool.

Bradley Fish [01:00:17]:
That was really cool.

James Kademan [01:00:18]:
The other thing I wanna ask you about is, when it comes to tipping

Bradley Fish [01:00:21]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [01:00:21]:
For a street musician Yeah. A dollar and $5 ain’t what it was four

Bradley Fish [01:00:25]:
years ago. True. Like I said, I haven’t really done it since then, but, but I I guess I popped out a few times maybe, like, when I got back to town, like, ten years ago. But I

James Kademan [01:00:35]:
wouldn’t feel like here’s $20. Right?

Bradley Fish [01:00:36]:
Like Right. That’s a lot. Right. So I think you just do what you’re comfortable with.

James Kademan [01:00:41]:
I think

Bradley Fish [01:00:41]:
the whole thing that I like about it it’s kinda like the free guitar lesson. You know, it’s like it’s like, it’s free. I hope you like it. You Call walk by. You can partake. If you On to throw some cash on it, that’d be really cool. If you don’t, no problem. Like, there’s no pressure.

Bradley Fish [01:00:57]:
There’s no obligation. You just, like, you interface with it however you feel good about it. You know, if you On buy a CD or whatever, that’s awesome. Mhmm. Whatever it is. And and so it’s not really about, like, what’s expected. I think people just do what you want. You know? Gotcha.

Bradley Fish [01:01:15]:
Yeah. Maybe maybe people take a video and they post it on Facebook or something and, like, that’s great promo for you. Or

James Kademan [01:01:21]:
As long as they tag the guy or, you know, whatever, whoever it is.

Bradley Fish [01:01:24]:
Exactly. Tag the guy.

James Kademan [01:01:25]:
It’s not just some random person. It’s this person to promote. Yeah.

Bradley Fish [01:01:29]:
That’d be cool. But people kinda you know, I think some people have that. Like, you you’re you have that internal sense of, like, oh, I should probably do something appropriate here. I stopped. I’m gonna throw them a bucket here or whatever it is or five or you know, you’re like, maybe not a hundred. I I maybe not one eighty. You know, that’s They

James Kademan [01:01:44]:
have to be really Yeah.

Bradley Fish [01:01:46]:
They’re really good. But you know what?

James Kademan [01:01:47]:
You better see some Hendrix here.

Bradley Fish [01:01:49]:
Yeah. When I did go out there, like, ten years ago or whatever On I got back to town, I got some bookings for for, like, private parties right off the street. And those those paid those paid real money,

James Kademan [01:02:00]:
you know.

Bradley Fish [01:02:01]:
Those were real gigs. I mean so I think that stuff happens too, you know. Got it.

James Kademan [01:02:06]:
So it’s almost an advertising for you. That’s all it is.

Bradley Fish [01:02:08]:
Okay. It’s just ads. Yeah. The the tipping to me is almost it’s like I have a job. It’s cool. But I mean, it’s I mean, yeah. Sure. There’s a guy.

James Kademan [01:02:15]:
I mean, they get the guitar case open, so I figured Sure. You’re showing off your talent. Got it. Yeah. There’s yeah.

Bradley Fish [01:02:21]:
Go ahead.

James Kademan [01:02:21]:
Well, there’s one guy I saw playing buckets where he was actually doing this thing with his foot.

Bradley Fish [01:02:25]:
Yeah. They’re gonna lift the bucket. Yep.

James Kademan [01:02:27]:
And I’m like, there’s some skill there.

Bradley Fish [01:02:29]:
There you go.

James Kademan [01:02:29]:
I don’t know where you go to learn how to play buckets, but he was amazing. Yeah. We probably watched that guy for five, ten minutes, whatever.

Bradley Fish [01:02:36]:
Yeah. So I

James Kademan [01:02:36]:
have no problem throwing him money.

Bradley Fish [01:02:37]:
Right.

James Kademan [01:02:38]:
The other guy was just like, five year old could do what you’re doing.

Bradley Fish [01:02:42]:
At the same time, like, for I mean, I don’t know this guy’s situation, but there’s some people that, like, that’s how they develop. Like, they go out there and they work on it and they work on it and, like, yeah, you don’t gotta tip them or or enjoy it or stop or anything. But if he does that day after day and he actually works on it, and it’s not just some, you know, thing, but he actually, like, develops, maybe he’s taking lessons on the side. Who knows? Hopefully. Hopefully. Exactly.

James Kademan [01:03:04]:
Get better.

Bradley Fish [01:03:05]:
Get better. But he might actually get better. You know what I mean? So it does give people a chance. I’m you know, I certainly went out there and I wasn’t perfect. And it’s a great place to not be perfect.

