This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with Vince Verderame. He’s an extraordinary drummer and percussionist whose portfolio career spans 3 decades. He’s toured the world with numerous Latin pop artists such as Ricky Martin and Raul Di Blasio; was an accompanist/composer/educator for the Dance Dept at the New World School for the Arts in Miami; and toured with the acclaimed Jonathan Kreisberg Trio. Though he’s been with the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas for the past 22 years as a musician and music director, he is still busy subbing on numerous Vegas Shows such as Tom Jones and the Lion King. He recently wrapped up a year as drummer and music director for a project with Derek Hough of Dancin’ with the Stars. Everyone who wants to work in the arts should hear what he has to say about collaborations and putting the audience first!
Vince unpacks the intricacies of touring life, the role of marketing in a musician's career, and the surprising ways in which acting chops are crucial to performers in non-verbal settings. This episode also serves as a masterclass in balancing the repetition of long-term gigs with the spark of personal passion. Vince opens up about the strategies that artists like himself and dancers use to keep their performances fresh night after night, ensuring they honor their ethical responsibility to provide a mesmerizing experience for paying audiences. Tune in for a trove of practical advice and heartfelt insights, whether you're a seasoned artist or simply curious about the mechanics of making a living from your art.
This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with Vince Verderame. He’s an extraordinary drummer and percussionist whose portfolio career spans 3 decades. He’s toured the world with numerous Latin pop artists such as Ricky Martin and Raul Di Blasio; was an accompanist/composer/educator for the Dance Dept at the New World School for the Arts in Miami; and toured with the acclaimed Jonathan Kreisberg Trio. Though he’s been with the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas for the past 22 years as a musician and music director, he is still busy subbing on numerous Vegas Shows such as Tom Jones and the Lion King. He recently wrapped up a year as drummer and music director for a project with Derek Hough of Dancin’ with the Stars. Everyone who wants to work in the arts should hear what he has to say about collaborations and putting the audience first!
Vince unpacks the intricacies of touring life, the role of marketing in a musician's career, and the surprising ways in which acting chops are crucial to performers in non-verbal settings. This episode also serves as a masterclass in balancing the repetition of long-term gigs with the spark of personal passion. Vince opens up about the strategies that artists like himself and dancers use to keep their performances fresh night after night, ensuring they honor their ethical responsibility to provide a mesmerizing experience for paying audiences. Tune in for a trove of practical advice and heartfelt insights, whether you're a seasoned artist or simply curious about the mechanics of making a living from your art.
Hi everyone, nick Petrella here. This episode is sponsored by Steve Weiss Music, percussion specialist since 1961. If you're looking for a rare piece of sheet music, a specialty gong or anything percussion, steve Weiss Music will have it. Please visit SteveWeissMusic. com or click their link in the show notes. That's S-T-E-V-E-W-E-I-S-S Music. com. Our percussion series sponsor.
Announcer:Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Welcome podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise and I'm Nick Petrella.
Nick Petrella:We're really happy to have Vince Verderame with us today. He's a drummer and percussionist whose career spans three decades. He's toured the world with numerous Latin pop artists, such as Ricky Martin and Raul de Blasio. While living in Miami, Vince was an accompanist, composer and educator for the dance department at the New World School of the Arts and has toured with the acclaimed Jonathan Kreisberg trio. Though he's been with the Blue man group in Las Vegas for the past 22 years as a musician and music director, he's still busy subbing on numerous Vegas shows, such as Tom Jones and the Lion King. At the time of this recording, he just wrapped up a year of playing drums and being the music director for a project with Derek Hough of Dancing with the Stars. Vince, it's great to have you on the podcast.
Vince Verderame:Nice to be here, Nick.
Andy Heise:Have you been 22 years at the Las Vegas show or were you other places?
Vince Verderame:Yeah, pretty much, mostly in Vegas. I went to Australia. It was supposed to be a seventh month's tour and it turned out to be a three month tour. Sounds like Gilligan's Island, but the opposite. When you get into arts and entrepreneurship you realize how much whatever the marketing company is doing and whatever the people in charge are making decisions about what you do and whether they understand what you do.
Vince Verderame:But yes, for the most part, for the most part of it in Vegas, we've had four locations here. We started out at the Luxor, moved to the Venetian, moved to what was the Monte Carlo and now it's called the Park MGM and now we're back at the Luxor. So, yeah, so it's been four different load ins and then, like I said, I spent the time doing the Australia show, which is a version of our North American tour that goes out, and then I've done various gigs for them. I went to Shanghai, did a gig in Lagana, switzerland, did a few things where we went to Orlando and did some outer stuff. So I mean, there's been other things done. A bunch of different TV shows got to do the Tonight Show, so there's been a number of that kind of stuff that's also been popped up through the years.
