Would you live in a van and travel the country going to festivals? While it sounds like a dream lifestyle to most of us, our guests this week, Lauren and David, are living it. They started Soundchecks to Stagedives in 2021 and have spent the last two years on the road full-time, covering music festivals and shows.
Lauren and David take us inside the EDM community, sharing insights and speculating on who we might see at Bonnaroo 2025. From Tipper's big plans for next year to the acts they're most excited about, this episode is a must-listen for festival lovers.
Are you Ready to ROO? The What Podcast wants to send you to the Farm to experience a magical weekend of music, fun, and friendship at Bonnaroo! You'll witness round-the-clock entertainment from over 100 artists! We've got 4-day tickets and a camping pass for you and a guest. Visit thewhat.co/win for details.
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Van Life, EDM Culture, and Bonnaroo 2025
I want to go and I want to see something I've never seen before.
So as much as I might like to predict who will be there or as much as I might, you know,
look at the lineup ahead of time, I almost skip directly halfway down the page when I look at a
lineup because that's about the place where I stop recognizing names. And when I stop recognizing
names, that's when I start to kind of explore and that's when I know I'm going to start getting the
new things. So finding yourself in the in the tents, being out at 1pm, you know, 2pm in the
afternoon when when your non-headliners are playing, those are the people that I'm really,
really excited about. And because Bonnarooo is such a multi-genre festival and because they have just,
I mean, let's see, last time I was there, I saw, you know, Bluegrass and EDM and Rock and Paul
McCartney, like, you know, there's everything. So it's like, you know, you're going to get something
new and you know, you're going to get something different. So it gives you an opportunity to just
follow whatever mood you're in and kind of head to that tent or to that stage and just explore.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the What Podcast. I'm Barry, that's Russ, that's Brian. It's early
December. We're getting ready for Christmas. Hard to believe that means the lineup is just a couple
of months or probably five or six weeks away. At this point, who knows the way the lineups are
dropping these days. That's true. We do know that the early ticket sales have started. They're going
pretty well from what we hear. We don't know for a fact. We don't know what the future is going to
be. We don't know for a fact. We've got some other news that we're going to get into. But just to
give you an idea for the bulk of the show, we're going to talk to Dave and Lauren. They do a podcast,
YouTube, everything, a little bit of everything. Sound checks to stage dives. And we're going to
talk to them about van life. We're going to talk to them about festivals that they attend around the
world. So all kinds of things. But first, guys, it sounds like Bonnarooo, you know, the tickets,
early ticket sales going well. We've had a couple of rumors already. We've had a couple of clues.
Russ, you're following that probably closer than certainly I am. What's going on? Well,
we had one Rue clue come out and maybe by the time this comes out, there'll be another one. But the
first clue was glass animals. So that got a lot of people excited. Yeah, people. I mean,
after all these years, I have never been able to figure out a Rue clue once on my own. I've never
looked at it and even had the slightest idea of what I was. So I just quit. And then the other day
it's just glass animals, glass animals. I'm like, are you all sure? And I see a picture.
You all got glass animals out of that? Maybe I'm just not immersed into their
in into their their ethos enough. But I am a big glass animals guy. I would be ecstatic for that.
And it sounds like we're going to get it. So I'm glad to hear you say that. I've never gotten one
even close. Yeah, not even a little bit. I've never gotten one. And then when you tell me,
I'm still like a window seal. Glass animals, windows, sky, ground. Yeah. But good for anybody
who did figure it out. And yeah, I mean, they're they're on the up and up. Glass animals are. So
yeah, that's gonna be fun. Yeah. But as far as that goes, I've been on Thanksgiving mode for a
while. So go ahead. Yeah. Did you guys play Alice's Restaurant for Thanksgiving? Of course I did.
Yeah, I figured you would. Of course I did. Then she didn't the inspiration. Didn't she just die?
Like in the last two or three, four weeks? I'm pretty sure she did. Oh, I don't. I didn't hear
that. Oh, really? Yeah. Alice. Yeah, I don't have any idea. I just don't know the owner of the place
where they were living. Yeah. I mean, that they piled up and threw away. Yeah. I generally try to
get to Alice's Restaurant every Thanksgiving. But this time I wasn't even really thinking about it.
I have the DVD. There you go. Our friends Lightning 100 in Nashville had it rolling on
Thursday night. That's where I was. So that was the tradition was continued. Yeah, that's the
tradition for me. And I'm wearing my ugly Christmas sweater. It's December now. So it is ugly.
It fits. It's actually a pretty for an ugly Christmas sweater. That one's a little less
tacky. You could do worse than that. She died November 29. So just died. She was 83 years old.
So, oh, wow. No, I didn't know that. All right. What else? I don't know. The answer for me would
be not much. It's been a nice little break here and looking forward to continuing. Yeah. Clues
and what everybody thinks about them. Yeah. Festival confirmed glass animals and we did get
the attention of Festival. Apparently he got upset with something we said on the show. Oh, geez. And
I wrote this down so you didn't blindside me. So I don't know what it was. Something with,
as I always jokingly condescendingly say, right, said Fred. I mean, Fred again.
Somebody was saying he was going to be a Coachella. I got it wrong. I thought Festival was hinting at
it, if not said straight up. And then he did say, he, she, they said something about this wasn't me
you fools. And I just missed that. And I don't get too far into all that. I did say your information
is great, Festival. And also thank you for watching. That's all I can tell. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. But I certainly don't want to get things wrong, but I'm also not
investigatively journalizing any of this either. But my bad. That's on me. That's on me. I still
think we need to get Festival on the show somehow. I mean, obviously they don't want to reveal their
person. Yeah, but no, we could, you know,
shadow and they alter the 60 minutes thing. Yeah, we have the ability. So it'd be cool to get
Festival on. That would be an interesting angle. That would be an interesting angle. Make that happen.
Speaking of, a dude want to say we do have tickets to give away. We still haven't figured out how
we're going to make that happen, but we have tickets and we will probably next episode,
maybe details. We should do that, right? We'll figure something out. Yeah. Thanks to the
Bonnarooo folks for providing. We got what? Two camping or two GA passes with camping. Yeah.
Pretty big deal. So that's cool. So go ahead and sign up for that. We'll send out details once we
get all the figured out how we're going to give them away and Stone did join our discord.
And I've been, I try to check on that every day. Now it's pretty interesting. A lot of,
a lot of cool comments, a lot of cool people on there. So yeah, it's growing. Please join and
join in the conversation. It's gotten fun. Yeah. Happy to be there. I would say I've
doing the same as you, but I'd be lying, but I am there and I'll, and it's good to see everybody.
Just drop in every now and then. What else Russ? We have a shaky knees, a date set. Oh yeah.
They moved to hurricane season. All right. I don't know how that's going to work for them,
but so it's going to be a new location and new dates. That kind of, that information dropped
kind of as we were putting out last week's episode. Yeah, that's right. They had moved,
they moved the venue to Piedmont park, which I think is a great move. Um, for anybody who's not
that familiar with land, I'm sorry. I, I, I am enough to know that's a, that's a good move
to September though. When I heard that later, like I, you're the same problems you're going to run
into in April to me, you're going to have in September too. That was my first thought. I mean,
we just had a September festival half canceled. Yeah. You're going to have unpredictable weather.
