(upbeat music)
- Welcome to Digital Voices.
“We're healthcare and life science leaders”
explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now you're host, Ed Marks. - Hey, it's Ed.
Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. This one's gonna be so much fun because we have someone from outside of healthcare. My friend, Serge, Sanchez, Serge. Welcome to Digital Voices.
- Hey, nice to see you. - Appreciate you. - This is great because you are a music writer, do-ser, singer, and you're a vocal coach. - That's pretty cool, and we're gonna dive into that
a little bit 'cause that's one thing every leader needs. I think is a vocal coach. And you do it in music industry, but I bet some of the things that we'll talk about are transferable to just who's kind of a leader.
And so we first met really through my son. So my youngest son, Austin Sean, he's a producer, and writer, and the two of you met. I don't even know how long though. Like maybe three, four years ago?
- Yeah, probably four, four years ago. Maybe five, not sure, but yeah, I met him through Bailey, essentially, yeah. - Yeah, through Bailey's cameraman. That was the common point.
And then we've got to interact in our families a little bit, so it's really cool.
But Serge, the most important question I will ask
“the entire podcast, what songs are in your playlist?”
Like, what kind of music do you listen to? - I know, it's kind of funny asking you this song, you this question, because you're in the industry. - Yeah, I mean, no, it's actually, I mean, I can definitely narrow it down.
I think I only laugh because of what I kind of go after every day if I were to go turn on music. If it's a playlist type thing, I want something that I don't want to have to turn off or change, right? - Yeah.
- So it's got to be an artist or music that I can just listen to endlessly, so I can definitely listen to, and I can't say growing up, it was the same, but now I can listen to like, you know, John Mayer endlessly, cold train, but the eagles, a George straight,
stuff like that. So when it comes to just kind of having something
around the house, those are the kind of artists
that I can just kind of leave running, yeah. Going Tyler Chilters, even I could just let that music go and go there. But if I'm hanging out, working in the studio, I turn in, if I'm working in the studio
isn't like fixing something or working out or doing some fight that, I kind of turn into a kid again and listen to some hard rock, growing music, Pearl Jam, sound like, or Von Hall, that's a tool. But yeah, pretty much, it's kind of, if I just tell
what I'm asking Alexa to do is usually play some cold train or John Mayer eagles. - Yeah, that's very cool. What about life messes or mantra? Are there, is there words or quote or sort of philosophy
that you live by? - I don't know that it's necessarily consciously or that something that I continuously say.
“But I guess when I think about it hard enough,”
it's definitely like a die trying type of thing. I definitely am like, even in the music business, I would consider myself kind of like a cockroach, I'm still around, still doing it all these years. So definitely just try, almost anything,
if I'm struggling with my days, being on kind of ref, whatever, just try, give it a try, just keep going, don't stop, try, love that. So tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into vocal coaching stuff like that.
Like, who are you, where did you grow up? What's your life story? - Okay, yeah, I was born in Miami, Florida. My parents are from Cuba. And I lived in Miami for about 10 years.
My parents split up, my mom met a guy from Alabama, and we ended up moving to Gainesville, Florida. So, and we kind of moved on to a little, it'd be weird to call it a farm, but we did have a cow on a horse and all that stuff
and about, you know, 12 to 14 acres there, and kind of in the middle of nowhere, North Florida. So I grew up there and essentially kind of lived pretty much a very country life there. I have an older brother, so that seven years older than me,
but I spent pretty much from age 12, 11 and 12, and on as kind of an only child there, he'd stayed in Miami and when we moved. So I had plenty of space and had a lot of time on my hands and didn't have enough of it.
Didn't have an ad friends and stuff, not like I did in our friends, but I definitely was somewhat isolated after school in time and just kind of doing my thing. - Yeah.
- And that's kind of where I started, yeah. - Yeah, what's a pivotal moment in life that fundamentally change your trajectory, like that's something happened in your youth or maybe as an adult, that kind of changed like into what you're doing?
- I would definitely say that if I were to look at my career when I'm at now, probably it's gonna sound like a cop-out answer, but it's not probably what I meant my wife in my late 20s.
That was a big change, my focus just really changed.
And I sort of evaluated my career, which we can get into later,
“but when I met her, it was pretty much the catalyst”
as to getting me to move to Knoxville, Tennessee, where I then started teaching voice there and met Morgan there. So if I look at that year of, you know, but sorry, I guess it was a couple years before I moved there,
but essentially meeting my wife, shifting my location and moving to Knoxville, which was a huge change in a big difference in my life from touring, and all the things that I was doing to go settle down a little town.
