Conner Howard is a voice actor, writer, podcaster, and musician. Recent works include his role as Deputy Jack Harris in the audio drama Oakbridge and as Elder Castro in In The Keep's upcoming video game Stellar Valkyrie. Here we engage in a profound discussion on the intricacies of art, personal growth, and the challenges faced in both creative and familial life.
Book Recommendation
Chapters
00:00 Start
3:12 Exploring Doom and Gaming Lore
5:11 The Witcher and Dune Discussions
7:56 The Value of Networking
14:15 Balancing Passion and Stability
19:54 The Audio Drama Revival
25:50 Theater and Live Performance
30:55 The Musical Landscape
37:30 The Writing Process
53:36 Embracing Parenthood
57:59 The Path to Voice Acting
1:06:58 Understanding the Craft of Voice Acting
1:19:12 The Importance of Emotion in Acting
1:54:35 The Burden of Expectations
Transcript
Tyler:
[0:01] Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have no charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
Tyler:
[0:09] And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing.
Tyler:
[0:20] And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to the burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind Charity envieth not Charity faunteth not itself Is not puffed up Doth not behave itself unseemly Seeketh not her own Is not easily provoked Thinketh no evil Rejoiceth not in antiquity But rejoiceth in the truth Beareth all things Believeth in all things Hopeth all things Endureth all things Charity never faileth, But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part.
Tyler:
[1:09] But when that which is perfect is come, when that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face, now I know in part. But then shall I know even, also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.
Tyler:
[1:44] St. Paul the Apostle.
Music:
[1:46] Music
Tyler:
[2:15] So what have you been up to since, I don't know, when was the last time we did a podcast together?
Conner:
[2:20] It's not been a century or something. It's been several years. A lot's happened. You know, if I'm looking back through my long-term memory, you and I, I think we first met, I want to say back in like 2020, 21, maybe?
Tyler:
[2:37] That's totally likely. yeah.
Conner:
[2:39] Because the podcast i was doing at the time was kind of we were doing a few episodes on doom on the doom games specifically that was around the time doom eternal came out i want to say it was
Tyler:
[2:51] It was leading up to doom eternal because you guys yeah i'm like that first you did the series where you were talking about like the history of the lore of doom and then it was like yeah then you guys did a whole separate one about like and here's what doom now with all the yeah
Tyler:
[3:07] and then yeah now now you have the dark ages which is going to rewrite fucking everything else too so i.
Conner:
[3:12] Know i i'm pretty psyched for the dark ages it looks really fun um and yeah i think back then it was basically like oh yeah we're doing these episodes on doom we're just kind of exploring the lore of the doom games and all that and i would really like to collab with other podcasters who are interested in you know that topic and topics like so i think i literally just like trolled through twitter for a while like doom podcasts or i googled it or something i somehow came across in the keep and dm'd you and
Tyler:
[3:41] The rest is history with way too much to say yeah, i i was honored because i felt like i'm the last person like because i was studying doom so much at the time it was like i'm the last person in the world who should be an expert i'm talking to experts learning about this i didn't play doom back in then i wasn't even born when the game came out you know and then like i i think it was like 2019 when i really got into the community surrounding doom and like learning about all the you know like it's a shit show man like it's just it's it's worse than a so an old lady sewing circle just people monkeys throwing crap at each other for years for like decades of just nonsense sounds about right but some really cool things in the interim a lot of creativity and so absolutely the expanded universe of like just you know map packs and mods that people have made and like all of the different multiplayer everything in gaming nowadays owes its lineage back to its software i mean, That's just true. And to an extent, also Unreal, who owe their advances to id Software as well.
Conner:
[4:56] Yeah. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. It all started somewhere, and everyone inspires everyone else. So it's a beautiful thing when you look back at who was inspired by who and for what reasons.
Tyler:
[5:09] For sure.
Conner:
[5:09] It's amazing.
Tyler:
[5:12] But you guys did so many other cool things as well. You guys did a series on The Witcher, and you did one on Dune before. I think before the movies series came out even you guys were talking about like the background like it's so yeah so neat i just uh i've never actually read the books but i was just like thinking about your studying doom i was taking a well listening to a podcast series that i was required to take for the class that i'm doing and they broke down dune and they also broke down uh asimov's foundation series like and like how they relate to sort of like masonic symbolism and hermetic philosophy and all that stuff and it's wild. But, you got, in a way, you were doing that, you were ahead of your curve.
Conner:
[5:57] Oh, yeah, I got a shout out to my good friend Abu Zafar there. He was the, basically founder and executive producer of the Little Party podcast network that I've been involved in for years and, yeah, the Dune spinoff, the show's called Gam Jabbar, the, you know, the Dune series spinoff, that was his baby, that was his brain shot and I think he saw he saw the um the demand for a deep dive series like that into the frank herbert you know sort of mythos and he really really just dove in and was really dedicated to it and that that show as has gone like into the stratosphere like their their audience is crazy like they uh they've done really well so i'm really proud of a boo on that one and uh yeah no i'm just i'm really glad i got involved with the lore party guys because it was a lot of fun and it's been yeah i've i've met in some other you know really interesting creatives like yourselves and it's it's uh it's a good world to be in you know just podcasting because you know when people who like to talk about nerdy shit and they like to get together and nerd out at each other it's it's a good space to be in uh socially like i don't socialize much so this is a it's
Tyler:
[7:12] Like professional networking really like and not just like connecting with people on linkedin that you think might have a potential business interest but like talk like deliberately having conversations, or in your case deliberately studying topics that are genuinely interesting to you and right when you build those connections like they can last a lot you know you might be working on something down the road together with that person that you met through another person or whatever it's so great i've told so many people like if you're thinking about going to college, Please consider if you're going to go into debt for it, you know, and it's not, you're going to be a lawyer or a doctor, just start a podcast and just learn, just, then you have a reason to just like go up to someone and ask them about what they do.
Tyler:
[7:56] Um, and then when you go to apply for a job or whatever it is, it's like, okay, let's just say you came to me and you're like, I want to work it in the keep. I'm like, cool. And then you're like, I went to college for two years and got an associate's degree in game designers or i produced a podcast and i talked to 400 people who were probably more qualified on the subject than my college professor was.
Conner:
[8:18] And it's
Tyler:
[8:20] Pretty easy to pick at that point yeah.
Conner:
[8:22] You're really you're really doing the work when you yeah you do the research you do the networking you do the the producing the recording the editing like it is it is a job like you really are exercising like marketable skills when you do something like this for you know fun fact well it's not that fun but it's a fact i i was actually between full-time jobs for a little while like last year year before 23 yeah through uh part of 23 part of 24 um and i was really leaning on like hey i i'm still podcasting at least and that's something i could say in interviews like hey i still have a present position as producer on this media network basically that's what it was and that was a sort of almost like a project management position that i could point to like this is a valuable experience where i've managed deadlines and i've uh supervised other people and yeah networked and yeah or yeah organized projects basically it was good it was good to have that
Tyler:
[9:19] The other thing i think people get so mixed up in this but like you don't have to tell someone that you did something for no money or for like whatever like you're just like what do you do for a living i'm like i'm a podcaster like oh really like, you you do that and i'm like yes for many years now i have been a podcaster and it's like they don't need to know that most of that was like me working another job and or whatever the hell you know and i've been pretty public about like what i do and it's not now i only do in the in the keep which is a fucking blessing like the greatest gift i've ever had is just work for yourself but um but there were years of like there was no way i could do this without a full-time job to back it up right.
Conner:
[9:58] Right yeah when i when i got like it's that's that's very true when i got into voice acting a couple of around the same time uh yeah about five years ago now almost five years ago now um it was with the same understanding of like i might not ever make a living off of this but it is going to it is something that could be an outlet for passion it could be like this is what will keep me going when i make my when i make my living doing something else i don't really care about but it pays the bills you know it's like there can be you know i have that work that sustains me and kind of brings the money in and then the work that fulfills me and kind of gives me a creative outlet and i i've i've found it important to have that distinction of like you know not every job is going to fulfill you creatively but if that pays the bills and you can use your free time on yeah acting or or podcasting or whatever it is um and if you're lucky enough and you put the time in and i'm sure and you work hard like i i know for a fact that you personally you work hard you really put your all into what you do and so like eventually it pays off and you're able to do it full-time that's a beautiful thing so it's great great to see even
Tyler:
[11:07] When you run your own company there's always going to be like shit that you have to do that you don't want to do whether that be like menial day-to-day like i don't want to open up quickbooks and fucking organize my finances i don't want to do it i hate it uh no interest in it whatsoever other than I don't want to go bankrupt you know what I mean like I don't want to file taxes I don't I don't fucking want to fire people I don't want to do any of the administrative shit that comes along with it but what I also don't want is someone else making those decisions for me and.
Tyler:
[11:36] Ever like i have i always maybe like dealing with the military for so long but like just that.
Tyler:
[11:43] Existential crisis of every day i know that like my life is it basically in someone else's hands in more ways than one yeah um yeah and it's the same for when you're an employee like period that people we're all sold this idea that like you're you know find a good job that's stable and you have security and all that stuff is like there's no such thing as security because if i'm gonna go listen to a dave ramsey lecture or some shit and they'll tell you like the business owner is under way more stress than you think he is or she is that that person is just assuming all of the stress of knowing how close you all are to getting fucked over um for real um not that they should have a maserati for doing that but i just mean like it's it's stressful and being an employee just means that someone else is handling that stuff on your behalf which is nice and i would love to be able to do that for the people who are currently contracting for my company like one day but um i would also i would encourage everyone who has ever worked for me they all everybody who's ever come through and they keep has gotten the same lecture like own your own fucking means to production like i'm not carl marks but i'm just saying if you if you own your own means of production you don't have to ask me about your health insurance or your 401k and you're not going to lose it because a project here doesn't work out for you right you could you could be in charge of your own destiny and that sucks but it's also better than living in a fantasy world.