James Kademan [01:03:13]:
But just from my point of view, this particular guy, he was so bad. Yeah. Like, there was no this was really a a guy there was no recognizable summon. It was just like, I found a bucket in a dumpster, and I got a couple of pencils. So let’s just Yeah. Sit here and see what happens. It was one of those where I’m like, oh, either your mom told you that you’re good at this, and she lied, or you just don’t have anything else to do and you’re

Bradley Fish [01:03:40]:
just gonna

James Kademan [01:03:40]:
see what happens. So Yeah. Good luck.

Bradley Fish [01:03:43]:
We have

James Kademan [01:03:43]:
pity money coming through.

Bradley Fish [01:03:45]:
Exactly. I’m sure there’s a lot of that.

James Kademan [01:03:47]:
Be quiet. That’s funny. Get lessons, whatever. Something like that. Brad, how can people find you?

Bradley Fish [01:03:53]:
Oh, so if you yeah. BradleyFish.com or, just go if you go on Google Maps, put Bradley Fish guitar lessons in there. You’ll see where the studio is. You’ll find reviews that are awesome. What else? You can you can call me. I can put my number out.

James Kademan [01:04:14]:
Is that Yeah.

Bradley Fish [01:04:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It’s I have a cell phone. Area code (217) 552-9407. (217) 552-9407 On bradleyfishmusic@gmail.com. And it’s bradleyfishmusic@gmail.com And you’ll find me.

Bradley Fish [01:04:34]:
And,

James Kademan [01:04:35]:
Social media or anything like that?

Bradley Fish [01:04:37]:
I’ve I’ve actually got a YouTube channel. It’s a little messy, but there’s there’s a there’s some stuff Call there. Yeah. I think it’s Bradley Fish Music on YouTube or just put Bradley Fish. You’ll find stuff. And, what else? All that Facebook is Bradley Fish Music. I think I haven’t been active with Instagram or but, it’s on

James Kademan [01:04:55]:
It’s a lot.

Bradley Fish [01:04:56]:
It’s a lot. Yeah. It’s social media stuff TikTok. Yeah. I’m about to get back into it. We’re about to start shooting some videos. So I’ve been Oh, nice. I’ve been on a hiatus, but here it comes slowly.

Bradley Fish [01:05:07]:
Next round. And, yeah, you’ll find me. You’re welcome to to do the one free guitar lesson. Come check it out. And,

James Kademan [01:05:15]:
You do you do remote lessons as well. Is that right?

Bradley Fish [01:05:17]:
Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. So I’m in Madison, but I’m also teaching online to anywhere. And it’s pretty awesome. I’m doing a so with guitar and also with banjo and ukulele, I’ve got like a a, and dulcimer Call. I’ve got a animated fretboard so that when I play, you’ve got like a all of me in the picture. You’ve got just a close-up of my guitar On another camera, and then you’ve got On animation that goes along with my guitar neck. So if you can’t quite see because my little chubby little fingers are in the way, you can see, like, dots on a guitar fretboard that happen in real time as I play.

Bradley Fish [01:05:57]:
And it works really well. So I’ve got, like, nice sound, nice visuals, and you get a automatic recording of the lesson online, which is real cool.

James Kademan [01:06:06]:
That’s incredible. Because that’s that was one of the challenges that I had when I was trying to learn on YouTube.

Bradley Fish [01:06:11]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [01:06:11]:
They’d be like, a, d, g. I’m like, where your fat fingers are right in the way. I can’t tell. And on the video, the actual neck of the guitar is this tiny little section.

Bradley Fish [01:06:21]:
Right.

James Kademan [01:06:22]:
So I’m like, where’s a?

Bradley Fish [01:06:24]:
Right. It would be

James Kademan [01:06:25]:
On to pause the video while you’re doing the guitar thing is

Bradley Fish [01:06:29]:
it’s funky. I love that. I’ve gotten really good feedback about that. Yeah. That’s smart. Thanks. And

James Kademan [01:06:36]:
That’s smart.

Bradley Fish [01:06:36]:
So yeah. And I and as I’m I wanna do I like traveling. I like these weird ethnic instruments and go to Asia and try something or whatever. So as I do that stuff, I love the option to still be able to keep lessons going with people. And Mhmm. And then, you know, come back to Madison, rock out in the studio. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:06:51]:
Are you still playing concerts and

Bradley Fish [01:06:53]:
stuff like that? No. I did. I did, like I I think it’s been a year since I did, like, a wedding gig. Alright. And so, yeah, I’m kinda I had to kinda go, okay. I’m getting busy. What am I gonna really, like, focus on? And I just it was almost just like, okay. Cut that.