You're going to have a busy schedule. You're going to have in April, you're going to have people who
are excited to get out in September. You're going to have people who want to have their last hurrah
to get out. Like, so those are similar kind of, um, motivations. I mean, they, they have a person
perfectly logical explanation for this, I'm sure. Uh, but boy, that crowds up September and I've
always loved shaky being in April just cause that's my favorite month of the year, but Hey, I'm glad
it's still here because it's a fun, it's a great rock festival. Yeah. Yeah. Still excited. Still
no lineup yet. Maybe that'll come out. I would imagine in any second that'll probably come in.
They usually are one of the first ones. Yeah. True. Yeah. All right. What else? I think that
pretty much for me covers it. I said, I've been, I've been in Turkey and couches. Yeah. Yeah. That's
too. You've been chasing babies around. And you know, me Barry and taco, I'm not normally, I've
been chasing babies around too. There's kids everywhere and I was totally family guy in it.
And it was great. I loved every second of it, but I've been very disconnected, but, uh, looking
forward to talking to David and, uh, and Lauren too. Yeah. This was a good interview. It was a
lot of fun kind of, um, well, you'll hear about how we ran into them and why we're talking to them and,
uh, looking forward to, uh, working with them on a few things in the future. Yeah. We might have some
new correspondents since they travel to a lot of festivals that we don't always. And the van life,
which we found out. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Well, here we go with David and Lauren.
Um, we met, uh, David, right at, uh, rave cave or cave rave rave caves. Yeah. At the caverns there.
LS dream had a two day show rave cave. It was second year. So yeah, that's where we met.
Yeah. Just wandering, uh, down the, down the road there and said, Hey, and howdy. And, uh,
said we would get together soon and, uh, this is soon. So, um, tell everybody if you will,
uh, about your website and then we will, uh, we'll go from there. Yeah, no problem. So
Lauren and I, we partner and run a social media platform based around the EDM community and music
and festivals. And so we live full time in our van. We travel from festival to festival from show to
show, shooting media, creating content, uh, interviewing artists, interviewing people within
the community, uh, making, making videos for people in the community about the community,
giving information, uh, giving information about artists and doing insights into their
life and teaching you about them. Um, and the festivals themselves. Yeah, correct. And the,
and the festival themselves. So, um, we've done that for the last year and a half now
and just completely changed our lives and started this, started this path that's taken us on this
really cool journey of being able to see all of America is one thing that we wanted to do,
but then also being able to see these amazing stages and these amazing, uh, amazing acts.
And we fell in love with the community, uh, at first, just the people, uh, we just wanted to
surround ourselves as much as possible in the community as we could. And, and we've just been
doing that before we get too far, um, into wherever direction we go, Lauren, you can take this
to start if you want. Um, talk to me about that specifically, the van life. I got the, I just,
right. I mean like one, two, three, I could have waited for a while, but I can't wait any longer.
No, no, no. I was going to start there too. You nailed it. I was looking around at different
descriptions of what you guys do just quickly. I've been out of town for all weekend and last
night. And then the first thing I stumbled on that made sense because it was so concise and quick was
your link, uh, your link tree. We're Lauren and David. We live in a van and we vlog our adventures.
Okay. Well, I needed that from the jump. That's all I needed. Tell me about that. How does that
come together and what kind of life? I mean, certainly there's gotta be a time you're like,
was this such a good idea after all? Tell me, just talk about it. And I wanted to ask too, not again,
I'm piling on, but which came first? Was it the van life thing first or the festival thing first
or EDM thing first or it all just came together? Yeah, I think it was so natural and organic for us.
And maybe that's what kind of made it so easy. When, when we first met, we both shared this idea
of wanting to live in a van or originally like a school bus, um, and just travel the country. David
being from Australia, he wants to see the U S and we immediately bonded over this love of music.
And we both knew that somehow, some way in our future, after working nine to fives, our whole,
you know, adult lives, that we wanted to turn our love of music into our, our life,
our main source of income. We wanted to fully immerse, like David said. And so initially,
um, we built the platform. We were living in New Orleans at the time. Um, and you know, in a good
old normal apartment and, uh, you know, we kind of built the platform from there. Once the platform
had a little bit of a leg to stand on, we started to be able to develop these relationships
with members of the community, whether that's, you know, festival, uh, festival organizers,
whether that's just other people who attend the festivals, whether it's artists themselves.
So that kind of all happened simultaneously. And I would say after about a year of building the
platform or so, we were in a position to actually get the van and, and hit the road full time. And
so we have so many ideas for how this can evolve over time. Um, but there are some challenges with
living in the van. Um, you know, even right now we're both filming here. Um, so organizing space,
getting lighting, all of these things are, you know, things that we have to really think probably
harder than most about. Um, and you know, just not having a whole lot of space, but we are
probably, I mean, we're best friends. And so for us to live in this confined space is not odd at all.
And the freedom it allows us to just be pretty much anywhere at any time is,
is worth any inconvenience in the world. Wow. So many questions. So I, I'm obsessed with
van life videos. I have no reason why I'm never going to do it, but I'm obsessed with it. So
you can live by the carry. It's an interesting concept for sure. And I, and I, and from the jump,
Dave, um, I was like, well, this guy from around here and we now that's why we have Brian around.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so now we know Australia, uh, what brings you this halfway across the world or
all the way across the world. So I've lived here for the last six years. Uh, since I was a kid,
I'd always wanted to live here. I was very big into like the NBA and pop culture of America.
So it's something that I always wanted. Uh, I ended up winning a green card lottery.
And so, yeah, so I basically won a lottery, which gave me a green card. Uh, my number that I got
called was really low, which like guaranteed me you can still win and get like a large number
and still not get the green card. So I had 27 was my number. So I was guaranteed one as long
as I jumped through all these hoops and like I had to give America everything I'd ever done for the
last 10 years. If I had a coffee with sugar in it in 2006, 2016, they wanted to know. So I jumped
through all these hoops, uh, was able to do that landed in LA and I was in the fitness industry.
So I jumped straight into the fitness industry still and just continued working there. Uh, and
then I'd always wanted to be a content creator or I'd always wanted to travel as well. Like I
didn't want to just come to America and live in one spot. I felt like that was going to be a waste.
Like if I was going to come over here, I wanted to see every inch of land that you guys have. So
there's a lot to see. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. It's, it's amazing. The different landscapes
that you guys have is unreal, especially in this van. That's one of the reasons why I wanted it,
because I knew with the van, it would allow me to do that. I could go anywhere and see anything that
I wanted and be comfortable while doing it. Along those lines then. Okay. So we're going to dive in
and out. I'm sorry. We're going to jump all over because you guys are doing so many different
things, but how do you plan your year? Um, or do you plan your year? Is it, I assume it's based
around not just festivals, but what's warm and what's cold, what time of year? Uh, and, and are
you on the road 365 or is there a home base? Yeah. Is it like seasonal at all? Yeah. Yeah. Like summer
break or anything? Well, not summer clearly, cause that'd be your most popular time of the year. But
anyway, yeah. Yeah. So we are, uh, currently in Denver. We're trying to see if we can ride out
the winter here. Uh, David, initially Australia, initially it looks how Louisiana for me. And if
we can get acclimated to this cold, we could see ourselves being in Denver long-term in the future.