Conner:
[13:08] Yeah no it's it is a trade-off like as someone who's been laid off before has lost jobs before it's like even when you think you're doing everything right uh if you're if you're if someone else signs your paychecks like it's kind of there could be that point you never know when it's going to happen and for whatever reason it could be completely out of your control uh and yeah i've been there before and it's it is a trade-off because i've always valued stability and the reliability of like i i've never really had the itch to completely sever you know sever ties with you know working full-time for someone else like the corporate life and go off on my own just because like i don't know if i'm wired in the way that you kind of have to be to motivate yourself to kind of get out there and
Tyler:
[13:51] It's.
Conner:
[13:53] It's it's hard i I find it difficult to be that organized and that motivated to work for myself. I've always found it easier to fit into a position and like kind of do what someone else needs. And I've, I guess the, the idea of not the money, not just coming to me, like the idea of like, that stresses me out.
Conner:
[14:12] But like at the same time, you're absolutely right. Like I, I don't like the feeling of, you know, I've been laid off before. Like I said, I don't like the feeling of knowing like that could just happen at any time and you have nothing, nothing you can do about it except for I guess what makes me feel better is I know that in those situations which I've been in before as long as I have like the skills to fall back on as long as I have you know the ability to uh go out and market myself or or just or do work on my own in the short term like i've freelanced for short term between jobs before and it's like it's kind of like yeah you know working for someone else sucks but you know as a new father with a you know a baby it's like i i really value the stability right now but if if i were to find myself in a situation where i I have to kind of be my own boss for a bit. I know I can if I have to, but it's, yeah, it's, I don't know. It's a personality thing. I think in some ways, like if some people are just really wired to be their
Conner:
[15:11] own boss and be really good at it. And I don't know if I am, maybe, maybe there's a skill that I could learn and I just haven't felt like it yet.
Tyler:
[15:17] But I don't think that I'm good at being my own boss. I think I'm, I'm what I'm good at. If I had to like pit, you know, sell myself to someone else's. Yeah. I'm really good at identifying talent and other people and then like pointing them in the right direction. So like I'm not I don't think that I'm like some great leader. What I think I'm good at is like my business partner is everything that I'm not. And I'm everything that he's not. And we complement each other like Gelmo is so like detail oriented and meticulous and technical. And he's also like maybe not not to say he's not an empathetic person. But I mean like he's he's not necessarily thinking about like the human aspect whereas I'm all like, oh yeah like super motivational like let's all just do like this really cool thing and then I will 100% of the time like miss the like technical like if somebody tried to like embezzle money I would not notice until we were bankrupt for sure but he would know as soon as it happened,
Tyler:
[16:17] um and that's good that's that's a good thing to have it.
Conner:
[16:21] Is a that is a very very valuable skill or read people and you know yeah and understand that it takes all types you really gotta have a balanced team for sure
Tyler:
[16:32] You uh so aside from just like the corporate day job shit you've done a lot of the like you've been doing the voice acting thing for a long time and also the podcasting deal you did the audio drama that i saw um i fucking we should do a whole podcast on audio dramas because it's like my favorite thing i'm so glad that they're like in vogue again like audible really brought that back.
Conner:
[16:56] Same here yeah
Tyler:
[16:58] Even going back to like the orson welles days i'm like i fucking love that stuff man.
Conner:
[17:02] That's what i love about like the fact that so many of my several of my bigger roles the meatier roles that i've done i've been lucky enough to do over the years of the fact that several of them were basically in that kind of fiction podcast audio drama format i love it like i i love that kind of work because i i really do enjoy that lineage of going back to the classic radio plays i i you know i'm like you i'm glad that they are um finding an audience that there's demand for them uh the one i've done most recently i'm actually working on season two of oak bridge right now the one that premiered last year um it's it's very gratifying works it's like yeah the production is is there to the point where when you're listening to it it is a very engrossing story and the rest of the cast are so talented that like i feel part of something really special and it's what's what's great about it is it's kind of accessible like this is an operation that people are just kind of doing for fun this is like good quality production but the budget doesn't have to be out of control for it like you know we're all just sort of putting putting in the sweat because we you know value the the project and uh no it's it's it's creating this beautiful thing without like a hollywood level investment you know what i mean it's so it's it's kind of like a pure entertainment form that yeah like like you put it it has a long history to it and uh it's still being kind of done justice today which is really nice yeah
Tyler:
[18:27] I mean i think that at least in my mind like kind of the, the big one was war of the worlds and that that was like baited a huge thing in the 30s and stuff but then like people talk about soap operas today and we still have like i don't know fucking dray's anatomy all these like really ongoing serials but like that all has its roots in radio drama um you know like lights out that kind of and i mean this is some of this is older than my grandmother but it's still it's super cool i think the height was kind of in the 60s and then And television became sort of just like guys after that. But for me, I love the theater of the mind. I love being able to do other stuff. And it was invented. I mean, it was popularized at least for, you know, like the suburban housewife who's got a bunch of kids and is like literally doing shit around the house all day and just needs entertainment while she's doing those things. Whereas if you're sitting on your ass watching television, it's not the same.
Conner:
[19:27] Yeah, different experience.
Tyler:
[19:30] And not just the voice acting, but also the sound design that goes into these things, like the really immersive things that they would do with just, like, it doesn't have to be a lot, even with, like, audiobooks nowadays. Just, you know, like, I don't know, the sound of a door opening and closing as they're going from scene to scene or something like that adds so much to
Tyler:
[19:50] it, but without requiring you to be stationary looking at something.
Conner:
[19:55] Right. Yeah, that's what I love about it. it comes back to that idea of accessibility like if you have a good idea for a story and you flesh it out the right way and kind of execute on it with the right production like yeah you can really create something that it draws someone in just as well as like an HBO miniseries like it really gets people into it in fact I'm actually writing my own script right now I've been working on an audio drama script for god at least three years now slowly chipping away at it it's and i uh you know i'm getting some feedback on it some from some writer friends and uh i i do really want to produce it eventually one day um and it's it's encouraging knowing like hey these like i said these these audio drama projects they can really be labors of love without you know finance like huge financial backing but like if you yeah you have the right production have the right acting have the right writing it can really be special and it's yeah like I guess I just keep coming back to it's a very it's a very simple and pure art form that you can do a lot with
Tyler:
[21:01] Even to make a short film, like a good short film, you need minimum $30,000 worth of camera equipment and lighting.
Conner:
[21:09] Yeah, basically.
Tyler:
[21:10] Even if you're going like full dogma, whatever the hell number they threw on that.
Conner:
[21:17] Clerks, I guess.
Tyler:
[21:19] Yeah, you know, like as minimal as possible. It's still quite a large amount of things. But to make an audio drama, I mean, you need a good script. You need a couple of voice actors. You need some sound effects. Everything that you need you can basically do for free on your computer yeah
Tyler:
[21:35] some good microphones but i mean even that's pretty accessible even.
Conner:
[21:40] Though yeah even those you can yeah they're not that hard to get a hold of and it's a little taboo to say but there are actors who will work for free like it definitely i've done it i i still do it so like i it's yeah you you can it can be done
Tyler:
[21:55] The the best i think that in recent memory because i i say i did 1984 the audio drama version that they just published on audible last year is really amazing but the best one of all time for me was uh christopher lee by himself it's just him and and like sound effects doing dracula and what's so incredible about like if you know dracula is like he has to do so many accents even in just one scene you have to have like a texas accent uh a british accent a dutch accent you know it's just and and uh transylvanian accent in one scene that's awesome christopher lee's the fucking master dude he's like of course legend live the greatest life i think a man could live he set the high yeah high watermark for like a life well lived um.
Conner:
[22:49] But i i need to check that out i didn't know he did that that's that's i know he starred as a dracula in like an old movie but i didn't know he did the um narration that's that's awesome i'll have to check that out
Tyler:
[22:59] Yeah i think i think it's even free on spotify like just just release dracula or whatever but yeah it's it's an incredible it's probably abridged you know like his the audio drama version but yeah like uh then you know you had uh the recent movie um Like the remake of Nosferatu is also, if you're a Dracula person, is also incredible. But just that audio book form with Christopher Lee is really way up there for me. For sure. Just the delivery, the acting, just the fact that it's him, it's all there.
Conner:
[23:34] Yeah. What a guy.
Tyler:
[23:37] Yeah. I mean, he fought in multiple wars. You know and then like as a grown man made the decision to become an actor and then just did the greatest acting career you've ever seen from like i don't he was probably like in his 30s by the time when he started acting um.
Conner:
[23:55] Which is an inspiration for me because that's basically when i started not counting like high school drama class and stuff like that yeah
Tyler:
[24:02] Yeah i did i did like school plays in elementary school but then we didn't like there was a drama class in my high school but it was a joke it was like the teacher would put on movies and you'd watch a movie together and take a test on comprehending you know that kind of shit right but then i have like chris you know he's like going to university for script writing and he's like doing true west you know with his buddies and stuff like that and i'm like this is acting this is incredible.
Conner:
[24:32] Yeah i've i've heard chris uh i assume you're referring to chris grero star of I listened to the episode you did with him, and I heard Chris talking about his approach to acting. I was just blown away by the depth of his knowledge and how seriously he approaches the craft. He's insane about it. It's honestly inspiring.
Tyler:
[24:57] Insane is the correct word. He's literally crazy. I mean, he was honest about it all in that recent podcast that we did. But like it's it's heavy on him and i'm always like dude you don't have to work like you don't have to push yourself like that it's okay um he's doing for anyone who hasn't checked in with chris since that podcast he is doing a lot better now we'll do a follow-up and everything but yeah like he ever since the first day i met him he was that serious about it and i'm just like bro like you don't have to kill yourself in the process of like chasing your dreams or whatever but um, The, the, the journey that he's been on though, with just like all the different like schools that he's had to attend and the classes he's had to take. And like, even recently, I mean, when's the last time you saw a live play?
