EXPERIENCE 20! | Passion for Music, Adventure, and Business with AJ Fountain & JJ Fountain | A Brother's Fountain (Band) & Stoked Ember Productions (Videography)

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is your host Kurt Bear and I'm here with two great friends and I'm going to be fan of their work and their creative life, AJ and JJ Fountain. And so guys, to set the stage, why don't you just tell people like what your businesses are, what you do and for who? Thank you. Well, my name is AJ Fountain and thanks so much for having us Kurt, it's honor to be in the LOCO Experience and I just love your layer here. It's so cool. It's like got a lot of good vibes. God bless the top of space. Yes. A lot of good vibes. So stoked to be here and chat with you today. So Justin is my brother here. He also goes by JJ so that I know that can be confusing for folks, but I call him Justin because I have my whole life. He's five years younger than me. Oh yeah. Landloads here, checking in. That's got Jennings from Sheba Hut. Nice. We're good. Yeah, we're good. Nice. He doesn't need me. So Justin over here next to me, my brother is five years younger than me and we moved out to Colorado about 10 years ago and more specifically to Fort Collins about seven years ago. And that's when we kind of started into these businesses, referring to. And we started stoked Ember Productions, which is a video company and brother's fountain ban was even started a few years before that. And that was probably seven, eight years ago by now. Yeah. Yeah. So we do video and we rock out and we make music and jam for folks and yeah. I'll let you say. And JJ for it. Yeah. And who and what do you guys do individually for these enterprises? Yeah. It's hard to sort of juggle all the different dynamics of the two different businesses and what we do for you. And picture. So let's break it down. We'll start with the brothers fountain. So our brothers fountain is the older business. It's the music and I would be the GM and AJ would be the Booker and then we're also obviously in the band as well. Right. I'd be the band lead. I play the acoustic guitar. He plays the bass. And then we've got five other guys in the band as well. Wow. And do those other guys do things for the band as well? Yes. We've got a mandolin player, a banjo player, saxophone, cello, percussion. But do they do marketing or booking or things like that too? Oh, I see. Everybody is pulling a or not as much. They help out when they can and kind of where they can. But yeah, that would be on our shoulders. You make the band work. Yes. OK. And for Stoke Denver. Now Stoke Denver, let's see. AJ is the producer and I would fill more of the director or editor or camera guy role. It kind of depends. It's a bit more dynamic in that way where I'm kind of I'm kind of coming in on these different elements of that business. But AJ would be kind of the more the GM. He's more kind of running the business. He's like selling the package and then you help him figure out how to pull it off. Yeah. Exactly. That's well said. Yeah, we get to help businesses tell their story and it's a lot of fun because we get to sit down like you're doing right here and talk to small business owners and hear why they do it. Why they're so passionate about it and what their it factor is and why they're different than all the rest. We get to help them differentiate themselves in their markets, which is a lot of fun through video. Talk to me about that name. Stoke Denver. He's been intrigued. Oh, yes. I love that name. I still remember us coming up with that for five years and getting out of campfire, no doubt. No. I think we were road tripping to and from a camping trip actually. Yeah. But yeah, we just love the idea of an Ember kind of being the the coals and a fire. And the fact that we just think that everyone is is got an Ember. Everyone has a passion. Everyone is an Ember and they they glow in a way and we want to help them kind of erupt into a flame through stoking. So that's what stoking is. Stoking is the little Ember fire. It's the little squeezy thing of stoking. Yeah. It's more so during it up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anything from realtors to like outdoor clothing brands, to like natural beauty product companies. Oftentimes we'll do kind of like a virtual business card for those businesses, like who we are 90 second videos. Yeah. Exactly for their whole age, for marketing, for their email footer, just so they can connect more deeply with their clients from the start and a more like personable. Their clients already know who they are because they watch the video a little bit. Yes, exactly. So they get the right client too, yeah. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. And it was through that, do you guys remember what we first met? Oh gosh. I do, I was thinking about on the drive over here. Yeah, that's funny, you should tell the story. Well, I was called in to do some video recording stuff for the Matthews house because I was an ambassador and a past board president. And I was like, what were these fountain guys? All right, I guess all of me know when I see him, whatever. And yeah, you guys took some video footage, asked some very poignant questions and had me like tearing up and stuff. And you guys were like, who is this passionate and filled dude and where did he come from? Yeah, absolutely. No, it was video gold. That was perfect. It was awesome, and it kind of made an impact on me. How passionate you were and kind of, yeah, how engaging you were in that interview and the things that you shared was really cool. Well, we're working on a project right now, coming up in, gosh, about six weeks or something, April 17th, a backyard. Brothers fountain, fundraiser for the Matthews house. Fundraiser dinner is the plan. Yes. Provided COVID regulations, law and all. But either way, we're going to gather and be outdoors and listen to music. And so I'll give you guys a lowdown if you want to connect with me offline, because I can't have everybody in my backyard. But thank you guys for being a part of that. And I'm excited to have the band there. Yeah, it's fun. Let's get into the general business journey. I like to sometimes even jump in the way back and help us understand your business enterprise as we see how it's developed over the years and stuff. But where did you guys come from? Where'd you grow up? And before four Collins was ever a thing. Third grade, fifth grade. What was that like for you all? Yeah, so Justin and I grew up in Carmel, Indiana. It's just north of Indianapolis, Indiana. So a very Midwest suburb vibes there. We had great parents. We have another brother that's in between us and age. So there's actually three brothers. And you can imagine it was hectic for my mom. A lot of the time, a lot of routiness, a lot of wrestling, and just goofing off. We weren't like seriously always beating the crap out of each other just sometimes. But Justin's the youngest, right? Maybe his story is different because he's the youngest. He got the brun of it. Were they tough with you? It was respectable. We had some good ground rules that we all agreed on. But yeah, you got rowdy for sure. Especially when you're the littlest one. It's always tougher. But then you can bite and kick. Honestly, it was probably more political than it was physical. Oh, I just think, yeah, because two on one could always win. Yes, exactly. But our folks are amazing. They grew up or we grew up with them on young life staff, just like a Christian parent church for kids. So we were bouncing around at different young life camps across the country and world really. And just getting tossed around from different leaders and grew up in some really cool environments. So I've kind of come to appreciate that childhood experience that we had. But not everybody gets that. Yeah, where you're allowed to run free outside all day. So very trusting experience. And it was really cool. So then they eventually did come off of staff. And our father started a business. And... Dude, what? Yeah, so he did and still does in a way. Healthcare consulting for business. OK, so like different medium-sized businesses. What kind of health plan should you use? Yeah, exactly. That kind of stuff. Interesting. So yeah. So that's where you came from. Where did the journey toward Colorado start for you guys? Or actually, before we even get there, how many years in age apart five? Seven or something like that? Five years. So you took different journeys. Age of year, you were the oldest, right? So you trucked off to college or something and left the family behind in Indiana? Or how did that shape out? You know what? This is crazy to me. Still, I ended up going to Indiana University in Southern Indiana. Justin went to University of Northern Colorado and our other brother went to Indiana. But Justin, our other brother Josh, and I all moved out to Colorado this same year and almost within the same couple months. And this was now 10 years ago. But it was for me right after college, for Justin for college and for other brother, halfway through college when he dropped out. So it was fascinating because we all came out here about 10 years ago and we were at different stages of life and we lived in different parts of the state. Justin was in Greeley. I was up on a ranch in Steamboat. Josh was down in BV, but it's pretty cool. That's the start. And then eventually, yeah, we did all come for Collins seven years ago and lived together actually. And I really do life, life on life. And now we're all still here, all three of us. Yeah, what a neat blessing to the community of Fort Collins and really testimony to the fact that this town just kind of draws and attracts really interesting people. So, Justin, why don't you talk to me about, sounds like you were at least one of the first to find Colorado or at least at a younger age. You came to UNC for college, is that what you do? That is correct. Yeah, we had visited Colorado. Our dad took us on trips out here and kind of introduced us to the mountains. I'll never forget the first time I saw the Rocky Mountains driving up I-70, you know, as like a sixth grade or something. And I looked out the window and I would see just those big walls of rock and little caves and I'd imagine bears and people, you know, in the caves. And it just totally captured my imagination and each of us kind of have a little bit of that story in us of Colorado capturing our imagination. Yeah, little teas. It was just a big world out here compared to Indiana. Everything's flat, you know, that as far as recreation, there's not a whole lot outside of the classic sports that you might play, baseball, basketball. So, yeah, Colorado just lassoed me right up real quick and I was like, that's exactly where I'm going to be as soon as I graduate high school. So, I kind of told my parents and they were kind of bummed they wanted me to kind of stick around Indiana, I think. My brothers have done a little bit. Yeah, and they didn't want to lose me. Right, most years the last one out of the nest. Yeah, that's always hard to mom. There was a little resistance there from the parents, but I ended up being like, this is what I want to do. So, I went out to UNC and really just kind of, my dad actually was like, hey, you have to go to college. I was like, I'm not so sure about college. He's like, I want you to go, you have to go. And so, I was like, well, then I'll go out to Greeley. I've got this academic scholarship to UNC and I go, and I try to pick whatever major would be the easiest for me to get through. I just, I hated school. I'm like, one of those people, you got an academic scholarship, but you hated school. Well, it wasn't a great scholar. It wasn't, watch your peanut butter, by the way. Oh, thank you. It wasn't like, so, yeah, wasn't so prestigious in that sense, but I get you. I'll just tease a little bit. It wasn't like, it wasn't a full ride. Yeah, you were the smartest part of this one there. But I would, you know, I would just grind out school and I was like, okay, what would be easy? So I went into sports and exercise science and had a major emphasis in outdoor education. And so I went and did that for a couple of years and then I got hired to work at a rafting company. And so I was like, well, I'm sort of majoring in what the job I'm about to go do. So let's just drop this college thing and let's just let the birdie fly a little bit. A little rafter life. Let's put the hand of the plow and just experience some life. And I never really looked back. I learned so much in those couple of years that I dropped out of college and pursued some seasonal stuff. And then, yeah. Were you a musician already before that? Yeah, so picked up the guitar in middle school. Oh, wow. Because I wasn't super smart or, you know, book smart, like I said, and didn't love school. And I wasn't super athletic. So I kind of needed something to fill that, like, middle schooler, you know, identity crisis type of season. And somehow I found the guitar and really picked it up and enjoyed it and started writing music right away. Wow. As a middle schooler. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those first songs were absolutely horrible. For sure. Yeah, we remember the lyrics of those first ones. Yeah, I actually have recordings. Okay. And it's so bad. You can't sing them though. They're so bad. What's the gone fish in one? Oh my god. My buddy and I made our first band, my first ever band was called Live Bait. And my buddy, Joe and I would write and make songs. And we, what was nice about it, which has been kind of part of my musical philosophy pursuit is we were like, let's just have fun with this and let's write music and like, it doesn't have to be amazing. Like, let's just sing whatever we want to sing and just get weird, get wild and not worry so much about, being perfect and a lot of creativity came out of that. So I kind of carried that on. Well, I was gonna say that's really sounds resonant with the, because your lyrics are only so, so and brothers fountain too. No, I'm just serious, but they're a little bit silly sometimes. Yeah, unexpected ways. And they don't take themselves too seriously. Yes. And we shouldn't either, because we stress ourselves out when we take ourselves too seriously. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk to the roots of a brother's fountain then because that was the first business enterprise I presume that you were in for yourself, is that right? Yeah. Or maybe you did some different things, lawn mowing and stuff like that along the way or yes. Absolutely. Yeah, you used to look, mow lawns in high school for sure, but no, a brother's fountain, the band thing never really got serious as a business because it's so easy to like, get into playing music. All you have to do is find some friends and jam right, write some music. But as soon as you want to like, make that into a sustainable business, that's a big leap, right? And it's really easy to fail at that leap. So, and kind of get priorities mixed up, and relationally it can be difficult. So it was a while that we just played music, jamming out, playing shows here and there. And then I want to say around 2017, which is around the same time we started Stoke Denver. We started getting more serious about the band and music as a business. In the meantime, were you rafting and doing other regular joby jobs and stuff like that? Oh gosh, yeah. I mean, we've had so many jobs. It's just patchwork. There wasn't much of like a career. Like, I'm going to go to this or that. It was just, let's just patch up the life that I want to live with whatever money I can make. Yeah, if I could hook a little thing and learn how to do some videos, but now it's become a passion thing for you as well. And AJ, I want to shift it back to you because I know that you had a really pretty fascinating business journey as well. And I don't know if you want to give us the cliff notes on it, but like, I'd love to just kind of hear what you learn and how that applies to today and things like that. Yeah. Oh, did you bring me soap, by the way? Nice, nice foreshadowing. Yeah, so I graduated from college and then moved out to Colorado and did the guide thing as well for a while. I did a guiding up outside of Steamboat. I was a sea kayak guide. I did live abroad and teaching English for a while. But then eventually I was still guiding, but I ran across an old childhood buddy who had brought to hang out a couple bars of this really cool natural guy soap called, at that point, it was called Sasquatch soap. And I was like, this is awesome. When home tried it, it worked. I was like, this is amazing. So I called him up, hey, how can I help you with this? And at that point, I was getting ready to move out to the Pacific Northwest with our other brother, Josh. And he said, we came up with a deal where I was going to help him on the wholesale side, selling door to door to businesses to carry the soap. So I moved out to the Pacific Northwest, the satchel full of soap, walked around different suburbs of Seattle and knocked on barbershops, general stores, gift stores, natural grocers, and sold this soap and ended up really loving the product and selling it. So I talked to my buddy again, I said, I want to come on as a partner, so I came on as a partner with what's now called Dr. Squatch soap. And yeah, helped run and grow that business for from 2013, 14 on to about 2018. I was working on it for some time. Like it was scratch, it sounds like. Like it was just a satchel full of soap at the start. Yes, yeah, bootstrap business that wasn't funded. It was just our own savings that we put into it to start it. And organically, it was really cool. A lot of fun on that journey and learned a ton about running and growing a business. And it was cool because I was pretty young, you know, 24, 25 or whatever. So it was cool to get that experience at that young of an age and get to see it and help grow a business. Can you imagine going door to door with a satchel of soap and trying to sell soap door to door? Well, what's really crazy is I was with Josh and we didn't have any money and we didn't have a home and we didn't have jobs. This was hardly a job. And like you were living in a car with you brother. Yes, yes. Let's get homeless to try to throw my hope and hoping that there were enough cases of soap that you could, yeah, because you can't get a huge commission selling soap. Did you have other jobs? No, no, I didn't have any other jobs. So then we like didn't really think it through. We just went out there with no money and we actually made it halfway. And then in Colorado, we got our tax refund, which is enough for the gas money to get the rest of the way out to the Pacific Northwest. But we didn't really have a good plan lined up once we got out there. But we ended up faring out to these islands called the same one islands outside of Seattle. And I got a job as sea kite guy there and Josh was a zipline guide. But I'm still selling soaps on islands and like taking the ferries back and servicing these a kids a little bit in Seattle. And yeah, but then we quickly realized that's not the route we wanted to take. Dr. Squatch was more like direct to consumer. Excuse me, but anyways, yeah. So talk to me about that pivot, that journey, a little bit if you're allowed to. Like because this is kind of a business education program. And so like talk to me about the pain points that transpired that led to a gotta do something different here. Like aside from being homeless, things like that. But like you knew that it had to become a direct consumer which meant like investing in the web business element instead of like a more satchels and more sales people. Exactly, instead of walking around and having mom and pop stores call me up at all hours asking for another order for 20 bars. Right, we realize the margins are better. You can get your customers in your kind of eco sphere and connect with their customers on a deeper level through different marketing, whether it's email marketing or to release a new bar. You know, they're not getting that email if they're picking up their bar at the local grocery. But if they're buying off your website and they're subscribing or subscribing, then yeah, they're in your eco sphere and they're gonna be a customer for longer. Yeah, I love that, that subscription is a great way to have a business formed. And so, JJ, you talked about Brothers Fountain kind of getting serious in 2017 and AJ just talked about kind of leaving Dr. Squatch in 2018. And was it with those things like related? Absolutely, yeah, man, I got really lucky with AJ kind of coming out of the soap business with Dr. Squatch and kind of feeling inspired and excited to hop on a new boat. And so, yeah, I was super thankful to have him hop onto the vision of starting Stoke Denver which I had just come back from four months of traveling through South America. And just before that trip, having just bought my first camera, my first GoPro and like thinking like this is gonna be an epic trip might as well like try to film it and see what happens. So it was kind of my school hard knocks of going down to South America and filming every day filmed like 25 vlogs from that trip. And came back and then with all of that footage made a little short film called People with a greater than symbol places. And so I came off of that trip and made a lot of those vlogs and made that film and kind of thought, well, this is pretty neat. This is pretty cool, like the power of the camera to capture a compelling story that can really inspire people and change lives. And what a beautiful creative outlet video is. So I'm really motivated by the arts with between video and music and stuff. And I like to sort of feel like I'm operating within a passion and we've had this conversation before but like sometimes people operate a business that is functioning well to fuel their passion. And I think that that's beautiful and I think that that's amazing. But sometimes people need to feel like their passion is within that realm of making a living. Sure. So neither are wrong. And but for me, it's always like I want to feel like I'm passionate about what I'm doing. I want to feel like I'm growing and creatively expressing in kind of my day-to-day work stuff. So yeah, I came back from South America. I thought this could be cool. I have this cool name called Stoke Denver. What do you think AJ? We could start a video production company. You want to quit your successful job and sell the stake at a successful growing business to be part of my video company? Pretty much, yeah. Now, he had already made that decision. Oh, OK, gotcha. I know it wasn't pressuring him in that decision. All right, good, good. So talk to me about that transition because you were outside Colorado then. Is that right? AJ, did you move back to Colorado for this venture? Or were you here already? I was. I was here. Yeah. And that's where Dr. Squatch had its production and things like that as well. Yeah, we had different production across the country. Oh, right. Some of that wasn't Colorado. Like outsource manufacturing almost and stuff. Yeah, some of it was from the start, also made in house as well. We did a combination, but always handmade in the states and done right. But yeah, it was quite a transition going from running a multi-million dollar company to starting a new company and a completely new industry. And you're nothing about. So it was a lot of fun, though. And I think it was interesting, as Justin talks about what he's having the passion and the business. And I think I did kind of lose that with Dr. Squatch. And it was a huge blessing that the way that it happened where I was able to transition out really well with a partner with my partner and my friend from childhood where we're still texting every day and able to pursue another business that I'm truly am passionate about, even more so than I ever even realized. And well, that journey was propelled by passion, too, because he was a sucker that went with a satchel full of soap to the Pacific Northwest. It was like, I'll help you. Yeah. So that passion that he had for that original idea and stuff totally inspired you as a follower and to help him make his dream come true. Right. And that was time for years. Exactly. And I don't regret a day of my time with Dr. Squatch, but I also don't regret how it happened. And it was a transition and with Squatch, even, it was three years of, we didn't pay ourselves a dime. First three years, I'm working other jobs, like other soap-select jobs. Shubbling snow, working at a rec center, three, four jobs. And then only three years into the thing. Because we wanted to grow the business, we had to invest, and had to have more inventory. And one way to have more inventories, if you don't pay yourself for a couple of months. Right. You can buy the more inventory. Exactly. And honestly, without that experience, we would have shuttered the doors on Stoke Denver. Maybe a brother's not in tune by now, because, yeah, that was such a growing and learning experience for me to understand the sacrifice it takes to start your own business. And anyone out there listening, if you've started your own business, you're running your own business. And if the doors are still open, I don't care what your revenue is, you're amazing. Keep going and keep fighting the fight. And if you do need to close the business, that's okay too. Your identity, you are not your business, but I just love entrepreneurs in the heart and spirit of them. And I know you do too, Kurt and Justin, but it is a hard struggle. It can be, can be, and, you know, bands isn't the first thing that people think of when you're like, well, what profitable business should I get into? Right. Yeah. So let's talk about a brother's fountain. Like, where did that come from? And were those part of the same thing? Like, was it joint dreams interwoven with this Stoke Denver and brother's fountain? Or were they really separate pursuits that have their own magnet and own kind of vision? That's a good question. I'd say both. Yeah, I think video is just so tied with music. When it comes to, you know, music videos. It's all about storytelling, right? Yeah, storytelling, people. There is a very separate trajectory that both had. It wasn't like, let's start a video and a band together. Right. I actually wasn't even in the band at the start. Just because I was out in Seattle, I see kind of guiding and running the soap company, or the same one islands or wherever in San Francisco. So there was a different kind of trajectory, but like Justin said, they both became a little bit more serious around the same time. But yeah, do