Bradley Fish [01:07:07]:
Cut that. And I’m not saying I’m not saying never, but not right now. I’m gonna be focusing on creating video content of jamming. So, like, creative content jamming on video. Fair. And if somebody’s, like, you know, puts a gun to my head and say, I’m gonna make it worth your while. Come do this gig. I’ll do it.

Bradley Fish [01:07:25]:
I I still enjoy it. But

James Kademan [01:07:26]:
They really want you to play.

Bradley Fish [01:07:27]:
They really On me to play. If they really want, they’ll make it worth my yeah.

James Kademan [01:07:30]:
What I love about taking lessons with you is you take this guitar that I have, and I’m like, and you just rip. Just crazy Call rip. And it’s one of those things where I’m like, okay. As long as I can learn that, the tool is correct. You know? I mean, it’s

Bradley Fish [01:07:48]:
You know, I I had this thing here the whole time. Is it And I never use it. Yeah. Yeah. This guitar is cool. It’s carbon fiber. So it doesn’t care if you’re hot, cold, humid, whatever. There’s four bolts on the back, and they come off, and then the neck and the body could detach.

Bradley Fish [01:08:06]:
And you could put it in a suitcase. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, of course, I didn’t train it before we started, but oh my god. Your poor viewers.

James Kademan [01:08:16]:
No. It’s all good. They can see how to tune a guitar.

Bradley Fish [01:08:18]:
Yeah. Right.

James Kademan [01:08:19]:
That’s that’s something. I’ve never seen a carbon fiber guitar. I didn’t even know what was the thing. I don’t make carbon fiber anything. This is a little pickup?

Bradley Fish [01:08:29]:
That’s Yeah. I added a so it’s got, like, three pickups. That’s so funny. I, like, I was so concerned about getting the place, cleaned up. I didn’t tune the damn thing. It was it was such a mess that everybody Call. The, so it’s got three pickups. It’s got an acoustic pickup that you would use for, like, an acoustic gig.

Bradley Fish [01:08:50]:
It sounds like a acoustic guitar.

James Kademan [01:08:52]:
Mhmm.

Bradley Fish [01:08:52]:
It’s got an electric guitar pickup right here that, if it like, if I got, like, a, you know, if I wanna play heavy metal on this thing, I can just put it through a electric guitar amp or

James Kademan [01:09:03]:
Oh, really?

Bradley Fish [01:09:03]:
Yeah. Or, like, for lessons, if I’m teaching heavy music, like alternative or metal or whatever, I can do, I can do, like synthetic amps and stuff. Like, basically, software that makes it sound like you’re running through a big, you know Alright. Marshall stack or Yeah. And then, and then this is, oh, I took off there was a synthesizer pickup, and that would do the little animations. Or you can make it sound like a flute or piano. But that’s, like Carmen Fish.

James Kademan [01:09:36]:
There.

Bradley Fish [01:09:37]:
Good. So yeah. I Fish if we’re gonna Call about guitars.

James Kademan [01:09:56]:
Yeah. Right? Can’t just chat. We gotta jam.

Bradley Fish [01:09:59]:
Gotta laugh. Yeah. No. It it was actually really interesting for me to kinda just you got me thinking about business, so I appreciate all the questions.

James Kademan [01:10:12]:
Great. This is awesome. I know, like, you can teach people how to do this.

Bradley Fish [01:10:16]:
Thank you. Yeah. Quick. Awesome.

James Kademan [01:10:19]:
That’s awesome. Woo.

Bradley Fish [01:10:20]:
Alright. Bradley, thank

James Kademan [01:10:23]:
you so much for hanging

Bradley Fish [01:10:23]:
out the shop.

James Kademan [01:10:24]:
This is awesome good times.

Bradley Fish [01:10:25]:
Appreciate it. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:10:27]:
This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We are locally interwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie. Calls On Call extraordinary answering service as well as a full business book. What do we got to say here? My name is James Kademan, and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by that’s what I’m supposed to say. Calls On Call extraordinary answering service offering call answering services for service businesses across the country on the web at callsoncall.com. And, of course, the Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur in all of us, available wherever fine books are sold. We’d like to thank your wonderful listeners as well as our guest, Bradley Fish of Bradley Fish Music. Bradley, Brad you tell us that website one more time?

Bradley Fish [01:11:12]:
Www.bradleyfish.com.

James Kademan [01:11:16]:
Nice. I love it. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night at the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. Thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.

Bradley Fish [01:11:31]:
Alright. I have to give you a little background.

James Kademan [01:11:32]:
I love that.

Bradley Fish [01:11:33]:
I love I gotta

James Kademan [01:11:34]:
take you with me everywhere I go.

Bradley Fish [01:11:35]:
Yeah. Totally. Alright. That’s

James Kademan [01:11:41]:
awesome.