 That was the day I thought, I need to tell my mum, and just tell the truth, that it's not for me. Wow. And that took a lot of courage because I didn't want to run and hide anymore, you know. Welcome to the Sevo show. We are here with Andy Kwan. My introductions have been a little bit slow as of late because it's been a while between shows, but Andy met this guy at Roy Owes in Northbridge. He was setting up his audio stuff and he was going to perform some lo-fi music live. And I was really, really just super keen back in the day with lo-fi music. I remember discovering it 2017 in my final year of uni and it was like the best music to listen to while studying. And all those cookie souls and that's all I remember in terms of lo-fi people. Anyway, so Andy, thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. This is an honor and I'm not sure which lens to look at man, but I guess I'll just look at me. Just look at me, your hands are face. Yeah, so how's everything going? Good man. This has always been my dream to go on Sevo show. Sevo show, yeah, that's it man. That's it, just a Sevo show. You made it. I've made it, man. I've made it. I can tick it off my bucket list. I've always had the stream to be just spoken to about music. And this is, well, what better way to have it than to be on the Sevo show. Well, let's get the audience educated. Where did it all start? Where are you from? Where am I from? Yeah, where are you born? I was born here, as you can probably tell by max. But my parents are from Vietnam. They came here when they were young. Dad came on a boat. So as a kid, well, he was always a very hard working man. He was a minor from Vietnam, right? I never saw him a lot, but I always knew that he was a very, very, very hard working man. Same with my mom. My both parents are in the hospital business. And so as a kid, I just admired their work ethic. And I always thought, wow, if I put in that much effort into anything, I might be able to get something out of it. So that's where music kind of tied in a bit. And I'm sure we'll go more in detail about that. Amazing, amazing. So that's the start of it. So you grew up here. You were born here and you grew up here. Did you ever move anywhere else? Or has it always been Perth? Always been Perth. I'm a city boy. I'm a city boy. Which school did you go to? Went to Leaming. I know back in the day when I was there, it was like considered just a decent school, not a bad school. But in the past few years, it's been like in the top 10, it's crazy. Wow. They've had a pretty awesome music program there. And a lot of what they've taught me in jazz band and just playing in the bands and ensembles there have brought me here, for sure. Nice. And so you went to Leaming specifically because it had a music school? No, I just was in the area. Wow. Yeah, so my brother went there first and then I went there afterwards. Do you think that if it wasn't a music school, you would be in the music space right now? That's a good question. Yes and no, yes and no. So in a way, I guess being surrounded by the right people at that school helped a lot. It just happened to be that they had a jazz program and I didn't know what jazz was, right? But I was like, hey, I'll play guitar or I'll play bass guitar. Let's see how that goes and it ended up being the coolest thing ever. Amazing. Amazing. And going into high school, did you have any ideas of what you wanted to pursue when you finished, when you graduated? Yes. I'm sure this will hit hard with a lot of Asian kids specifically. It wasn't so much and you have to become a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist, which is what most Asian kids are drilled into, right? But it happened to be that I was decent at sciences, at physics, at chemistry and math. And so naturally, I was kind of pushed in the direction of doing engineering. By your parents or by your teachers? Just teachers for sure. That's part of it. Well, not engineering, but something science-y. I thought, well, I'm good at math. My brother did engineering. So that's probably a big component in that. He's four years older. So by the time he was in uni, I was about to graduate essentially. Do you feel like you were in his shadow? Hitting on the big questions, hey. Yeah, for sure. For sure. He's also taller than me, so it's a bit easier for me to be. He's not as tall as you, but yeah. In a way, having that, he's the first son, right? Well, I've got one brother, just the two of us. The first born, the high achiever, the golden child. No pressure. No pressure at all. No pressure at all. So when in high school, did you hit that point going, I want to do music? I always had it in the back of my mind to do music. The only issue is that I never committed to it. I've never studied music professionally, is that the right word? On like a, there's a word for it. I never went to school for music to put it that way. I actually did end up doing engineering for a year, much to my naiveness because I thought, you know, I'm good at math. Again, one was to engineering. I did it for a year. I wasn't smart enough for it. You weren't smart enough for it? No, I was, I think, three weeks into year two. And I was three weeks into my second year, and I was like, man, I can't handle like all the coding stuff. It's too much for me. It's like, it's cool to, to type away at a computer, but I'm not good at it. I'd rather be typing away at a computer, programming music and playing guitar. Yeah. So. But were you good at doing that at the start? No, I wouldn't say good. No way. You can find my old stuff on SoundCloud when I uploaded to it back in a day. I was 12 or 13 or so. Yeah. I used to use this program called Guitar Pro. Yeah. And for those who don't know, it's a software where you, it's like a learning software for like tabs, right? So if you, if you're playing guitar or bass and you want to learn, let's say, I don't know, some song. Chances are someone's already transposed all those chords into this software called Guitar Pro. You can hear it play. You can read like the screen and all that and you can learn off there. So because you can, it's all programs. I started working with it on my own and making my own stuff. I think that's where the whole creative side started. So how did you learn about that? My brother. Your brother's also. A lot of it is my brother. Okay. I'm always speak about it. So thanks, Eddie. If you're watching this right now. Yeah. A lot of what he did flowed on to me. So he was into music before I was, he was into, he was, he's a guitarist. He still plays guitar. I was a bassist and he used guitar pro. I use guitar pro. He listened to heavy metal music. I listened to heavy metal music. So it kind of flowed through. So back in, back into the school scene, you graduated high school and you did well. You got a good ATAR. Good in my eyes, not my parents eyes. Not good enough for an Asian to tell you that, but it was, it is what it is. Hey, I gave my all. Yeah. I gave my all. That's, that's, and that's, that's all you can do. You can all, all you can do is give it your all and then reflect on that and see if you can improve, if you're passionate about it. So you left uni in your second year three weeks in because you realized you're not good at it. But more importantly, you didn't want to be good at it. You didn't want to pursue