Andy Heise:And just to clarify. So there's the band right and then there's the blue man.
Vince Verderame:Correct, I'm in the band.
Andy Heise:You're in the band. Okay yeah, I'm way too short to be a blue man, those guys all have to be within a certain like four inch range.
Vince Verderame:I think so from the comedic sketch.
Vince Verderame:it's not like oh the short guy is funny, oh the tall guy is funny, they have to have to kind of present some similarly and I'm not an actor and it's first and foremost you have to be an actor on that gig, even though overtly it looks more like a musicians thing the guys who it more guys succeed at that job who are actors, who who kind of play drums then, or piano or whatever. Then the guys who are drummers who then try to act, Because it's a very, it's very difficult to act without speaking.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, and they have to be functional. Yeah you know drummers playing on PVC with whatever ping pong paddles or whatever. Yeah, paddles, yeah.
Vince Verderame:They're homemade. They originally were shoe shoe soles. That was what they originally did the original show. They would walk around and then they pick up their shoes and they had these shoes with like Velcro soles and they would peel them off and then slap it with this rubber and then they would slap it with this rubber thing. After a while they realized that that was not a sustainable thing, because they'd be walking around on all the Captain Crunch and all the paint and stuff.
Vince Verderame:And then and then we get all over everything. It was a cool effect though. So, but the little little things like that have when you realize they're not sustainable after a while, have been modified. So now we just build our own paddles out of, like this neoprene, and it's a constant battle, just like a drumstick or like a mallet of the flexibility. Should we put wire in there?
Nick Petrella:Yeah, so, so I had a question about networking and we pretty much covered that, I think, earlier, but I do have a follow-up I'd like to mention. So you've spoken to a few of my music, business and entrepreneurship classes over the years and you have a great quote from one of your teachers, fred Wickstrom, down at the University of Miami. Since it's about networking, would you mind retelling it?
Vince Verderame:Yeah, fred's story was we walked into a percussion forum one day and and it's funny because I'm gonna preface this with I didn't get Fred when I was there. I didn't understand him. He had a certain there's just something about him that I just didn't get and and I at times found him frustrating. He was. I went to school there as a studio music and jazz drummer. I was a classical percussion major at Penn State. I transferred to Miami to finish my degree and I transferred to be a drum set guy.
Vince Verderame:Fred ran the percussion deal and and his, his manner of teaching percussion, his, it was so different than Dan Armstrong at Penn State that I was just like I was like what's up with this guy, like I just didn't get him, like it was just so different, right, and you know I was a kid, I'd, with the, held an eye now, right, so now I preface it with that. So he walks into a percussion forum and he goes. I'm gonna give a little talk and scratching his beard as he would in this weird way, and and he goes. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you like, this is your diploma, and he just pulls out a piece of paper and he goes. I'm gonna show you what I think you should do with your diploma.
Vince Verderame:And he takes it and he folds it in half and he folds it in half again and maybe folds it one more time so you, like, you're looking at like an eighth of this thing, of this piece of paper, and then he goes and you get this and a little bit of duct tape and you put it on your bass drum and it makes a great thing for your bass drum beater to keep your, your, your heads longer and make changes sound. And you know all of us sitting there. You know, even then Miami was not cheap as private school. You know they mean. And you know, and we're all eating ramen. You know they mean we're, you know that's, and when ramen was just the dollar packets that you buy for a dollar for 10 or whatever.
Vince Verderame:It was right, so, so and we're all like what he goes. So. But now look around this room, see all these guys that that is what you're paying for to be here, because every one of these guys, they're the ones who are gonna get you work when you get out of you, when you get out of school. They're your friends. You guys have bonded. They are gonna be the ones who trust you enough to call you for work, and you're and it was that moment of like. Oh, because he was trying to. He was trying to point out that often at school we were competing for positions we would have to audition for the, the jazz band position.
Vince Verderame:We would have to you know, and your jury would then factor into. That would basically be an audition. So you were, you were competing, and there's, you know, natural competitions as well. If he does bad, I do better, right, and, and he was trying to dispel that whole thing of competition for that reason, is that that you know school, is this, you know little bubble that you're living in, and it's even though you all want to do well and you want to exceed and you want to get great grades.
