← The Futur with Chris Do
The Futur with Chris Do
Music Is The Soundtrack of Our Lives w/ Oscar Höglund CEO of Epidemic Sound | Ep 362
00:44:24
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- [00:00]
A
The one sense that you cannot turn off is your ears. They're always on. If you put out a piece of content and you don't have audio, you don't have sound, it's like empty calories. You can understand that content, but you can never feel it.
- [00:14]
B
Pick a movie, any movie you want to watch. Watch it without sound. See how you feel.
- [00:18]
A
Yep. My name is Oskar Herglund, and you are listening to the Future.
- [00:24]
B
Hey, everybody. As you can tell, I'm not at home, and we're live and in person. And it just so happens, like, I have the CEO, CEO of Epidemic here in front of me. And we're in Austin. We made this work. So thanks to your team for making this happen. Welcome to the future.
- [00:39]
A
Amazing. Thank you for having me.
- [00:41]
B
So here's what I think we should do. You said something to me the last time we spoke via Zoom, that you have this whole theory about why music is infinitely repeatable, whereas movies not so much. So maybe that's where we begin this. I know that's a weird place to begin.
- [00:57]
A
I find it fascinating that content lives on this spectrum. And the way I see the spectrum is on the very one, sort of far side. On one extreme, we have music, and on the other side, I would say that we have traditional visual content. And the way I think about it, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it, so I'm dying to hear your opinion. Chris. Here is that I love visual content. And as an example, so Game of Thrones is something that really gets me excited. We can talk about Matrix and other things as well, because I know that that's something that's close to your heart also. But even though I see myself as a die hard fan, when I've watched one episode of the show, I literally have next to zero desire to watch that show again. Because I've seen it, I know it, and I understand it, and I want to move on to the next show. I'm dying to see the next show, but I have very little interest in watching that show again. If I move to the other side of the spectrum and you look at music, it's the exact opposite. As in, I listen to a piece of music once, and if it strikes a chord, if it makes me interested, it's something that every time I consume that piece of music again, it gets me more excited, so there's more comfort to it. Or it's either because I recognize it, or maybe it's sort of capturing onto a feeling. It might be augmenting a feeling. It Might be numbing a feeling, but for some reasons, music is something that you listen to repeat, repeat, repeat. And I think that's. It's such an interesting thing that these are two different expressions of culture. They live on this. Different sides of the spectrums. And one is such that you watch it once and you never want to see it again. And music just keeps on compounding and keeps on compounding. And so I think that that's such an interesting thing. And if you put the business side on top of it, you look at what it costs typically to produce visual content. It's like way more expensive. An episode of Game of Thrones. I don't. How much are we going to get? Like $10 million?
- [03:04]
B
10 to $20 million.
- [03:05]
A
10 to $20 million. And you only get to pay off once, because if I've seen it once, I'm not going to see it again. So if I want to rack up like millions of interactions and really make that IP valuable, I have to find so many people. Music, on the other hand, is infinitely cheaper to produce. And one person can consume the same track thousands and thousands of times. I just think that thinking about this continuum, like, where does podcasts sit in that short form, long form, how does games play into this? Like, so just thinking about the continuum, I find that to be so fascinating. So I'll stop there. In terms of do you agree?
- [03:40]
B
I think you're right and I think it's because I think music becomes the soundtrack of our life and the universal language of our soul. And I don't want to get too poetic about this, but I think sound is energy and wavelength and there's certain sounds that we find to be really pleasant and certain sounds that we are kind of that make us scared or certain things that allow us to think clearer. And I find that when I'm writing a deck or something and I'm doing serious work, I want to listen to instrumental and I want to listen to something that tickles my brain. And I think there's a playlist on Spotify called Brain Food. Started listening to them, like, oh, these tracks are really good for me. And I get into routine. So now I just make sure I have the Brain Food playlist.
- [04:25]
A
That's interesting.
- [04:25]
B
What are your thoughts on this kind of like this universal language of our soul?