further to figure it out, to be good at it. Here's the thing. I left engineering, but I didn't leave uni. Yeah. So a lot of that was because, you know, I've already sunk in a year and we can talk about sunk cost fallacy all day long. This is something that was drilled into my head for a long time now. And I thought, you know, I'm already a year and a half in, or not a year and a three weeks in, right? I may as well use those units towards a different degree if engineering isn't right for me. At the time I had a lot of mates who were looking into education. And I always thought, well, I was always a shy kid. You know, I hated talking. I hated presenting. But something about teaching really got me thinking. And I thought, okay, well, again, I'm good at science. I like physics. I'm not good enough to become an engineer. But I like teaching. Let's try teaching. Let's give that a go. So I went into teaching. Yeah. And did you finish that degree? Nope. How many years did it take you to bail on that one? And this is, it sounds crazy when I put it like this, but I was five and a half years into uni, not a single thing to show for it. For it. Okay. Yeah, I was about a year and a half from graduating to become a physics teacher. And I had done two practice as a maths teacher at Melville Senior High School. I loved it. I loved being Mr. Kwan, right? The kid's thinking I was 10 years older than I really was. Even though I was like 22 and the oldest kid was like 19, I thought I was like 30 something, you know, dressed up nicely. My hair wasn't as messy back in the day. It was a lot nicer, not yours. I love teaching. I loved inspiring the kids to learn about things that they wouldn't like math. No one likes math, you know, but people love Minecraft. That's full of math. Cubes, you know, I can get very nerdy about this stuff. You say pubes. Cubes. I think you said cubes. It's like cubes. Yeah, fair enough. Cubes, cubes work. I would keep that in the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, why not? So where did you decide to go? You know what? I don't want to do that. Where? That's a great question. I guess the more I thought about it after my practice and don't get me wrong. Again, I love teaching, but it was the workload that I couldn't handle. So having to go home, plan another like three, four hours. I was told it wasn't going to get any easier. And it's not that having told, if I was told something else, you know, I'm not sure if I would have continued, but it really seemed that way that it wasn't going to get easier. I'd go home and still do this. And I was surrounded by a lot of teachers who had the same story who would stay back until 7 o'clock at the school or go home and do another four hours of planning. And I thought, I'm only 22. These guys are like 60. Like if that's going to be my life, like, I mean, respect is a huge respect to them, but that's not for me. So that's a lot of self-awareness, like maturity for a 22 year old. Here I go. Where do you think you got that from? How do you, how do you realize that? I'm, you can't see me right now, but I'm actually blushing. That's a lot of, Well, we can see you recording. Yeah, I see this first four cameras here. That's pretty cool. I don't know. I think as a kid, I was always just aware. I think I was always very intact with how I felt. That's huge. And if something was bothering me, I'd question it and keep asking. I know a lot of people run away from it, but that's not me. I want to address it. That's a big deal to be able to have that as a skill very early in life. People generally don't do that until they're late 20s in their 30s. Sometimes so. People just had the same, well, not ability. Well, talk about the, talk about the teachers that you saw. They were in their 60s doing the same thing. Were they happy? No, no. So why don't they question themselves? You know? In, in, well, from what I've told it, it's a calling. It's a calling to be miserable. I don't know. Maybe the way I saw it was, yeah, miserable, but I had other things I wanted to do. You know, I had music. These guitars weren't going to play themselves. Yeah, exactly. These songs weren't going to write themselves. I thought I have to, I have to put my head in somewhere. One can think though, you have that passion for music since you were like young age. What age did you pick up the guitar? I was eight or nine. Nine, right? When I started with the, the bass guitar. Yeah. And again, thanks Eddie for bringing me up with music. He was a guitarist. It just happened to be that when I was eight, getting into year five in primary school, they were like, hey, we're going to start school band. We need saxophone players. We need trumpeters. We need a bunch of whatever. We need a bass player. And I thought, you know, my brother plays guitar. Bass isn't, bass is good. Bass is a guitar, you know? So why not? So I did that and that's where it started. Amazing. So, so you, you had that early and you kept at it. You were doing it on a regular basis throughout school. Yes. Throughout university. Yes. So on the sides. On the side. Yeah. Well, just playing what turned, what started as a bass guitar ended up going into just normal guitar. Yeah. Normal guitar. Because I thought I could express more with six strings and four strings. Yeah. Hot take. So, and then I'm predicting that that was pulling you, your attention more towards that as well. Absolutely. So the thought of doing the teaching and staying back until seven and lesson planning and all marking and all of that instead of being able to do what you love was a hindrance to your well-being. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. I'd go home and think I'd love to play guitar right now but I have to, I have to plan. Yeah. These kids aren't going to learn if I can't put in, you know, the effort into to making them feel just capable and worthy. And I imagine used to be a teacher. So. Math teacher. You teach math as well. Yeah. All right. Yeah. That's it. How was it? It was, I loved it. I loved the middle school math. I actually studied to teach PE and science. That's right. Yeah. I didn't study to teach maths. I didn't do well in maths at school. Actually, I did do well in maths at school but because I chose other subjects that were challenging that spread my like attention. Yeah. I tried all those subjects. I love chemistry. I love physics. I love calculus. I love algebra. I love GNT. Geometry, trigonometry. Geometry, trigonometry is my favorite because it's just problem solving. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Maybe apart from bearings. Bearing is always confusing. Latitude, longitude, X and Y. You get it eventually. Oh yeah. I mean, look, it took me 10 minutes to figure out where you guys were today when I parked. Exactly. But like I, I, I, I knew I could be good at each of those subjects. If I learned those subjects one at a time. Okay. And that's where I never did. Year 11, after term one, I was like, I'm going to go to general. Stuff it. Yeah, right. Right. I'm not going to get my ATAR or was TEE at the time. Yeah. And I was so stoked that I did that because I was overwhelmed. I was not ready for that sort of pressure. And I, it wasn't because something else was pulling my attention, apart from Xbox and footy. But yeah, I, I did not want to just study the whole time. Yeah, of course. The whole time. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't, I didn't mind studying a little bit. Like I still had to pass English. In English, it was my strong subject being a foreigner. And I use that card all the time. I thought, I thought, you know, when you're like, fill out a sheet. Yeah. And you put your name down and it's got, actuality. It's got, it's got a little thing. You know, I always thought for like 15 years, it's, it was said martial status. Martial status. Yeah, it's marital status. It is marital status. I thought it was martial status for 15 years. Nobody told me. And then one day, I think, I think it was my wife or someone in my like, five, six years ago, they're like, it's marital. I'm like, what? That's not. Yeah. Anyway. So, martial status. But yeah, the teaching thing for me was, it was easy. It was doable. Right. But like, I've told the story a million times, but it's your, it's your episode. It is. But to give you insight, I did my, I was interested in footy and I leveraged footy and I was like, well, what job can I do to a complimented footy? Yeah. Personal trainer. And I could leverage the fact that I'm a footy player in the waffle. Yeah. And going, pyro waffle person, he's fit, he knows how to do it. Six foot ten. All right. Yeah. And yeah, I built a studio inside my lounge room and built a, that. And then I learned that because I had a cert for, in fitness. That was my backdoor entry into uni. Oh, okay. Right. I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea. But fortunately, because I did general, I did five years of gap. Yeah. Yeah. Unintentionally, like I wasn't going to go to uni ever. And then I, I got convinced to, to try teaching to backdoor a portfolio entry. And then I loved it. Right. But then when, when I've graduated and did the math stuff, the reason why I ended up in maths was a complete accident. I got thrown into a two-week contract at a school for a year eight class, just, just that class and a couple of other, same exact thing. Yeah. And gave me a book and said, these are the chapters. This is the topic that we're teaching them. And it was like algebra, basic stuff. And I was like, is that it? Okay. Need to keep them accountable somehow and make sure they do it. That was my first goal to impress a teacher. Yeah. And I came up with this sheet. It was the accountability sheet. It was a traffic light system. Green. Red. Yellow. At the start of the class, I put it up on the whiteboard. I projected it on the screen. Everyone's name down the list. And it was blank. Not calling anyone out or anything. They would call themselves out if they didn't do the work. Oh, wow. So halfway through the lesson, I would check in. Guys, how are we going? You know, first, first 10 minutes. This is how you do it. Yeah. After this 10 minutes, I'm going to let you go for it. If anyone's stuck, I'm going to help you. If most of you are still stuck, I'm going to re-explain again because I didn't do it right the first time. Right. You know, I'm learning as well. Yeah. Halfway through the class, I do the roll call. Which one are you up to? And I gave them a goal. I gave them like, if you can get up to this question and do it, you're done for the day. Yeah, right. And if you want to do more, you're done extra for the next day. So I taught them more than maths. I taught them being proactive. That's bad to say. This is beyond just finish up to question 16B. This is like, it's up to you to get how far you want to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's up to you to gauge who you want to be and how far you want to go. Exactly. This is awesome. And within 30 minutes, I figured out who the ones that were driven were who was proactive, the ones that were really not wanting to be there and the ones that needed help, ones, you know, within 30 minutes, I knew who it was. Yeah, right. And I put the colors down, not to call them out, but just to see, just to give me an idea, of, you know, who I needed to help. And by the end of the class, I had mostly everybody green, some yellow, and then maybe one or two occasional kids red because they didn't care. Yeah, okay. Anyway, at the end of the two weeks, I gave the lesson by lesson because it had a history for the, like a history thing for every chart because it was all on my computer. Right. I did it on a sheet of paper once and manually wrote it out. And I was like, no, I'm making a spreadsheet. And I emailed the teacher when he came back and I got a job out of it because he goes, no one's, that's insane. That is insane. Because normally what relief teachers do is they leave a little note saying, yeah, kids are all right. This kid did shit. And I'm like, this is how every kid went through every lesson throughout. It's just a matrix. It was a matrix, yeah. And it was the easiest thing to do. And I kept that forever. And I apply that today as well. Wow. Like to myself, to people. And that was a great thing. But back to you. Back to you. You're no longer wanting to do the teaching because of that lifestyle that you didn't want to do. And music's everything. Yes. You're no longer a uni. How old were you then, 22? 23 or 24? 23, 24. I think I was 24 actually. Okay. No, I was just about to turn 24 when I took my mum out and her friend was there. And I was thinking, today's the day. Okay. I have to upset someone. Upset your mum? Well, today was the day that I had to go tell her, like, I can't do this, you know? Like, I can't keep going like this because I know I'm not going to become a teacher. In Asian culture, in a lot of immigrant culture, you hear the story, oh, my parents came here. On a boat? On a boat, it was a hard life. It's still a hard life. But it was much harder back then. They wished they had this education or this opportunity to pursue further. And so they came here so their kids could do that. And having that ingrained in you as a young little toddler, but a kid, it makes you think, well, I have to live up to that. I have to graduate. I need to graduate. No matter what it's in. Right? So leaving engineering, up out, first cross, going to teaching and getting very far and leaving that second cross. And I thought, okay, well... You're going to be homeless soon. Yeah, pretty much. No, I wasn't that bad. But that was the day I thought, I need to tell my mum and just tell the truth that it's not for me. Wow. And that took a lot of courage because I didn't want to run and hide anymore. I always pictured the day where... Not pictured. I always dreamed of the day where I could have my, what's it called, the graduation hat thing? Yeah, the mortar. The pizza box hat thing. It's called a mortar. A mortar. There you go. I graduated. See, I know what it is. There you go. You made it. You made it. Yeah. So having that and just throwing in a year, having my mum and dad there, you know, relative, it's all... I didn't have a three hours in the year. Really? No. There you go. It must be an ECU thing. I was like, good. But I always dreamed about that day and imagining how happy my parents would be, my mum in particular. Yeah. But then I just thought, that's not going to happen, unfortunately. Oh man, there's the hook for the start of the episode. There's the hook. Yeah. So okay, you're... You decided to bin it. I was a year and a half from graduating. So how did your mum