But for us, we've been on the road full time since March with, you know, no home address, no
home base. Everything has been mobile for us since, since March. Um, and you know, as far as
planning and things, I was originally a kindergarten teacher. I taught for 12 years. So planning every
moment of every day was just absolutely how I operated. It was the way that things had to get
done or else this is a hell of a shift. This is a hell of a shift. Makes perfect sense. Go ahead.
To van life, EDM. Yeah. I, I always felt as much as I loved teaching that I was living a little bit
of a double life. Like, yes, I had passion for teaching and the kids. Sure. Of course. But, um,
I knew that my heart and my true passion was being out in the world. And as much as I tried to bring
the world into my classroom every day, it still was a limit, right? It was still a ceiling that
I just couldn't break through. And so I ended up meeting David and I had all these plans for my
life and, you know, we just started to put them into action. So, um, yeah, with, with planning,
I make myself just basically a year long calendar. I know when all the festivals are, I know we kind
of start to decide like which ones we really want to shoot for, which ones do we think, um, you know,
if we know that we're in Michigan for electric forest in June and the week before we need to be
in Tennessee for Bonnarooo, like that takes some, some strategic planning, right? Um, so I kind of
map everything out for the year. And then, uh, we look at again, location, we look at sort of
the lineup of things where we'd go hopping around like Frogger. Uh, and then we just kind of make,
make our list and our goals from there. So David, is this, uh, this lifestyle that you're in and the
music and, and not just the van as much, but the, the, the content that you want to create and that
kind of stuff, has that been brewing inside for a long time? I mean, that, that, that world is,
has always been there with you since you were young. Is that, is that your, you know, your
wheelhouse of music and lifestyle? So it's funny with the content creation thing,
back when I was in high school in Australia, I would math class to go shoot skating videos.
Like I was shooting content like since high school. And then I think after I got out of high school,
I kind of stopped doing that. I just got into work and like doing the, you know, again, like
hard level Lawrence said, doing the thing that you're supposed to do by like going and getting a
job and just working and trying to save and do it, doing all those things. So yeah. Well,
let's not go on that too much. I'm still trying to master that stuff and I still want to anyway.
Sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no, for sure. And then I think again, we, we're in our thirties now and
it's funny. All my friends are in their thirties. I feel like we're reverting back to our like
teenage years. We're like, come back to what we love. You know, I think COVID did that too. Like,
you know, we all went through that big 2020, you know, world event and we're like, what do we really
want? You know what I mean? So that kind of sparked out that even when I was in the fitness industry,
I was shooting kind of content. I wanted to like, you know, do content and maybe even like get online
and help people like in the online space. So you have to shoot content for that. So it's been
something I've always loved. And then now we've just gotten this really cool opportunity. When we
first started the platform, we were more into like your emo style, indie band music. So EDM,
we still liked EDM, but we didn't base our content like on that at the start. And then once we started
like attending some EDM festivals again, it all just, we just changed and it kind of evolved. And
we just, our content changes kind of like every month now, because we're still an evolving
platform and we're trying to make sure that we're doing right by the community and bringing the
right type of content to them. I want to, I got a big circle around that and I can see you thinking
too, Brian, let's come back to that a little bit. Cause that's a big thing that I want to talk about.
So how much have you guys evolved in what'd you say a year and a half since you committed
to this? I mean, you're clearly, you're going to, you have to learn probably daily
how the van works, doesn't work your own personalities. You know, you, you, I'm sure
you figured out triggers like I need to back away. I need to give him, give her or him some space.
Not today. Right. That type of thing. So where do you think you are in that year and a half process?
Do you feel pretty good about it all or is it still very much an evolution? And then we're going to
get into the whole festival thing and content. I think it's both simultaneously. I mean, we
barely even recognize the content we produced a year and a half ago. I think our skills, our ideas,
you know, our content itself, the, the, you know, kind of goal of our content has evolved.
Everything is evolved and I think it's constantly evolving and it's always going to be,
but you know, the, the consistent factor with all of it is, is music. And we are in a lot of ways,
sort of music chameleons. I mean, one minute we might be listening to EDM and then like David said,
we might be going back to those emo roots. I mean, we grew up in a very, you know, that, that late
nineties, early two thousands time where that was, that was the core of what we grew up on. So I think
that's always going to be a little bit at our heart, but when people say they listen to everything,
they kind of don't really mean it, but we actually do. I know I always say that. No, you don't.
No, you don't. I think as much as anyone can though, we, we, we really do. And so it's just,
it all comes back to the root of a love of music. And so anything that we produce is going to come
to that and the van becomes involved in that because that's what allows us and puts us in
that space as much as we have the opportunity to. So that, that's kind of how it's changed over time.
Okay. And along those lines, and we'll, I want to start, when you're putting together your festival
list, is it based on your own personal lineups? Is it based on which festivals you think are going
to be massive fan wise? Is it based on what your, your con, your show content, your viewership? And
I'm asking for several reasons to be perfectly upfront. It's cause I want to steal your ideas
because we're very similar. So I think I'm joking, but we're in, we're in the same boat.
We're not the same show that we were in 2018. I don't think, I don't hope. But anyway, so go ahead.
Yeah. So I think what for me, and I think Lauren agrees as well is we, this year it was a bit about
lineups when we would first see them. But now that we've done that this year, we've really
learnt with, especially with festivals is that I like to go to a festival that really like gives
you an immersed feeling. Like we've been to some festivals where it's cool. They have really great
like people on the lineup, but you get to the festival and it's like, Oh cool. So it's just
the lineup, right? Like I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be here and I'm just going to see the
lineup. Now some festivals do that really, really well, but then others don't. So for this year,
with our planning, I'm very much in the face of like, I want to go to these festivals that
other people have told me that you feel immersed. You can really like get out of like this, this
world that we all live in and go into this other little separate world for, you know, three to four
days and get completely lost basically. So this year, I think that's our main aim is we're going
to try and make sure we get to the ones that we know are going to give us that. So what do you guys,
I mean, how many dates of festivals for the year for 25 are you thinking? Like, I mean, I mean,
you're just in the grand scheme of your lives, this is still relatively new. What's 25 look like?
I mean, is this electric forest to Bonnarooo? Are you going, I mean, are you going to find yourself,
you're in Colorado, so you're not too far away from Coachella. Like, what are you guys thinking
for 25? I mean, we did nine festivals last year. So some of them we can't wait to do again. Some of
them we have loved and appreciated our experience, but they're just not for us. Kind of like David
said, I think we've learned that camping festivals over everything for us, that's because we want
that immersion. Well, you got a van. Yeah. Exactly. That definitely makes life a little bit easier too.