- [04:29]
A
I 100% agree. It reminds me of an incident that happened a couple of years ago. So I live in Stockholm, Sweden, which is in the middle of nowhere. But one day I was invited to my. My youngest son had bring a parent to School day and he asked me to come, which in itself was amazing. And so I show up and I bring my Spotify playlist, I bring a little speaker and I get in front of the class. And what you should be envisioning is 25, 7 year olds at the time. And they're all super excited. There's a teacher involved as well. And I have like 10, 15 minutes and I stand in front of the class. I'll first paint a picture, then I'll get to the substance. So I stand in front of the class and I open my mouth and I say, hey, everyone, I'm Seth Stad. And uh, and I'm right here to talk about my job. Um, I know that many of you think that I work with music, which is true, but what I actually do is I work with emotions because music is the language of emotion. And I can prove it to you. And I see sort of this bewildered look on the teacher's face and the kids sort of, they're skirting around, they're sitting in their seats and I can tell that they don't want to be sitting in their seats because they're seven, right? And so first track I play, I say that, well, I bet you I can make you think of a season, a time of year. And I start playing this super Christmas oriented track. And so is this summer? And the kids go, no. Is it spring?
- [05:57]
B
No.
- [05:59]
A
Is it autumn? No, it's Christmas. I then start playing tracks to the soundtracks to things like Frozen, like what immediately comes to mind. And they start talking about Elsa and this and popcorn and mom and dad and television and joy. I play try to born and realize they're a bit too small. So they're like, I don't really understand what this is. But I play track after track and it's so clear that music is very much the direct language of emotion. So if I take a step back and just reflect on what you're saying, I completely agree. Because I think that music is the language of emotions. And I think that done right, what it does, it taps into that emotion and it either catches onto an emotion and it amplifies it to your brain food point, or music can also have the direct opposite approach. As in, it's something that's. That's a numb to soothe something. You might be feeling giddy and you want to be feeling focused. You might feel focused, but you want to be feeling joyful. And so you can use it as very much a tool to sometimes augment. I don't want to say manipulate because it sounds dishonest, but you can very much form how you feel and view the world. So I think that it's an incredible, powerful tool. And maybe I think part of the power sits in that it's so pure, because most of the time, I feel it does one thing. Whereas storytelling on the continuum, that's a more complex product. It tries to take you to a story. It wants to impose something on you, like, come on my narrative journey. I want you to feel excitement, curiosity, then this, then this and this, and you disconnect what you're feeling and you engage in something. And maybe your mind is spent after that, because I think music is such. It's a way more simp. It's almost like you're exercising an emotional reaction with yourself.
- [07:46]
B
I also think about, like, how music and sound can influence our own physiology, and we have a reaction to that beyond maybe emotions. When you watch a movie, I don't know if you've paid attention to this, but like a horror film, when they start to play the heartbeat, and then they play the heartbeat in a rhythm that's faster than your normal heartbeat, I think it signals your heart to beat fast.
- [08:07]
A
Yeah, I think it does.
- [08:07]
B
And you get a little scared and a little. Little perspiration and you're short of breath. And it's. That's why I also think when we need to calm down, we practice the breathing thing to slow our heart rate down intentionally. But music can be the trigger for that and help us to sync with it.
- [08:22]
A
I think that's absolutely right. And it's interesting because the last time we met in person, we were in Dubai, and There were two YouTubers who I met who were going on the stage for the first time, and they were disclosing their true identities in the sense that the content they put, which has tens of millions of followers, you can only see their hands and they're making food. And so the guys were super sweet. They were a bit nervous about being on stage, and so they asked for a bit of advice. We feel so nervous. And just a week before, I'd listened to a podcast where there was this epic piece of advice. I felt, and I said that as humans, we are genetically trained to. As soon as we are put in danger, our heartbeat goes up, similar to your point, and we start moving quicker. There's cortisol and endorphins that trigger in your body, and you start moving quickly. And as a bystander, as an onlooker, if you see somebody moving quickly and the pulse goes up, you Immediately equate that with fear, discomfort. And it's relevant because the person then said that if you ever find yourself in a studio like this or on a stage performing in front of people and you find yourself super nervous, there's one rule of thumb, which is whatever you do, make sure that you preferably talk, but more importantly, move slightly slower than everyone else on the stage. Because if you do, all the onlookers will pay a lot of attention to what you're saying. Other people come across as distressed, not on top of their game on their subject matter, but if you just move slow, you send out an incredible vibe that everyone feels that you are in control. So back to your point. I definitely think that the way we think about music at Epidemic is if you think about food. So food without taste is literally empty calories. So this bland, tasteless piece of food is amazing. Said no one. Ever, right? But if you add taste, if you add umami, it not only becomes memorable, but if you do it right, it becomes unforgettable. And the exact same thing is true with content. So if you put out a piece of video, piece of content, and you don't have audio, you don't have sound, you don't have the heartbeat you reference, it's like empty calories. You can understand that content, but you can never feel it. And you're never going to see it become memorable and forget about it being unforgettable. But as soon as you add, like, heartbeats is one way of creating that umami or music or sound beds or. And you use that in a more sophisticated way, immediately amazing things happen. It's like you connect, you react, your heartbeat increases. So it's. I think it's fascinating. If you look at all your different senses, you can choose. See if I can remember all five of them. You can choose not to touch something, and you can choose not to taste something. You can choose not to smell something by closing off your nose or breathing with your mouth. And you can choose to close your eyes. You don't want to watch something. The one sense that you cannot turn off is your ears. They're always on. And I think that that has to do with danger, but also communicating. I've been told that people who. Like people who lose their sight, it's a tragedy. And I always thought that that would be the most devastating sense to lose. But what I've actually heard is that people who lose their hearing, they feel so secluded, so cut off from society. So the amount of depression and worse is way higher. So I really think that audio is this incredibly important sensitary tool that we have. Like, skins is obviously the biggest organ, but you can never turn your ears up. And so to your point, I think it's super powerful, and it's so interesting to get to work with it.