Vince Verderame:You don't want to do it at it, the, the, the, the. It's someone else's detriment. You know what I mean. You just want to do well for the sake of doing well and for the sake of satisfying the things you want to learn and the curiosities you have, and and to perform well, and that music deserves to be performed well. Any art deserves to be done well because it is unique that you can do it. So, therefore, and it's even better when you get to do it with people, and it's even better when you get to do it with people you like and and that you have friendships with and then. So, so these are your friends and they're gonna want to do it, and it all kind of builds on that same same thing. So yes, so that was like monumental for me, I was just like oh yeah bang yeah
Andy Heise:it's great so we've talked about this a little bit Vince, but sort of balancing artistic expression, if you will, and just getting the job done. Certainly you've addressed that, like with the blue man thing. Like how do you do the same gig every you know, 20 for 22 years and not just, like you to your point, show up, do the gig, go on whatever and not really feel artistically fulfilled? How do you, how do you approach that? How do you balance that?
Vince Verderame:there's a, there's a. I learned a lot from working with dancers, right I think, cuz many of them they live in a world where they almost never make money, right, and if you're, like in modern dance, like you're, you are doing it for the love because, like you know, at least with like playing drums and percussion, there is work that makes money. It's few and far between any modern dance company that actually pays anything that's worth anything.
Vince Verderame:They're working on grants, they're doing all that stuff so so I I was fortunate enough to a company for this woman, nina Watt, and she she was in the limone company until she danced, danced professionally into her fifties, wow, okay, and remarkable, remarkable, right. And I think she now teaches somewhere in Massachusetts or Connecticut, I forget where. I looked it up not too long ago and now I can't remember, but she was teaching high school kids at New World School for the arts and I was a company in the class and she was looking at them and she said it's way more tiring to not be engaged. And I don't think any of them heard it. But I did Right, because you show up, you're doing the same thing, some aspect of the same thing, again Right, and fortunately, my gig does have variations in it.
Vince Verderame:Okay, but it is essentially the same show every night and if you can change your attitude to like let's just go in a Nam and have an agenda, it's just like it really applies to anything. It just happens to be music where. What are you going to get out of this and what are you going to bring to it and what can you? What troubles that you have, what boredom that you have? Can you leave at the table and recognize that, like one of our sound engineers used to say, like he used to come back and he goes, that was not a $100 ticket show and the way he kept himself was like he recognized because he's out there in the audience, recognized that people paying a good dollar for this Like if you're going to get up there, you like do it, because that's not fair to them, that's not cool. Empathy, right, nick, empathy right.
Vince Verderame:Empathy for every one of those humans who walked into the stage. I also go back to like Branford Marsalis when he did the sting gig and somebody asked him like the first time they went out on tour like nobody, like I guess they were having problems selling tickets because sting wasn't sting yet he was the police right, and they were like Sting's going on tour with jazz guys. Well, I don't wanna see that. I don't wanna see Sting play message in a bottle, right. And they asked Branford about it and Branford was like how do you feel you guys are playing these theaters and they're not full? And he was like I'm a jazz musician, I'm just here to share music. Man, like I don't care how many people are out there, because there could be 10 people out there and that's all that matters. So I think there's a point where you have to leave yourself at the door.
Vince Verderame:Ion Pay, who was the original blue man drummer His dad was a great architect and artist. I remember him telling me that he was like you guys are you guys, you're doing the show and you get done and you're pissed that something didn't work, and like you know what Nobody out there knows, and so we have to go out for bowels. Every night, we literally go out in front of the audience and take a bow with the blue man and he goes. If you don't look like that was the best show you've ever done for that audience, you are doing them a disservice, because if you go out looking bummed, all of a sudden they question the experience they just had, and it's not fair. And so you just, I think you have to distance yourself, and then you also have to have, you have to be able to engage in what can get better. If you're not getting better at it, you're slipping, and so I think it's all of those things that go into place. And again, you have to remember there's 900 other guys out there who would kill for this job. That's right.
Vince Verderame:Even when we came back from the pandemic and I'll be perfectly frank they cut our pay when they came back from the pandemic Because there was a bankruptcy and all this stuff, and I was not happy about it, but I was happy to work and nobody knew what ticket sales were gonna be, and about like four months into it, we were selling tickets like gangbusters because we were the first show open. So then it then required another conversation, which we then had and they fixed the pay rates. So that was cool. But in the process I couldn't take that into the show, not for my own person, because I didn't want anyone to.