Tyler:
[25:47] Because COVID, I think kind of fucked that up for the whole world.
Conner:
[25:50] I actually, so I live in Cleveland, Ohio, which has a very thriving theater district, actually the second biggest in the country right after Broadway. Right. And, uh, my wife and I go, we, we actually, I think we went to a musical last year. So I've seen live theater somewhat recently.
Tyler:
[26:08] I saw my, my wife and I saw spider guy, like the Spider-Man musical parody in Tucson last year. And it was incredible. I was like, it was the first time since COVID that I had seen like a live play. I've seen a lot of rest. I go to wrestling shit all the time, but like, which is very similar, but yeah, to just see like live drama on a stage again was so nice so refreshing yeah.
Conner:
[26:33] It is and then a
Tyler:
[26:34] Few months ago i saw i went to go see chris and the inevitable rise of arturo yui which was like crazy because it's a university of charleston college of charleston or whatever the fuck some school kids thing but they're they did like quite quite an amazing production and like it was all it's all this like gangster like 1930s mafioso shit going on gunshots everywhere and i was like this is so amazing like this is a million times better than watching a movie i don't know why people don't do this more often.
Conner:
[27:06] There there is something you it's there's something irreplaceable about the energy of live theater when you're just kind of going out in the room and just see the people kind of bring everything to life on stage i i i feel like the the the broadway series we get here in cleveland all the time it's it's it's mostly musicals like we don't get a lot of like just plays uh come through uh it's mostly music and like what's annoying is the recent trend right now is like it's all musicals based on movies it's almost like at least half of the musicals that come through town are based on movies like so last year we saw the mrs doubtfire musical i
Tyler:
[27:42] Bet that's awesome.
Conner:
[27:43] It was it was good i liked it i'm not gonna lie that's fun and right before that we saw the beetlejuice musical which is also but then and then we i think the last one we went to which we actually left at intermission we left halfway through it was the uh back to the future musical because like we were just sitting there like yeah it's fine but we were kind of getting bored and tired my wife and i just kind of looked at each other during an intermission we're like want to head home we're just not that into it so it's i guess if i can put on my critic cap really quick it's it's really just like i i'm fine with whatever gets made whatever comes through like let people enjoy what they want to enjoy i have nothing i have no problem with musicals based on movies in general it's just kind of like at a certain point it starts to feel a little bit lazy you know i'm kind of like okay i know the story i know i know this movie like i need to see it with musical numbers instead of just you know what what it was i don't know i i guess i appreciate original ideas more than like rehashes but if rehashes are done well then great i'm fine with it like like i said the uh doubtfire musical was really fun but at a certain point we're like yeah okay i guess i'm over it now
Tyler:
[28:54] It's just one of those things where it's like if you put on the marquee something that people already recognize the name value of if you put it on.
Conner:
[29:00] Something it's it's the same reason yeah it's the same reason movies keep getting rebooted it's it's just you you know people are going to show up to it if like it's a known quantity i guess it's the same thing with like hey let's let's produce a musical based on a beloved film and it's kind of make money so i get it i know why it happens i guess but yeah
Tyler:
[29:21] I don't like it any more than you do it's just just one of those things that we like that's if if somebody was like why is everything a remake or why is everything based on something that already i'm like the reason is because the marketing guy knows you'll show up and they want to they have to sell beer and tickets that's that's the business they're in.
Conner:
[29:37] It's lower risk to just remake stuff yeah yeah
Tyler:
[29:41] But like i don't even know when's the last time i heard of a an original new play or like broadway musical that swept the nation you know because the last one that was like really really big was les miserables which was not not even new or original it was just popular because of a movie they made a movie out of it now it's in play in theaters again.
Conner:
[30:01] I i remember hamilton being huge i remember that that was a lot that was a while ago that was at least 10 years ago when Hamilton really blew up.
Tyler:
[30:10] That's the Alexander Hamilton gunfighter one. Yeah.
Conner:
[30:15] That really blew up, and I knew that was a cultural movement, basically. But other than that, which... It's also funny because my my wife was a huge fan of hamilton she loved hamilton but i didn't get it i didn't really see the appeal i guess like yeah what i'm a history buff too so i like history um but like the the rapping was which don't get me wrong i love hip-hop i know there's some of my favorite artists are hip-hop artists but like the music numbers in hamilton sometimes felt like schoolhouse rock it kind of felt like just i don't know just sort of uh hip-hop for old white people who don't like hip-hop is what that what it sounded like to me
Tyler:
[30:54] Yeah like rapping for jesus kind of stuff.
Conner:
[30:56] Okay no shade to hamilton fans i love you guys it just wasn't for me but uh yeah hamilton was big i i think the recent a recent one book of
Tyler:
[31:06] Mormon was really big.
Conner:
[31:07] Book of mormon was huge yeah another recent one that was really good uh that again my wife loved was called six uh just the number six but spelled out um it was about uh king henry the eighth's wives it was basically like the story of how they all met him and some of them got executed by him and it was like yeah like the sisterhood of the the scorned wives of henry the eighth uh that was apparently a really fun musical um but
Tyler:
[31:35] Even that's just shakespeare.
Conner:
[31:36] I mean yeah basically yeah yeah that's
Tyler:
[31:39] King henry the eighth the play from the perspective of the ladies and the tutors is the television series version of the same thing.
Conner:
[31:46] That's right and and i think the most recent example i can think of again i i know of these things because my wife i got to give her the credit like i i hear about all this stuff through her uh the new one that i know of is is just called epic i think um and it's it's about it's all based on greek mythology it's literally just a retelling of old greek myths basically through musical numbers and yeah i think to your point about you know shakespeare and everything else like it all ties back into just like we were talking about doom and the unreal tournament and like influencing everything else everyone who is doing something creative whether they know it or not they're all paying homage to something like you're you're nothing new is ever made completely in a vacuum like you're always going to be influenced by what came before you even in subtle unknowable ways basically i
Tyler:
[32:33] Perfect example uh so chris was like kind of my co-writer with stilly valkyrie like i i wrote the majority of the script but he was always like proofreading it with me and like what about this line or what about this idea, how do we move forward here? And then I finished that script, I was like, all right, I'm giving this over to the devs, I'm done writing. You guys all loved it or at least told me that you loved it which yeah fine i'll pay you to tell me that you love it um but then as soon as it was done he goes dude have you ever seen cowboy bebop and i was like.
Conner:
[33:04] Fuck this
Tyler:
[33:06] Is just cowboy.
Conner:
[33:06] Bebop it's
Tyler:
[33:09] Like i wrote cowboy bebop would replaced spike with a bird.
Conner:
[33:13] And so he morphized cowboy bebop and
Tyler:
[33:16] It's true i mean he's like he's a bounty hunter he's got to go to all these different planets his girlfriend is brainwashed and you're hunting her down and you have to kill all these people along the way and i'm like, god damn it why didn't someone flag this before um and i wasn't thinking of cowboy bbuck you know i mean there were definitely like things that i was like influenced by no doubt but i didn't until it was like done and i read it all the way through i'm like ah okay.
Conner:
[33:46] It's you know you never know man it's it's literally like you don't even have to think about it it's been done before like even if you don't even if you're not trying to copy someone like you probably are by not not even trying to and like it's there's no shame in that like you can you can be overtly inspired by other things or unintentionally sort of channel something that someone else did like there's no shame in it uh at all it's that's just the nature of art i think there's an old south park episode uh kind of about that you know simpsons did it simpsons did it already and like the episode ends with the moral of like yeah who cares they've done like they've done everything like we're not trying to uh never step on anyone else's toes or do any like tread retread old ground ever it's like it's fine to retread old ground sometimes so i don't know it's it's unavoidable i guess this
Tyler:
[34:40] Uh i i took faith to see, uh a marionette puppet show which i had also never seen in person like yeah i was like i'm just looking for like shit in the area that's cool to do you know for a date or whatever and so they have a literal whole marionette puppet theater here in columbia and i was like well that's that's the answer to my to my search for a date night next week so they were showing snow white and you want to talk about a shitty childhood she'd never seen snow white never never heard the story just blank slate going into this i was like even better and uh this is before disney ruined the movie remake of it too but um but it was just so cool to see it in like a i know the story but like in a completely different lens and like told in a new way like yeah with you know this is all marion i didn't even realize that like the actors are not acting during the play they have a track and they're
Tyler:
[35:43] just puppeting to the track which in some ways seems harder to me yeah like yeah like right.
Conner:
[35:51] Yeah you got to be really synced up the whole
Tyler:
[35:54] Time yeah all the sound effects they have to do and like the preparation and they have to build they have to physically carpent you know carpenters in there build a new set every time they do a new play which is i guess they do like every season they just do a new production entirely wow um and when it was over they let us come to the back and like look at the rig that they have and all the stuff that's behind the stage this little girl uh, You know, they were like doing a Q and a and like the, the guy that runs the place, you know, I guess he's like the creative director or whatever. And she likes, I thought it would be more like the Disney movie. And I could see the death in his eyes. Like, he's just sick of hearing this. He's like, it puts on his happy face and he's like, but you know, you can always go see the Disney movie. And what we want to offer here is just something different, but I could just see that, like, just, yeah. The vein popping out in his neck is like I just.
Conner:
[36:50] Want to do something yeah just like through gritted teeth just like we're just doing something different here
Tyler:
[36:58] And you know most of their clientele are like kids birthday parties and school field trips and that kind of so they do have to cater to that but he's like well next month we're gonna do Greek mythology or something like just to get this.