- [12:08]
B
Somebody who's going to be listening to this or watching this is going to say, well, Oscar has a dog in this fight. He has a horse in this race, because it's clearly epidemic sound that you're biased. So let's. Let's try and understand all this, everybody, so you don't have to take Oscar's word for, let's try this. Pick a movie, any movie you want to watch. Watch it without sound.
- [12:28]
A
Yeah.
- [12:29]
B
See how you feel.
- [12:30]
A
Yep.
- [12:31]
B
And then turn off the tv, but just listen to the same clip and see how you feel. You can come to your own conclusion. And I've done this myself because I don't want to be, like, sitting here drinking the Kool Aid without testing. Now, this is super weird because we've not talked about this before, but you brought up an example that I've asked my wife. Now, we're both designers, we're mostly visual processors, so we think. So I asked her, if you had to give up one of the two, which would you give up, Your ability to see or your ability to hear? First? She's like, I don't need to hear. I need to see. I need to see things. I said, okay, so how do you feel what it is that I'm trying to communicate to you? That words shape our emotions, shape our. Our memories, and we create stories with that. I've always wondered how deaf people really communicate because they have sign. But is there a nuanced sign for every word that is in the English language? I don't think so. I don't know this for a fact, so I hope I'm not offending anybody. But I think because they've lost their ability to hear, they're losing so much more than what we think. And so I told her, if I don't have my eyes, I can still communicate. I can still make content. I can still connect with people. But if I can't speak or hear, I can sign to them. But I feel like I've lost a lot of the nuance and the vocabulary that I have to communicate very specific ideas. What are your thoughts?
- [13:59]
A
If I take a step back, I think that one of our species remarkable achievements is that we've mastered storytelling. It started many hundreds of thousands of years ago, arguably millions of years ago. Like the invent of fire. So communicating, telling people, so how do you start a fire? A fire, how do you keep it? How do you keep it alive? Eventually looking out for each other, sort of strength in numbers. Eventually that evolved into society and now mapping the genome and sort of AI and what it is. But it all hinges on the ability for us to not only capture facts and convey them, but I think it's been said about our species that we are like, we're very poor at committing to multi generational endeavors. As in it tends to be short periods of time, we can focus. But I think that the red thread, and there are a few exceptions of education is one, I think religion is another one, even though they change over time. But I think that the power to um, encourage enthusia and seeing this word, like be enthusiastic about something, like tell a story. I think that yes, there is a visual component to that which is important. But if I were to be forced to choose, like the ability to be able to listen into other people's stories, their endeavors, their emotions, their feelings, to communicate these nuances myself, like that's something that I would never be willing to trade. And I think that I'm not an outlier. I think the one thing which is less spoken about is that I think we live in a renaissance of storytelling. And what I mean by that is if you look at short form, long form, binge watching, tweets, few characters, many characters, like advertising, subscription, the substacks of the world, like storytelling has had like one of the best runs in human history. And I think that underpinning that obviously is technology. But I think that one of the great things about technology now is that it is an unlock. So we are seeing a democratization. So these islands that you talk about, think about squid game, think about Swedish show, Swedish music that previously had a tough time reaching out. It's easier than ever now to publish your music anywhere or distribute your ideas, your content, your spoken word. I think that we're seeing two things being true at the same time. So one, the juggernaut brands are gaining a lot of ground, but also there's much more local influence of having more of a global impact. And I find that to be fascinating. I hope that we're moving to a world which is going to be even more eclectic, more mixed, because content can travel so much faster, so much more efficiently. And it, it's starting more to come down to raw talent as opposed to distribution and being a gatekeeper.