respond? Look, she saved a lot of face. It just happened to be that her friend was there. So it's probably why it probably wasn't the... You know, well, it came naturally. Yeah. Obviously, when you go out with your parents, they ask, hey, so how's studying going? How's uni going? Yeah. I didn't have it in me to lie, you know? I said, look, I'm dropping out. It just happened to be that her friend was there. So they both took it really well. On, well, seemingly well. But you know, maybe for the first few months, mum kept bringing it up, but she's fine with it. What was your plan? What was your plan? See, I had this plan brewing up, like a big plan brewing up, because at the time I was doing... Before I dropped out, I was doing uni part-time, and then working part-time as well, and into music part-time. So I had these three things I was kind of juggling, right? And my part-time job wasn't very stressful at all. So I could just go to work, come home, unlike teaching, I can just relax. Don't have to worry about it, right? What were you doing? It was great. I was a pickpacker. I loved it. Just working in the warehouse, lifting boxes of fruits and veggies and... Veggies and veggies. Clocking clock out. Clocking clock out. It was beautiful. No take home stress, no nothing. A sore low back, but that's fine. Yeah, it's a labor job. Yeah, nothing in the mind that carries on. No emotion or attachment. No, not at all. So go home, great. Do one assignment, one unit, cool. Spare time, go to some music, creating, playing, editing, whatever. So what was the question again? We've got the flickering, someone's here. Someone's here. A spirit is here. A spirit is here. So yeah, the question was... It was my plan, right? What built up to it? What's your pivot? What's your pivot? That's right. So it was around then that I was thinking of, okay, well, uni's not too bad, but I'm not going to graduate, whatever. Job's not too bad. Let me just focus on music for a bit. Let me try make into a career. And that's what I started thinking about. Okay, how can I monetize music? How to monetize music. Which is the age-old title of the episode. The age-old question. How do you monetize music? Sorry for the interruption, but this show would not be possible without the help of Bright Tang Brewery. They are the major sponsor of the Sevo show. Huge shout outs to them. Check them out. Great beers, great people, great everything. And well, let's get back to the episode. I have in the past, if you consider royalties, like streaming royalties as music, but, and this is another rabbit hole I can dive into, but do you know how much we're paid as artists? Very little. Have a guess, have a guess, have a guess just for streaming, let's say Spotify. How much does Spotify pay you? Like five cents per thousand listens or something like that? That's actually, it's better than that, fortunately. It's better than that. It's better than that. It's about four dollars per thousand listens. Yeah. But a thousand listens, that's a lot of listens for four bucks. Yeah. You think about how many of the streams you need to get. So I was on Spotify at the time, right? I'm making low-fi music. And I remember my first ever paycheck. It was like $2.86 USD. And I screenshotted it and I put it in the group chat and I was like, hey boys, look, I've made my, I've made it. My first paycheck. Yeah. $4.80. You're off zero. I'm off zero. You're off zero. That's it. Still a win? Still a win, yeah. So I thought, okay, well look, if I crunch some numbers, right, using my math knowledge background, if I only get 27,000 streams a day, which to many is nothing, but to most it's, you can't do it, right? No. If I can get 30,000 streams a day, I'll make minimum wage. And I was like, okay, well that's a, that's like a concrete kind of thing to work towards. But then I tried doing it. And that's where the passion kind of started not, you know, not dying, but. So how did you start doing it? Tell me the process. Just out of like playing, making music or making money off music, off streaming. Well, the entire process because you have to make the music. Yeah, yeah. But then you have to market the music. You do, you do. It's not just about making the music anymore. Of course. Well, as a kid who was on Guitar Pro 5, that editing software around making music, I was just curious. And I think that's what the most important thing is, just being curious, not being good at something, not being born to be a musician, as many people think I am, but just having curiosity, right? I was like, okay, what if I put this note down or this chord or this whatever? I loved experimenting with what I can create. And so when I was 12, 13, I was just having fun. It started off as fun. And when I was 16, I was like, hey guys, check out my, my cool song that I wrote. And obviously in hindsight, it was just some really, it sounded terrible, right? But I loved it. I didn't care. I was like, man, this is awesome. I love, I love just releasing it. And I didn't care about money at the time. I was 14. But then reality hits. Reality hit at an age where I was, yeah, turning 24. And I thought, okay, uni is not going to work. I can't see myself being a pickpacker my whole life. Music I love, but I can't. Well, it's, it's a struggle. Though it'll be cool to put all my eggs in that basket and just go for it and try. Okay. And try. Okay. And where are you at now? Here's the thing. I still have a full-time day job. That's not music related at all. But. What is it? It's I'm a salesman. Cool. So I sell batteries. I sell car batteries like lithium car batteries, a whole another rabbit hole I can get into. Shout out to super cheap order. Shout out to super cheap order or to Revco. But I sell batteries and that's helped in a way in terms of being around successful marketers, being around salesmen who know how to sell, who know how to pitch themselves, all that cool stuff. But I still have a full-time job to pay the bills. But unlike being a teacher, I can come home and just relax and then go into music without having to worry about doing more and more work. Yeah. Okay. I like it. Yeah. So you've got a safety net in this job. I do. I do. But that safety net could be something that you can make into music. And I've I've felt I felt this many times already. I feel like this is a very common thing that a lot of people have. So. They need a safety net because. They do. Yeah. My safety net was teaching. Yeah, there you go. Four years of studying to go into a government job. But I was permanent within a year. Permanent within a year. Wow. So I was set. Yeah. Which gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted after school. Of course. And my class's middle school maths is not difficult to teach. And I said to them, I'm not teaching PE. Right. I was like, this is way better because I get to have my own classroom. I don't have to go outside. And I love sports and activity and getting active and promoting that. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, this is a better use of my time because it's binary. And I can share my stories with the same kids and they're not distracted by football. Right. And I've got more theories about sports education. But in all honesty, it was the best accidental pivot within that era, which was only like two, three years. Only taught three years. Yeah, okay. And then. Full time, right? Three years. Yeah. Well, Relief contract, full time, all within one year. Yeah, okay. And then 2019 was all full time. And then end of 2019. I asked my principal, hey, can I take a sabbatical and go 12 months without pay because I want to give this a crack. So I had safety net no matter what. Yeah. And then obviously everyone got the flu. I don't like saying the word because it flags it on Spotify. Yeah, the pixie word. Yeah. And then, yeah, in the start of March 2020, I actually asked if I could just do more relief. Just to do something else. And I was like, you know what? I could make money here just a little bit extra. And then a week later, everything went to shit. So I was very lucky. But they were always going to need teachers and, you know. But the end of 2020, that was it. That was done. And I was only teaching one class a week. It was great. And I remember 2021, my teacher's registration was due to be paid. And I was like, I'll pay it. It's 90 bucks. Why not? Keep that safety net alive. And, you know, if I need to go relieve, teach anywhere, I'll just do it. And one of my best mates, he said to me, that's your safety net. But I know that you're going to crush it in wedding photography. You already are crushing it in wedding photography. Why do you need this safety net? If you have the safety net, you are preparing yourself for failure. You're allowing yourself, you're giving yourself permission to fail. And I was like, I don't want to give myself permission to fail. There's no contingency plans. And one of my other mates, Corey Green. He's the owner of the Athletic Institute gym that I go to. He, I remember asking him the same question. I was like, what's your contingency plan if your gym thing doesn't work? And I never ask that question to anyone else ever again. Because of what he said. He said to me, there's no contingency plan. This will work. This is going to happen. I'll do everything I can to make it happen. And he has. He's become a strength and conditioning coach for West Perth Falcons. And he's got a few AFL players going into his gym in their off season. Sometimes they're on season. They just prefer to be there. And man, like if I would invest in a gym in anywhere in Australia, I'd invest in his gym, his brand. Because he's just making it work. He's just so real about it. There's no bullshit at all. There's no cutting corners. There's no rush to franchise out and expand into fucking 35 other gyms around the country. It's real. It's a proper brand. Of course. It with real people, real professionals. And I took that. I was like, I vibe with that. And I was like, I need to do that one for the, for me. So waiting photography was I'm, I'm all in successful, really successful. So booked out for two years. Yeah. Right. So 150k a year. Minimum. Yeah. It's crazy. Easily. More than I would ever get as a school principal, of course. You know, some of them make 160, 170, but they worked out arse off. You get to work decades to become principal. Yeah. Yeah. And I did it in under two years of going full time all in on my thing. Now I'm lucky, right? Stars aligned and I was able to leverage TikTok because of it. From it and all that. But now you've got your full time job. And now you've got your music, you're 25. 25 now. Yep. You're married. I'm married. Yes. Tell me about that. When did you meet her? It's great. I met my beautiful wife, Amber, at my one of my part time jobs. I used to work in, oh, as a waiter. Yeah. I was a waiter and I met her there. And I was her bus person. She was a, she was a waitress and I was her assistant. How long ago was this? This was six years ago. Six years ago. Maybe six and a half years ago now. And how long have you been married for? Six months. No, seven months now. Yeah. Nice. Congratulations. Thanks, man. Awesome. Thank you. It was really, it was really cool. Yeah. I've been with my wife for six years now. Six years? Wow. Anniversary coming up, three years. Congratulations. Yeah. Fire out. So yeah, three years married, six years together. What's it like? It's amazing. She's the right person. Right. She is the person. Yeah. Like I say this all the time as well. I am so lucky because not because I found the right person but because she's herself all the time for herself. Like she, she just lets her, she just does her thing. Yeah. And I do my thing and there's no permissions or allowance. Yeah. She's just communication. Hey, I'm doing this. Sweet. Have fun. Sure. Yeah. Hey, I'm doing this. Have fun. Oh, I thought we were doing this together. I was like, oh, shit. I didn't put, I didn't put in the calendar. You know, if you have a shared calendar with your spouse, with your partner, you can't really fuck it up. No, you can't. I know. You can't. You're doing something by yourself. You put it in the calendar and she will see it. And if there's nothing in that spot, you put it in there. Go for it. It works. You don't need her permission. She put something in as well. Cool. You want to put something in together? Cool. Book it. Book it in. I've got the same system. It works. It's so good. It works. It's so good. And we know exactly what we're doing on this weekend or that weekend. Yeah. And there's no permissions either. There's no permission. No. Let's do it. Like two weeks from now, a Saturday's free, for example. Yeah. She'll book that in party or gathering or whatever with me. Yeah. And she'll put together or serve with each other. And then when I'm looking through the calendar and I'm looking to book something in for my shit, if I have a wedding on a Saturday, obviously that takes priority. But if there's nothing, I'll look at that Saturday. I'm like, oh, I'm free this Saturday. I'm going to book it in. Oh, no. Well, I'm doing so with my wife that day. I'm unavailable. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand why that's not like a mainstream thing. Should be. Maybe it is. Maybe to the man. Listen to the man. Correct. That's a clip. That's a clip. That's a clip. Absolutely. But yeah. So you got your wife, Amber. Amazing. Amazing. She's the most supportive person. And that's all I could ask for. Like you've clutched it in your 20s. Like clutched it. Thanks, man. Clutched it in your 20s. So I, and this is something that I'm sure a lot of people relate to. Comparison. And then you think, OK, well, I've come this far. But then there's always someone who's younger, more successful, who's done more, who's bigger, who's got more streams, who gets 30,000 streams a day, who's younger, who's more talented. Are you saying that comparison is a thief of joy? I was about to lead with that. OK. Here's a few. It is. I used to say that all the time. I've heard you make comments about it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is, like, blow my mind when I realize this. Yeah. Comparison is not the thief of joy. Comparison is necessary. Comparison is how you get better. It is. Comparison is only the thief of joy. If you do not do anything about it. Of course. That's it. Exactly. There's no fucking comparison as a thief of joy. It's an excuse. It is. It's a cop out. Absolutely. You are sitting there comparing yourself to others and you are taking your own joy away because you're not doing anything about it. You're a suck. Absolutely. Don't fucking suck. Absolutely. Look at them. Be inspired