Conner:
[37:10] Out of my system
Tyler:
[37:12] That's funny I really want to get I need to ask again but I tried to get them to come on the podcast. I'm like, I've just, how, how does, because marionetting is just like a dead art form. Like they, no one has that.
Conner:
[37:23] It's, it is, it is impressive and admirable to, yeah, keep that kind of thing alive. Like, you know, it's a, you know, lost discipline. That'd be interesting.
Tyler:
[37:31] And I feel like games could learn so much from stuff like that. Like I'm always thinking that way as a game designer. I'm like, what? And I mean, anything can I like knowledge? Can I soak in? I don't know if you ever saw the TV show. You're the worst.
Conner:
[37:46] Bits and pieces of it no I never actually sat down to watch it though
Tyler:
[37:48] So the main character the British guy he's a novelist and he's like hanging out with this older guy who's a more seasoned novelist but the guy's like a psycho and he's like, never writing he's like why are you never writing he's like because this is the work and he's just like I'm gonna run out in traffic and see what happens when you get hit by a car so that I can write about that experience and like all that kind of thing but I do, less dangerously but try to think that way like every, Every experience you have and every little bit of knowledge, like it could be a story point somewhere. Just have that in their Rolodex. And the more experiences you have, the more you can write about.
Conner:
[38:25] Absolutely.
Tyler:
[38:26] Because there's nothing more boring than like an author that you can tell is just writing just the one lived experience they had, like Little House on the Prairie. Not that it's not an absolutely fascinating, amazing drama. I do love Little House on the Prairie. Yeah. But I don't think Laura Ingalls Wilder did a whole lot else.
Tyler:
[38:44] She lived in a little house on the prairie she taught school her sister was blind that's it.
Conner:
[38:49] That's pretty much it it it never hurts to be a well-rounded person with with a lot of a lot of lived experiences and a lot of perspectives that you've opened yourself up to right yeah you never know where inspiration is going to come from and be useful so it's yeah it's always good to be open to new things so
Tyler:
[39:11] The script the script that you're writing like can you tell me anything about it or is that.
Conner:
[39:15] All sure yeah i could give you the broad strokes um it's so it's essentially a um a fantasy drama uh it's kind of it's a little bit in terms of setting like the universe and the tone it's a little bit of like a mix between like the dungeons and dragons kind of setting and a little bit of witcher kind of thrown in or it's a little bit more grim fantasy um and yeah those i guess those are my two main inspirations uh because i've always been i've been a dnd nerd since high school i've always been really really fascinated with the stories you can tell through dungeons and dragons and sort of the the tools that the correlation between
Tyler:
[39:53] Voice acting and dnd nerds.
Conner:
[39:55] There's a it's it's that venn diagram is almost a circle yeah it's it's it's a lot of overlap uh and
Tyler:
[40:03] Radio broadcasters is like one or the other Either you're a radio guy or you're a DNA guy, or both.
Conner:
[40:08] Or both, yeah, in my case, yeah. There's a lot of overlap.
Conner:
[40:12] But yeah, it's essentially a... It's that setting, but the story beats kind of follow the formula of almost like a... Odd couple buddy cop mystery where it's like mismatched partners find themselves in a situation where they have to rely on each other and like neither of them are very good at trusting and you know it's it's uh it's kind of like a hidden threat and you know like innocence caught in the crossfire and it's it's yeah there's like magic and mysteries and monsters and it's um it's it's focused on a handful of important characters though i think i i find it very important to develop the characters make everything kind of center on them and the uh kind of the action and the set dressing and the environments all that stuff is sort of secondary um they're important but like i think first and foremost i have the characters and their relationships to each other um as that's the key basically um it's i i'm i basically have one sort of mini series slash one season in mind with five episodes kind of plotted out I have them all outlined I basically have outlines of five episodes three of them are written I'm working on episode four right now I believe I honestly haven't touched it in a bit so I know I'm close to you know something resembling a full draft but
Conner:
[41:40] Yeah I've been working on it for years it's been kind of a you know when I have time for it I do a chapter I do a chapter or a scene here and there. And, uh, yeah, it is basically, it's nice that I've been doing, I've been acting in audio dramas for a few years as well, because I have that sort of experience with the script format. Like I have an idea of like, Oh, here's what I need to build a scene out. And I can write that out. Um, um, and yeah it's it's been it's been good i i have i have some friends here uh nearby like in town that i i visit with in person we actually have meetings roughly once a month we're all writers we all work on our own stuff and we have like a writer's club where i meet with my friends and i try to bring at least one one or two scenes of the script with me that are new and kind of get feedback on them and that's been really really nice to have that second opinion basically yeah um But yeah, I'm not really ready to reveal much, but that is basically the gist of it.
Tyler:
[42:41] I think that's really healthy, though, to have a consistent group of people to just bounce ideas off.
Conner:
[42:48] Absolutely.
Tyler:
[42:49] I've never been part of a writer's club by any stretch of the imagination, but that is very much my relationship. For different things, different people. yeah when it's just throwing game ideas out there like me and elijah allen are like basically every day just like what if we did this what if we did this and like what do you think of this idea or whatever and then if it's writing chris and i are always just like back and forth he i can't tell you the number of like scripts that i've read of his that he'll he's like ah fuck it i don't want to no more of that i'm like oh come on dude just finish something but i mean that's good though because you're always like it sharpens you up i think to just constantly face that like criticism and hopefully people who will tell you when an idea sucks because that's what i need around me or else i'll just think everything i do is great um yeah.
Conner:
[43:39] No it's it's very important to like yeah get get get get a room going like get a discussion going in the room like hey what have i not thought of that you think would be good here right what do you think could use a and i i get that all the time like some one of my friends will make a point like not be like oh i didn't even think of that i should yeah i'll make a note of that and revisit that so uh no it's it's been it's been a huge help for sure
Tyler:
[44:03] I know a lot of people that have that tendency to like write themselves into a corner and they don't know how to get out of it and i think for me i i have like the opposite problem because i'm so careful not to get into a corner that it makes it difficult to just make a decision about where to go from here so with stellar valkyrie that was a lot of the struggle i had is like i'm i knew going into it what the climax was like this is where i want to end up and then every step of the way along to that and it's also a video game so it's like i don't need to tell the entire story through you guys right like i don't everything doesn't have to be spelled out by you and chris and and toshi like it some of it could just be along the way and there's some of it that i needed to like recognize like okay i'm not gonna spell this out here it will be in in level five or whatever you'll get this thing that will make that clear and i won't have you won't have to explain it um i feel for like tv show writers because they're constantly in that situation where they're like either we fucked ourselves over and we can't get out of this or we've reached the end of this arc and we don't know what to do next all the time um and oftentimes they don't have a choice uh even if it's like okay this would be the right way to end it they're like but we just ordered another three seasons so figure it out yeah comic books too it's probably the hardest one i would imagine for.
Conner:
[45:28] Sure yeah the creative decisions get compromised by the kind of real life circumstances all the time which what's nice about an original screenplay or sorry i guess script in my case like what an original script that I own entirely and
Conner:
[45:44] When i if slash when i get around to producing it it'll kind of be like my decisions about what gets caught what gets expanded what you know what happens who who casts what and like yeah if i start working with other actors which i plan to do like it'll be hey what do you think do you think do you have a line in mind that would sound better than what i've written i'm willing to hear it and like talk about that so um it's it's good when you have something that's yours and you know it's it's your vision but you're not so precious about it that you won't listen to other ideas like i'm definitely open to like i absolutely you know understand that other people have better ideas than me about some things so it's like yeah no it's um it's it's not i i think i actually have the same problem as you when i think about writing into a corner like i actually have the ending the kind of the final story beats of each episode and the kind of broader series in in general already pretty much decided on so the problem is i i more or less have i have the big pictures pretty much set but the details i get hung up on like how do i get from here to there uh what do i you know what what steps do i need to like make a whole scene about
Conner:
[46:59] Or alternatively kind of leave to context clues or like what can i trust the audience to understand and what do I need to spell out with dialogue? What can I have the narrator say that wouldn't be out of place that would be better from a character? You know, it's a lot of decisions like that. And that can... I get paralyzed a lot when I'm writing. When I'm, like, trying to sit down and just type out a scene, decisions like that can really stall me. I'm like, oh, I don't know, I better think about this and come back to it. And, like, I've always had a bad procrastination problem, too, so that doesn't help. So, like, if I give myself a mental excuse used to stand up and take a walk and think about it and then come back and write yeah that eats up a lot of time
Tyler:
[47:40] I think i have the george r martin problem where like i only write when i am inspired to do so um which is a problem when it comes to production schedules but it's like, I could go like months and write nothing and then one day that cog turns like just the gear locks in at the right spot and I'm like now and then I might, mow through a whole thing and then when as soon as i get to a stopping point where i'm like i don't know what to do now i'm like i'm not going to force this out of myself i just get up and go back to doing nothing and then return to it when inspiration comes back again and then i don't find the editing process very difficult like for me like it is not a big deal for me to like okay i've had this new idea that contradicts something that i've done before so i just have to go back and make those tweaks to have this flow better as long as i have the complete vision of where i'm trying to get to right um but it i've always just like you said like it's the minute details along the way it's never like the full you know.
Conner:
[48:45] I've always found it a lot easier to edit what i just come up with later it's yeah editing's always been easier than writing i just force myself to just put something on the page just like just let it basically word vomit out of me just like put something down there so that later i can come back and clean it up and i always i've always found it easier to refine rough ideas than to just make them perfect the first time so yeah that's that's my process i guess what's
Tyler:
[49:14] A what's like a session look like for you like is the lights are dimmed the candles are like what do you got going on.