- [16:53]
B
The way that you describe Epidemic kind of fits very in line With I think of what I think of Swedish culture. So I think Ikea, it's like decent furniture for all. Like you can have a stylish home for all at an affordable price. H and M, is that a Swedish company?
- [17:08]
A
Yes.
- [17:08]
B
Correct. H and M. You say what you want about that, but it's like clothing for all.
- [17:13]
A
Yeah.
- [17:13]
B
And your whole thing is like, shouldn't we all be able to have the same power of using music? So you describe this democratization of emotion for everyone to have access to. And so then I'm thinking, like, what else is there? And so I guess we're all a product, for better or for worse, of our culture, of our belief systems. Right. Because we live within that. It's not like a bubble that exists outside of that. Now, I wanted to bring back this thing because you mentioned it, but then I forgot you were talking about this. You grew up in the UK.
- [17:43]
A
Yes.
- [17:44]
B
For 12 years.
- [17:44]
A
Yes.
- [17:46]
B
And you said you moved around a lot.
- [17:48]
A
Yes.
- [17:49]
B
And maybe you felt okay being in the uk, but you've always been standing out for one reason or the other. Being born much bigger, heavier than most. And being a Swedish person in the UK and then being an English born, but Swede back, you know, and having the language vocabulary fewer.
- [18:08]
A
There's always friction.
- [18:09]
B
There's always something weird.
- [18:10]
A
Right.
- [18:10]
B
And so this is. There's a parallel. I'm not trying to equate the two of us together, but I've had that same kind of adversity. I didn't have the same lovely experience you might have had growing up. But I think sometimes when things go too smoothly, we kind of just fit into like what the norm is. Absolutely. And sometimes to create big bold ideas, I think you have to be yourself used to overcoming certain things and figuring things out as you go.
- [18:34]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think that the continuation of the arc, the story you're telling here is that I think that basically all great things come from adversary and from friction, sometimes friction and sometimes of downright disaster and catastrophe. And I think it's common knowledge that, or it's common belief that creativity has to come from that place. And to some extent I agree. I think that you need to experience life changing events in order to have some kind of content context, be able to compare and contrast. And in that void something interesting happens then that needs to be paired with discipline. Because I think that getting great stuff out there eventually is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. So you need to work. But it's interesting to me that. So sports people go to sports camps and they train and they exercise, and everyone basically follows the same diet industry regime, or they follow the same coaches and the same pieces of advice, yet they all expect to win. How are you going to win if everyone plays by the exact same rule and exercises and trains the exact same way? You're not going to be exceptional, you're going to be same to everyone else. And I think that the same is true when you want to innovate and when you want to create things. You can't just follow a pack and do exactly what everyone else did and then hope to come up with a great idea or create something which has some cultural relevance or genius innovation. From a technology perspective, you have to put yourself in a position of massive exposure to risk. I found that all of the biggest leaps that I've done, both professionally and privately, tend to be associated with huge setbacks, as in disasters. Because that's the only time where you truly say, you know what, screw it, I'm just going to go all in. And I need to understand this because I have nothing to lose now. I'm desperate. And then something happens. And so I think that you need to oscillate between that. And yet a lot of people try and optimize by getting the oscillation down as much as possible, because you want to be smooth, it's easy, you want to chill. But that's not, in my experience, the recipe. To have exceptional outcomes, you need to be okay with pain, suffering, hurt. Sacrifice, I think, is a huge part of it. Do you agree?
- [21:04]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this reminds me of something I believe Jeff Bezos said, that failure and innovation or invention are inseparable twins. You have to be willing to make a giant, big mess of things. And I love that you said it's part of Swedish culture. Like the social net is so strong that you're encouraged to try and fail and you don't have to have catastrophic failure that you can get yourself up, if so motivated and try again and try again.
- [21:35]
A
So it's all connected. Because the cost of that, obviously, is again, having taxes eat that we pay. The majority of your salary goes to taxes. Let that sink in. The majority of what you make goes into taxes. And so that's a huge toll. And a lot of people say this is unacceptable. Well, it is. If you don't utilize the fact that if that's the. If that's the suffering, if that's what you have to offer to participate, the upside is you get 50 different runs that you're different ideas because everything else, like the key things in life, they will be provided for you. No, you're not going to have a super flashy lifestyle, but it will work and you will live to fight and see another day. And so it continues. So I think that there are always these trade offs.