I have the same opinion. It's got to be camping for me. Yeah. And you know, there's festivals
in the middle of the city that give you this really cool environment and atmosphere that is so cool to
just be surrounded by towering skyscrapers and then all of a sudden you turn around and you're
out of stage. I mean, it has appeal. It has, you know, it's a great experience, but we just go for
the little bit more immersive feel. So with that being said, you know, we are committed every year
to Electric Forest and Wacom. Those are our two absolute loves, but I haven't been to Bonnarooo in
a while and Bonnarooo was on our list for last year and we just weren't able to make it happen,
but we are bound and determined to get to that farm this year. So definitely Bonnarooo, but then
a couple of our staples from last year, we'll probably repeat, but we're also trying to kind
of check out some new things, some experiences we haven't had, specifically Reggae Rise Up. We
love Dirty Heads. We love Sublime. Like these are bands that we really love and we've seen on tour
several times. And so why wouldn't we want to go check out a festival that's totally dedicated to
that? Right. So I think it's a little bit of new experiences and searching for those new places to
fall in love with, returning to the ones we've already fallen in love with, and then just a
little bit of seeing what's out there. Because it was so recent, I got to ask, how was Rave Cave?
Absolutely unreal. I have to imagine it was pretty immersive. I mean, that's the word that I would,
I mean, for people who didn't see our show, what, two or three weeks ago, I hope you'll go back
and listen because it's one of our favorites. So we keep getting great comments on our
Discord from people who are listening to it. Absolutely one of our favorites. But
if you don't know, it's a cave in Pelham, Tennessee, and they have built a camping
right there, walking distance. There's an amphitheater. So it's totally immersive.
Right. So I mean, as I was pulling out, you guys, the campers were just waking up to go do yoga
or eat or whatever. So not to put words in your mouth, but I'm going to guess it was probably a
pretty cool weekend. And it was absolutely gorgeous on top of that weather-wise. So anyway, how was it?
So this was our second year going to this event, Rave Cave. So other producers, they obviously host
other people there, but this was our second time there for the same DJ LS Dream. And that venue for
me, again, not being from here, that's one of my things that I love is I travel the country and I
get to see all these great venues that America has to offer. And the Caverns is only recently
a newish style venue. But honestly, in my opinion, it is the best venue in America. I still have a
couple to check out. But again, I'm living in Denver, right? And everybody loves Red Rocks.
I love Red Rocks as well. But when you walk down into that cave and it's the mapping up on the top
of the cave and the sides and again, you are in there. It's like you feel the atmosphere.
There's an atmosphere when you walk in there. And the deeper you walk into the cave, the more of the
atmosphere you get. And then when you come out, you get out of that atmosphere and it can be hot in
the cave and then cold outside. As a venue to go and see live music, it offers a lot. It's not a
comfortable venue to see live music. I will say that the second night I stood on this little down
slope for four hours and my lower back was screaming at me. But again, it ain't the rhyme.
It ain't the rhyme. And it's a cave. It ain't a W hotel. It's a van. I guess you got to deal with
what you got. But a local company to just to kind of describe what you were talking about, David,
when you were talking about what you were seeing on the ceiling and on the sides, a local company
here in Chattanooga does that. Helm projects does those visuals and they really looked quite
incredible. I mean, we saw the sound check early in the and light check early in the day, but it
did look pretty incredible. But you're on the record as an Aussie here just for a little bit,
right? Not just the other day, but we're saying the Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee is your top
venue you've been to in the States. Yes, I can stand on that too because you get the camping
act. And you've been to Red Rock. So I mean, it's like we don't need the list. I don't need
to go too much further as far as outdoor, you know, natural. I think so. I think if anybody
else has got any other venues that they'd want me to go check out, please send them to me because
I'll go on just for the whole aspect. You get the camping. We had people that had a year. We had
friends that bought a year for the weekend. And like that was a whole beautiful like setup that
they have up there. The walk even to get up from camping into the Caverns, like get you set up for
like, you know, getting to the show because it's this wooded walkway. So again, if you like the
immersion and that aspect of that, because again, it's just going to see a show as if you live
around there too, right? Like you can go for just a one night show. So as a venue that can offer that
as well, I do think it is one of the best if not the best. It is a lot more comfortable for somebody
who's just thinking you're going into a cave, the concessions, the bathrooms, the amenities, the
camping, they've really done a nice job. So let's get into some EDM. Where do you guys,
you obviously you run a website. What's the state? What's the state of the world, the EDM world
right now? Yeah, I think EDM is becoming so much more accessible to so many more people.
It's something that I just see becoming even bigger and more mainstream. I mean, we're seeing,
EDC Orlando is pulling like half a million people. Dom Dalla just did a show in Australia to just
this massive crowd. Like we're starting to see crowds that are just typically not typical for
something that started out so underground. And in my opinion, it's evolving along the same lines of
kind of how hip hop did. Some people out there just started to do something that was a little
weird or a little different at first. And then over time, it evolved and it changed and all these
little different factions and subsets sort of came about all these sub genres, if you will.
And it's just sprawling and growing to more and more people. And I think that our understanding
and our definition of what makes music, what is music, what is a song is also evolving and
changing. And I think that as that grows, that just creates even more space for EDM. And I just
see the community getting bigger and bigger. $20 billion last year, EDM. You mentioned, and we've
talked about it on here before. And again, it's a perception. There's always a perception thing. If
you think of EDM, some people are going to think of bass or trap or whatever, but it's so many
sub genres. Right. How does that work in your universe with your website?
Are there factions and fractions or is it all one community and everybody's happy and gets along
or is it starting to split? I think you do. I don't want to call them splits. I think there's
just different crowds for different, you know, different shows. You can have like, for example,
just for two festivals, for example, that go kind of back to back, there's a Lost Lands and then
there's a festival called Wakhan. And these two festivals, there'll be artists that play the
same festivals, but they will play very different music at these festivals. So some festivals just
have curated kind of like music for that festival and producers will come and they will throw a bit
of a different style set than what they would usually kind of do. So one of the cool things
about EDM is I feel like if you listen to EDM, you do like different genres of music because like
in one set you can hear like a trap beat and then you can hear like a rock beat and then you can
hear like a jazz beat, like all like almost, you know, in the same 10 minutes. And so it's so
different. It's different than if you were to go to like just say a band because the band is going
to play their songs and everything like that. But if you go and see a DJ or a producer, they're
going to play their songs and then they're going to play remixes of, you know, a Destiny's Child
song that you loved from your childhood. And, you know, it's just such a cool thing. So with that,
the community, although maybe split in ways and like, you know, certain genres, we all come together
in the end anyway. And that's what I think again is what's special about the EDM community as a whole.
Lauren, I like how you compared it to hip hop from the stages of hip hop, but because that makes a
lot of sense to me. I've never really quite thought about it that way. And then how it's split into so
many different sub genres and different kinds of sounds. Is it fair as an old jam band head?
Is it fair to say that there's a lot of correlation between the way the EDM
ascension has gone and the jam band scene? Because the jam band scene did this,
you know, and then it's, you know, it's just hanging around. People still like jam bands,
but it's not dominating massive festivals. It's dominating small ones, but not massive ones.
Is that a fair comparison? And do you see those ascends being the same or you said you think EDM
is still on its way up? It has not apexed as way I heard what you said earlier.
Speak to me about that if you would. Yeah, I would agree that it's definitely on the way up.