Vince Verderame:Because even if I have trouble, if I'm pissed about something that's going on back of house, it's still attached to my face, it's still attached to my hands. That experience is attached to me and nobody knows that I'm pissed that they didn't approve my vacation. So now I can't go to this thing, I can't bring that to stage because it's not fair to those people, it's not fair to the people I'm performing with and ultimately it just brings down my life and it just makes a sh** experience excuse me worse. And so I think it's all of those facets and I think I have to draw on all of those facets every night, because it is very easy to slip. I'm not saying I haven't done it, you know what I mean. I'm not saying I haven't done shows where I was like ah dah you know, that's not cool, but I really try not to yeah sure.
Nick Petrella:So you have experience being a music director in a few different ensembles. What separates the young musicians you work with from the road warriors?
Vince Verderame:Oh, I don't think there is a separation on that line. Okay, I think there's the people who show up genuinely ready to play and appreciate the moment and there's the people who don't. Now, there are aspects of playing that, yes, the people who have played a long time bring to the table, but at the very same time, some of those people can be the darkest, surliest, unpleasant people, whereas sometimes the younger guys they're game, they're not and like, yeah, it's the best way I can say it when I did the Derek Huff thing, like the two there's two younger guys on it and I was. I was. It was interesting because I got to sub with the guys who had been doing the show for a while the first time I did the gig and then I got to do shows with just the Vegas guys and I thought and it was, I thought the Vegas guys were going to be less acute about what we were doing and in some ways it was the opposite. The guys who had been doing the show, they they had developed, and it was just their culture and they had developed a bandwidth for what was acceptable to play the show, almost in a little bit more of a jazz mentality towards things.
Vince Verderame:And to me, the, the whole show, even the big band stuff that was on there. It was a pop show. It was a pop show and it needed to be delivered the same show every night and and fortunately, the guy who's playing bass and guitar, he, he had a very similar approach to, I think partially because his dad is a is a bass player and had been playing for years and his dad's a monster, and so he kind of came up, like, I think, with the proper tutelage, as it were, and and and and he was really into honing the parts, which I think Derek really appreciated, because Derek himself is a drummer and a guitar player. He can actually play like.
Vince Verderame:I showed up one time to the show and he was playing my drums. I was like, well, he sounds really good, like he wasn't just hacking away, he sounded good and so, and as a dancer and as a performer, he appreciated the consistency that we, that, that I, that I thought was appropriate and it seemed to work. Yeah, so, so, like I said, I have been on gigs where the, the road warriors, were totally dialed in and appreciative of what they're doing, and I've been on other gigs where they were just totally like couldn't give it damn you know what?
Vince Verderame:I mean about the gig, and you were just like man, like I know. I know it's stupid, I know we're playing for a bunch of executives from you know insert corporate company that has a lot of money to spend on his party. You know what I mean. But let's, let's try to have some fun, let's, let's. Let's separate it from the stupidity that this is. Yes, this is completely ridiculous. How much money they just spent on this room and they planned this huge party and they planned too much stuff for the people going to it, so half of them went home and we're putting on a show that nobody's watching. Okay, separate yourself from that. That is not I am not this gig.
Andy Heise:You know you can do about that.
Vince Verderame:There's nothing I can do about it, but I can show up and try to have some fun and try to make a connection with people, and that's you know. You boil it down, man. The end of the day, that's all there is you know that's great, you know great advice yeah yeah, so you have some experience touring.
Andy Heise:Do you miss touring at all, do you?
Vince Verderame:enjoy touring. I love touring, loved every minute of it. I love being on the road and I hate being away from my people. So I feel fortunate enough. They did enough touring to recognize what it is, even the times when blue man has sent me out for stuff like short things here and there. I recognize and maybe it's because how my household is set up that I do a lot around the house. I would imagine if you live in a household where, like, your partner takes care of everything and you can just show up and go home and crack open a beer and be Archie Bunker, that's fine. But that's not the life I lead. So, therefore, when I'm here, those things aren't here, those things aren't getting done and I just I like being here, I like hanging out with them. I don't. Before I, the pandemic, taught me that I don't need a reprieve from my family and I feel very fortunate with that. So, that being said, I love being on the road and my wife and I joke that if, if and when, if she dies before me, I'm going on tour. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's. Our running joke is like because I remember.