- [22:19]
B
Do you have people that are Swedish who say, I'm tired of this tax, I'm going to go move somewhere where the tax is lower all the time? All the time, yeah.
- [22:26]
A
So it happens.
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B
Okay.
- [22:29]
A
I don't think it's a one size fits all. I think that the whole notion of states and this is just stating the obvious. Right. But I think that states are important, but I would argue less so in the sense of I feel less familiarity with fellow Swedes than I do with say people like yourself or people who have sort of experienced similar things or who pursue similar things but in different parts of the world. So I see more of this being a global citizen where somebody in Stockholm probably has much more in common with somebody in New York or in like Tokyo than a town In Sweden with 20,000 people like Khalefti or Sundsvall or like small towns in Sweden where yes, we speak the same language, but it ends there. And so I think as a consequence, it doesn't come as a surprise at all to me that a lot of people subscribe to different worldviews. So they move where they feel that they have more excitement, more community, more, more friction even. Because I think some people look for friction because they've realized that friction is the umami. Friction is the spice that makes things interesting. And so they're looking for that adversity in culture or in language or in just process try and getting a Social Security number when you move to the, to the U.S. like first getting into the U.S. is a challenge in itself. But then Social Security, like the whole cat catch 22, you can't get electricity to your house until you, you have to provide an electricity bill. In order to do that you need Social Security, but you can't get Social Security until you have an electricity bill. So like you can't get in. And so there are many problems that need solving and a lot of people are drawn to some different adventures.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah, perhaps they're saying, I don't want somebody to prescribe to me via tax how much risk I want to take because you're paying the risk tax.
- [24:29]
A
Right.
- [24:30]
B
So somebody's like, I'm going to go crazy, I'm going to go for this and if I Fail, I'll pick myself up at a different way. I'll live out of cardboard box if I have to, and at least allow me to eat the fruit of my own labor. So I think the problem here is that it's not great that you pay a lot of tax, but at least you get your money's worth with the programs that you have, the great social network or this net network. And in the US we pay. California, Louisiana, we pay a lot of taxes. Our streets are dirty, our public services are not great. Or in places where they have lead in the water or it's rusty brown water coming out of the pipes, at least you have clean water. So I'm happy to pay. And I love this part about you. And I think there's another thing we had in common that I didn't realize. You were like, I want to pay my taxes. I want to support this idea of the collective, and I'm for that. And I met with my financial advisor many years ago, and he goes, chris, we're going to try to reduce your tax obligation. I said, okay, but let's keep this in the white. Definitely not in the black, but I'm not even that interested in the gray. He goes, what's wrong with you? I said, it's my duty to pay tax. I get to live in this country. This country welcomed us in, and if we don't pay tax, who will pay tax? And I don't know who said it. I think it was Warren Buffett who said, if the richest people in America just paid their fair share of taxes, no more than everybody else, no one else would have to pay tax. But it's the problem that we have this weird system in America I don't want to get into, but it seems like the bottom is doing all the heavy lifting in terms of supporting our infrastructure.