I think again, it only becomes more mainstream than it currently is. And I think, you know, that's
got pros and cons like anything else. But to compare it specifically to the jam bands,
I think you're talking about communities of people that are very similar. The purpose of kind of
coming together for these shows for jam bands is to see something you've never seen before and are
probably never going to see again, right? Something that happens uniquely during that set, something
that, you know, the band, the band might not even know what they're going to do, right? They might
just go off on a tangent and then 30 minutes later, you know, who knows what happens? So I think
there's this mystery that kind of surrounds jam bands. And I think there's a lot of that with
EDM as well, because like David said, you can go see an artist who is playing, you know, Sweet
Caroline remix for one minute and then something totally unique that they've written that's out of
out of or comparison comparatively out of that field, you know. And so I think there's this,
this this intrigue of you never know what you're going to get. So in that way, I think that they
are similar. But, you know, you mentioned kind of jam band like, you know, maybe reaching its peak.
It's leveled out. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's because, you know, my opinion on that is that,
you know, jam bands are- We all got old. We all got old and we don't want to go to shows anymore.
I think that's definitely, that's definitely part of it. But, but when you do go out to those shows,
you want a little bit more of like a chill atmosphere. And so I think a lot of the EDM
atmosphere, again, depending on what show you're at, what producer you're listening to,
is a lot more high energy. And so I think that they kind of just
differ in those two things. Super quick follow up and spend not much time on this or as much as
you'd like. You talked about how the community comes together really well, David, in the EDM.
In jam bands, they did too, except their, the brand loyalty was so strong. People would start
disliking each other. Fish and Panic was, there was a little bit of a, I'm a fish, I'm a fish guy.
She's a panic girl. And it's not like they didn't like each other. And it was like some
kind of contentious awfulness, but there was a little bit of your band sucks and mine doesn't.
See you later. Do you see any of that or, or how does that, how does that level out?
So I think the reason why this doesn't happen a lot is because all of the producers collab with
each other. Like there's so many collaborations when it comes to EDM. Like one artist-
Fish and Panic don't ever play together. Fish and Panic never play together. Yeah.
So I think it's like you can't hate the, like you can't do it because it's like they're,
your favorite producer is producing a song with like the person that you would hate, I guess.
Right. So it's like, it just never happens. I think again, another reason why the community
will grow and become so strong is because even the producers, they're the ones that also try and push
this community that we're all trying to build. Like some of them anyway, but like a good lot of
them try and like push this one, like, you know, blur community that we have. And like, we're all
just like in this together, we're coming to shows, like be respectful. Like, you know, it's, it's cool
because again, from the head of like where it is to the bottom of where it is, we're all trying to
do the same thing. So it just kind of never creeps into it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my
perception is, is in my favorite t-shirt that I ever saw at Bonnarooo and I probably saw it 15 years
ago was I'm into bands that don't even exist yet. The EDM crowd to me seems like the next thing.
I want to be hip to the next thing. Whereas to your point, Brian, you know, if I'm, I'm loyal to
fish, I'm going to be loyal to panic or whatever, but the EDM crowd seems very open to whatever
the next thing is. Is that, is that fair? Yeah, it's, it's honestly about being true to yourself
and what you like. And there's no judgment for what you like. If you want to go listen to just
this crazy rhythm set and then walk to the other end of the festival and hit a hard style set, like
there's no judgment there. And you're going to see a lot of the same people there, you know, it's,
it's truly about, um, just, you know, I hate to, I hate to be as cliche to say as, you know,
following your heart, but following your ears, maybe. And just whatever sounds good, just go
with it and enjoy that and embrace that. And there's always plenty to choose from. I think
that's part of why it's- Let me just, hold on, sorry. Let me just also add like, the funny thing
about the community, Lauren and I have been sitting here and we've been preaching it so much. There
are bad things within the EDM community. Sure. Like don't get me wrong. Like we, we, on Facebook,
we're very much in the Facebook scene of the community because that's where a lot of the
discussions have. Like you got your reddits and stuff, but Facebook groups have a lot of discussion
in them. And there's a lot of things that people think are wrong with the community. Don't get me
wrong. Like the merch game is crazy with like scalpers. So like people will go buy a Jersey
for $250 and then try and sell it for five. Like there's a lot of different things. Again,
there are some people within the community that aren't there for the right reasons. Like obviously
like, so it isn't all just, you know, rainbows and butterflies. Yeah. Yeah. And that get me wrong.
But most of the time, if you go for the right things and you keep your head about you and,
you know, stay away from the trouble, if there is any, as you should in life anyway, right?
It can be that good. Interesting. What I was going to say is that attitude for me has always been
what I've liked about Bonnarooo in particular was I want to hear something I've never heard before
and turn me onto it. You know, my goal every year I go is to come home with a band, a new favorite
band that I'd never heard of three days before. So that's kind of why I think it works. I was kind
of looking at some of the numbers too. I think EDM now represents about 20% of the whole music
market and the graphic that I was looking at, they mix sort of some pop and rock together. So
I don't know how much, you know, even, I mean, sometimes when you look at it as a grander scope,
20 can sound like not a lot. 20 is a lot. It is a lot of this. Yeah. That's huge. And my point in,
when I saw that, especially I'm like, well, that's about, you know, why Bonnarooo dedicates
an entire stage to it every year for the entirety of the weekend. So it makes perfect sense. So
I got another question, Brian, before I moved, do you have another? No, well, I mean,
since you just brought up Bonnarooo, I want to get into a little projections and rumors of what you
guys think. That's what I want. That was where I was going. Yeah. What would you like to see?
What are you guys looking at as far as maybe, let's talk Bonnarooo mostly specifically,
because that's where most our people come from. Wishlist slash any insider, even if it's just
because you've looked at all their schedules and you know what they are, what I mean by insider
stuff that we wouldn't have. What are you looking at? What would you like to see? And
little projections for Bonnarooo 25, if you would, both of you, if you'd like. Yeah. I think for me,
I was looking at the first Rue clue the other day and I am a hundred percent sold that glass
animals are going to be on the farm. And like, I'm like almost shaking about it. I'm so excited.
I mean, we haven't seen, we got to see glass animals when we were in Australia and the show
was just absolutely unreal. And so getting to see them, that was just a single show. So getting to
see them in a festival environment is going to be so amazing, much less Bonnarooo environment.
I think very much like you were saying earlier, I want to go and I want to see something I've never
seen before. So as much as I might like to predict who will be there or as much as I might look at
the lineup ahead of time, I almost skipped directly halfway down the page when I look at a lineup,
because that's about the place where I stop recognizing names. And when I stop recognizing
names, that's when I start to kind of explore. And that's when I know I'm going to start getting
the new things. So finding yourself in the, in the tents, being out at 1 PM, you know,
2 PM in the afternoon when, when your non-headliners are playing, those are the people
that I'm, I'm really, really excited about. And because Bonnarooo is such a multi-genre festival
and because they have just, I mean, let's see, last time I was there, I saw, you know, bluegrass
and EDM and rock and Paul McCartney, like, you know, there's everything. So it's like,
you know, you're going to get something new and you know, you're going to get something different.
So it gives you an opportunity to just follow whatever mood you're in and kind of head to that
tent or to that stage and just explore. I was going to interrupt David. I'd like to hear your
answer to that. And then I have a follow-up along those lines, what you just said, Lauren.