by them. Hit them up. Ask for their help or their advice. Of course. And then you start growing. Not going, I just got to where I am today and there's someone younger that's doing better. I hit them up. Yeah. Hit them up. Use your leverage. Work with them. You've got a big social media following on Instagram. What's that like in your space with what you do? Because before I got to know you a little bit more about your full-time job, I assumed that you would have monetized that somehow by now because everybody that comes to me wants a photo with me with my 1.6 million followers on TikTok thinks I'm a millionaire because of it. I'm not. Not yet. But I'm leveraging the shit out of it. Of course. And a guy once told me, and this was back when I only had 40,000 followers, only 40,000. Only 40,000. You know? And he goes, what do you leverage it? And I didn't figure out exactly what he meant until like this year. And he told me like at the start of 2020. And I was just like, shit. Now I know what to do. And it's just everything is just sales. I'm good at sales, but I hate sales. I hate sales. I just don't like bothering people. But then I had an epiphany recently. I was listening to Alex Hamozzi's podcast, the game. So good. And he said that you need to, and this is something I already knew the back of my head, but he said, you need to just talk about how certain you are that what you do or what you offer, what you have is the best solution. Of course. You're not selling anything. You're just talking about how good it is. Yeah, yeah. You don't go, this is the fucking thing. Please buy it. It's, this is the thing. This works. This is amazing. Here's an example. Here's another example. Yeah, yeah. Right. And he goes, that's, that's the sales. And now that I've really grasped that and have that idea for my, what I have to offer. Yeah. When I go to people, I just talk about that. And then they, and it works. Then they buy it. Yeah. I still feel like, you know, the dance of how much and closing. I hate that dance, but... So I'd love you speaking to a salesman. Yeah, maybe, maybe we can do something. Happy to guide you where I can. There we go. But going back to your story, you're, you're grinding still. You're grinding in your off time. You're grinding in the time that you're, that you're allowed because you can clock off at work, which is an amazing gift. And this is what people should realize. If you have a job that you're not emotionally attached to, that you can do somewhat of a good job. You obviously do a good job for the company. You know, you're not invested intrapreneurially. So intrapreneurs, like a new word of reason. It's a tongue twister. You know, you want to, you want to, like people that hire others, they want intrapreneurs. Realistically, they want intrapreneurs, not entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs end up just going doing their own thing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Unless they have a good system that brings more people in and then, you know, you have a wide span, but we can get into that later. Yeah. Or they have workers, workers that just come in, do their thing and leave. Yes. Now those workers can be good workers still, but they're not there to make a career out of it because it's part of the grind. Yes. It's XP building. And XP building means paying the bills and shit. Yeah. Right. Offset their costs while they build their big dream. Yes. Now, my comparison to you is you're figuring this out and you're getting this advice you didn't ask for, but, you know, that I wish I got at 25. Right. I'd say you've got your situation clutched because I figured this shit out at 29 or maybe at the age of 30. I'm 32 now. And I'm like, man, if I had known that at 25, fuck. But I was mid, mid like studying. So I'm happy with my journey. Yeah. But now speaking to someone who's 25, who's clutching it in a similar way. I'm honoured to have that term on me. Honestly, bro, like, so your Instagram following, how many you got? You got 100, 116? 116,000. That's crazy. It's crazy. You know, that's huge because. I can't comprehend it myself. That's true. But that's a different, a different story. But how I got there is not through making music. It's a very different thing. So I spent the first seven years making music and solely making music. I didn't grow a big following out of it. I got some pennies out of it from streaming revenues enough to fuel up my car like once a month. Spent nothing. Enough to pay off the subscription to be able to upload onto Spotify. It's been like that. So I was like, cool, you know, this is this is awesome. But obviously we can go for some more. Though one day I came across another channel. What they were doing, they were playing guitar. And they had like the chord diagram on the guitar on that video. And it was blowing up. And I was like, man, this is like, why has no one ever done this? Went to his account and he he had the 80,000 followers. I was at only 1000 at the time, you know, as just as someone who was known as like a music producer, but not really a guitarist, even kind of. Yes, I know, but more so a music producer. So I thought, well, I play guitar. I like cool chords. I like jazz. I like funk. Let's see what I can make out of it. And so about a year ago today, when I had a thousand followers, and only a year ago today, wow, I started, yeah, it's crazy to think about like that. Hey, I started trying to make these chord videos. And I did. I picked some Boston Nova jazz chords, as everyone loves the escalator music chords, right? Yeah. Did that. And then suddenly I found overnight just one video shot. Well, one video was enough to make me realize like, wow, this is lucrative. And you had to learn lucrative. You had to learn how to edit that in that style. Yeah. So immediately I was like, wow, this is exciting. Yeah. So let's, let's dive into it more. And a year later after maybe only like 150 or so videos of chord videos were here. So although, you know, I may be, I may have started off as a music producer in the past year alone, I've been venturing into chord videos because that's where the market is. People love learning. And if anything, this kind of helps me realize that, you know, I may have quit teaching or I may have quit becoming like a teacher, but deep down I still want to teach something. It never quits you. It never quits you. Exactly. Exactly. And so I thought, okay, I realized people love learning. So let me just put all my effort into making these videos. And that's what got me into where I am here. Not the music production side, interestingly, but that's another. Would you do tutoring? I've offered it before, but here's the thing. No one's, I feel there's no demand for it. I've tried offering it out, but yeah. In Perth? Yeah. And even so. We're about online. I've done the same thing as either I've not marketed myself properly or that's my bit, but in, in that same vein, I've always wanted to build income passively. Okay. Let's talk about it. I've always wanted to have money spin on its own and not have to invest my own time into it and have it proportional to what I'm investing in, right? So I feel like we're going like, we're jumping back and forth. I can help you. I can help you. Really easy. So there is demand just like the next cohort of year eights come in the next