- [26:06]
A
I mean, I agree, and I would try and sort of take one step back and to move away from tax, because I think that if you look at life, and this is my personal view, we're on this rock, which is flying around in space. The only thing we know that we're all going to be dead eventually. And some people argue it's all pointless, yet we want to have some meaning in it. And for me, super simple. We're put on the Earth for blink of an eye, very short period of time. We have one job. We're custodians of this rock for tiny fraction of time. And you got one job, like, leave the world slightly better than you found it. Yeah, it's that simple. And you can apply that to literally everything you do. When my kids and I go to the beach, which isn't super often because we live in Sweden, it's always cold. But when we go, I've been there when we go, it's super. We always take three pieces of trash with us from the beach. Why? Because we came to the beach, it's beautiful, but we want to leave it slightly better and we found it. And I think if you try and find ways to apply that. This sounds a bit goody two shoes and it sounds a bit pretentious. You can flip it around like it's 100% egoistic. Because I think that over time what I found is of paying it forward and sort of engaging in your community and people and helping lead something better. Like nothing gives me as sustainable joy is that I can have much harder, higher, shorter peaks which are more of ecstasy or so I'm really excited. But long term sustaining happiness comes from contributing to leaving the world a better place. And you can wear many different hats. I often think like, okay, as a friend, am I doing that now as a partner, as a son? My dad was in hospital the other day because so it turned out okay. But so just immediately I'm on the other side of the world. You reach out and you commit to your colleagues, to your co workers, to my investors, to my community, to my alumni in my school. There are many different ways to think about it. And I don't see them as obligations, but they're more opportunities. Like what are some of the small things that I can do at the marginal expense to myself. But I just know that if everyone did that. Life becomes also easier when you have kids because a lot of the times I ask my questions, as in our oldest daughter, Stella, she turns 18 in March. She's in the other side of the world in Australia. So we spoke this morning and there's a 17 hour time difference. Just blows my mind. And I find myself thinking a lot how I conduct myself. I ask myself the question is if my 17 year old daughter met me or sort of like the equivalent to me in Australia. How that person treated her is of how I sort of need or how I think about myself and how I conduct myself when I meet other people. So I was in Stockholm the other day. I saw this super sweet couple. They had this electric car, they couldn't charge it, they obviously didn't come from, from Sweden. And so the credit cards didn't work, nothing worked at all. And they were super duper stressed. And so they asked Me broken English, like, can you help us understand this? And we tried the different cards. Nothing worked. And I mentioned I was thinking, like, if this was my daughter. Other side of the world, these things happen. Like, what's the charge? So they need to charge us $20. They're desperate. And I sort of took out my card, I blipped and I paid it. I paid for them. And they're like, oh, but we can't pay you back. I know, it's cool. Like, you're going to do the same thing for someone else. Because one day you might be meeting my daughter on the other side of the world. And I use that as a way of thinking about, I wish more people thought that way. And so it's these small different things. So if you apply that. And again, I don't do that because I'm goody two shoes. Because I want to be go down in history. I left that. I tell that story now. It gives me goosebumps because I feel good creating value for someone else without the expectation of something in return. That, over time, just fills me with pride. Like, we have one job. Leave the world slightly better than we found it. That's what you should be doing, in my opinion.
- [30:08]
B
I think there's some quote, I'm probably gonna mess it up. But, like, doing good is good business.
- [30:14]
A
Yeah.
- [30:15]
B
So why don't we be governed by doing good? Things may or may not happen on the timeline that you might expect. But I believe in that one could refer to that bringing us back into the woo is like, it's karma.
- [30:27]
A
Yeah.
- [30:27]
B
And so you're making a deposit in the bank of karma. So have good karmic equity, which compounds interest over time. I have this weird theory that the way that you are inside your. Your heart shapes your face. When you look at a person, you notice, like, sometimes you're like, that person's up to no good. I can't trust that person or that person. I'm going to let him stay in my place. I'm not worried about. And one is said to have a kind face or a suspicious face. And I've been thinking about this a lot. Why is it that people have a suspicious face, wind up doing no good? And why is it more often than not that people who seem like they're very kind are kind? And so there's a stereotypical depiction of Buddha as a fat bald man with really big earlobes, a round nose, and just smiles.
- [31:14]
A
Yeah.
- [31:14]
B
When you look at that person versus the depiction of Christ. And they're very different images. But when I look at Buddha, I know it's a, like almost like not even Buddha anymore. It's just a character. Yeah. But you look at it and like that person just looks really kind and at peace. They're communicating all those things. So do you think that there might be something there? Like when you have a kind spirit that actually shapes your face and your body, what do you think? Have you noticed that?