Conner:
[49:20] Great question yeah when i was doing the first three episodes when i was like kind of plowing through the bulk of the script that i have written so far my process was you know i'd i didn't have a kid yet for most of this trip my wife and i hadn't had our baby yet so i had definitely more free time more peace and quiet so like my process was usually i'd be down i'd be at my desk right here in my basement um and i have a little record player uh behind this partitionally back in the other side of the room with a modest but sentimental vinyl collection. I have a few records that I put on. So like my Ritz i'm sorry what i
Tyler:
[50:03] Said it's all kiss records like.
Conner:
[50:06] Hey i wouldn't be mad about it kisses kiss is solid sometimes uh no it's it's it's a yeah modest record collection and basically i had this little ritual where i'd i'd put music on specifically i'd put vinyl on i'd put a record on and then i'd go sit down and just yeah i i like i said i have like the rough concept of almost every scene in mind or at least i have like whether it's outlined on the page or just I have a rough idea of a scene like what scene needs to come next and I was like okay we just did that so now we have to go to the B plot and do that I have a scene planned out for that come back to A plot I have a scene planned out for that so yeah I put a record on sit down and just sort of try to get through the scene I basically have a mental checklist of here's what I need to have happen in this scene and when those points have all been hit and I feel like the dialogue and the sort of the
Conner:
[51:00] Um narration or sound effects or whatever notes i have in there bring everything together i'm like okay good that scene's done i can sort of put a pin in that think about what i need to have as the intro for the next scene and yeah so it's it's yeah just kind of a i try to make a mental checklist of it put on some music and i i think that's the ritual that helps though like once i make it a physical act of putting a record on that's when i mentally kind of flip the switch of like okay now it's time to write like this isn't i'm not doing anything else right now i need to sit down and write and um that was a that was a good habit for me for a while that's how i wrote a good two two and a half of the episodes i have written so far so um yeah it worked out it's hard to do that now though with the baby and all that but
Tyler:
[51:47] Yeah there's it it's something i'm gonna have to get used to but like.
Conner:
[51:52] Yeah i
Tyler:
[51:53] Can't stand to have like my concentration broken and then like have to go do something else and then come back to that mental space like it's yeah for me it's like i was riding the wave and then i fell off the wave and now i'm not gonna get on a wave again until another wave comes.
Conner:
[52:09] That's yeah that sucks i i'm afraid i have some bad news for you sadly that's that's gonna be tough for you just learn
Tyler:
[52:18] To live with it but yeah i'm i'm not mad about it i i.
Conner:
[52:21] Know i know it's volunteered but yeah it's tough just i know it's it's a huge adjustment like you know like i said i you know my baby's going on seven months now but like when we were in the newborn trenches this past fall and winter like it was just adjusting to the pace of life that you're in now it's like it's it's hard you really got to be patient with yourself you really got to be nice to yourself in the sense of like you're going to get frustrated you're going to get exhausted it's going to be you know pulling you every which way and you're going to be freaking out at the just yeah the um the pace of yeah the uh the chaos basically yeah so um yeah just just buckle up and know that it gets easier you'll you'll get past i'm sorry this is turning into dad advice but it's okay it's gonna be like a it's gonna be a roller coaster or at least it was for me because it's like you'll deal with one little quirk or you know new thing that you haven't encountered yet and that'll smooth out and then the next one and then that'll smooth out. So it's kind of a constantly like addressing things, getting used to them and then the next fucking bullshit happens.
Conner:
[53:34] That's what my baby was like.
Tyler:
[53:36] Recently like went to an orientation at a Buddhist temple with only with it in mind that like I need to learn how to just let it go because That's a good idea. I am the kind of person like if I'm I'll be like in my living room reading a book and then someone will start talking to me and i'm like can you not see that i'm reading like did it not occur to you that perhaps i'm doing something more interesting than talking to you yeah i'm such an ass about it and i just can't you can't be that way with the kid they don't know any better like right right you know i get it you need your diaper changed but daddy's trying to finish this chapter it's.
Conner:
[54:10] Really to be so inconsiderate you know
Tyler:
[54:13] No it's cool man um i I know it's yeah. You look at something like Stephen King's on writing or even like Lovecraft is like his stuff about horror like right just the writing process in general and like it's such a for some people it's just like such a discipline they're super consistent and they have like I think it's healthy like they have their rituals like this is the time this is the space or whatever and then. Yeah. i'm so not that i'm the most undisciplined just like it i will get up and just like go be in my garden for like two hours like trimming tomato plants or whatever and then like get an idea of like oh i'm gonna run back in there type this down real quick all right back to that um but once i'm like i think the idea phase comes easy like yeah i love the experience of just like sitting down with two or three people that you trust and just throw in ideas on a on a mirror board or something like that like okay this is cool like oh but then when it's the the nitty-gritty like get down and put something on on the page part i need silence like i don't even want music on most of the time or if it is if it has to be like music with no words like because i'll just drift off into that or i'll find myself writing down literally what i'm hearing and then not even being cognizant of it.
Conner:
[55:31] That's that's a good point yeah the the music i played the records i played when i was doing most of my writing So I hope to get back to that routine eventually. Um, it's, it has to be music. I'm very familiar with. Like I've heard a million times before it has to be like, basically like comfort music, like comfort food records. Like, and I don't really own any vinyl that isn't kind of a comfort food record that I haven't listened. I've listened to a million times.
Tyler:
[55:56] Alan.
Conner:
[55:56] Cause otherwise it's like,
Tyler:
[55:58] I'm just throwing out crazy stuff that I would think is in your record collection. Like kiss Alan Parsons project.
Conner:
[56:06] Not quite. Have you ever heard of Fontaine's DC?
Tyler:
[56:11] I'm a big fan of Fontaine's DC. Oh my God. Especially their first record, man. Like the Irish kind of punk rock band. Like they're.
Conner:
[56:19] It's called Dog Roll, right? Is that what their first album is called?
Tyler:
[56:23] Yeah, but I'm going to break out my Spotify playlist now.
Conner:
[56:26] Yeah. Dude, I don't know a lot of people.
Tyler:
[56:28] It's so funny you bring them up.
Conner:
[56:30] I don't know a lot of people who know them or are fans. That's refreshing. I'm glad to hear that.
Tyler:
[56:35] Um Steve that was like one of the original co-founders of In The Keep was really into them and I was a huge huge fan of uh, the germs and stuff like that and he was like if you like that kind of stuff you'll be really into Fontaine's DC or like Joy Division was one of my favorites.
Conner:
[56:58] Oh yeah I love Joy Division yeah big time big fan of Joy Division I actually I play bass now too I'm that's a an instrument i i actually joined it yeah cool uh and yeah peter hook from joy division and new order as well he he's a big inspiration of mine uh i love his his approach to the bass um but yeah fontaine's dc i got into a few years ago uh i think specifically from their album skinty fia one of the more recent ones yeah uh so i have skinty fia on vinyl and i also have the one right before it a hero's death and those two are the records i probably cycled the most when i was writing my script and when i've kind of yeah it's i've i've beaten those albums to death i know them almost front to back now so it's like yeah i can just put them down it's chill i'm not really paying attention to them it's it's more of a atmospheric thing but no you're totally right like if if you have your ideas already you you know what you want to execute
Conner:
[57:56] on and you just need the peace and quiet and the space to sit down and do it. You don't need distractions. I totally get that.
Tyler:
[58:04] I, uh, I really like listening to jazz when I'm writing or classical music and stuff like that, where it's, for whatever reason, I just find it easier to concentrate when there's no words. And sometimes it could even be electronic music. I'm not like the biggest electronic music person in the world, but like there's certain records that are just no lyrics or whatever. And I can just like, kind of get lost in it.
Conner:
[58:30] Like I get that.
Tyler:
[58:32] It's like you said earlier it's it's records that i'm like a hundred percent like i know every song on this like the back of my hand i've heard it a million times and it doesn't like laser rock red line i can't tell you how much math like passed a math class on that record.
Conner:
[58:48] That's a good one you ever heard of uh you ever heard of glitch mob
Tyler:
[58:51] Glitch mob i do i have heard of yeah.
Conner:
[58:54] I like glitch mob they have a couple good albums um oh actually like as far as instrumental like no vocals music I really love there's a genre called post rock post rock is really good from that word it's like really atmospheric it's it's it's um it's almost like prog rock it's almost it's very you know progressive and like technical but almost symphonic but not you know stringy um a good example a band I love I'm a huge fan of they're called If These Trees Could Talk um they're actually from right here in Ohio is from Akron and yeah I have a couple of their albums on vinyl I think and they're just really easy listens like they're so atmospheric they just feel like it's almost like white noise with like threading guitars if that makes sense it's really crazy
Tyler:
[59:45] That's how I feel about like black metal you know Wolf in the Throne Room or like that kind of stuff where it's just it it the point of this is the atmosphere and it is almost like white noise but there's also like this incredible, musical technicality that's going on in the fuzz that kind of thing but it's like a setting the setting the stage for like when it's time to work is a big deal and I know for different people it's you know it's totally a different thing yeah.
Conner:
[1:00:14] Everyone needs something different
Tyler:
[1:00:15] I've always been like a more like locomotive thinker so like it is hard for me to sit down and just focus on something but if I'm walking or running or riding my bike or whatever I'm just like full of ideas crazy stuff, that's good or the old you know the all the best ideas come while you're on the toilet or in the shower or something like that you can't write it down yeah good for sure so what like what was your life arc before in your 30s deciding to pursue voice acting and creative work like this good.