you want to tell the story about how the band started in a way? That's pretty neat. I think convincing Ryan and Rhino to come out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So accessing files. I was going back and forth. Let's see. Yeah, basically, the long story short, if I can do this, is I had a couple buddies who lived outside of Denver. And as I was doing seasonal work, guiding rafts and working at a ranch and doing some stuff in the mountains, doing fun things, I would come back to the front range and they'd be kind of my number one guys I wanted to go visit largely because I love them with all my heart, but a lot of our time was spent playing music and creating new songs and just jamming out. So I always loved getting my fill of jamming out and hanging out with these guys. And I just planted the seed and was like, hey, what do you guys think about moving to Fort Collins and starting a band? And they were planning on moving somewhere else in Denver and I just kept asking them every time I went to visit and they would tell me when I would ask what are the chances, they would say, oh, 20% and then I would ask again and they would say 30 and then it went to 40, 50, 60. Finally, I got them at like 80% and I was like, it's locked. Close it down. It's locked. I don't know. It's just this progression of like trying to see, yeah. We see outside of Denver, what, tell me about outside of Denver is I mean, Bailey is that Aurora? Yeah, so they were, so they were in Thornton. Okay. And then they were thinking about moving to, I don't know, somewhere else in Denver. Yeah. No place is any of that much more exciting than the rest, really. Yeah. We're Collins where it's at. Totally. Yeah, if you're listening in Denver, sorry, but your town is not as cool as our town. Ha, ha, ha, ha. So you're like working these guys because you're like, move up to Fort Collins because if I get you guys up there, then we can jam and have a band. Yep, basically. Totally. Yeah. We have the brother's fountain kind of name and stuff because I kind of assumed that that was maybe because AJ was in the picture as well, but it's not like he came along a little bit later. Well, he was always in and out of the picture for those like forever. You know, we're always hanging out. He was part of the jam band, part of the jam party. Yeah, exactly. He would come and jam as well with those guys and he was doing seasonal work. So it's all intertwined, but those guys with the guys, where I was like, let's move here. And AJ was doing his own thing where I knew he wasn't going to be able to move at least then to Fort Collins. So I just wrote those guys and AJ and our other brother Josh would always come around and jam out and hang out. But a brother's fountain, the name didn't happen until like a year in where we were living together and kind of jamming together and Ryan. And who is the other one using? Ryan and Ro. Okay. Yeah. Ryan, because I interviewed his wife for a job, a couple years later. Yeah. That's cool. Nice. The connecting point. So it was you three were the core. And then when Josh or AJ were around, then they would jam out to you. And there's probably probably peripheral people that if they happen to be. Correct. By having ice cream or whatever. Hey, we might as well get our guitars out too or whatever. Correct. So when does a brother's fountain, like when does the name happen? What's the first gig, like the first public gig and the first paying gig? Because I've read there two different things, maybe. I don't know. Okay, so the name came like six months to a year in of us living together. And I just pitched it. I was like, hey, this is the name in my head. Well, actually, oh. So the part of the whole name thing was like, we have kind of a cool last name that can like kind of be used in a way, in a cool band name. Springs First Life. But we actually, AJ and I, one of our seasonal jobs, we mentioned that a lot. But one of the things we did together was we went and worked at a summer camp in like 2012. And there was this guy at this summer camp in Massachusetts on the East Coast, who had this East Coast accent, his name was Barry. Barry Bergen. Barry Bergen. Barry Bergen. Bergen. Barry Bergen. Barry Bergen. Barry Bergen. Barry East Coast. Barry Bergen. Barry East Coast. Yeah. And he was kind of this old guy. And he would always wear these white high tube socks. And he would kind of always kind of sound like he was pissed about something. Hey, what are you doing? You know, Barry Bergen here. What do you get out of here? You know, it's just like, always kind of yelling at you. I mean, I have to do some audio editing. And he kind of, he took a liking to us a little bit because we would kind of be able to hang with him and dish it back. And he was like, ah, the fountain brothers, the brothers fountain, that's what he would say. Yeah. He would always be like, the brothers fountain, what are we doing? What's going on? And we, that kind of rang in our heads of like, the brothers fountain. We'd never heard our names be said in that sequence of where it's here. The brothers fountain. Barry, you have a name in your right, so. Yeah, if you're listening. Yeah. So what's tricky is that our name is not actually the brothers fountain, but it's A brothers fountain. And that's because we wanted to tie some meaning into it. And I kind of pitched it to the guys like, hey, man, this could be cool to, to pursue music as a source of life and freshness and newness and goodness for people. Because it's kind of a double entendre there in the brothers, right? Exactly. So then there's the brothers and really all of us in the band consider each other brothers. It's a very tight knit band of relationships with all of us. So, so yeah, there's a lot going on there. It's not like the brothers fountain, like you can see the, it's a brothers fountain. It's like for everyone, right? Anyone can come to a brothers fountain and drink from the fountain. Yeah. I like it totally. And it's a life-giving music. So I should give credit here. I have another place is slightly, but our intro music, an outro is a soul. Your song, I don't know. Do you know that? Did AJ share that with you? Yes, yes. I knew that. So you actually said the files to Roy, didn't you? Yeah. So we've been on every single one of your podcasts. Right, exactly. Yeah, this is like a half for you guys. Yeah, it's something like that. So, yeah, first gig in public and first band gig. Do you remember those things, no? Oh my gosh, dude. It was a pizza joint. Oh, I can't locate it with words or streets or anything, but it's off of college. It's not crazy carls. Eight totally eighties. No, it's a pizza joint that went out of business. And then the business before that pizza joint was there also went out of business. It's like in this weird location across from campus. And businesses seem to have a hard time. Oh, it's the Hawaiian coffee shop most recently. That could be. I know the building. That could be. Yeah, yeah. Good luck. But it was like a coffee shop. It's something pizza, pizza joint. So we had some connection. Not pizza, blah. No, no, that's a lot. We had a connection within our neighborhood because we were living in this duplex or this like triplex. And we would jam out a lot on the patio and in the garage. And we're all kind of stacked on top of each other with these other buildings that are awesome. Are you supposed to be friends with your neighbors or you can jam out? Yeah, exactly. So we made friends with our neighbors right away, every single one of them. And we would jam out. We would hang out. It was like this cool community vibe that we created with music, which speaks to, in my opinion, the power of music to bring people together. And we got to see that experience that right off the bat in that triplex space as we were starting a band. So it was very foundational for us. And there was some connection of some guy who's friend owned the pizza joint. He was like, oh, you guys are awesome. I'll chat with my, you know, Bernie. And like, we'll get you guys in there. And so thanks, Bernie. Bernie and Barry, you guys as lovers. So they threw us in there. And I got to be real honest with you. You know, we played open mics as well. But I got to be honest, we were not good. We weren't good at first. It just straight up. I mean, some people, you can somehow like get good at like playing performing playing shows and then go play them before you officially play them. But like, we were just like, let's just get out there. Let's see what we can do. We had to play some shows before you actually go play some shows. Exactly. We had a lot of really nice people that would support us. And like, they'd see the mistakes or whatever else. And they kind of be like, hey, you guys, you guys might have something though here, you know, keep going. And so that was that was helpful. And yeah, you guys kind of exploded onto the music scene here. I have to say because I've been, you know, I moved Fort Collins site on scene in 1999. So I've been around here for a while. And I've been kind of adjacent at least. My wife and I have no kids and we like music. And so we keep our eye on things. And usually things are a little slower boil. But like when you guys came on a scene, it wasn't long before like your shows were really popular and drawing a big crowd and a lot of rapid fans. That's what I think is the most unique is there's just some real ABF heads out there that God bless you. I think also just like shout out to Fort Collins music community and the way they support the music community here. Yes. And yeah, there's a lot of just cool people that love music and Fort Collins, but there's institutions and nonprofits, Bohemian, you know, New West, Focal Amax, Focal Amax, and all these things to help local artists. Dredgen Urock, just so you know, she does. So yeah, just shout out to Fort Collins and all those organizations and people that help make those around and help support the local music scene. Yeah, and Pat and everybody at Bohemian. Thanks too. You know, I've got to listen. Right, exactly. You know what? Danny Grant gets a mention. Anyway, I think it's huge. I mean, it's like fun little plug. But man, we really mean that like I got some financial help from Focal Amax from COVID. And oh, well, I just got to say like in a lot of ways the support for local music in Fort Collins has like kept us around because it's freaking hard. The music industry sucks, I just got to be honest. I think that it's awesome in the sense like you can give a lot of music to a lot of people in a lot of wild different, anywhere in the world. So it's amazing. But like it's just hard to like create a sustainable business in the music industry. But the, and it's been a difficult task to acquire and stay encouraged. It's stay feeling like, okay, there's just a space for me. Like I got to keep on going. And all of the local music support in Fort Collins with all those names we mentioned has been a game changer for us, 100% to keep us going. Well, I think it's worthy of putting some context to that topic, you know, the music industry based on, you know, CDs and downloads and free music and stuff like that. Like even the big artists, the U2s and the, and the Garth Brooks is the world and stuff like that. Like they were starting to be where they were making most of their money through in-person live events and stuff. Like the industry dynamics had changed so that that was once again the real money maker for them which wasn't ever as big as when CD sales were rocketing and stuff like that. And so when you take away the live events from the overall equation, there's not just millions of people that want to pay 99 cents to the song to download your stuff usually. Right. When they can get it for free most everywhere. Right. Yeah, it's just tricky. It just takes a lot of hustle and there's just a lot of competition. And it's amazing. It's beautiful. And there's so many people make an incredible music and since, you know, being able to listen to music virtually for free, the genres have just multiplied, you know, the creative places you can go with music that you can access online is far and wide and it's amazing and I absolutely love it. It's just hard from, you know, from the grassroots to, yeah, to make it sustainable and make a buck. I was getting lost in the story and frankly not really thinking about what 2020, actually one of the very last music things I went to, a public thing was you guys doing your 24 hours of music crazy thing last spring. That was the craziest experience. AJ, why don't you bring that up to our forest and just talk about that whole thing leading up to the COVID and what the plans were and whatever. Gosh, yeah. So we do this really cool thing. It's basically the culmination of our experiences and passion, which is the combination of what we've been talking about of music and video and storytelling and outdoors essentially. And that's this concept we've dubbed only music, which Justin started with the first journey which is a documentary you can find on YouTube along with the people over places. You can find the first only music documentary on YouTube called Only Music Alaska or Justin Hitchhikes from his home here in Fort Collins all the way to Anchorage area of Alaska with nothing but a backpack with a sleeping bag and a sleeping pad a few