Vince Verderame:I remember hearing an interview with butch miles who played with the Basie band for years and that's what he did. He had retired and then his wife died and he, back then Frank Foster was still running the band and he was like Frank, I'm bored. And he was like well, this guy just quit, he goes, he goes. You want to come? He goes. Hell, yeah, he goes. You don't think I'm too old to do it. He was like why not? You sleep in a hotel if you're okay with sleeping in hotel rooms and you can hang, like why not? You know, and that and, and that lends itself to like what we started this conversation with was like I'm, I'm trying to keep my health up because I don't, I don't want that to be a hindrance, depending on what comes up, you know.
Nick Petrella:So yeah, so there you go so kind of piggy backing off of that when you're touring you've been internationally a bunch been playing internationally. What are some things you learned from doing that?
Vince Verderame:what did I learn from touring well?
Nick Petrella:internationally specifically oh internationally.
Vince Verderame:International tours were interesting because you know there was always language things to deal with. That was always an interesting thing. So if you could learn some of the language, depending on how you had to interact with people, I think I think it's important to to have, like other things that you're doing for yourself, because from a it can be a very unhealthy environment. It's easy to be, it's easy to be partying every night, it's easy to do, just just get involved in that, in that whole hang. And I found it more, far more enjoyable to to go see the places where I was and take those places in and not not I'm, fortunately I wake up early in the morning, naturally, but like wherever I was, you know, back then it was, I mean, my first tours were pre-internet, right. So you know I had the the let's Go Argentina book and, like I, each day I would just pick some place to go see and walk and like my friends had a running joke that I literally walked all of Argentina in three months Because and I did, I mean I still have a map in my head of Buenos Aires that that I think I could still get around Because we kept on that tour and, specifically, we would be in Buenos Aires and we would go out for a couple weeks, come back to Buenos Aires and we would do that so, so, so, like those things were amazing. And then to go experience just the stuff there, maybe even go, go, find things to go, you know, find other artists to connect with. I mean, I had such a great relationship with this guy, ed Rodriguez, who's a fantastic drummer in Sydney Just knock knock your socks off, jazz drummer and I went to see him play and I was like, well and we've, we've kept that friendship up. There was, we did. I didn't keep this friendship up, but at the time it was great Guy who was the principal percussionist in the Sydney Orchestra, symphony, philharmonic, whatever they are.
Vince Verderame:I took a tour of the of the Buenos Aires Teatro Colón and I remember doing that. And then they brought us into a rehearsal and the tour kept going and I just stayed, I let the tour go and I just stayed and I watched the rest of the rehearsal Because at the time I was playing what I didn't feel like was great pop music for that first tour, but they were playing just gorgeous music. And then I became friends with those guys. I went to dinner at their house, hung out with them, and I think that's like those things on tour you can carve out a whole other life. You know what I mean. And then I saw the other guys who I knew, who had done these, these things, and maybe the cities weren't as novel to them, and then they would bring like like stuff to work on things. They had like a small rig even back then to to work on writing.
Vince Verderame:My friend Bloss, who played with the band Slaughter in the late 80s, early 90s, he got into Iron man competitions, so on. They had a bike, they had a road case for his bike on the road, on the tour bus, on the tour truck with all his drums. So wherever they went, he always had a bike. And so there's, there's ways you can.
Vince Verderame:You can be more than just the tour and just the job. You know, you, you, you have very few obligations when you're a tour. On tour, lobby call, sound check the show and where to eat. That's it. Those are your obligations. Beyond that, you should be able to carve out some stuff.
Vince Verderame:And I think it's like just like we talked about, like going to Nam or going to things. You have to have an objective, otherwise, as my friend Kim Kulture and dad once said to me, it says, if you don't know what you want to do with yourself, somebody else is going to know what, going to use you for something they need. And so and I remember him telling me that and I and I watched that and play at New World School for the Arts, danny Lewis, who was the Dean there you you should you could never be standing around doing nothing there Cause he would walk by. Oh hey, you got a minute Cause you know he was juggling like this. You know, low budget school, whatever, they didn't have that much money. So if he could get you to do something for free, damn it. He was doing it, you know what I mean, and he made you feel important about it, but he was still getting you to do something for free. So it kind of applies to anything you're doing, you know?
Andy Heise:Yeah, so that that that's my advice for when you're touring Sure, yeah, Well, Vince, we've reached the part of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions, and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanted to become an art entrepreneur?