But I met Morgan Wallen and it really sort of took things into a different direction. There was a big one. - Yeah, so yeah, so you've already broached the topic of music. Yeah, tell us how did you get into music?
Like you talked about living sort of on the farm. I have to say, when you have an older brother, and an older sibling, especially in that era, in the early '90s, late '80s, early '90s, I was exposed to whether my mom wanted me to be exposed
to her not, yeah, I was exposed to a lot of pretty edgy music, you know, whether it was what was kind of happening in my, you know, in the pop scene, hip hop scene, I should say,
but I always come back to a specific song.
It's a song called Big M T by Stone Temple Pilots, and that song was on a soundtrack for a movie called The Crow. And when I was a kid, my brother had taken me to one of those dollar theaters or whatever. And saw the Crow, and I guess if I remember correctly,
there was some soundtracks for sale there, you bought the soundtrack and were listening to it on the way home. And when that song came on, I might have been around 11, or something like that, 10 or 11. When I heard that, I remember being very enamored by it,
and I heard my brother singing along with it, 'cause he kind of knew it, and I immediately was like,
“I want to try to sing to this, can I sing this is cool?”
This is really, it was almost the first time, most of us, when we had music, you feel that there's something that's yours. Like this music is mine, this is not my mom's. You know, this is this kind of thing is mine.
So I remember really getting into that, and I feel like just at an early age, kind of getting into some pretty deep, you know, even to an extent dark music at an early age. That was big 'cause I feel like it's set the tone
for the rest of it, I can kind of go about. Every time I hear that song, I think about that moment. - Yeah. - And then did you have this dream? Is that when you started picking up an instrument,
or did you have no, actually, I didn't. I didn't probably was a couple years later, in Gainesville when I was living there, specifically the town of Trenton, Florida, that I grew up in, I like to give Trenton a shout out of is,
home of East and Corbin, but it's also the home of me, too, guys, come on, yeah. But I specifically remember the wanting to play drums. So I was obsessed with bands, so I got really obsessed with it.
I just got really into that and the culture of that, and I wanted to be in a band of such a big departure from where I grew up, you know, some of those cool bands that you would see on MTV, and stuff, and I felt like, you know,
I just wanted to play some drums. I just remember getting some drums from my mom, and my parents got me, and they immediately were like, yeah, we love you, but I don't think that's gonna happen. And I ended up picking up my grandpa's guitar,
and that was kind of the deal that I can play guitar, maybe they'd get me some lessons. That's kind of where it started, it was, and I have to tell you, as bad as it sounds, even though I'm a vocal coach,
and I always tell my clients this, it's funny that,
in a way, my first few lessons,
“kind of, I think that was a big moment for me,”
because I felt like I didn't want to learn what their teacher, I just wanted to go learn some Nirvana songs, or write some songs, I had an inclination already. My immediate thought was, I don't want to learn the things you're showing me,
which is not good, but I definitely opened my eyes, and I actually did have an interest in this, and I wanted to write music, I want to do my own thing. I almost didn't want to go that route, which was pretty interesting.
In other words, I think if I just stuck with guitar lessons, I don't mean voice lessons, but if I stuck with guitar lessons, I don't know that I would actually, you know, really stuck with it, I just got to, I just said, you know something mom, I'll make you a deal,
if you can let me quit these lessons. Which by the way, my mom does not like me quitting stuff, but she, I was like, I promise you, I will play this guitar, I love it, I just want to sit at home and learn how to play some power chords,
some songs, and I became very obsessive about it. So it's kind of interesting that that was, there's almost a little bit of a punk rock moment, where I'm like, okay, actually, I don't want to do this, but actually, I really want to,
I want to make sure my mom allows me to still keep playing. I was only like 12, you know? Yeah. - And, yeah, that was big. So fast forward to today,
and we're going to get into vocal coaching in a second,
but fast forward today, generally,
As a singer-songwriter producer and vocal coach,
what's a typically year, like I imagine it's very varied,
“but what's a typical year look like for you?”
Are you on the road sometimes helping out, or are you, you know, in the studio, how's it go? - You know, I could ask the universe to every day how it's gonna go or how it went. But if I look back the last few years,
I've been sort of, it's almost a little bit more how my week looks, I guess. - Yeah. - And it's kind of like a couple, a couple days of writing in sessions with different artists and various songwriters in town.
And then there's always some form of production
that's kind of sitting there for the most part, some sort of record that I'm working on recording, something that's pending there. But mixed in, I'm teaching lessons, you know, throughout the week on Zoom or in person.