pairs of clothes, no money, no credit cards and a mini guitar. And the concept is to see how if you can get from one point to another through the power of music and he did it and it was amazing, really cool movie. Check it out, short movie, your life will be changed. I loved it. Yes, so we did another one about two years ago now called Only Music South Africa where I got to go and two other guys with Justin to South Africa, we traveled about, I don't know, 1,000, 2,000 miles down the coast of South Africa from Durban to Cape Town with just again our instruments on our back and sleeping bags and sleeping pads. So it was a really cool experience. We met amazing people on the way. We were about to set out on our third one which was going to be the only music, the South. And we're talking about the South of the USA, like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. Dixie, it's kind of cool because we were going to go there kind of right before and as things like Black Lives Matter were coming up and it was going to be, you had that on your heart a little bit. Yeah, somehow before even all that was happening, we wanted to chat with people that were not like us essentially and we didn't want to just tour through Civic Northwest or the Southwest where everyone does kind of look more like us. We wanted to make music in a place where it was a different culture and people often. Yeah. And to clarify, we wanted to get out of our own comfortable demographic of people. We wanted to experience new cultures. We wanted to go to places where there are more Black people. Because we're here in four columns in Colorado in general, there's not a lot. Well, and all the way ahead of tour to Alaska and Seattle. Right, exactly. There's a lack of cultural diversity and yeah, we wanted to get out of our comfort zones in that way. Yeah, I could see the only music China or an only music. Yes, I could think that was really cool. Even more out of your comfort zone, right? So yeah, so we essentially thought, well, this is how we'll kick this off. We'll get a bus, an old rig. And that's what we'll take down through the South. And as far as it gets us, it gets us. If it dies on the side of the road, that's even better for the story. And it'll be hilarious. So, okay, we don't have the money for a bus. I think, think, think. We're sitting in a room kind of like this with a whiteboard, you know, thinking or, and I'm thinking, I watched a movie where a guy, he ran a mile every hour for 24 hours. That's cool. He did something for 24 hours. That was never kind of never been done. I said, what could we do? What if we played music in the music? Never stopped for 24 hours. This could be, again, a book or a world record. I don't know if it is. I still like to pretend like it could be. But we did it. We, the music never once stopped. Not even a, more than a second or two pause between songs. So we made sure someone was always playing a shaker, a guitar, or humming, or something. We started at 8 a.m., and we played. This was about a year ago, right, before COVID hit. No, it was hitting because you guys were like, kind of edgy being on the stage and old town and stuff, because they were like, are we shutting this whole thing down? Well, actually, it wasn't quite there, because it was the end of February. Oh, really? It wasn't forbidden, but it was definitely a little bit. It was a big night out. No one had knew what a mask was at that point in America. Oh, that's right. People were out and we ended up raising $4,000. We had a bunch of bands come out and help us play. We stayed up, the core group of us, Justin and I and our cousin Jeff for 24 hours playing music. I felt horrible. You looked rough, I remember seeing you. Oh my gosh, it was so hard. The hardest thing to ever done in my life, and because you're not just playing music, I was organizing the music. We're walking around town and trying to Instagram posts to get more people down there and whatever. But we raised $4,000. People came out and drove and gave us money. So it was pretty cool. We gave half to the rescue mission just down the street here, the Fort Collins Rescue Mission is a cool organization. We love that our drummer row has worked at and our brother. So we gave half to them and then we had $2,000 left for our van. Because this was the jam for $2,000. Yeah, so this is where the fun started and we got to, so we ended up actually finding a van or an RV the day before we were supposed to leave on this trip to the south. But the COVID, this is the first week of March or so, second week and most second week maybe, third week and COVID blew up and we said, this is irresponsible and we were like torn. Because we had been planning this. We had the rig. We were about to sit set off the next day. We're sitting in my family room just like on the verge of tears. We did end up kind of canceling slash postponing that trip. But yeah, I don't know. That's kind of the story. We're still going to go there. We're still going to do it all. We're still going to create those memories. Well, it's like they're going to, you know, playing music concerts across the South during lockdown nation would have been pretty rough. Yeah, it's a blessing. We didn't get you arrested in some places. We're glad we didn't, we didn't move forward the trip. But we're really excited about that trip and it wasn't all for not. Well, there's a bit of, there's a lot of stories here, you know, you got to, you got to let us know. The storytelling podcast. We're going too far down the, down the leads. So we, we bought the, the rig though before we had to decide we can't do this trip because of COVID. Right. Tell me about it. It was in 1989, I TASCA, RV 30 foot. Sergeant Tony Peppers is what we named. Yep. Sergeant Tony Peppers, we, I just like parked it right in front of AJ's house. And he, you know, it's a fairly modest house. The RV is like taking up all the street space like in front of his house. And we like, like screw you wherever's parked at the RV here. We parked it there, I think we're going to take it on this trip, thinking it's going to break down on the trip likely. And then we'll have to hitchhike. So that's kind of like what was part of the element of that fun trip, you know, so it's just sitting there. And I'm like, OK, this thing is sweet. It's functioning. It's just sitting here. I want to go take it on a little weekend, get away. And so I take that sucker up to the mountains, up to, to red feather, which is just outside of Fort Collins here. And it's actually like 3,000 feet of elevation gain to get up to red feather race. And I didn't think about that. And so I'm in this 1989, I task at Sunfire RV. And I was no tires, I'm sure. I start cruising up this route in mid March up to red feather. And I'm like, realizing that these hills are pretty big. And I'm like, paddled to the floor. And I'm going 35 in this 55. And I'm not sure this thing is going to make it up this hill. So I'm going, and it gets dark. And I'm like, OK, I think I know where I want to be. And I go too far, but then I can't turn around because it's this narrow dirt road, and it's slick and muddy. And so I just like get it up there. And I'm like, OK, thank God, I didn't like slide off the road. It's OK, everything's cool. I'm just going to neck tomorrow morning. I'm going to turn this thing around, and I'm going back. And get this thing off of the mountains here. This is ridiculous. It started snowing. Long story short, COVID hits in a big way. And I stayed up there in Red Feather in that 1989 at TASCA Sunflower for over a month, and turned it into a whole luches camp out for COVID situation in the RV. And it worked out great, and I absolutely loved it. It did break down a couple times. Had to have it co-wants, towed once, which was difficult to get the big rig out there into the. Right, they charge it for that. Yep, we paid for it. For half the price of it. And then fixed it, and then brought it back down, sold it, and we recently bought a new one, which is actually 10 years older than that one. It's a 1979 George Boy classic. But it's so much better. But it's so much better. It's also only $2,000, which is amazing. And you actually think this one might not break down. Exactly. And well, I think actually probably still. Yeah, it might still. Well, it might still. But the old one smelled like Jack Daniels and sexual desires. This one was well-capped for all 44 beautiful years of its life. It's in great shape. Doesn't smell horrible. I don't get the PBGB's walking in it. It's got a really cool layout for like guys to hang out on their GM and tell stories and a good kind of U-shaped table in the back. So we're excited. We're getting ready to do a COVID conscious trip, you would call. We would call it another different documentary music trip here in May in a couple of months. Oh, cool. That we're really excited about where we're going to take that rig. But we're going to go sort of on an outdoor recreational friendship tour through the Southwest. OK. So use your Janians on. Not really do big shows or try to rely on people as much. But more come inward within ourselves as a band and our band together and be together and write and examine what friendship is and how we can deepen that and what that, what, yeah, what the friendship spectrum is, essentially, the idea. So we like to call it the friendship tour sometimes. And it's not a like a, it's not a brother's fountain tour, but it's rather a brother's fountain going on a road trip and play a musical along the way, of course, as always. I dig it. Last June, I think maybe I've mentioned this to you, AJ, but probably not. We had what we called the the free and empty national park tour. Our foreign exchange students bus trip had been canceled, of course, for the COVID. And we had a foreign exchange student during that crisis. And my employee, Deb, had a 31 foot class CRV. And we did a 4,700 mile road trip in June. Cool. Early June did a big loop all the way up to Seattle, but down to Grand Canyon. And we went to the Grand Canyon with like 40 other people. Wow. Like they were just reopened. They wouldn't even, they couldn't even sell us annual passes. They let us in for free because they didn't have any annual passes to sell because COVID supply disruptions or whatever. Wow. So anyway, I appreciate the joy of the open road. They burn a lot of gas. Oh, yeah. So make sure you take whatever your budget is for gas and like double it because it's going to burn a lot of gas trip. We ran some numbers on that. I mean, this, the 1979 Georgia boy classic, which we like to call Georgia boy, gets, I think, it's going to end up getting about five miles to the gallon. Sounds about right. Yeah, yeah, maybe four. Maybe you can put sails on them. Like in the West, you could just like, hoist the sails at least if you. I don't know, maybe not. I don't know, maybe not. I was riding home. Get to the West to leave. I think you guys need a break. We're going to get a refill and we'll come right back. And we're back. Hey, I want to get into Jameland. Mm-hmm. Talk to me about Jameland because that must have come along right after the band started, right? Shortly thereafter, yeah. OK. So talk about the first Jameland because I know I came to Jameland this fall, which was number three, number four. Number four, I believe. OK. Yeah, it's crazy. It's been going that long. Yeah. But yeah, Jameland is a very unique concept. It's essentially us thinking about who we are as a band and what we love and how can we do something epic and freaking different and unique. And we all decided on this concept that's now called Jameland that you're referring to. And the concept is essentially to go out in the middle of the woods and to create an experience of live music in the woods while you're camping and while you're in nature. And so that's what we did. And we've done four years of it now. And their music festival in the woods. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It started with our Maneland player, Ryan Geon. Ryan was like, yo, guys, this was like within the first year we started a brother's family. He was like, yo, what if we did a show and he doesn't actually talk like this? But what if we did a show in the mountains up in Red Feather or something? We just ran off of a generator, played a show in the mountains. Anyway, it's just this far off dream idea that was just thrown out there. That got thrown out a few times. And after a few times, I was like, it really just takes a generator. Yeah, let's just try it. Let's just do it. And then we developed where we wanted to play a show in the mountains to like, well, we're going to make all this, you know, have all this work to get all this stuff going with this. Let's just bring other bands in. Let's make a whole weekend out of this thing. So we're like, sweet, we've got friends who are in bands who are musicians. Let's bring them on this Jameland ride and like, let's play two nights of music Friday night and Saturday night. The first Jameland we went up there and it was chaos, man. I mean, I think at the most on like Saturday, we had like 60, 70, 80, maybe people at the first Jameland. And so to us, that was a huge success because the location was at Los Lake and Red Brother Lakes, which is hard to get to. It's way up there. It's way up there. It's hard to get to. You turn around way before that if you thought you were lost. Yeah, and there are most ways to get there. And usually like, you know, Google Maps will take you the wrong way and whatever else. And so people are getting lost trying to find this place. But that was kind of part of our thing was like, let's do this thing in a way that's different, like AJ said. And you know what? Like, let's make it a little bit hard to get there. Like, let's make this a little bit grungy. Let's make sure that the people that are there want to be there. And we did. And the people that were there freaking wanted to be there. And the first Jameland we jammed out so hard. And it was a huge success. And like, we were worried about everything from like, it was getting windy. Mike's were getting blown over. It rained a few times. Like, just sprinkled here and there. And we're like, this thing could get shut down completely. We're like, is this generator big enough? We don't know. Let's just, let's just see what happens. We're gonna have enough money for another generator. Yeah, like, it was just patched together. And, you know, we kind of ran into like a lot of problems as far as like, management. And like, we didn't have any porta-potties the first year. There's a bunch of people up there just pooping in the woods, you know, like, like everywhere. Like, not sparing. Which is where there's four people. Yeah. Where there's 40. It's pretty rough. Where there's 80 of the cool. Which, we took a great care. We've always take great care of the land and the space that we go to. We clean up after ourselves. We try to leave it cleaner than we found it. But there was a lot of poop out there going on. I gotta say. So the second year we did Jameland, we made sure we had porta-potties. Yeah, and we have sins. But what's hilarious is because before the, before the first year, you're like, we weren't worried about the logistics at all. We were just like, let's just try it. So we spent all of our time instead of planning the actual logistics, figuring out the name. And we came up with about 200 different names. We said, here's a, everyone just throw out any name for this festival. You want to, you ever could imagine. We came up with 100, 200 on an Excel spreadsheet. We passed a computer around for three hours. And everyone had to delete one at a time. And you passed it to the other bandmate. And they delete one until we came up with Jameland as the title, which is a hilarious story, I think. But what's more hilarious is we didn't plan any logistics and we got totally screwed the first year and then, right, we spent all this trash and half the time with logistics that you had spent on naming. You've been playing. We've gotten better. It's more pro now. It's still super dirt bag too. But we love Jameland and we know you've, how many years have you been Kurt? Just this year? Just this year? You seem like such a staple because this year you fit in perfect. I have people recommending it to me. Some of your music friends, Mary Merritt, was telling me how it was like. Nice. How do you guys were the least annoying Christians that she had been around? Shout out to Mary and Lewis and the Lantern. That's very awesome. Oh, that's cool, man. You were awesome, dude. I gotta say, Kurt was at this most recent Jameland cooking up a storm. Oh, for every one. Delicious steak and veggies grilled out on your fish. Right. Real that was sweet, man. That was a new grill for me this summer. That was one of my COVID nation purchases was a good, good fire for the campground. So thanks for having us. And you guys went through some serious navigations on Jameland this year because there was fires where Jameland had been. Yes, we had to find another location. Which is an easy one, my gosh. It's not like we're getting lots of locations with permits or have money for permits. Right. You know, if there's a will, there's a way, man. We couldn't go to where we usually like to go. So we went up to Wyoming way out in the boonies. And then there's, we couldn't go to Los Lake because the fire, and then we go up to Wyoming and then there's another fire happening. And then of course, COVID is happening. And then rain is coming in. There's fire, there's rain, there's everything else. But it was a beautiful weekend. We made it happen. Well, what's cool about this most recent one was we went up to this place called Turpin Reservoir and it has a beautiful lake in the woods, dispersed camping. But tucked away where we had the actual event was this old rundown cabin that had the ceiling and some walls collapse. And we got there a day early and we just on another buddy, Ethan, and we actually made that into the stage, which I think turned out to be when it was cooler. I mean, obviously the coolest Jameland stage we ever had and it was really fun. That kind of transformed that from just this collapsed house into somehow turned out to the perfect stage. It was like framed the bands to the audience perfectly. It was so funny. I was thinking about a next level challenge for maybe next year or something. Like instead of just up in the boonies like Los Lake or Turpin or whatever, it could have it be a hike in. So you guys could carry on. Oh, that'd be cool. A hike in. We've talked about it. So I was going to pull a generator all the way up. Yeah, it was that. We've talked about doing, we've talked about and I don't, I'm not serious about this at this point. But we've talked about like what have we like moved Jameland each year and it was like a scavenger hunt to like sort of get to it and find it. Right. If we really did want anybody coming, that would be the best. So I want to like talk about the business of music just a little bit for those like trying to actually make a band be something that at least doesn't lose money. You know, unless, let's imagine non-COVID days because it seemed like at least in 2019, you know, you guys weren't getting rich on a brother's fountain, but you had some pretty popular gigs. You were playing some real neat venues and probably get some subsidized dollars from Bohemian for some shows and stuff, but they're popular, you know. If you do some nice shows, you should make a little money. But talk to me about that. Like what's that been? Like learning how to make a band into a business. Yeah, I went into music with the motivation and intention to make music, not to become a businessman. And I think I have so much passion and motivation to make music, to share a message, to create community, to impact lives, that becoming a businessman is a part of the journey. It's a part of the challenge. But it's been hard and it's been a learning curve and I've had to learn to fail a lot. And I think that there's just so many different ways to approach the music industry and there's so many creative ways. And if you have like a gift and a passion for business and sort of like entrepreneurship and being savvy on social media in these different areas and you like along with that have tons of passion and motivation for making music and being a songwriter and everything else in the creative side, you're looking good. Like you have got something special. Have fun, do that for sure. Because and it's just so, it's so, there's so many different areas to approach music as a business, music licensing, songwriting, playing shows, Patreon, merch. There's a lot of these different areas that you can pursue making music, monetizing knowledge, creating some type of program that people can sign up for to get your knowledge on recording and you create like a webinar or knowledge on social media as far as when it comes to music or whatever else. But to be honest, I'm not that great at that. I don't have a huge passion for that. But I love what we're doing and I love the music and the message so much that I've pursued learning those things and growing in those areas to keep this thing going. To make it sustainable. To make it sustainable. You love it enough to do it just for the music. I think is what I'm hearing, but you recognize that it can't always only be about that love. Exactly. If it doesn't fit you back. If it doesn't fit you back, just train going. Yeah, because you're going to want to have babies someday and a retirement account. Exactly. Things like that. Yeah, I mean, and that's just, I just want to be, I always want to be transparent, honest with people and I think it's compelling and I think there's not enough vulnerability in the world in general, but especially just from musicians and people just saying, yo, this is freaking hard. Like I'm having a hard time. So, and I just think that that's okay. It's we have to learn to be okay with failure, with like the grind and like, with the setbacks, you know, and with like, I want to do better and be better and be at a more successful place right now than I am. And that's all right. And we have to acknowledge that gap and not let that way too much on our shoulders. And that's just something very relevant and recent for me. But yeah, you know, I wanted to observe something that like you guys are kind of middle class, you know, normal Midwestern kids and stuff, but you've taken these journeys, you've been homeless and hitchhiked and all these things. And you've got a song lyric, and I don't know if it's from Seoul or not. You can call me Chi by, you can call me a dirt bag when you said mentioned dirt bag earlier, AJ, I was thinking about that and got this kind of like, I don't know what, maybe a classism kind of a notion or whatever, or just people like that division, that criticism of division among people. Talk to me about that because it's kind of a thread in your songwriting, it seems like, is that fair? How's the line go? You can call me cheap. You can call me poor. Money mattered to me once, but it don't matter anymore. Don't matter anymore. You can label me whatever you want. Ask me if I care. Are you care? I care not son. Not his care. You're in the band, baby. Let's get this guy, I'm like, I got no instruments though. So yeah, no, I think there's a lot of those little nuggets that kind of speak to like, I don't know, man, I'm a college dropout, I don't really care, I don't really care about the world's version of success. Like I just don't, it's not a thing for me. Yet I care deeply about growing as a human. I care deeply about becoming better, learning, and just in driving a ship somewhere that I feel compelled to go, you know? And so that's kind of what the thing is for me. I think that's probably what of too many people struggle with in the world of days. I can go anywhere, where should I go? You know, I really don't want to know what except my point around. I know, now that God is dead or whatever. Mm-hmm, right? Yeah. I want to actually take it toward our closing segments. I've mentioned we always faith family politics. Do you wanna, we pick and choose, which ones you wanna address first and you can go as deep as you'd like? We've talked about faith affair, but already, I know you were young life kids and whatnot, so your innocent sheltered grew up in the church, stayed in the church, never had any doubts kind of guys, is that the way you are? No, no, definitely not. You wanna share? AJ, why don't you go first? Use the older brother. Okay, yeah. Yeah, you know, you grow up and you have an idea of what you think the world's like and what your faith is like, and then you become an adult. And then it's oftentimes shattered. And I think that happened to me, leaving Indiana, coming to Colorado was a big part of that alone. But honestly, the biggest thing for me was leaving the country and moving to Thailand and just living there alone, essentially abroad. Got to teach English, amazing type people, love Thailand, love the people, gained a matter of respect for teachers. And I'll never probably teach that full on again because it's so exhausting and I can't do it. Of course, there was like classrooms of like 50 kids in Thailand and there was, that don't know hardly English, exactly. Teacher, teach these kids English. You're like, and like, yeah. And I don't know any Thai and the teachers, the actual Thai teachers left when I came in to teach English because that was their break hour. So I didn't have an assistant, kids my Thai fighting in the back, all of it loved it. Loved every second, I love those kids that still do. But I think for me, that was a tough thing growing up a Christian and thinking these, because they're 99% Buddhist in Thailand, maybe 95 or something like that. But all my kids were Buddhist and all the parents were and all the teachers were and I loved them so much and they were so kind to me, they would invite me over on Christmas Day and we'd have barbecues and single karaoke. I was supposed to be not like Buddhists because it just wasn't even that. I knew that they were people and I was gonna love them but I was just more like wrestling with their, what would happen once we all died, essentially. Like there's no way that I couldn't reconcile on my mind that because they weren't Christians, they weren't going to heaven but I was and it was my job to tell them about Jesus like, so that was very, I mean, crying on the floor in Bangkok. And was it your job? In my apartment? Were you there teaching Lewis with a missionary? No, I wasn't. No, Christian missionary at all. Cause I know there's some of those that teach you English and teach you the Bible but