- [31:39]
A
Let that sink in? Do I think so? Yes, I think that that's very much the case. I think that it probably manifests in how you look. But back to where we were before, in terms of how you move, how you conduct yourself. I think that we live in this world of AI right? And I think that humans are surprisingly sophisticated. And so it's turning out so we can have LLMs do things which are very, very difficult for us humans to pull off. But the things that we take for granted, like sort of dressing ourselves or caressing a cheek or sor. Opening a package, sort of soliciting advice, expressing compassion, like, that's way, way, way more difficult because it's super, super complicated for machines to understand that because there's so many different layers, so many different components to it. So I tend to agree with you. I think that it's like your actions manifest not just in your face per se, but I think it also. I think we send out some pheromones and we have like this multi layer of signals that help build trust. I know that I've been told that I can build trust. One of my brothers told me that one of my superpowers is that I can be persuasive. As in. And I think it comes down to. I've tried to break it down is even though it might not come across here today because I'm talking non stop, but I pride myself on being a good listener. I ask more questions. I like to read people, rooms, contexts. I think that people have different propensities to pick things up. I think I can pick up sentiments of unspoken things. I remember I was on a trip once to Africa and I found myself in a bazaar where they were selling rugs and all different kinds of things. And it was a maze, and this is many, many years ago. And I took a left, I took a right, so I was just comfortable being completely lost. And I made a series of turns and suddenly I found myself in an outdoor slaughter environment in this bazaar, slightly open skies. But the moment I got in there, even before I could localize where I was, because I was taking all these different turns, my Entire body jolted. And so I felt very, very strongly that there was a completely different vibe in this area. And it took me a few seconds to realize, but then. So this was where animals were being slaughtered and where food was being made. And it was clear to me that there was, there was so much pheromones, so much, I think, anxiety going on that it was just, it was one of those moments that I often come back to think about. Because again, I'm not a spiritual person. I like to be able to explain things. But going back to the chakras and the feelings and Buddha, I think that there are many different complex layers with which we can both broadcast and appreciate signal. And they might manifest in our facial expressions and things that we can hear, things that people say, things that they don't say, like hesitation, how your eye works, like where you Internet. And so I definitely think that this realm is like super interesting, but I don't really have the tools to break it. Also I have to rely on intuition and listen to you. And it's a feed off of that.
- [35:28]
B
That, that moment that you're describing could be the animal screaming in fear.
- [35:33]
A
Yeah.
- [35:34]
B
And their sound waves leave an imprint of the materials, the porous materials, the things that can absorb that. And it's.
- [35:41]
A
Or pheromone and smell that they put out that I can't, it's soaked in, into the material. I think. Yeah, there was something going on there.
- [35:48]
B
And you, you know, because the visible light spectrum is so small relative to the light spectrum. So we can only see some things and some people are extrasensory where they can, they can see color, not see color, they can hear color.
- [36:01]
A
That's amazing. I learned that at university. Yeah. A friend of mine, I'd never heard that before and she said, yeah, so something was yellow, this was red, this was green.
- [36:10]
B
Yes.
- [36:11]
A
Like, what do you mean?
- [36:11]
B
Because you hear.
- [36:12]
A
And she explained that to me. That was crazy.
- [36:15]
B
There's a friend of mine who said there's a famous composer who's worked on a lot of different songs. His entire house is all white because it messes him up because the colors emit sound. And so I think what's happening is we're starting to crack this puzzle where we think the natural world is finite to what we can perceive. But that's a very self centered point of view where animals can see infrared, they can see lots of things. So some animals look at you and like they're afraid of you. Some animals will run up to you and lick your, lick your hand or your feet and you're like, why is that? Because you're emitting an energy. They're reading your face and the pheromones and everything else. But my theory is this, is that if you worry a lot, generally speaking, you have a lot of worry lines. And some people get like dark rings under their eyes probably because they're not getting a lot of sleep because they're worrying a lot.
- [37:02]
A
Or jet lag. Jet lag.
- [37:03]
B
Or like five days of south by Southwest could do that. More kids. Yeah, who knows? Not always, you know, jump to conclusions here but. Or people who are always judging people, they furrow their eyebrows so they have this deep lining there. So that's a permanent record of you if they have any emotion or expression. And so I'm always looking at people and like when I look at you and you're talking, you have a kind face. You have. It's seeming like an open heart and spirit. So maybe that's why you're persuasive. Maybe people are giving you more of their attention or, or in your audience because they're reading something that's non verbal, just putting it out there.
- [37:41]
A
Maybe. I think that one piece of content which borders art that I saw many, many years ago was a TED Talk and it's related to this because I think that speaking for myself, I tend to subscribe to the worldview that experiences and I think accomplishments or skills are something that we need to appreciate and develop over time. As in you start with very little and then you are determined or persuaded to train. You exercise the muscle. So creativity could be a muscle you exercise or focus or whatever your desired outcome might be, you can train to that. So I always subscribe to that worldview until I, I challenged or I got challenged. And so I see this TED Talk many years ago. Many people have probably seen it because it's one of the most viewed. I think it's a British man. His name was Sir Tim Robinson and he was a brief period of time he was in charge of the British school system.
- [38:47]
B
Oh, Sir Ken Robinson.