Conner:
[1:00:49] Question yeah um
Conner:
[1:00:52] Honestly i feel like i i'm i missed out on a lot in my 20s i think a lot of my 20s were just kind of spent sort of figuring shit out and uh just trying to get my career doing essentially because i went to college for um for journalism so i started my career as a as a newspaper reporter that's kind of what i did right out of college that's what i was you know that was my day job for a few years and i what's that that's cool it was it was okay like it the work was interesting i did i did some interesting stuff but it the pay was shit obviously it was not i didn't get rich off of it at all um i i you know and i kind of stayed in that general that general industry for a few years i was kind of just yeah my 20s i you know uh i was working i was
Conner:
[1:01:43] Hanging out with friends here and there i was just kind of playing video games watching movies i was just kind of dicking around and really have a lot of hobbies that i really put you know energy into or really built anything out of it was kind of like you know existing basically drifting more or less i met my now wife i'm you know my girlfriend at the time when we were both still in our early mid-20s when we met um so we've been together fucking forever forever at this point um but uh yeah i feel like my 20s i i don't want to say i wasted them obviously because i just didn't really know much yet um and it was not until yeah i was 29 basically about to turn 30
Conner:
[1:02:23] Um my wife and i you know still girlfriend at the time we'd gotten we'd moved into our house together we were you know stabilizing a bit our lives were getting a bit more stable and it was you know working full-time still and all that stuff and i think what really sparked it was for me yeah like in my early 20s mid 20s in my 20s after college I was playing a lot of video games that were
Conner:
[1:02:46] Getting increasingly more story-driven like i was i was kind of noticing that more of the games i was playing were really really story-driven and really um supported and brought to life by their casts more than why what i expected or like what i was used to i think as a kid you know i was playing like playstation playstation 2 games where you know the performances and the stories were kind of secondary they weren't they weren't this you know they weren't the focus but i was you know then I was playing like uncharted and the last of us. And these, these games that are like very cinematic and I was starting to notice like, Oh, the, the characters in these games are like, Oh shit. These are actual actors doing this. And I, I kind of realized like, Oh, that could, that could be something I could do maybe.
Conner:
[1:03:33] And I, yeah, I'd taken, I'd done drama class or club in high school. I, um, I had done sketch comedy and improv workshops in high school. So I had like some grounding in acting and performing, but I just really, like I said, really got away from it in my 20s after college. I just didn't have time for it and make the time for it or make the space for it. But yeah, I think, yeah, I was around about to turn 30 and I was like, I think it's time to get serious. Let's, let's actually figure this out. If this is something you want to do, you should look into it. And so yeah i just started doing some research i met my first coaches and started doing some like getting the an understanding for the ropes in the industry and like where to find the work and how to get it and all that stuff and uh did my first few auditions and yeah just kind of kept kept it going uh it was so admirable
Tyler:
[1:04:23] That you like took it seriously to the point where you're like i'm gonna go get some coaches and that kind of stuff because like just in our circles alone how many people do you know that are like I'm just going to be a voice actor and yeah, they don't do any of the like work work involved, not even criticizing it. It's a totally, you could totally get paid work doing that, but it's just like
Tyler:
[1:04:44] a different mindset altogether. Whereas you were like, go get some coaches and like work with people and take this like a, like a serious craft kind of deal.
Conner:
[1:04:53] Yeah. I, I saw it. Thank you. Yeah. I, I saw it as like a, uh, not a shortcut, but as like the, the, the most logical way to start. And I was like, well, I, I don't really know I'm going in blind. So, I think it's best to talk to someone, talk to someone who knows more than me and like sort of see what I can find out. And yeah, honestly, I don't know where I'd be without my early coaching because like I said, I, I knew nothing. So it was really valuable to have that foundation and early skillset, which unfortunately it also meant I had some bad habits to unlearn early on. I, you know, it's, it's, it's, you're always learning. You're always getting better. You're never done learning obviously but like i think um yeah i don't i i don't know how else i would have gotten my feet under me without yeah my early mentors so
Tyler:
[1:05:47] You're really versatile like that's one of the things that's cool about you is that if like if i if i say like could you just completely change the way that you're doing this like with elder castro you know we like tried several different versions of what that would sound like and it was just you know i could like give you adjectives and you could come back with something that's like what i'm asking for whereas like for myself and i've done a few voice acting roles but it's never i'm not acting it's like i'm uh, basically just a typecast like if you if you want my voice as the character i can do that but if you asked me to do Winnie the Pooh, no chance. Like, right.
Conner:
[1:06:30] Right. Well, I, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I, I, I honestly, I don't, I have, I don't really feel I'm all that versatile. I feel a little limited sometimes. I know I have rain. I know I have like things I can do, but I appreciate that. I like hearing that I'm versatile because I don't always feel that versatile because I think,
Tyler:
[1:06:49] Um, I have a, I'm not going to hire you to play Cinderella, but I'm, ah, damn.
Conner:
[1:06:54] Yeah. Are you sure? Oh, I'm kidding. No, I would like to actually,
Tyler:
[1:06:57] Now that I've said it out loud, let's try it.
Conner:
[1:06:59] Yeah. Let's see what happens. but i i i have always felt that i have like a window you know what's it's like it's a range but it's it's like a spectrum like there's way up here that i'm never gonna do there's way down here that i can't really do but there is a window that is like within this window i can play around i can try different things and i can modulate and i can you know which which i i'm gratified to hear that you you find me versatile because uh it's it's a good thing to be but i i've i think what i've gotten away from or what i've tried to steer away from is the uh obsession with being able to do voices i i think like you've probably noticed this i think a lot of a lot of people who are interested in voice acting they they get this misapprehension that they have to be able to quote unquote do voices and that's that's not really it's it's a nice skill to have if you can do like an impression of a crazy cartoon character that's cool like that's impressive but I think what I learned over the years and I think Chris would appreciate this I think Chris probably feels similarly that when
Conner:
[1:08:08] When you put the emphasis on the acting over the voice like it should be lowercase v uppercase a like your intention and your ability to channel emotion in your performance that's way more important than what you sound like if that makes sense because i i think my my bad habit that i sort of developed early on was i would begin a performance or if i was like looking at a script and i was trying to like kind of get into character basically and i was trying to decide how i was going to approach a role or a scene or whatever i would start with what do i need to sound like do i need do i need to be up here or should i be down here or is it like what do i do like i would start with how i'm going to try to modulate my my my throat to like sound a certain way when what i really should have been doing what i've tried to learn to do now as a habit is like no what's what's what's the emotion here like who who am i who am i talking to who am i you know trying to elicit a response from like what it's it's really more about like yeah just the the emotion and starting there so i always think about what one of my favorite coaches probably the best coach i've worked with wonderful wonderful guy named uh david sobelov i learned so much from him he's a wonderful dude um he would always he would always tell me just have a conversation conversation just just have no don't worry about what you're going to sound like just have a conversation like talk to me um you know
Conner:
[1:09:38] Be a real person talking to another real person even if you are both cartoon mutant sharks for example it doesn't matter what your characters are you still need to have a conversation and sort of be human and relatable and he would always tell me like the the voice will follow start with the emotion and the voice will follow um you can yeah you can tweak it and like play with it after the fact but start with the emotion and so that was kind of the the better habit that i tried to get into after sort of trying to break my last my old habit um but yeah that's my little rant on on acting and how acting is more important than the voice i guess
Tyler:
[1:10:17] I i definitely think that's true it's also just like i don't envy the position because it's like a lot of the time you're just being hired to do a job and the the director or whoever has an idea of what they want and if you don't fit it you're out the door or whatever right right i don't i don't i hope i don't come across that way i'd never really like to work that way with stellar valkyrie in particular it's like i wrote falco for chris like he was chosen from the jump and then i needed you to be elder castro, we had to figure out what that character was even going to sound like and then honestly the most the most difficult one was cat because we we had so many different people audition for that part and it was one of those things where it's like I can't tell you I can't give you a list of adjectives that are going to make you sound like cat I just need someone who when I hear their voice sounds like this character and Toshi is.
Tyler:
[1:11:14] Zero experience as a voice actress she just you know like was in a facebook group or something where she was like exploring the idea because she does a lot of creative things mostly like this you know makeup and cosplay kind of shit and and she just had the right voice there was a one actress before her um who i swear she was a comedian she was like a like stand-up comic chris and i saw her in a bar um well we were just like at an open mic night and we were like her voice is perfect so we just like went up to her after the fact no we didn't we didn't even go up to her because we couldn't find her we contacted the bar asked.
Tyler:
[1:11:55] Them to get us in contact with her got her phone number talked her into it and then she backed out she's like it's not good for my brand but she just had this like amazingly like she was like from mexico like really deep hispanic accent that was like interesting and then so then from that point on i'm like okay well cats just hispanic and then when she backed out we were like now we have to completely reinvent the character because we're not gonna go put out a fucking ad for like we were looking for someone with a atrocious mexican accent um and and toshi was perfect for the job but it did take her a lot of effort to be able to do voice acting because she had hadn't done it before so like i think honestly chris probably scared her away from it he was like he was taking it really seriously like okay let's do like 15 different takes and bounce it off of me and all this stuff and i think that she had the idea that she was just gonna like just read the lines and that's okay i'm not faulting her for that no it was a lot of hard work right.
Conner:
[1:12:53] Um it's it is interesting how yeah like as a director as someone who is writing characters you might have an idea in your head of what a character will sound like but and you might be looking for that when you're auditioning people for that role but then you might hear something like oh i didn't even i didn't realize that that is how i wanted this character to sound right someone might come along and just like know what you wanted before you even knew you wanted it basically um and it's really cool how the actor can influence the character and really like have they bleed into each other basically
Tyler:
[1:13:29] Yeah um it's it's fascinating, It's amazing, and I think you have to, as a writer or director, you have to be open-minded to different ideas like that. Because, you know, if I had a million dollars for this game, I would have hired Doja Cat. Because that's exactly, like, she's drawn, her name is Cat, because I wanted Doja Cat to be this character. I was like, that, like, I'm writing this character, she's a weird, elusive female who, like, obviously ain't got no time for no fucking man shit, whatever. That's what I want. So if I could have hired Doja Cat, that would have been my first call, but I couldn't. So then I had to be really open-minded and be like, okay. And then, like I said, it was multiple times over, like that voice, that, that's what I want. Need that.