And then what it's kind of been just about in the summertime every year, I find, I find my way out on the road with some artists that need some help. And some guidance and some teams that need some help
in guidance and how to get, you know, just singers really on an optimal place or help them with injury recovery. Things like that, so I do a little bit of all that throughout the year, it's pretty, it's pretty hectic,
but it's, I don't know, I can complain some days, but then I'm like, I don't know,
“I think it's kind of kind of high on it, you know?”
Yeah, yeah, super cool.
It's all around music, you know?
Yeah, no, that's super cool. Tell us one or two highlights in your career so far that that, you know, are top of mind. Definitely, it's hard to look at my journey and not, especially with how huge Morgan's become,
it's hard to look in my journey and not kind of look at that, put a magnifying glass on that specific time where I met him and helped him develop everything, you know, just kind of worked with him, songwriting, vocal coaching, kind of essentially,
I mean, I moved my life to Nashville. In fact, Morgan's band was the band I was in, so I recruited the band, the band that I was in, I recruited them to be Morgan's live band and still to today, so today there is a lot of band.
The members of the band that I was in throughout, throughout all my 20s, a band called Adam Smash. But yeah, I would say the highlights would be definitely
“being a part of his journey and trajectory.”
And I've had a couple of milestones with songwriting, having songs, you know, stream in the billions and stuff, it's a pretty big deal. You know, in the sense of like for somebody
like how I grew up and certainly would have never thought
it would be in the country genre. So some of that stuff, but definitely like, you know, really just the highlights would be just kind of getting phone calls from certain artists and their teams that are kind of been about in a tough spot
and they need some help and kind of being there for them. And the last couple of years, especially have been kind of like a highlight one little highlight after another of just, of just that kind of thing, just working with those artists being somebody
that they would call for help there. - Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, and just an audience gonna want to know, and as we go into vocal coaching here. - Yeah, so Morgan, there's Bailey Zimmerman that you've worked with, who else?
- Parker McCollum, there's a young guy that's out there now doing great call Cameron with Comt, and working with Dylan Marlow, Josh Ross, Nate Smith. I worked with him quite a bit this year. So there's also stuff outside of country.
There's an artist named Bryson Maroney that's an alternative act that's doing really well that I started worked with him when he was a teenager. I kind of have to go back even though he's been a long time I was there kind of nosy early days.
But yeah, I've just worked with a quite a few, those accents kind of neat because Bailey, oh Bailey would be really interesting highlight because he's another act that I would have had songs that I've written with Bailey
that have been released in all that, but also vocal coaching him. So that's kind of, it's also saying Morgan and Bailey would be artists that have that kind of sort of like, oh, that's kind of interesting
your vocal coach, and you had some songs with them too. It's, you know, that's cool. - Yeah, so on vocal coaching now, why would an artist reach out for a coach? And then what does that mean?
Like what do you do? Give us an example. - Okay, yeah, that's actually a really good question. So I would compartmentalize that and say that if a person is starting off
and they're just somebody that, you know, they're really just getting going, I would say that the phone call and the initial lessons are really surrounding singing on key and like giving them regiments,
the proper vocal technique and breath support,
A lot of it is fundamentally seeing
if they can hold a tune, right? - Although I have worked with a lot, I mean, I've been in Nashville for about 10 years and I've probably worked with close to seven and 800 clients or somebody I kind of lost track.
There's my wife has a, if you call it a really decks of stuff, but we have that, but definitely a lot of novice, a lot of people, I've worked with a lot of people
“that are doing, and I think it's helped.”
One hand is watch the other. I think working with people that are getting going and just doing it for fun, but I get more calls now, hey, my voice is just horse, it's blown out, I'm having issues with sort of surviving as a singer
through the touring process. Sometimes I get calls for pre-recording process, like let's work on stuff before we get in the studio, sometimes it's hey, I need you in the studio with me. - Yeah.
- To kind of beat, that's actually how we met. Now that I think of it, we probably met like in that sort of thing like, hey, I'd like to add the vocal coach in the studio while I'm making the record with Bailey.
So essentially, but yeah, a lot of it really is, if I were to really narrow it down, nowadays, the big phone call is, I don't have a solid daily routine that I'm doing, I don't, where do I start, and why am I losing my voice so much?
- Okay, 'cause I imagine it's surge that it's someone to start at singing, they had a band,
and they get popular, and they never had training, right?
They never had formal training, just like we do with exercise,
“like you got a lift weights, and that's why it's me.”
- Yeah, that was me. That was actually, you know, by the way, I should probably mention it, this is very important to the journey, okay? - Yeah.