that wasn't your thing. But I was Christian, I proclaimed, I was like, I love Jesus, I believe he's the way but I was the only Christian in my school in my town and I was the only white person in my town, the only one who spoke English. Hey, I'm the only one that's going to heaven just so you guys all know, a lot of stuff. Yeah. And I, no, nope. And wrestled with a hard core, like wanted to abandon my whole faith, did I guess maybe. But ultimately, I had some really cool moments where I felt like God told me it's okay. It's not up to you, it's not your job. And these people are fine and I love them and they're my creation. I'm a decider. He said, yeah, it's not for you to wrestle with or think about. Don't you worry about that. You just love. Was this all in this season? Like you went through that whole cycle of starting to step away and have a lot of doubts and stuff and then circled back while you were still in Thailand? Yeah, you could say that. I think I walked away. I mean, it was there for a year and I came home and we went to, it came home and we went right away to this Jewish sports camp in Massachusetts. And I mean, I think it totally shook me to the core and shook out what I believe in what I don't and what was true and what wasn't. And I think that was exactly what I needed and what people need and it's okay to wrestle with your faith and to not understand it all. It's okay. And at the end of the day, we're all people and we're all actually also wrestling and everyone has a story and everyone is wrestling and been some places. And so let's do it together. Let's support each other. Let's love each other and let's understand that we're in different places in our journey. So were we able to put that kind of conflict that knowing that for you at least Jesus was the path, the path, the decider of sorts, but you were able to say at least to yourself these little kids, these little Buddhist kids aren't gonna get smitten when they're gone or what do you do with that? That's a good question. I don't know. Somehow I think the Lord just helped me understand that it's, again, not mine. You don't have to worry about it. Yeah, yeah. And what's true for me is true for me and that it wasn't, it's not fake or fleeting. That's real. And that's my experience and that's beautiful and there's this beautiful too. I'm not gonna be trying to shove what I believe to anyone else's throat and I'm also not gonna shy away from telling others what happened to me through my experience with Jesus. And honestly, it was pretty big split for me in the Christian church and the Christian faith from being a Christian to actually Jesus. That actually is either one. And if I take away the Christian, why are we even called Christians? What are Christians? These guys suck. These guys are a couple. Crusaders, they're killing everyone. Yeah, the Irish public. The Catholics are the Protestants. That was when I was at high school, right? But in my worshiping, do I believe in a Christian or do I believe in Jesus? Yeah. So to this day, I still say I don't always, when Jesus follower. Call myself a Christian. Yeah, but Jesus said I can get down with that. Yeah, fair enough. The way he loved it. How about you, Justin, what would you say on that topic? What was your journey? Oh, I love Jesus. What do you want to know? Like, did you just always, you know, do you think I have the same kind of crisis of faith that your brother had? I'm not, no, not quite like that. But always wrestling with questions. I think it's a very healthy aspect of faith, of life, to wrestle with deep, hard questions that you don't know the answer to. I mean, was it Jacob wrestled with God? Must've been. Yeah, Isaac, one of those. I don't know, one of those two, anyway. But I think it's a metaphor that's intended to be, you know, if you're not wrestling with those hard questions, you're not paying enough attention. Yeah, it's like, well, why not? Is it blind faith? Is it stagnant? Are you stagnant? You know, I think, yeah. So I, we grew up, you know, going to church and being involved in young life, which I love young life with all of my heart. That was hugely impactful for me. Really, the big thing for me that kind of drew me into the fold of Jesus was my young life leaders. There were two guys, two or three guys, who just, like, they just wanted to hang out and they wanted to just love me really well. And I would come to them with all my questions and doubts and like, hey, this is what I'm struggling with. This is what I'm doing right now. And as however bad it would be, or whatever questions I would have, they would just be patient with me and they would love me and they would just be there. And they were like, really cool, really awesome guys. Shout out to John Hauden. But that was a really cool way to experience Jesus was just like in a personal relationship with another person who I could look up to and sort of be mentored by and that was huge for me. But actually the way that I really experienced Jesus in a way that I compelled me to commit my life to him was in Colorado on a backpacking trip. Three young life was the wilderness ranch a seven days as a junior in high school out in the wilderness with 10 of my friends. And just the solitude out there, just being in the mountains, praying and having a freaking blast was all very, very compelling to me. And I thought it was that trip. It was where you were like, I'm gonna stay here in this camp, whatever. I'm gonna be team Jesus. This is dope. I like it. So we got family politics. We touched on family just a little bit. Should we jump there and kind of roll it out? You've talked about your brother Josh a little bit already. You want to, I like to have people give one word descriptions of people in their family. You want to give them one? Ooh, Josh? Yeah. Oh, one word is tough. Intriguing. Ooh. Yeah. That's an interesting beast. He's actually just in the six, two, I'm six, four. Josh is six, three. So we're all huge. Yeah, yeah. But he's even bigger, like stronger and bigger. And, but he's also like, he's like a larger than life figure. Yeah, bigger than life. He's a huge beard. I met him one time, actually. I'm remembering. So someplace he was out and about when you guys were. Yeah. So fascinating guy. He's a big time in the skydiving right now and training to be a skydiving instructor. Interesting. And how about your folks? Talk to me a little bit more about them and their character and you're kind of loving on them. Are there still with us, I guess? Yes. Yeah, they're still alive and they're still married and they're kicking it in Indiana still. Yeah. I don't know. If you guys would have some babies. Yes. You'd get them out here. I was going to say, in AJ here is the only one married at the three of us right now. Right. You know, they're wanting him to get busy with Lori and have some babies so they can come and be grandparents. Pull the goalie, Lori. I think that would pull them out to Colorado for sure. But they've got a ton of great community and friends and family in Indiana. And they're doing their thing and we love it. We always visit each other and stuff and have a blast. Awesome. Our mom is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet in your life. And so cool and so easy going down for anything. Our dad is the most hilarious, intense, fun, agrarious person you'll ever meet. His Josh, but more so. Exactly. Yes. But even more social, more boisterous. He's one of the boisterous good boys just a lot of dad jokes. You'll never meet a person anywhere similar to Jim found in our dad. He is. It's hard to explain man. It's like, if you spend time with him. He comes to visit. I want to meet him. You bring him by. Yeah. We'll play some ping pong. You got a guitar. You'll have to buckle up. You're going for a ride. You're hanging out with him. Okay. Buckle up, buttercup. And let's talk about your wife. You're married. Like probably a couple of years, three years, no, AJ. Thanks. One year? I don't know. One year? I don't know. We got to give a shout out to love my life. Yeah. Lori. Low, low, sweet and low, low. Yes. We've only been married actually year and a half. And so we're still new on the scene. I can learn a thing from you and Jill, but. Lover to death. Been so fun being married. Cool. And I ever thought it would be. And she's amazing. She's super. She's opposite of me in that she's really good at design, fashion, style, aesthetic. But she does. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She does. Yeah. My give has been up. Yep. A whole bunch. Yeah. Style game upgrade. No more socks and sandals, no more. Clashing colors. Like before. But she really is cool. She works for a really cool local company here, just down the street from you. They're called Sunday Supply. Oh, woman's boutique. Yeah. And she's essentially. Oh, okay. The historical stuff. Well, and I met your wife. Because I was doing some stuff with Seth in the early, small business storytellers when she was helping him. So that's when I really got acquainted with Lori. Love it. I was recording some of those sessions. Oh. You're AJ's wife. Yes. So talk to me about what's one. Tell me about the love story. Like, how did you guys meet and fall in love and was it just that fast or why? Oh, good question. Actually, yeah. I mean, I've known Lori probably now seven years. Oh, we both have. And I remember telling Justin almost seven years ago. That girl is beautiful. Holy cow. Way out of my league. And I had to just kind of. Not, not pursue that for a while. As it turns out, there's not that many really attractive guys though. So you might as well try. So yeah, she goes to the same church as us. Anyok here in town. And we were. I just kind of like pursued her as a friend for a while because. She's like five years younger than me. And so she was still, you know, in her young 20s. And I was in my late 20s. And we. I was like, just felt like pursuing her as a friend for a while. And we did. And it was pretty cool that it worked out like that. Because we were friends for a couple of years before we dated for a couple of years. And we're engaged for a year. But really that one of the coolest parts of our love story was this. Engagement that we had here right outside your office in old town that Justin helped with. Or I thought it would be cool to have a really complex engagement. Which guys, if you're thinking about asking someone, don't do that. Just make it easy and quick. Because it is painful when it's hard and complicated. And it was just cool. But I think cool. If she ran into all these people, she loved an old town at different points in the night. And there was all these weird, serendipitous moments where she kept seeing people that she loved as we're like having a good night out on the town. She always said, hey, you can't propose to me till I graduate from college. And she had actually took in a break and gone back to college. So she was about 26. She was about 26 or 27 at this point. She wasn't 22. But she had finished her last final and I picked her up. Took her out to dinner. We ran into someone at dinner and then we went down here. What's the bar that's underneath? Oh, social. Yeah, the social. And then we ran into her sister and two of her friends there in the social. We kind of grouped up and had like, what are the, what are the odds? Why are all these people here? And then we walked out and we're walking down and Justin's jamming on the street. It's just a brother's fountain with like two or three other bandmates who came out that night. And they're like, whoa, what's his name? And then we go back and I have candles and play a little song. And I ask her to marry me. But it was really cool to kind of have a brother's fountain and a lot of our friends locally in the town essentially be part of that. So that's because it's really village like, you know, where even within this big 152,000 person community, you've got your village of the people that you just really jive with and whatever. And that village is comprised of people from every different street and sector in some ways. Yes, such a crucial thing to us is community and it's so cool. We haven't talked about this. But just the way that we pursue community with big old houses of guys and what the band still, I mean, we believe in community. We believe in the power of it in this town. We've alluded to it. But it's so good at community. So are you Kurt, what you're doing with Floco? And we strive to do that with the brothers fountain and Stoke Denver as well and promote that in our own lives and live it out. Yeah, so thanks for saying that. That means a lot. I'm scared to ask, but I'm presuming just in your still in love or kind of a sweetheart still. I definitely have a sweetheart. Okay, I thought so probably seems like a long time love story from my outside eyes looking in. But do you want to talk about Abigail? Oh, yeah, Abigail. Yeah, she's my sweetheart for sure. We don't have any. I've never talked about any love interests on a podcast. Call me out. We listen to the local experience. You're talking about any other podcast like this. So what would you like to say about Abigail? No, she's amazing. I don't know what to say. She's incredible. Well, actually, this is relevant. We met at the third Jameland. We met at Jameland, which I think is so cool. That's where I met her, I think, too. Yeah. So