So this year I'm very much going on the basis of like, I honestly don't even care who's on the
lineup because this is going to be my first year at, at Bonnarooo. I've never, I've never been before.
So I'm just excited to get in, like get to the farm and do everything that Bonnarooo offers as a
festival, like explore every detail of that. Because again, as the right attitude, it's,
honestly, it's the right attitude to take that any festival that you go to, because like, yeah,
you're paying to see the headliners and see the acts, right. But like you spend a lot of money to
go to these things. So it's like, you want to like get your value and that value is in what the
festival puts on outside of the music. So that's always what I'm, I'm looking for and I'm excited
about because I feel like sometimes those things go unnoticed and people put in a lot of hard work,
you know what I mean? And that's, that's the beauty that brings you back to like say that
festival every year. It's not the lineup. The lineup is not going to bring you back every year.
It's going to be what the festival offers outside of that. Yeah. Well, you're, you're preaching,
you're preaching to the converted there. Lauren, you said something that triggered and kind of goes
back to Brian's point about jam bands. A lot of the jam band followers can tell you date, time,
show number, set list. Last time a song was played, that kind of stuff. Exactly. And Brian did,
I mean, he does it with Pearl Jam. He can tell you they've never done this or they did this,
but only 10 years ago. Yeah. Do you guys do that yourselves and do your followers on your website?
Is that the, is it that kind of thing? Like I think Lauren, you were saying earlier, you know,
you're going to hear something different this night than that night. Is that a big, big thing?
Is it to the point of like the fish and the panic and the Pearl Jam crowd?
So I think that producers try really, really hard to recognize like the events that they play and,
and where they are and how, what the likelihood may be that the crowd would be the same. So a
lot of producers, especially if it's a curated event, we'll do like a two night event. And so
they'll do a very separate set for one night and a very separate set for the other night. And so I
think that they kind of take that same thing into different festivals. Like David mentioned earlier,
Lostlands and Wacom are a week apart. So what I play at Lostlands on Saturday is not probably
going to get played at Wacom that, you know, the next weekend. So I think that there definitely is
a lot of the community who really follows that closely and can very much tell you dates, times,
exact moments when this did or didn't happen. I think us personally, we're starting to recognize
some of those patterns. You know, again, this is, this is still somewhat new for us in the grand
scheme of things. We readily recognize that there are people out there who have kind of been in this
scene a lot longer than us. And that's okay. Right. So I think we're starting to kind of have some of
those conversations with each other and with the community. But I do think there are a lot of people
in the community who are already kind of to that point. Maybe it's just with their favorite producer
or with someone that they particularly follow for whatever reason. But I do think that that's
happening a little bit for sure. Well, I mean, the whole scene really is still pretty much in its
infancy of the overall grand scheme of where, especially from where y'all thoughts of where it's
going to go. So it can certainly change, but it, it sounds like it's similar, but kind of doing its
own thing. Like it's, it's a fascinating thing for a bunch of middle-aged guys, rock and roll dudes
who try to, I mean, we try our best to keep our eye on everything. And sometimes those curve balls,
boy, they're, they're just exploding out of the pitcher's hand and we have trouble.
Bat speed is down a little bit. So thank you for helping us.
It feels new. It's not as new as it seems. It's funny, Russ and I had a little bit of a back and
forth just the other day about Kraftwerk versus King Crimson, whether Kraftwerk was what,
prog or electronic. And so- Yeah, they're not progressive rock at all.
The kids are like, what the hell are y'all talking about?
I think they can be, but my point is they, they're, you know, you can draw a line from EDM
all the way back to those guys. Even is my point. So it's not as new, but it sure has exploded.
Well, speaking of that real quick, Tipper announced or, you know, leaked out there that we all know
to believe to be official. We call, is this a legacy act? We were talking about this.
Yeah. Where do you guys put Tipper? What do you feel about that when you first saw that?
So we got to see Tipper this year at a festival called Texas Eclipse. And when I say that that
man brought a crowd to that festival, like we, there were a lot of massive acts at this festival
within the EDM scenes. Ed's dead. Like there were a lot of big, huge acts. And when we were shooting
media for it, and when his set was on, it was packed and he brings a very curated crowd, I will say.
He is a producer. Yes, he is amazing. Obviously been around for years, is very,
very himself. He has a sound, he has a style, he has his visuals. He is,
it's, you couldn't replicate what he does in a sense. So 2025 is going to be his last year
touring, he said. So strap in Bonnarooo because some people are coming for that, for that set.
So David, I'm hearing what you're saying to me is that the youth of the EDM, you know, the super fans
that are really into this, that follow counts like yours and accounts like anything that are similar,
that they are excited by an act like this, regardless of the age of the act. Is that fair?
I think the Tipper community in itself, his fan base, no matter like what any other like side,
like black bomb can kind of do. He is big enough by himself to draw these crowds and to compound
onto the fact that like his diehard fans, again, like who have been around for a really long time,
they know this is going to be one of the last times they're ever going to be able to like
see him do this and get the production and get it all. So he's going to bring a lot of people out
that maybe haven't seen him for years as well. So there's going to be a lot of new fans, but
there's also going to be a lot of older fans coming out that maybe haven't come to shows for a while.
Jesus, David, he got me excited all of a sudden. I know, right?
It's going to be amazing. Could I add a little onto that? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so Tipper
like David said, he has a cult following. Like that is a hundred percent true. But I also want
people who may not be familiar with Tipper to recognize that if you think EDM show, you think
lasers and pow and boom and high energy, which it definitely is. However, Tipper is very different.
Tipper, not to say he's only mellow. I don't want to paint that picture, but Tipper creates a set
that is a crafted journey. It is a crafted journey with the visuals. He works incredibly closely with
his visual artists and has for years. Everything is done in tandem. The audio, the visual go
together. It's truly crafting and creating and experience. And that's why he has the cult
following that he has. So, you know, if you're thinking that you're going to show up just for,
you know, the lasers and the, you know, the, the whoop, whoop and the womp, womp, like,
yes, you'll get that. It will be there. But yeah, it's, it's not going to be a John Summit set.
It's not going to be Tiesto. It's not going to be Subtronics. It's going to be very different and very
uniquely him. Which you mentioned Legacy Act. I mean, he's earned it. He's earned it and he owns
it. And, and people really respect him for it. And whether you know Tipper or not, like David said,
this might be one of your last chances to see him. And it's worth, it's worth a stop by for sure.
Sold me. Do you, does your, your listeners, your, your followers, do they have a wish list for a
festival like Bonnarooo? Would you, I mean, who do, who do you think the people that
follow you guys want to see? Tipper sounds obviously right.
Just a handful of names here that, that people might be whispering through your circles.
Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's always so much speculation. Like I feel like that's an event in
itself in the EDM community that's always speculating. Yeah. I mean, I've heard everyone
from, you know, people, people love Subtronics. I think Subtronics played every festival we've
been through this year. He's obviously at the peak. He's now a meme from Family Feud, right? Like
he's, he's into the mainstream now. So I think someone like him could easily be, you know, put,
put on a Bonnarooo lineup. You know, I've heard their bless, bless Grizz. You know, people want
a Grizz come back so bad. And obviously Grizz had this huge moment at Bonnarooo that will just be
forever in, in the lore. And I think people would love to see a Grizz come back. I don't know how
realistic that is. I'm not suggesting that that's being talked about, but that's just maybe a little
personal wish list of mine. What better way to kind of show back up, so to speak. But yeah, just
some of the biggest names I think in the EDM scene, Zed's Dad is another one that comes to mind.