- Because it is also-- - I experienced that. - That's how I got into this at all, was I, the band I was in, Anna Smash, was got signed to Sony, and I'm not even kidding, literally as I signed the document.
In that week, I lost my voice and I didn't get it back. I was trying to tour through, I had not taken lessons. I really avoided lessons. I was like, you know, two punk rock to go do that.
They're not, I'm a lost cause, I'm screaming, but I blew my voice out, and it didn't come back, and it was a scariest point of that time in my life, because I'd worked so hard to get there, and I had no voice to record the album that we were gonna make.
So I got lucky that the producer I was making the record with convinced me to go see this vocal coach, in New York, and it's where we were making the album, and that vocal coach is really just sort of change the game for me, gave me all of the daily routines
that I could ask for, really taught me lifestyle things, I was not live and right. Just got me, it's just sort of set me on the right path, and went on to sing thousands of shows me on that and finish at record, and become a sponge for,
I was almost fascinated with how it worked. I'm like, whoa, this is crazy. How am I getting through this, you know? So by the end of it, so what I was getting at is, I was the client.
I was the person that was in a jam, and had some of so now I'm kind of, I kind of get to go through that process again, although it's a little stressful, reliving that a little bit, but I've done it enough times that I kind of,
the story, I've been very blessed in the story ends well, usually. - Yeah, that's cool, I saw it in a different way, but I saw the power of it, excuse me, speaking of voice. I saw it in a different way when I grew up seven kids,
brothers and sisters, and we all had average voices,
we always sing at Christmas time, Christmas carols,
and all sorts of things. One of my sisters goes off to college, once a master, she comes back from time for Christmas, and we sing, and her voice was amazing, and it was 'cause she got coaching,
'cause she was getting her degree in music, and she got coaching, I saw it right there, dang. She, it's not like she had a more blessed voice in the rest of us, we all had that raw voice, but a good coach brings it out.
- Yes. - And so-- - Absolutely. - So that's where I went to pivot to now, so a lot of my audience, as I mentioned, our executives in healthcare, many of them have to perform,
if you will, with their voice, on a daily basis. Sometimes it's formal, like speaking to thousands of people, or sometimes it's just speaking to a smaller number,
but there's always this performance, there's always speaking.
And so when we met, and I'm thinking about coaching
“and music industry, I think the same in my profession.”
- So what are two techniques that you might suggest, not for a musician, you know, an art musical artist, but like professionals that have to speak for a living? - Yeah, listen, I think the reality is that public speakers or leaders or people that are taking meetings,
whatever it is, essentially you are broadcasting, that is what you're doing, it's not a musical thing, and there isn't something musical happening necessarily, but you are having to get a lot of words out, right? - Down the information out, and that's quite often
how we lose our voice, the reality is, just make sure you're breathing also while you're talking so being conscious of inhaling and taking a breath.
Sometimes we have to get quick,
sometimes we have to be very fast at it.
So if you hear me, if I'm saying like,
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.”
You're hearing that I'm taking a breath. I'm supporting my voice, making sure I have some air, while I'm talking, be conscious of it, it's easy, it's actually a lot easier to forget to breathe when we're speaking than it is
when we're singing, 'cause there's something where her is happening when we're singing. If you will, and then the next thing is, everyone can use a warm-up. It doesn't matter if you're a singer or that,
there's plenty of great little warm-ups on YouTube, you just vocal warm-ups doing any warm-up, there's some that are probably more effective out there in terms of for public speaking, but finding a warm-up that works for you
in the mornings before you go into your meetings, five minutes, doesn't have to be a long thing, and get your voice stretched up and warmed up a little bit
for the day, you also notice that a big one,
so you don't lose your voice is make sure that you find a spot in your voice and you're speaking voice that you hear clarity or you feel smooth. So in other words, if I'm talking down here,
“if I'm trying to lose this voice here, you know,”
like that, I'm not gonna lie, I'm more susceptible to horseness and wearing down my voice, but if I find a spot where the voice is here here in my voice, so I'm working a little bit,
so I'm actually projecting, I'm working a little bit, to find smoothness in my speaking voice, and I laugh 'cause sometimes I hear it in like an AI voice. - Yeah, like I'll hear, I go, oh, that's interesting, the AI voice has a pretty solid,
like, it's clear, it's not too fried. It doesn't have that tone in it. - Right. - So yes. - Yeah, those are great, I love that. - And you mentioned tech, you mentioned AI.
What about tech, do you leverage any tech at all in what you do? - Oh yeah, and I'm not ashamed to admit it on the creative front of my journey as far as a songwriter and producer.