she went to the Jameland two years ago and then this past year. We met at Jameland, which I think is amazing. Here I am dating this amazing woman who I met at this thing that we dreamt up and made happen. And because we did that, I had this chance to meet her. Was she already a fan girl? No. She came to Jameland because... She doesn't like your music. Well, you know, she kind of... No, she likes it. She'll definitely want me to say, I definitely like your music. Not only if I shot Rob. No, she does have this unique amount of disinterest or a healthy amount of disinterest in the music. She's her own woman. Where she's like, yeah, okay, I like that one. I don't like that one that much. And I like that. It depends on when you ask me. Usually I'm like, okay, just tell me everything's great. But I like that she isn't a fan girl to the max, you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. You don't want people to have their own thinking. Yeah, yeah. What does she like about you? What does she like about me? Yeah. I didn't know you liked to ask her to get her on here. I don't know. I would hope that she likes that I'm a man of his convictions and live impassionately for God and for people. And yeah, doing what I feel called to and living in a way that's compelling. I know her a little bit, but I can see her nod in her head when she listens to this part of the podcast. For sure. Yeah. What else do you want to talk about family? Anything else that strikes a chord in the family? Realme, you're not going to ruin any surprises on the engagement rings or anything like that in this podcast. Oh my God. It's that. Oh no. Dude, you're roasting me right now. This has come out at about five weeks. So you got a little time. I love you guys. I'll move on. Yeah. Politics. Let's just talk politics to get out of here. It's your topic for you guys. And politics is so easy and approachable. Well, it's part of my that's kind of the whole podcast thing. It's just like we have to be able to talk about anything that we want to talk about. And you have to be able to defend the things that you believe in. Yes. I'm not going to talk red state, blue state, all that bullshit. But let's just talk about like what do you believe that? Yeah. You know, governments should do or not do for people and locally here. We've got a mayoral election coming and like talk to me about just your stance on the whole topic. Yeah. You know what? I like that you're doing this. I like that you're asking about politics because I feel like there isn't enough of a platform for the average Joe to be like, well, I'm not an expert, but like I kind of think this or that. And to make it more of an approachable thing, right? Like it's so you can be one people of vote. We have to have people think about shit. Yeah. And it's just it's just a very hot. It's a hot thing, you know. So for me, like I tend to approach it where I'm like in a formal content setting where I'm like creating a podcast or doing something. I'm like, well, look, I'm the expert and I don't there's a lot of stuff I don't know about politics and like what I believe about politics. And I don't I don't know that I have the position to be, you know, making any suggestions. But it's cool to have this this space that feels approachable to address it. So I'll let AJ kick it off. You go first, AJ. Oh, I mean, everyone's got something to say, right? I think we've been duped as a as a country by not the foundation of our country because it is so beautiful. Our country. I love America and the foundation and our the systems and checks and balances we haven't in this country. So blessed by it. So let's not forget that. You have to start with that. Otherwise, we're just a bunch of nagging, annoying people. But we've been duped by a two party system. And I'm very passionate about this because I think it's where everything that I in my little puny brain can derive it comes from is the two parties. Why? Why is it that it's red versus blue? Why do we have to choose a side? Why is it that there isn't other choices? Why is it that they control the press? Why is it that they control the candidates, the debates, the candidates that there's only going to be two in the election? You saw Joe got yanked the other day, right? He opened up for questions on a press conference and they were like, nope, no questions for Joe. Yep. Anyway, I digress. And ridiculous is not what this country has founded on. And I think our founding fathers even knew it. Even George Washington that we can't do it like that. And it's a shame. It's a shame. It seems like a mountain that's insurmountable in a way that to how do we get a third party realistically represented? You know, and if I vote every year for this party, people are pissed at me because it's a wasted vote. But is it? I don't buy it. And personally, I'm just going to keep voting for the best candidate every year. So I'm not going to just vote third party and not blue or red. But I'm going to vote for the best candidate. And honestly, oftentimes from me personally, it comes down to the third party being the best because they're less independent. Do you want to call you to corporations? I thought he would draw all that. No, I voted for Kanye. I've been voting Libertaria in the last few seasons so I'm tired of it. So I voted for Kanye. Anyway, I appreciate that sentiment too because it is a hard choice. So Justin, do you want to add anything to that notion? Yeah, I can't offer. The terrible broken system is just the best one anybody has ever created. Well, and you know, and I like they just sentiment. You know, there's so much that we've been blessed with. And I think often we can be cynical in the realm of politics, in the realm of America as a government. But it's so beautiful, man. And it's so great. The freedoms that we have. I mean, man, just walk a day in the shoes of certain people in certain other places in the world, man. Like we have got a lot to be thankful for. So. Yeah, here you are. I just, you just hear a lot of the baggage. The news is about the baggage, about all the, all the shit. So, I don't know. I think that's part of the problem is like everybody is focused on this national conversation when it doesn't really matter in the day to day here. Yeah. And you know, I don't know. There's a lot to go into. Politics, you know, my, the president of the United States is not my hero. It's not my savior. It's not. I don't put all of my life into who that person is. You know, I don't. So I just think we need to, we need to sort of separate a little bit of like emotions, you know, from politics. A little bit of like, hey, we're all still people, we're all still like Americans. Like we, let's bounce some good ideas off of each other instead of coming out each other in opposition always. You know, and I like the refinement of opposition of debates of, yeah, let's, let's figure out what's, what's going on here. And let's contrast these ideas against each other. And I think there's a good thing that can happen there. Yeah. I think at the same time. Well, and the parliamentary system, you know, that we kind of had years past, you know, it used to be actually a debate of ideas. These, these houses and these parties would like take turns talking about stuff and like trying to beat each other's arguments up and trying to swing votes and stuff. And that, that kind of, that iron sharpens iron kind of approach to politics is 0.0 these days it seems. Yeah. And you know, we've got a lot of extremists on either side. And I think the middle ground needs to get more limelight. I think the middle ground of like, just in all things, ideas, perspectives where, yeah, just you don't have to choose a side. Let's just, let's be free thinking American citizens here. You know, and let's take each topic in and of its own. You know, like what, what, what's the deal with the like this versus this, like this side versus this side? I got to choose these 16 things to be in favor of all those 16 or these other 16 things. Right. It's so much more dynamic than that. And every, I would say most people in America, that is the case. They're not, and this is, I don't have stats to back this up. But I would say most of America is not sitting in the extreme left, the extreme right. They're sitting somewhere in the middle saying, well, I see the point here. Right. I don't get this, you know, they're feeling like, what the heck? Can I have the moderate party, please? Yeah, and I just, yeah, it was like back when it was Mitt Romney. You guys barely remember this. You were just babies. But like, there was barely any difference between the Republican and the Democrat because they were both squeezing toward the center. And that's going to change now. And at least the perception is that they're both trying to go farther away. And then fighting over that. The only thing I would add to more than two parties that would help us tremendously, in my opinion, again, puny brain. Why can you raise as much as you can possibly for elections? From his many big corporations, pharmaceuticals. It doesn't matter, you know, oil. Why? Why can't we just actually say, you can't just be the best schmooser. You have to be a rail person. You can have a rail person. And you can have a million dollars to spend. Yeah. Let's get actual people in office instead of the best schmoosers with corporations. I mean, it's flawed, I think, in that. Who can have raised the most money wins the election? The power is definitely a factor. So we're going to try something new today. It's the local experience. We've got two minutes to tell the craziest story or experience of your lifetime. And I'm going to do this individually, although I know there's a shared local experience you guys wanted to share. So Justin, why don't you tell me the shared experience will pop to AJ. And then we'll pop back to you for the last. Okay, cool. Yeah, I like this. Local experience. That's a cool thing. For both of us, we were working. It's been mentioned the camp. The sports camp. We worked out in Massachusetts. Barry Bergen. You remember Barry? Barry. The brother's fountain. The father's. Yeah, shut up. You guys ever just beat the crap out of each other or what? So we shared the same days off each week we were there. And we would go and do crazy things for that one day we had off per week. You know, taking care of a bunch of kids out of camp. And one of the things we did was we went to this quarry. And there were these cliffs in this little beautiful quarry. And there were varied heights of cliffs. We went off of anywhere from a 10, 20, 50, 65, 75, and 85. And we would go there and, you know, we had a few days that were spent there. And so we got pretty good at jumping off a cliff. And not dying. And not dying. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of deep water there to jump into. And you're going to have to learn the technique because, as you might know, if you don't, you know, tighten up into a pencil at that last minute, you're going to smack really hard once you get up to the 50, 60, 70 foot jumps. And so we kind of learned the technique and we started getting used to it. And we were doing, you know, Joe, let's jump at the same time. Like, are you jump out of that one? I'll jump out of this one. Like, well, high five or two in the air or something. And we were making our way up to that 50, 65 foot tier. And then we make our way up to the 75 foot tier. And we are more than content with capping it at the 75 foot tier. We jumped off that freaking thing. It was wild. We free fall for like four seconds, you know, landed in the water. It kind of hurt, but it was awesome. And then one of our buddies comes rolling around the corner. And he's like, yo, found brothers. Are you guys tried the 85 footer yet? We're like, no dude. He's like, what can you point to where it is? We're like, well, what's up and over there? And he was like, well, why don't you guys just walk me up over to it? Like, yeah, just come with me. Like come point it out to me. And we're like, all right, Mike, like his name was Mike. I'm like, all right, Mike. Yeah, we'll show it to you. But dude, that thing's insane, man. Like do not tell you 10 feet higher. Like I would have skipped the 75. Oh my god. Dude, 75 was plenty high enough for us. Let me tell you. So we go up to the 85. And we're like, we're standing at a distance. We're like, that's the 85 right over there. You got to jump over that shrub growing from the cliff. And like, it's this awkward thing that you got to overcome. So he's like, all right, sweet. So like, if I do it, will you guys do it? And for whatever reason, we looked at each other and we were like, yeah, sure. Because we didn't think he was going to do it. Right. And well, at least I did. I thought like this guy's crazy. And so then he just like starts iron it down. And we realized quickly that he was very serious. He's going to do this freaking thing. And he takes a couple steps back. He's like, oh, this is intense, boys. We're like, yeah, I know. Like he's seriously going to do this. And step, step, step, boom. He jumps off and he flies through the air. And there was a moment of exhilaration of one watching him do it. He didn't see anyone do it yet. And we were like, whoa, we actually did it. And then in that same moment of exhilaration, we have the realization that, oh, shit. Now