People who frequently, again, just create these, these events and create these moments
that, that Bonnarooo really creates or allows, allows them to do.
David, any, any, any, any gossip you've heard whispering these, one or two you want to throw out
there? It's funny that Laura mentions Grizz, everybody in the comments, leave Grizz alone,
because he's on his hiatus and everyone's like, he'll come back when he's ready. Well, this is
like David Bowie years ago. David Bowie's coming this year. I haven't, I haven't heard anything
again, like you guys, we don't speak like on rumors either. Like you can say all these people
and everything like that, but if they don't then get put on the lineup, everyone's like all
disappointed and things like that. But I think people, because again, it's such a multi genre,
like festival, whoever is going to be on the EDM lineup, all that I hope is that they do what
Lauren said and like do a curated set for Bonnarooo and make it, and make it special.
Cool. I probably should have asked at the beginning, where are you guys now? I know you
were in Pelham of all places from Arc, from Australia to Pelham, Tennessee. That's quite a
journey, but where'd you go after that? And where are you now? And where are you going next?
Yeah, so we, we left Tennessee, drove straight back to Colorado about, what was it? 17, I don't
even remember. It was, I mean, we did it over a couple of days because we had, you know, the
ability to kind of take our time, which was great. But, you know, our next sort of event is actually
not too far away. It's in Steamboat Springs. We're doing Winter Wondergrass, which is a jam band
fest. And we're so excited about that. Oh, nice. Yeah, we're still kind of putting the calendar
together. Again, I don't think it's incorrect to say that this calendar has a lot of hopes and
dreams in it, but I think we are not limiting ourselves in any way. And we're, we're shooting
for the stars this year, without a doubt. Would you come back to Pelham for Cave Jam next year?
Oh, we'd love to. We'd love to. Again, it's such a unique place. So I want to experience as much
different kind of music in that environment as I can. And although EDM is incredible, and I love it,
there is something that's just so amazing about artists with instruments in their hand,
especially the freestyle, especially going rogue and just kind of doing your thing and feeling the
music that something like Cave Jam would offer. And I think, I think it would be an incredible
experience. How you said adapt, when you guys, when you start your calendar, is it firm or
you might change your mind and say, let's go somewhere else next week?
The planner in me wants it to be done and said, and I want to know what's happening,
you know, November 23rd of next year. But the truth is that a lot of times we don't hear whether
or not we've been accepted for media until about three weeks out. So, you know, again, for example,
we applied for EDC Thailand, no clue if we're going to get it, but that would be a massive thing to
put together in just a few weeks, right? Getting to Thailand. And so even if we're not talking about
Thailand, we're talking about just going from Colorado to Tennessee, like there's a lot involved
in that. And it's, you know, probably easier for us than most to just pick up and go. But there's
still a lot that is involved with that, you know, so it can be hard.
All right. Well, cool. What else you got, Brian? What else you got, Russ?
I think that covers just about everything. I'm looking forward to maybe talking to you guys once
this lineup drops and getting a little bit deeper into that. I didn't know until last night. I mean,
I know, David, we talked briefly the other week, but that you did the van thing. So that brings
a whole nother little level of intrigue there. But thank you for your time. And yeah, that's all I got
for me to bury. I want to hear more about the van. What kind have you got? What have you done to it?
How many miles have you changed oil recently? Timing belt. Have you changed your timing belt?
We put, I think, 50,000 miles on the van last year. So like some crazy ridiculous number. I
could do the math for you, but it's about 50. That's about 49,500 more than I want to do. So
good for you guys. Serious question, though. What kind of make and model of a van are we talking
about? Is it a Ford Econoline or what do we got here? Did you convert it yourself or buy it like
it is? Yeah. So it's a ProMaster 2500, 2018 model. The back of it was fully converted when we bought
it. When we first had the Vision, we wanted a schooly, a short school bus. But when we had that,
we wanted to be stealth. We wanted to be able to live in it full time. We wanted to be able to park
anywhere. We wanted to be able to go anywhere. So when I saw the ProMasters, and you can get these
in the Ford Transits and everything like that, ProMaster is just the way I wanted to go.
Again, once it's built out of the back and you've got everything you need, it's really easy to
actually live out of it full time. When we're on the road, we'll go to a Planet Fitness in the
morning, work out, have a shower, come back into our little home. And then if we're driving on the
road, we'll drive. Or if we're hanging around in a city, we could just hang around in the city and
then park up at night. And because we don't have a lot of the bells and whistles that some of these
vans do have on the outside, we still kind of look like a work van. We have fans on the top and
solar and everything. But if you're not knowing what you're looking at, you just think it's a van.
Yeah, stealth is key sometimes.
Yeah, very much. And so, again, we just wanted to drive this van everywhere. We just did this whole
national parks tour. We went up through Yellowstone, down into Yosemite, all the way through,
like into, we started in Colorado, the Rocky Mountains and did this whole thing. But
one of the nights we slept on the side of the Grand Canyon, like literally on the side of it,
up in the van and no one bothered us. Yes, it's hard to live in a van. There are sacrifices and
comforts that you kind of don't have when you have a full house, but you then get all these other
things in turn that it kind of forces you to do. Because it's easy to drive somewhere when I
literally just have to take two steps and turn the key and I can just start driving pretty much.
You know what I mean? So it's easy to see a lot of places when that barrier isn't there. And honestly,
then you have to get in and move the van every day anyway. So you might as well move somewhere
different if you can. Like I said, when I can't sleep, these are the videos that I watch on
YouTube. So I'm well aware. How much of you would your audience, are they checking in because of
your van life versus music? Or is it all a blend? Can you tell? So on our YouTube, we do have van
life. We do a bit of a vlog stuff with it as well. So we have kind of like four pillars to our content.
One's like an artist insight, one's an interview with an artist, one's a festival review. So we'll
go to festivals and we'll review the whole festival for you. Do breakdowns of pricing and
everything like that. So you can see if this festival is worth your money. And then we do
the travel vlog style of us, you know, because we do, we drive 17 hours to get the places. So we do
a little vlog of that and then we vlog while we're there. So you get to see kind of the whole
journey in a way. Because like while we're vlogging doing this, we're making this form of content. So
kind of all ties into each other. And I think it's just we do what we want to do is the one thing why
we've launched this is we're allowed to do whatever we want on our platform. We try and make sure that
we bring our viewers what they want, but we're going to make videos just because we like to make
them. And that's our basis of why we do it. And I think a lot of our friends that we meet in the EDM
world when we're at these events, they love to see the little like us driving there and us getting
there and all these things. Cause again, like if you go and do these things regularly, like it's
the type of content that you love as well. You love to see other people's setups and how they do it.
And again, we show the van off a lot. We're like, guys, do you know how easy it is to rock up to
add normal GA camping spot and I put it in park and I'm set up and you're there.
That up time is zero seconds. Let's go see some shows.