There's no doubt about it. I mean, the way things are, I'm able to model Bailey's voice or someone's voice and actually have a little model of their voice and when I write a song, I can put that vote,
I could sing it, replace my voice with his, pitch it, right? And, you know, to different artists, I'm very as far as you could do things like that with AI. You can probably one of the huge ones in the creative side
would be, if I'm, you know, if I don't want to rack my brains sitting all night right in a demo for a song that I wrote that day, that I'm not even sure about if it's any good.
It's nice to just like I write this song, put it down on an acoustic, throw it into one of these AI apps and it'll show you a demo and you're listening like, oh wow, that sounds done.
Cool, next day, next idea, that having to sit there. The producer side of me doesn't use it much, like the producing, that world, if anything, AI is like what not to do for my style of producing, like for what I go for
as a producer, AI is a little bit more of a, okay, don't do that, right? If AI is, don't do that, go in a different direction so that you really stand out. So, but in vocal coaching, I do use recording
as a tool, so if clients are in studio or they're at home, even. I'll have them send me recordings, learn how to use a recording software to like record their, what they're practicing.
I'll send them little videos that has my, like you're basically looking at the notes like, on, we caught MIDI in this world, like little piano notes, you see them on recording software, and you see these little notes,
and it helps you sort of look at them and guide you through. So I use technology quite a bit, honestly, in terms of, you know, in the, even the AI front of it all, the hardest thing about AI is it,
I always tell people the hardest thing
is when you throw that demo on there, or you throw that work tape, we call it like an acoustic and a vocal and you throw it and you hear it back, and it does something different that you love.
Yeah. It's hard to unhear that, right? Like, oh boy, what do I do? Do I not do that just because this thing kind of bend the melody this way?
It's like that sounds so good. So that's, that's the tough part. That's where it gets a little fishy, just 'cause you're like, oh no, like I didn't, I didn't come up with that little movement.
This thing did that and you're like, oh gosh, what do I do? How do I unhear that, what it did, you know? Yeah. That's super cool.
Yeah, so search, we'll put all of your notes and how to get a hold of you, your website, things like that, well, in our notes, and that way anyone who's listening or watching has an interest in vocal coaching,
“'cause I think you should do this for professional speakers,”
or not, not even for professional speakers, regular people like myself, executives, that speak a lot and it's just, and I certainly have, by the way, just, you know, it's not something I have worked with clients like that.
I also will see sometimes football coaches, and I'm like, man, you know, or a quarterback
I'm gonna like, hey man,
this guy, this guy is gonna lose his voice as if you can,
keeps using his voice that way, and, okay, so. Yeah, of course. So this has been so fascinating to have someone outside to help care like yourself and such a creative force and energy and we talked a lot about yourself,
how you grew up, how you got into music,
“just how important your parents were in that journey,”
and sort of four or five hacks you shared with us on how to improve our own sort of self coaching, if you will, but improve our own voice, and be careful with, so thank you for that. Super fascinating, is there anything we missed
or anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word. You know, I was a really, really terrible singer when I started. So I didn't mention that. I didn't have a natural ability or inclination.
I actually was extremely pitchy. Didn't have great rhythm, not much range. It's kind of crazy. I have a higher register and range now than I did when I was a teenager.
Wow.
So it's very important to note that I basically knew
that singing was my weakness. I could write songs. I could be a crazy front man. The singing was my weakness, but I looked back and I think I was very determined to somehow turn that
into a strength, you know? And essentially, so that's a big one is as I'm actually a vocal coach who is a singer that someone would want to learn from, it definitely blows my mind that that that my journey was not started.
I didn't start off with someone saying, hey, you're pretty good. You should pursue this. That isn't how it started. Like I was not getting told.
“You should go on a show or that wasn't my journey.”
If you ask my parents, everybody were kind of like, we're just letting them do it. He loves it, we're just letting them do it. But I'm sure what they're thinking is, oh my gosh. This is not good.
So that's that's important to see that this the 20 year journey or longer, 24 year journey that I've been on is kind of interesting. It's there's a ton of weaknesses and I have a way of just really trying to turn those into my strengths.
Yeah, no, I love that. And like you talked about in the very beginning, I don't give up, keep trying and pursue your dreams and dreams happen.
You've done amazing things, Surgeon.
“And I think you're going to do even more amazing things”
in the future. So thank you so much for being my guest. Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. I'm a big fan of you and your family.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you for listening to digital voices. We hope today's conversation sparked ideas, reflection, and connection. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify podcast.
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