we have to do it. Can you see him landing? Like you can look down and see him in the pond. Yeah. So he lands and he's screaming. He's still alive. And so Adrian, I were like, all right, who's going next? And, you know, I thought, you know, why don't you go next so that you're not alone up here? Because that was my thought. I wasn't going to do it. Yeah. I hated this whole thing. I hated it. Why are we doing this? Freaking out, claiming up. I mean, people kill themselves off of bridges that are this higher, a little bit higher. Yeah, that's true. Actually, it's like there was a very nuanced thing. Yeah. There's just to this free. Right. No belly flops alone. No, you will die. There was a girl that got flight rescued out of there like a few days before. Right. Because she did cheat lane it wrong. So, yeah, Justin had this phrase, what, how did it go? That gave me courage. Live by faith. Die by grace. Live again in pure peace. Yep. I thought if I die, it was just a cool phrase I'm saying before I die. And you went first. Yeah, and you had to flail. So you keep straight. So you don't hit. I hit even like this, like a little like two inches off. And it's interesting. All that body will get brittle in your body. So you're pedaling with your arms and your legs. And tell you you're about to hit, and then you tuck everything. Because if your arms are out, your legs are out. Your whole body will be bruised. Yeah, I told you I experienced some last second break. Yeah. So our advantage was that we'd done a 35, 45, 67. So we worked up. So we knew the technique. If you don't, never, never, never try. Don't just go hit an 85 footer. No, never, never. Okay. You'll die. I will not. Justin, you're any any observational notes about it too? No, is that what you weren't scared to chase him down after AJ went first? It was just, no, I went next and yeah, it was lonely up there. It was lonely with the wind whistling in my ears. When the guys were down there, they're just like, it's cool, man. Like do it. And like they're in the victory place and I'm in a miserable spot. But yeah, I did it. It made it happen. And it was just a really cool thing that like it was yet another, yet another arrow in the quiver of like the thing that I didn't think I could do or like was possible. Well, I was scared to do it. And then I did it. And then I did it. Yeah. It was really cool, man. And I think, I mean, if I were to roll up on that 85 foot, 85 foot cliff right now and look down, I would be just as scared if not more than I was and I actually would not do it. Wait until I have to 40 after 40 to turn into a big one. Thanks for the heads up. Yeah. So I want to wrap us up fairly quickly here. But AJ, local experience of your own, you talked about Thailand already. That had to have been a little bit of a local experience. But is there like a brief moment or anything in your history that you'd like to share? And you can just encapsulate and say Thailand. Yeah, I would actually diverted away from Thailand. That whole experience was the craziest thing in my life for sure. But as far as I'm more of a fleeting moment, there was a moment a couple months before even left for Thailand, where I was backcountry ski guiding outside a steamboat. And I take people out going fun, mostly short or Nordic adventures on skis. But one day I was able to go out and just scout as a guide, which is the coolest thing ever, because you could just go without guests and find out places to go and learn the terrain better for more hardcore guests that want to go further out. So I'm with my buddy who's also a guide. And we do a whole long day, 10, I don't know how many miles, 15 miles, backcountry skiing through powder plant. You know, a lot of hike ups, a lot of fun. Oh yeah. Coming back, it's getting close tonight. We see sticking out of the snow about 4 feet of snow is a tiny little antler. Oh, that's cool. There's an antler there. There must be someone, some, you know, elk or deer antler. And we go up to it, we skip to it, and we uncover it, and it's a paddle on it. It's a moose paddle. We said, oh, this is a cool moose paddle. Let's grab it. So we try to pull it. It's not pulling. We've unburied it more. It's still attached to a moose head. Like, whoa. We keep, we have like avalanche shovels, so we keep shoveling out. And we see it's a moose that's standing up straight in 5 feet, 16 feet of snow below us. And we all as we saw was about 2 inches of the paddle sticking out of the snow until we unburied it. And we see there's a whole moose standing up attached. And once we unburied it a little bit more, you can see the carcass the back of it had to eat now. Bikioides or wolves or mountain lion that eaten it. Maybe it froze to death. Frozen to death standing almost. Yeah. Well, but my buddy was crazy. He said, what if we got these paddles and we brought them back? Dude, it's attached to a moose and it's dark. It would probably have a knife. He goes, yeah, I do. And he pulls out his knife and it's a pocket knife, switch blade. It's like, okay, but he goes, we're going to cut the head off. So we'll start sawing. I got pulled into this and it makes me sound way cooler and more badass than I am because I'm not. But he starts sawing off the head of the moose and then I have to saw. And we're sawing and sawing and it's getting darker and colder. And sawing through the neck of a frozen thaw moose. And finally, we're almost there, but the spine is still attached. So we spin the head around 10, 20 times the kind of exercise style to snap the vertebrae to rip that head off. We finally rip it off. We both fall back into the snow at the head in our laps. Like, yeah, 70 pound, 80 pound head of a moose. I'm like, oh, wait, how do we get? We're still two miles out from the ranch. How do we get home and the dark with the moose head? So we're like, oh, we'll just put it on our shovels and like toe it. And we got about quarter mile, half a mile and it's dark and cold. We're exhausted. We're not going to make it. So we're like, well, stash the head under a tree. We'll come back tomorrow and get it. We swear to it. We will as long as the coyotes don't ski back. We're like, where were you? Don't worry about it. We go back as soon as the day breaks the next day. We find our head still under the tree on a farm. Yeah. But this time we're prepared. We know we can't get it the two miles because it's too heavy. 80 pound head. Yeah. And so we brought a hack saw. So we'll hack saw into the brain and get the paddles off of the head. So we saw into the brain of the moose and got the paddles off of the head. Until it was just kind of this triangle bit of the brain and then the paddles that were huge. Six feet wide. And attaching to our pack, skied back to the ranch. People like saw the paddles on their back. I don't know what you guys got paddles. So I think about it. Oh, driving back from Colorado to Indiana with my paddles. And I'm with my buddy. And he said, I'll be cool if we zip tie it to the roof. Like our roof of your Jeep had paddles. So we did. We got 150 zip ties. We used about half of those to zip tie this pack, this rack. And we're so proud it took us hours to zip tie it to my Jeep. And we pull into the gas station. Some hunter said, nice rack. Where did you like shoot that? We're like, oh, I didn't shoot it. I hacks all it off of a moose. Dead moose. They said, oh, you need to rip that thing off now. If you don't have a tag for that. If DNR finds you, you'll get $10,000 fine, 10 years in prison. We went into the gas station grab scissors and started cutting up about 75 zip ties. We had on this thing on my Jeep, ripped it off. They're right in my back and my Jeep and dirty clothes on it. And like, I did it. And brought it back to Indiana. My dad mounted it. And it's at his house now mounted. It's very cool. D our department of natural resources folks wearing Indiana is your dad now. It seems like a fine way to happen. Let it be known. I did not shoot that moose. Right. Found it. Jay, did you have anything that could compare with cutting through moose brains? Definitely not anything like gory, gnarly. I can't imagine deer to pocket knife. Surely it was like a multi-tool knife. Yeah. I mean, that's ridiculous. That is ridiculous. And make it quick because I got to go pee. Okay. Well, I would just say that the most life-changing experience I've experienced. Oh, man. There's a couple, but. Hacking to Alaska without any food or money. I mean, if you can imagine doing anything without any food or money to start like his first travel or anything. It's just like a unique thing. Yeah. It's just doing that. Good thing you're like better looking and better at playing music than I am because I wouldn't make it. Well, I think anyone could do it, but. I like threatening and scary. It's just you just gotta charming. Kind of find your, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. You gotta make your ass come true and stuff, right? Just, you gotta just hustle, you know, figure it out and make friends, you know. So I had a lot of really cool meaningful conversations in car rides. I mean, it was so many hours of driving up to Alaska. And with each person that would pick me up, I would ask them, what is their life philosophy? And so that really kicked off some really deep conversations and meaningful conversations. And so being able to connect with people who were once strangers and then become such, just go so deep and become such intimate friends over a couple of hours. Yeah. You know, a day of traveling together, it was really, really unique and really cool. And there was one guy, there was multiple characters from the story that I could talk about. And if you're listening, you should just go watch the film. But one guy, Paul, Paul Wood was his name. And he was this black guy for Virginia, cruising up in an RV. And there's a couple of things that you don't see happening up in this, in Canada and the areas that I was in. One, not a lot of black people. Two, not a lot of people in RVs that were willing to pick up hitchhikers. Right. You get all these people in their RVs, cruising up the Alaskan Highway. That's like a couple or whatever. I mean, I'm sitting down the side of the road, you know, miserable or just really needing a ride or whatever, just like trying to get down the road. Yeah. And they've got all the space. They've got $350,000 RVs. And not a single one is even considering picking me up. You know, I was saying, wait, it's all good. I get it. But like at the same time, I'm smiling. I'm playing my guitar. Like, I'm just really wanting a ride in an RV. And sure enough, Paul Wood pulls his RV over. And I'm like running towards RV. Like, dope. It's an RV. Like I never thought I'd see the day finally when civics all we could. And he picked me up and we actually ended up spending three or four days together. And he was my last ride, took me all the way up to Alaska. He was my longest ride. And he let me drive the RV. We became buds and we keep in touch today. We talked a lot about life philosophies and fun stuff. And he had just actually lost his wife to cancer. And they had always talked about like, one day we're going to go to Alaska. And that was his trip that he was making a hammer over. Going up to Alaska. Exactly. Exactly. And he thought, man, I got to be more present and do it. Just do it. The man life is short. And I was also having a very meaningful deep experience myself. Always dreamed of hitchhiking to Alaska. And so I finally made it happen. And we both connected in a really deep special way. That's awesome. I didn't talk about this, but can I make a request? Can we, you guys, as I mentioned earlier, the theme song for the local experiences soul? Can we, uh, can we acapella that together? Just maybe the first verse or something like that? Do you know how this starts? I mean, I think this pull off the guitar right now. If you want to. Yeah, we can do a quick little, uh, something song. Oh, keep us in key. Yeah. I love it. That's your favorite song. It really is, I think. Yeah. And it felt like the right one for this, uh, for this show. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate your, the way that you converge your passion for business with, with life and people and heart connect. So thanks for having us today. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you guys for being here. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. I'll just, uh, I'll be back up vocals. Oh. Oh. Yes. Oh, you will. Yes. Oh, you will. Song. Let it roll, let it roll. Yes. Oh, you will. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Locoh experience podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of The Locoh think tank and host of The Locoh experience. And I'm here with Rory Shar, local business developer and host of The Locoh shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us for you listening to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about local? You can learn more about us at localthinktakes.com, where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources, and events for business owners and communities. If you're looking for perspective, accountability, and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the in-depth local experience podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Rory, provide size business lessons in the local shorts. Bye!