Conner:
[1:14:13] Have you told, have you told Toshi that, uh, you should tell her, hey, I couldn't get Doja Cat, but I got you. Just tell her that she's right behind Doja Cat.
Tyler:
[1:14:24] You were third in line after Doja Cat. No, I mean, I'm happy that it ended up the way it is. and it was.
Conner:
[1:14:30] A lot less
Tyler:
[1:14:31] Costly than i'm sure doji cat would have been and probably yeah from what i've heard less difficult to work with yeah for sure um but i mean what maybe one day who knows.
Conner:
[1:14:44] Anything can happen
Tyler:
[1:14:45] Just sound i need you to sound like a jazz singer who smoked like 800 cigarettes this morning and you would be perfect for this role so then i'm gonna have someone who's like straining their voice and smoking cigarettes to try to sound right i can't have that either uh suing me later for giving them lung cancer or some shit but um yeah it's just it's a really great process to go through is to just see all the different ways that a character can manifest and then you end up with something totally different than what you maybe had in mind in the first place um absolutely so i'm as as it stands right now like hopefully all the drawing for the scenes will get finalized in the next few months or whatever. We've been working Maria to death. Like, she's doing so many things that it's impossible to... I feel so horrible for Maria.
Conner:
[1:15:37] Yeah, shout out to Maria. She's killing it.
Tyler:
[1:15:40] Yeah. But yeah, I can't wait for this game to come out. Like, it's been such a journey, such a learning experience. And if it had been finished when I originally thought it would it wouldn't be the same game there's no chance it's.
Conner:
[1:15:58] Transformed I'm sure
Tyler:
[1:16:00] But what is your experience from the contractor side of things like dealing with all these people with these creative ideas and timelines and shit and just like being patient with how it all actually shakes out yeah.
Conner:
[1:16:15] No it's been it's been weird but like honestly it's
Tyler:
[1:16:20] Been.
Conner:
[1:16:22] It's been easy like i it's kind of like uh the weird part is like the start and stop of like you know as as as an actor i i this is actually the pace of projects i'm typically i'm used to having having worked on where it's like i'll come in do my part then step back and watch everything else happen and every now and then i'll get an update on you know where things are at and at a certain point it's almost like hey it'll be it'll be out when it's out in the meantime i'll just do my own thing my job is done basically but uh i'm still like i'm involved in the sense that like i'm still curious about what's happening how things are coming together but it's also like it's a it's a weird sense of having your hands off like once once um once i understand for example yeah for elder castro as example like once i understood like what was
Conner:
[1:17:15] Required of me for that character and when chris and i were just you know we took that one day basically we took a few hours one day to uh just get in just get an alcohol together i got my booth and we uh just went through the lines together and yeah having him in my ear sort of guiding me was really was great it was a great experience i loved it and once yeah once i had that on once i knew what i needed to do for the character and once the lines were done then it was like okay well i guess i'll just sort of sit back kick back and watch the ride and you know enjoy the process as uh the game sort of comes together and um it'll be done when it's done basically
Conner:
[1:17:54] Uh cause I yeah I've that's been the way it is for several other projects I've done I I've filmed a uh basically an independent short animation or short film it's actually part live action part CGI that um a guy I know here in Cleveland he's a genius filmmaker and animator he's he's honestly like a madman he has so he is so skilled and talented um but yeah like he had me do this part in this short film of his we've filmed it coming up on two years ago now and ever since then it's been like hey guys here's the new render of this scene or like you know we or he actually had me come in and do pickups for one of my a couple of my scenes more recently so again like long uh timelines for projects are no are not new to me it's it's it's uh it's an interesting feeling of i come in i do my part i step back and kind of watch it happen it's it's it's weird but um no it's cool like like like you said it's cool to sit back and watch experts in other fields do their thing basically watching maria turn the art around and watching all the other guys kind of build the levels and seeing the sprites and the objects and the,
Conner:
[1:19:10] just everything else come together, it's interesting. It's really cool to be a passenger for and having a part in it. The fact that
Conner:
[1:19:19] I'm still getting my head around the fact that like oh i voiced a character in this thing that's turning into a video game and it's like i'm watching it happen and it's blows my mind it's really cool i'm really gratified for it i fun fact really really quick story i i'll tell you really quick when you and i and chris and um naib was his name naib yeah when when we all got on that call together to sort of that was like my informal audition for castro i guess yeah when we all got together and did that um and you know we had the discussion and i was basically told like yeah you got it it's yours and we hung up and i i stepped out of my booth and i called my wife immediately uh because she was at her parents house or something i called her and i said i just got a video game roll and uh i was like i was psyched i was i was on the top of the world it was so cool because yeah i haven't done a lot of video games yet i've recorded for a few now i don't think any of them are out out so it's they're all still in development um but yeah the fact that like that was one of the first ones i got i was i was ecstatic so and it's it's been yeah it's been fun to watch ever since i
Tyler:
[1:20:29] I had like a similar experience but i didn't i didn't have to audition for slayers x terminal aftermath revengeance of the slayer or whatever the fuck i don't even know the whole name of the game but like it was an interesting thing is like i think it was after the first or second realms deep jay had messaged me and he's like hey i have this game idea i think you would be great for it i'm like sign me up i've never done that before but you know if you if you think i'm the right guy for the job i'll do it for free just for fun like just to say i did it and then a year goes by and i didn't hear anything and i was just like one day i I remembered it and I was like, I wonder what's going on with that. So I just typed him back and like, Hey, what happened with that? Is that still a thing? And he's like, Oh no, I have this other part for you. Um, um, here and he just gave me the script for what would ultimately be mevan ranuels and i i was completely i hadn't seen a picture of the game i had no idea what to expect but he just explained he's like i just really like your voice for this i'm like okay so i ended up actually like.
Tyler:
[1:21:39] Rewriting the character's part because he wanted it to be this southern like kind of rednecky character and there's a lot of the english that i'm like okay no southerner would say this you know i'm not gonna enunciate this or what lots of apostrophes and right you know ain'ts instead of won't or whatever and then i just like i did it all in like two or three takes and just sent it all to him and then it was like thanks here's i don't know whatever the money was it wasn't it wasn't a lot but i didn't want it in the first place i was like and then i didn't even know, when the game came out except that like several people were like if you if you realize game like the guy sounds just like you i'm like that's weird i tried to keep it a secret for a little while and i had to like fess up to it.
Conner:
[1:22:24] But it's funny
Tyler:
[1:22:25] But as soon as it as soon as like i had done it and it was like it was gonna be real i'm like called my mom and i'm like i guess i'm gonna be in this like thing now like it's a odd feeling when you know yeah like there's something off in the horizon that's like eventually going to come up that's something that i've always found interesting about being an actor in general is like having to do press for something that may have happened like years in the past for you yeah.
Conner:
[1:22:51] That you barely remember making like that's the weird thing yeah
Tyler:
[1:22:54] Yeah like when you talk to i don't know leonardo dicaprio is on like the late show some shit like that and you're like oh tell us about your experience with this film and it's oh that was a whole lifetime ago yeah if he's being honest like oh and they all they all said the same like oh the director he was fantastic and the crew and I loved it but I was like, this is a long time ago in most cases yeah, So that's odd. When I, and I interviewed, uh, John St. John. And when I was, I was like, what was it like to work on half-life? What was it like to work on the, you know, this or that or whatever, like Sonic the Hedge, you name it. And after like two or three of those, he cut me off and he's like, I'm not trying to be rude, but when you ask me this, like, what was it like? They're all the same. I walk into the booth. I read the lines. I hit the send button. And then i don't look at it again until it comes out like that's every job is the same to me i'm like that's so crazy you know like because you in my mind it's like this this whole process and like i it's from my perspective it is a whole process.
Conner:
[1:24:02] But for
Tyler:
[1:24:04] Him it's just another day on the job.
Conner:
[1:24:05] He's he's not wrong yeah like especially if you're in his position and you're it's what you do day in day out for a living like yeah it all it's all gonna run together it's all gonna be like just show up punch the clock like read the script and yeah when you get to that level when you're a professional like script interpretation is one of the hardest things i've ever had to learn i'm still getting like still trying to get good at it it is a skill where like if you just take the lines like you're given a character and you get the lines like you gotta just scan them and immediately hone in on what you know what emotion you're trying what what you're trying to do like the whole scope of it and um you gotta do it like that and just turn it around and send it in um so yeah it's it's a grind uh at that point so i'm glad that like you know for example when this game is out is out and people are able to play it like i'll be able to like you know hear it myself like hear hear my lines and remember like oh wow i barely remember recording those but now it's remember
Tyler:
[1:25:07] Saying that like.
Conner:
[1:25:08] Yeah it's crazy it's i'm glad that like i don't do this kind of thing so often that like the novelty of that is lost on me and i mean like i'm glad that there's still some impact to the idea of hearing myself in something and knowing like oh yeah i recorded that however many years ago and now here it is like people can hear it that's
Tyler:
[1:25:29] The other interesting thing with film and animation and games is that when you do it you don't have the full picture Like you don't know what it's going to look like or the context of the scene and where it happens in the story in a lot of cases. And then like the editing that goes into that, like seeing it all put together, like, wow, that made it sound like I really knew what I was doing, even though I didn't, um, like i i can't i can't imagine like being on a robert rodriguez movie where it's all you know like machete or sin city or something or you're just basically in a room no bigger than this garage with a green screen and then you see the final product all edited together with all the crazy effects and shit going on and they make it seem so realistic and like like wow that was just like a tuesday he's also famous like amongst actors for like robert rodriguez apparently will bring you in and shoot every scene you're going to do in like a couple of days and send you away you know he's like you know whereas a lot of productions it's like you're sitting in your trailer for six months right you know doing drugs or whatever just waiting for something to happen he's.