Vince Verderame:I tell my daughter this only do it if you have to Like. Only do it if you have to Like. If you think you'd be happy doing something else and then doing this as an avi, do it Because it's hard. It is a hard business. Capitalism is not kind to artists. It is not. And the frustration of coming to some kind of association of like what you want to do and what is marketable or what is desired is a very difficult process and very humbling. And if you're not willing to do the paperwork, don't do it Like.
Vince Verderame:Or, as Elvin Jones said, like you know people I remember people ask an interview where they asked him about you know other gigs you know, and he goes, he goes. Oh, whatever, man, I still got to punch my union card and that was the thing you had to do. Like you had to punch your union card so many times to still be in the union. Right, he goes. So it still had a thing. And he was like and I'm just laying down a groove, I'm not playing all this other stuff that you know, coltrane or Wayne Shorter or McCoy-Tiner want me to play Like, I'm just playing the gig. And again, vinnie Calioude, the same thing People like he would show up for studios. There's this great article in an old magazine called Drums and Drumming, which was an in-depth drumming magazine, and they asked him like so you know how do you approach it. It would be a session. He goes. Well. First thing I want to know is they want me to be me or they want me to be somebody else? I can do both. Like, what's the gig? Do you need me to sound like the guy I'm subbing for? Because that's fine, I'll try to do that. I will try to be that guy because that's what the gig is and I should be able to gain something from that. And that's the artistic thing of working is that you should be able to gain something in your playing, in your skill set, in something. There's something to be said.
Vince Verderame:I mean, I did a gig not too long ago where I was playing for a bunch of impersonators, and those can be weird gigs, man, and it's a big thing here in Vegas. It's a weird scene, okay. That being said, one of them was a Dolly Parton impersonator, and so it was a bunch of tunes and I was like, all right, I'm gonna dig in. And it was like going to school, man, because I didn't realize how many of those recordings were Jim Keltner. Okay, and I was like, and it was an opportunity, somebody was paying me to study Jim Keltner. So I could have looked at that gig as somebody was paying me to play behind a okay, dolly Parton impersonator in a weird gig in North New Jersey. There's just like a bunch of blue hair people showing up and like it was just weird. Or I could like I'm getting paid to study Jim Keltner. You get to choose what that gig is, so that's yeah.
Nick Petrella:That mindset's important.
Vince Verderame:Mindset.
Nick Petrella:What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Vince Verderame:I think, not be afraid to meet people where they are. I think there's a. I think there's. I think people have to be able to access it. You know what I mean People have to be able to associate to it. So, like you know, jazz can often get stuck in its own. What's the right word?
Announcer:Dogma has to be this.
Vince Verderame:Classical music is the same thing, right? You know, the main association people have with classical music now is movie scores. So what's wrong with playing those movie scores? I mean, they're beautiful music. You know what I mean. Is it Stravinsky? On a difficulty level, on a depth level, no, but I would almost guarantee the guy who wrote it probably studied Stravinsky.
Vince Verderame:And if that's the gateway for someone to dig that music, or you know whatever it is, just try to remember that we're like, I think all arts are trying to connect to people and regardless of whatever the medium or whatever it is, it's got to connect and that's the goal, right, it's not just to make me famous or to teach people about art.
Vince Verderame:As soon as you get into teaching people like nobody wants to go to school, you know what I mean You're teaching people about and you think you have an objective. Even my wife goes through that with yoga it's, you know there are. Everything has its own, like dogma and tradition, but it's also got to connect with people, with where they are, and we have to walk that line of showing people something that's deeper and better, or being and being, you know, pedantic, pedantic, is that the right word? I don't know. Yeah, or being you know, or being just a joy but a buzzkill. You know what I mean. And I'm just wondering along the line there, the great stuff does both. So that's to me it's still, it's still just make good art that connects with people, that's it.
Andy Heise:Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've ever received?
Vince Verderame:Best advice. Yeah, I think I already said it Was what Fred told me. I mean, that was it, cause it always goes back to people. I don't care how much, whatever the tool is, whatever the interface is, it doesn't matter. There's a fundamental aspect of connecting with people and meeting their needs and meeting your needs and trying to create joy. You know what I mean, so that's cause that's what else are we doing? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So that's it, man, that's it, that's great.
Nick Petrella:Well, it's been great hearing your approach to self-improvement and keeping a growth mindset. You gave us a lot to think about.
Vince Verderame:Cool.
Andy Heise:Thanks, Vince.
Vince Verderame:It's nice to be here. Nice, thanks for the opportunity.
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Nick Petrella:Thank you.