I want to set up an outside area and make it nice out there. Like I can, and I've got to set that
up right. But if I don't want to, again, I just pull up and I'm ready to go. So I want to show
very cool. There's a whole different life that you can live. Again, I feel like we are the
generation that is starting to try and break that. Like you got to work in a cubicle and you've got
to like do this for 40 years and then you get to live your life after that. Like then you get to
get the van and drive around and retire. And Lauren and I just went, nah, dude, I'll do it now. And
then I'll work when I'm older. I'll be 65 and I'll go sit in a cubicle. I don't care. Be like,
I'm not going to do it now though. No, I love that of all the things that the younger generations
get hated on for the questioning. Why do we go to work 40 hours a week and get two and a half weeks
off? And that's all like all of those memes. Boy, I look at those and I'm like, these guys and gals
are onto something. We should have been screaming this 30 years ago. Good for you guys. Yeah.
Go ahead and plug your YouTube channel. Where can people find you? Yeah. So we are on YouTube,
same name, sound checks to stage dives. YouTube is definitely still an evolution for us.
YouTube is its own game. If you're not familiar with kind of creating YouTube and living in the
YouTube world, there's a lot to learn, a lot to figure out. And although we have learned so much
about Instagram and TikTok and all these other platforms that we're on, YouTube is our current
evolution. That's our current project. It's kind of where we're really dedicating a lot of our time
and energy right now. So if you get on there, please check it out. We encourage you, of course,
to watch anything on the channel. But we've got, again, we've got a mix of genres. We've got some
Bleakwater ADT stuff on there. We're getting ready to put out our electric forest, everything you need
to know video tickets are going on sale soon for that. So we want everybody to be prepared.
But yeah, we just use our YouTube to kind of welcome you into our life and, you know, see what
life is like for us and give you some information, hopefully in a way that you enjoy from first
hand accounts. Well, based on my quick just looking at it yesterday, sorry, David, real fast.
You're killing it on TikTok. Like TikTok, you guys are killing it. Forty five thousand,
nearly three quarters of a million likes. I mean, you guys are killing it there. But David, go ahead.
Yeah, just to add to that, we're going to make a Bonnarooo video coming up soon too.
Everything you kind of need to know for that. Yeah, TikTok was the first platform that we kind
of grew on. And then, you know, we got to Facebook and then we grew on that. And then we got to
Instagram and we grew on that. So now it's like, well, we've gotten to YouTube and although you
can build a really cool community on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook, I think YouTube offers
that like long form. I don't have to make a reel in, you know, 14 seconds to get it pushed to people.
Like I can sit here and I can talk to you for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour
and really connect and really like build the community over a longer period and get out of
this like TikTok rock brain that's, you know, now we're talking about the generations and how they're
changing. There's also like this rot of like, it's just all about these like quick whole things. So
that's the short form seems a lot like that to us. And we figured that out, but we really want to try
and create this longer form content, this more meaningful content that you can help people in
short form content, but we really want to help people in the longer term of things over there on
YouTube. Well, I just heard this in my travels on something that had nothing to do with this.
10% of all consumed video audio is YouTube. 10% of the entire planet of visual audio consumption.
10% of it is YouTube. That's huge. So you're doing the right thing. It sounds like.
It's where you got to be. But as obviously Russ is in his bus, has a bus camps all the time,
but he's not living in and traveling like you guys. But otherwise it sounds like we're very
similar. We started this just because we love talking about Bonnarooo and festivals.
And we figured we can do whatever we want. There are no rules. We're going to do it what we want.
We're going to talk to who we want. And lo and behold, we found a doubt that more people than
not said yes, much to our surprise. And so yeah, I get it. Just keep doing it and have fun.
And yeah, definitely. And we'll once that lineup drops, we'll be relying on you guys to help us
out with some of it. Cause as we get made fun of all the time, those old assholes over there
don't know anything about this EDM stuff. Why are they even trying? That's all right.
We got you. No worries. We got you. Hey, hardly anybody knows what's going on in the EDM world.
Anyway, we all just show up and do silly things and it's all memes and everyone's just joking
around. No one knows what's going on. That sounds fine to me.
All right. So there you go. I'm, I'm gonna, I have to admit, I'm a little jealous.
I, I don't know that I could do that today. This in this part of my life, but I would love to have
done what they're doing, at least for a little while. If that was popular
in night in 2004 or two or five or three somewhere in there, I think it'd be too irresistible for me
not to at least haphazardly give it a try and then call my mom from Wyoming.
Shit, bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't, didn't, didn't go as well. No, I'm fascinated by it. I,
I do not think I could live in a van with another person. Oh, that'd be tough. Oh yeah. I don't want
to live in 3000 square feet with another person. Well, yeah, I mean, yes. Yeah. The whole tiny
house thing, but, but I'm fascinated by the concept of it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely
fascinating. Yeah. 100%. Me too. And of course I've had the bus for, you know, 20 something years
and, but I do like my house. I don't think I could do better. You don't want to live in the bus. I
don't want to live in it. You just want to look like you like living in the bus. I'll tell you when I,
my son was playing a baseball game in Knoxville and one of the players, aunt and uncle, were there
and the game ended and he turned to her and said, what do you want to do? You want to go on back to
Chattanooga or you want to just see what we can get into? And she said, let's see what we can get.
They had a camper van. She said, let's see what we can get into. And he said, all right, there's a
campsite, you know, somewhere near. And I just thought that was the coolest attitude. Yeah. It
is the coolest attitude. I would love to be able to, and sometimes I'd be able to do that. Yeah.
And sometimes that works out for me to do it that way. You know, like the whole Nashville thing,
you know, I stayed in somebody's driveway for five days. Yeah. I love what David said. And I've heard
others say it's very, it's very common theme is like, if you want to drive around in a, in an RV
and save your money all your life, when you're 65 or whatever, I'm putting, you know, paraphrasing
words in his mouth, but go for it. I'm young and having fun. I'm going to do it now. Yep. Man,
yeah. Good. Go, go, go, go. I would have to change my mindset because my attitude about traveling is
get there. Yeah. That's all I can think of. Wake up in the morning and get there. That's this idea of,
do you want to turn left or turn right? I'm pretty close. Yeah. With you. I love it. It's leave.
Something on the side of the road. Let's go check that out. I love the idea. I could do it. Yeah.
I love the concept. All right guys. Well, I don't know as, as ever what next week will bring,
but I know there's news and we'll be back next week with another show, but thanks to David and
Lauren for getting up on a Sunday morning and giving us an hour of their time. Yeah, definitely.
We'll roll the punches. Yeah. We talked about festival for a little bit. I just want to mention
on, you know, social media in general, uh, blue sky seems to be kind of up and coming as far as a
Twitter slash X alternative. And so, you know, we got on there, it seems like there's a lot of
Bonnarooo people that are moving over there and trying to like build that up as far as a community.
So it's a good looking. I mean, if you like, if you like the Twitter layout and format, same thing.
I mean, as far as the format and layout, it's a lot like Twitter used to be. And uh, so we're over
there with the what.co so you can find us there and less feeling like your life is being threatened.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not even joking. I'm not even. I get it. Yeah. All right. Well,
thanks everybody for listening. Thank you guys. And, uh, let's talk soon.
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