year. Same age, different kids, dumb at the start, educated at the end. Less dumb at the end. Yeah. Not dumb, but like, they don't know, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's the same online. It's the same online all the time. And I do admit it's getting challenging because people are just, they're lazier. They just want dopamine hits. They may not want to learn anything. I also feel there's so much out there. Yeah, a lot of it is. So I'll get back to the point. Yeah, yeah. There is so much out there. There's so many people. There's more people than there are educators, but there are, there seems to be more educators than there are people wanting it. And the thing is, there's always more. There's so much free stuff going on right now. There is. There is. But it's part of the funnel. It is part of the funnel. Like, yes, there's so much free stuff, but that's where you build your brand. And that's where that brand has been built. Yeah. Just through 160 core videos or whatever. That's it. That's where the brand's being built. And right now, as we speak, is where I want to start pivoting towards that. Yeah. How to monetize that. Oh, I'm excited for your journey. Yeah, thanks, man. Excited for your journey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, because I've got so many people that you can talk to about this. I can connect you with them. So I've got one in mind. He'll help you out for sure. But sticking to the schedule, because I'm trying to keep this now hourly. Yeah, we might go over time, but see how we go. But the maintenance part of what you're doing and your journey is, again, very similar, just in a musical way. Mine is taking photos away or creating videos away or getting attention away. Yours is getting to the same point where you may eventually be teaching musicians how to gain attention. The big thing I think that you need to do next is find your next pillar for your content. So you have your core videos, 150 of them. You need to find the next thing to add to the samples, to the collection. So what I'm saying is do 80% what works, 20% experimental. Every four videos, the fifth one is something different. I don't think that will hinder your audience. Not at all. No. It's crazy you say that, because in the past two months, that's what it's been. I've been thinking, okay, well, it's not going to stay, but it's slowing down a bit. Exactly, people are getting bored of it. Yeah, that's it. I see that the views have been dropping. You need to pivot all the time. So here's the problem with people that want to blow up on the internet. They, one, want it instantly, and two, they don't want to work for it, or gamble the fact that it may not work until three or six months later. Of course. If there was a guarantee, everyone would be making a shit ton of content. But there's no such thing as a guarantee ever. The thing is, if it's easy, everyone will be doing it. Yeah, but it filters out. There is a guarantee. Yeah. There is actually a guarantee. And the guarantee is it filters out the people that aren't serious enough. Of course. If you are true to what you love to share and showcase and passionate about, that's the actual filter. The hard part is being consistent enough in something that you don't really think about, which is the marketing. Nobody wants to market. No. I didn't want to. I didn't start waiting for photography to go make TikToks about it. Yeah. You know? It's not because he loves. Exactly. And that's where people struggle, right? And they don't want to go on the phone and learn how to edit. They don't want to do that. Yet alone have the money to hire an agency. Yeah, yeah. And if they do, the agencies are all shit anyway. They're all trying to do campaigns. They don't do the long-term brand building. No, no. You have to brand build. And that's what I'm saying to people. Like, you've done it because you saw this video and I did the same thing. I saw a video of this girl. She was talking about her, what she brings to a wedding. Right. Other than her cameras. And I was like scrolling. I was like, I do that. I made a video. Literally within half an hour. Just got everything. I'm like, lint roller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell the story in my presentations every time. Right. I posted it. Went viral. And I've got like 20 inquiries that week and booked five, closed five people for 17K total. That's wild. Yeah. That is wild. And I'm like, that's it. That's that's all it is. Yeah. And then I was like, can I do that again? I did it again. Did it again, did it again, did it again. And then recently I was like, can I still do it? Just just to see because, you know, that was like years ago now. Because it's how it started. Yeah. Because like there's so many social media gurus out there that have succeeded once and then become coaches. Right. Yeah. And then I'm like, yeah, but are you still doing it? No, most of them not. They've succeeded once and then they've just jumped. Yeah, that's it. But then they're just giving outdated advice or they're trying to keep up. But what they're really doing is regurgitating someone else. Not pivoting. Recent advice and they're not pivoting. And they're all struggling now. They're all disappearing. So what I did was like, I'm going to do it again. I'm going to keep practicing when I preach. Worked. I got heaps of inquiries. I think I got about 15 inquiries in the last month for weddings. That's one. I think I closed one or two. But I don't need to close all of them. Yeah, of course. One because my prices are high. But yeah, like I had a girl come in the other day. She sat there and we had a chat and she seemed keen. But it was a nice, it was, I wasn't, I wasn't desperate. I was like, come on, hi me. I gave her a value. I told her what to ask other photographers. And I was just like, come back when you're ready. And that's all that matters really, value. Yeah, value. Yeah. So that's an audience to a prospect or. And that's your content right now. But now you need to find the next one. Absolutely. Or repurpose in a different way or whatever, whatever. And going back to the teaching thing, there's multiple math teachers in a school teaching the same exact curriculum, the same exact lessons. The difference is that teaches brand, their personality, their unique story. And I was the favorite teacher to the most of my students. I can tell, man. Because, well, mostly because the five years experience of life I had between school and university, I had that gap. And there's a lot of teachers that went straight from school to university to teaching. They never left the classroom. Yeah. And I'm like. They never lived the way, right? No, they didn't. No, they had two weeks off every 10 weeks. But it's marking and preparing for the next thing or drinking. Yeah, both. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so you're stoked. You're on your way. You're maintaining your craft. You're figuring new things out, which is important. You're creating new music in your spare time. And you're sharing it as content. So you have a system. So you're just needing to reflect. Yeah, for sure. And look at it and find new things and explore and try. And you're already doing that. Have you found new success and new ideas? Yes. Recently, the biggest has been landing sponsorships because they pay. That's all, honestly, what it comes down to. Now, in the last piece of value I'm going to ask from you for this is, what is your approach to landing sponsorships? My approach now is simply asking. No other way around it. Tell me the process. I'll follow a lot of like-minded people, right? Guitarists, content creators, chord people, right? They play all the cool stuff, all the really cool guitars. And I don't want this to sound like I'm just in for the money because obviously I love guitar. I love playing different guitars. I've got seven now and I wish I only had one. And I thought I was going to have one forever. I feel like seven now. It's crazy. Yeah. I've got up to three. Three. There you go. There you go. And then I sold two. It's like a huge- Yeah, it's a rabbit hole. It is a rabbit hole. Yeah. I see those guitars and I think, okay, first of all, I want to play them because they look cool. Second of all, music needs to feed me. If I'm going to make something that's into a career, it has to financially meet me. So what other better way to approach that than just simply asking, hey, are you looking for someone to play your guitars? Because if so, here's me. Here's my audience. This is what I do. This is what they like. And this is how many I've got of them. My guy. So if we work together, what can we do? You know? Yeah. Just being honest about it. Yeah. I want to make it into a living. So that's been the new endeavor. And you've succeeded with this. One is pending. The other is, yeah, succeeded. But they came to me first. Yeah. That's easy. That's easy. So I leveraged the whole salesman. Do you know what I reckon you're going to be teaching next? What's that? That. Yeah. Yeah. Had a land sponsorship deals for musicians online. And I thought about it like that. And how to sell. Yeah. And how to sell. Well, look, I'll be your first customer. Yeah. Yeah. Legend. Yeah. My guy. Well, I'll give you a good testimony. I'll leverage it. Please. Thanks, man. Okay. I have to really thank or just be grateful for the fact that I'm working as a salesman outside of music. So it's a huge thing, man. If anything, that has, it's just confidence. What is, you know, having the confidence to be like, hey, I've got a dream I want to make. You've got guitars you want to sell. What can we do? So that's where we're currently sitting at. That's my new endeavor. Pivoting. Pivoting. That's what it is. So if the audience is already there and, you know, I can sense that, you know, yeah, they love chord videos, but they're not going to pay for a chord, you know. Well, maybe big companies will pay for the exposure. And that's what we're at right now. If I can't leverage people wanting to learn chords, or if that's difficult, then maybe I can leverage my reach. So that's what we're sitting at. Thanks for sharing. All right. So I've got some Poddex, Poddex, Poddex. So Poddex, it's an app called Poddex. Right. Not sponsored or anything. And I'll sponsor you. Okay. Just quick answers. Don't, don't explain it too much. If a band member only sings and doesn't play an instrument, should they have to help load the gear? They shouldn't have to, but it doesn't hurt to. A lot of not. I used to play in a band anyway. Go on. Is it okay to play a show in bare feet? What type of show? Like a, like a gig? Yeah, why not? You guys know the Chili Peppers, right? You've seen some of their shows. In your experience, what is the perfect size crowd to perform to? I've only performed to a crowd as big of 40. Nice. Intimate, intimate. Intimate is best. Yeah. Yeah, you can connect better. What show did you miss that you regret not going to? None. I've gone to all of them. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Who's your favorite artist of all time? That's such a hard one. Come on. Favorite artist of all time? Like music artist? Yeah. Musical artist? Or just one person? Yes. Like a band or an artist? Single love. This, okay. Can you give me like 10 seconds? Yes. Or 20 seconds or a minute? My favorite artist of all time. To keep it simple, it's going to be a guitarist because that's where I'm home. Good. There's a guitarist named Guthrie Govan. Look him up. Okay. Okay. All right. And final question in this segment. If you could have your music be the soundtrack to a movie, which movie would it be? These are some great questions. This is why I've got this app. Yeah, these are like making me spin, man. I might just do a whole podcast and just go through these. You certainly can. You certainly can. To any movie? Yes. To any movie? Is it normal for people to freeze up? Yeah. A question like this? Yeah. Okay. Good. This is a decent question. Any movie to have my track played it? Well, I like Forrest Gump. There you go. I like movies like that. So any movie where it's like Forrest Gumpy. Yeah. Inspirational. There we go. Love it. And then finally, one tip for life for anyone listening. What would it be? Be curious. That's what's gotten me here. No one's born with mad music skills or guitar skills or production skills or perfect pitch. I've got perfect pitch. I wasn't born with it. I was just curious. I just listened to music. I dissected it. I was curious about making music. I did it. I was curious about growing my audience. I did it. Yeah. No one's born with this magical ability to succeed. Not saying I'm successful, but I think being curious is the most important thing. Just experimenting and trying. What note is this? A. A3. Correct. It's around A. It's around A. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of nerds out there who fact-checked that, but yeah. Try an A. I don't mention that to Flex, but I'm just, you know, the point is I got there because I was just curious. I have a guitar tuner app on my phone, but for some reason I don't know where it is, and I can't search to find it, which is weird. And oh here it is. Clear tune is called. It's coded. You have to replicate that same note. Well, well, I'm actually curious to see what it pulls up when I do the thing. I have to replicate that note exactly. Okay. Or if you sing a note. Right, sing a note now. Oh wow, it was A. A3 is it? Yeah. He pitched up. There you go. And I am also pitch perfect. There you go. Because that's how you know. That's how you know. Did the same exact note. I just haven't played piano properly in a long time and played guitar for 15 years. Self-taught. Far up. And that's it. But you've been playing for as long as I have. Yeah, yeah. But I do it completely randomly and I know all the chords, but I hate the ones where you have to fucking. I don't blame you man. Like my hand still hurts sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Right. Thanks guys for listening. We're definitely going to do a part two for this. Andy Kwan, how do we find you? Thanks for having me here. It's an honor. How do we find you? How do you find me? Just on Instagram. Type in Andy Kwan music and you'll see my face. Or go on Spotify type in Andy Kwan. You'll see my face again. And all the description info in the description info. If you have any questions, leave a comment in the podcast on the Spotify section or in the YouTube comment section and please leave a five-star review. If it doesn't deserve five stars, just leave it. Hopefully the next episode will get that five-star review. Thank you for listening. And as always, good thanks. Thank you.