- [38:49]
A
So that's the 1 number 1 most viewed TED Talk. Sir Ken Robinson is what I'm getting at. He's done multiple talks and I find them all to be fascinating. But one of his ideas is the exact opposite of what I just expressed, which is he tells this story, story about a classroom somewhere in the south of UK and the teacher's walking around the room and different kids are given an assignment and they're asked to draw something and kids are drawing away and she's Walking around and she's looking at different paintings. And she walks up to little Timmy and Timmy sits there and she goes, well, hello Timmy, what are you drawing? And Timmy goes, I'm drawing God. And she goes, timmy, are you drawing God? Yeah, but nobody knows what God looks like. And Timmy looks up and he smiles and he says they will in a minute. And so his whole premise is that people in general, dare I say everyone, is born creative. Yes. And then the world kind of beats that out of you because you're encouraged not to experiment, not to make mistakes, not to raise your hand unless you know the answer, not to succumb and expose yourself to embarrassment. And so people become less expressive and they fall out of being creative and they fall out of taking risk as opposed to training to achieve that outcome. And it stuck with me forever because I think that there's infinite wisdom to that. I think that a lot of people, both things potentially can be true at the same time. But I do think that a lot of people are born creative and curious and have these traits. And you need to be mindful, both as a parent, but also when you work with yourself to try and embrace and protect the things that you have such that they don't diminish, while at the same time trying to build the other traits and characteristics that you would like to pursue and you'd like that.
- [40:36]
B
We're at south by Southwest. I'm stealing you from important things.
- [40:40]
A
What could be more important than this?
- [40:41]
B
This is 30 or 40 people are like working in the booth, meeting new people. You're a title sponsor here. I've really enjoyed our conversation. I want to bookend it a little bit and take it where we started, which was the replayability of music versus movies. So here are some of my thoughts on. Because I'm going to make a not. Not a different argument, but just the difference. Music, I think, can be experienced in a non sequential way. Music is abstract and it can be interpreted like poetry. And so it can be individualized for the person. Movies, on the other hand, are. There's a very clear sequence of beginning, middle and ending. And if. If it's in the hands of a masterful storyteller, it's designed to elicit very specific emotions and to get you to feel very specific way. And so its ability to be replayed over and over again is diminished because if it's designed carefully, it gives you the exact same experience over and over again. Whereas sometimes when you listen to music, you hear a lyric or a note because of your frame in a Completely different way. And there's something about it that we can vibe with it just purely on an emotional level and not like a narrative logical level. And I think that's why you can listen to a song almost infinitely now. If you're listening to the same song in too short of a period of song, it'll drive you crazy, I think.
- [41:59]
A
Right.
- [42:00]
B
But if you listen to enough of it, that's why we have our favorite songs. Why on my playlist, some songs have been played hundreds of times, but I can't say any movie I've ever watched 100 times.
- [42:10]
A
I think you're right. And I think that the nuance or the incredible nature of music and why we've devoted our lives to work with it is what you're saying is true. And that becomes so interesting to work with. Because the exact same piece of abstract music, and we see this time and time again when that gets selected from storytellers and it gets put in the exact same piece of music because it's abstract, but it gets dropped into a story. And in this case, five different stories, the exact same piece of music, depending on the arc of the story that's being told, can evoke desire, fear, regret, remorse, sort of happiness. All of the above. And so I think that the interplay between music and visual content, like the whole premise of soundtracking, is so incredibly rich because there are so many different outcomes, so many different variables, so many different ways to create these compelling stories, whether they're standalone and more predictable, or if they're put into a context where the exact same thing can happen, dramatically different meaning for people and evoke different emotions.
- [43:20]
B
In that way, I think music is much more versatile. It's not the painting, it's the pigment. And you get to paint. And in the hands of each artist, we get to tell our own stories. It is blue or it's red. So it's limited as to what you can do with it, but what you can do with it is quite amazing and far reaching, I think.
- [43:39]
A
Soundtrack of our lives. It's amazing.
- [43:41]
B
Beautiful. Thanks for doing this with me, Oscar.
- [43:43]
A
Thank you so much for having me. This is an amazing experience for me.
- [43:46]
B
Oh, I love talking to you. I think I only scratch the surface of the kinds of things that we can dive into. So, you know, when you're in front of somebody who has a life and a perspective and doing things other than just doing their work, I think it's so easy to have a conversation. So I hope, dear listeners, you've enjoyed this conversation with Oscar. He's the CEO of Epidemic Sound. If you don't know what it is, we will provide some links in the description. Be sure to check that out. If you're watching this on YouTube, the links are in the show notes. Check them out. Thank you very much.
- [44:13]
A
Thank you.