Conner:
[1:26:34] Like he's efficient about it yeah
Tyler:
[1:26:36] Yeah super like i think lady gaga did all of her stuff for machete kills in one day wow and yeah like every everything that she did was just like come in we'll get shoot you out in a day and you can go right back to being on tour no problem that's crazy I'd like to learn from that that level of production I think that dude yeah.
Conner:
[1:26:58] Really that time management is insane yeah for him
Tyler:
[1:27:04] Well, what else do you have like in mind creatively? Like you've got this audio drama you're working on. You have like multiple different games that you're waiting for them to come out. But like.
Conner:
[1:27:16] Yeah. Yeah. So Oak Bridge season two, I'm actually currently recording for. I'm to be perfectly honest. I'm behind on. I can blame the baby again for that. You know, when I have time, I'll, you know, duck away and do some lines here and there. But i i am really excited season two for that show was really well received season one was and i'm really excited for season two that's been very gratifying work uh because the character i play in oakbridge uh deputy jack harris he he really is like a shade of myself i really find myself being able to pour into him and relate to him pretty closely uh and the voice i do for him is not that challenging it's basically just my natural speaking voice but gruff but gruffed up and sort of like more you know older and grouchier and uh it's it's fun though it's really fun work and um i'm excited for that to come together when i finally get caught up on my lines and my scenes but uh yeah so i got that going um i actually just recently recorded for some kind of vr game actually uh these guys brought me in for yeah some sort of vr uh vr game where i played basically an NPC that I think the player can like bump into and start fights with basically like it's and that involved a lot of screaming so I kind of blew my voice out that day but it was still a lot of fun
Conner:
[1:28:39] And yeah basically like life is a balancing act right now you know I got the full I'm still I got the career I've got the full time job I got you know balancing the marriage and parenthood and friends and family allegations and all that stuff keeping the house in order and carving out time from stay
Tyler:
[1:28:59] Sane like how do you.
Conner:
[1:29:00] Yeah yeah honestly just carving out a few minutes here and there for my hobbies like that's that's really what keeps me going like yeah that is how you stay sane and it really is just reclaiming some time for yourself some some peace and quiet when you can um the uh yeah like i said earlier i play bass i actually started learning the bass uh last year
Tyler:
[1:29:23] Who's your favorite bass player?
Conner:
[1:29:26] Favorite bass player. If I had to pick one, I'd probably have to say Duff McKagan.
Tyler:
[1:29:31] Okay.
Conner:
[1:29:32] From Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver. Yeah, yeah. Duff is my hero. He's an amazing guy. I've actually read his book. He has a memoir that you can read. It's called It's So Easy and Other Lies. It's basically his whole life story. Really interesting stuff. But second place, close second, I gotta say Robert DeLeo from Stone Temple Pilots.
Tyler:
[1:29:54] I'm a big STP fan, man.
Conner:
[1:29:56] Love STP.
Tyler:
[1:29:57] Best live, well, top three best live concerts I've ever seen.
Conner:
[1:30:02] I believe it. I believe it. I want to see them so bad. They have a new singer now, Jeff Gutt.
Tyler:
[1:30:07] I would never volunteer to be the singer of STP.
Conner:
[1:30:10] Oh my God, that's such a thankless job. What a thing.
Tyler:
[1:30:14] Ugh.
Conner:
[1:30:15] Yeah, they've lost two singers now.
Tyler:
[1:30:18] Yeah.
Conner:
[1:30:19] It's crazy.
Tyler:
[1:30:21] I don't know if I could go on like that's rough.
Conner:
[1:30:24] Thing is though like the new guy's really good and they seem to have a good thing going like they have a good dynamic going now I'm happy for them I'd sleep with
Tyler:
[1:30:34] One eye open though.
Conner:
[1:30:37] Jeff please be careful please just take care of yourself yeah but yeah those are probably Peter Hook I mentioned earlier big fan of Peter Hook too Paul Simenone from The Clash I love his stuff too I'm a fan of his Mark Stormer from The Killers I'm actually very fond of, he has a good approach, I like his style
Tyler:
[1:31:01] You seem to like bass players that like, play like uh what's the word for the syncopated you know bass style where.
Conner:
[1:31:11] It's like syncopated yeah yeah yeah um two
Tyler:
[1:31:13] Three four five see an event.
Conner:
[1:31:14] A bit yeah yeah very punk i i i yeah i definitely gravitate toward the punk style of bass playing it's it's pretty straightforward just kind of like building the groove i don't like i'm not a show off with it like i'm i don't think i'll ever be like the showy bass player who's like slapping and arpeggioing around the shit it's like no it's not what i'm here for like i just want to build the groove and kind of like be the spine of the song you know i'm not trying to but what's what's cool though like with peter hook especially he he had some very melodic hooks with him he's aptly named one
Tyler:
[1:31:50] Of very few bass players that really plays the high register of the bass yeah like most players are down on the e-string most of the time and peter hook would be almost the lead of the song in many cases like if you're going back and listening to like the just especially new orders stuff i mean he's he's playing up here you know way up on the fretboard and you wouldn't even know some of the time that it was a bass if you weren't watching him play it.
Conner:
[1:32:18] Yeah especially like a love will tear us apart by joy division great joy division song that's that's a bass melody it's a do do do do do do do do do do it's it's catchy it's it so yeah he would he would really build the melody with the bass which isn't conventional but he would also like yeah other songs he would just kind of fit in the groove he would build the foundation the spine of the song uh robert de leo he he was a he was a mastermind of just like the melodic bass lines that weren't just root notes he wouldn't just play root notes he was not a root note guy yeah i say was he's still alive he he would really like think of ways to rhythmically support what the lead guitar was doing what his brother dean de leo was doing on the guitar and like stand apart from the drum line like he would he
Conner:
[1:33:04] Wouldn't he was the rhythm but more like rhythm plus no it's it's cool i love thinking about
Conner:
[1:33:10] This stuff but then you have duff who yeah he
Conner:
[1:33:13] Would most most of the time he would just kind of fit into the background of the song but every now and then his bass lines would kind of jump forward in the mix like he would cut through here and there but he duff was really good at picking his moments to cut through the mix in the song and like stand out with his bass line but then kind of fall back and support again like it was great like yes like uh a lot of the guns and roses songs like uh had just this amazing groove to them rocket queen is one of my favorites rocket queen has this tremendous bass line this bass groove to it uh no it's i i love that shit so i i guess long story short to come back to your question i it's um yeah that's been a an outlet that kind of keeps me grounded when you know just things are busy at home or i'm kind of you know pissed off at work or i'm just you know little little crabby i actually i joined a band last year too so i'm like these guys that i hang out with like friends of mine that i play with now we're all dads we're just a dad cover band basically it's it's very it's very low-key casual but like that that gets me out of the house it gets me like in a room with other people it gets me to like creatively express and it's that's that's exactly what you need when you're just like burnt out from you know watching a baby like racing a baby which don't get me wrong like it's important work I'm so glad I'm doing it I love being a dad it's been a blessing obviously
Conner:
[1:34:40] But yeah you gotta like take some time back for yourself occasionally when you can it's really important for your mental health so
Tyler:
[1:34:50] I've always loved playing music with a group of people it's like that was my first love like really was I wanted to be in a band and all that stuff from 11 to, basically 17 that's the only thing i could imagine myself doing was being in a band, then i is honestly like when i got into wrestling that was like the first time in my life i had another thing that i wanted to do that wasn't just play the bass in a rock band.
Conner:
[1:35:19] Um but
Tyler:
[1:35:23] I never stopped playing. And I think that so many people like look at stuff like that and they're like, oh, well I gave up or whatever. And I never look at anything like that. I got, I'm always just like, okay, I'm just going to go do this other thing now. And I can always return to that. Like it could be literally tomorrow. Somebody might call me and be like, dude, you want to be in a band? I'm like, if we can make it work with my family, like, I don't feel like, yeah, why not?
Conner:
[1:35:44] If I can make time for it, let's do it. Yeah.
Tyler:
[1:35:46] Yeah. That's the spirit.
Conner:
[1:35:48] Yeah, for sure.
Tyler:
[1:35:50] I play the more than anything now. I play the banjo, which is weird because oh yeah uh yeah i got out of i'd always wanted a six-string banjo like it was like one of those like instruments that i always wanted and never bought for myself and then like when i was getting out of the air force a bunch of my you know like supervisor and fellow staff sergeant type folks pulled together and bought me one as like my going away i didn't want a stupid plaque like i was like i don't want a fucking plaque that says like go bobcats on it or whatever so and they gave they gave me a banjo and i was like sick and then i just basically like fell in love with the instrument um that's awesome i was originally a bass player and i'll also play guitar i also played the drone i was like one of those guys that like whatever the band doesn't have i'll play that but oh yeah the bass was always my primary instrument but yeah and playing the banjo has been really neat because you don't have, sustain at all like you can't play a chord and let it ring the way you can you don't have feedback you don't have any of that stuff so you have to like be very you have to keep playing to fill the room yeah and learning to do that and sing at the same time and i can do that by myself like i don't need to have like 15 people but every once in a while i have like some friends come over and like bring a guitar bring a you know whatever bring some that's awesome percussion stuff and do a little thing. That's awesome. But I'm glad I grew up.
Tyler:
[1:37:18] Where I did because that was like a big tradition you have a lot of the you know bluegrass and country music people just like sit on a front porch with acoustic instruments and play all day and like it teaches you to be really versatile and learn fast and so instead of like when I talk to my friends who are like classically trained musicians if it's not like on the paper for them to read they cannot play it like just the idea of jamming.
Conner:
[1:37:44] Is like shout
Tyler:
[1:37:46] Out a key and everybody just plays is completely foreign to them whereas like jazz blues country bluegrass people can all just you know walk in in the middle of a song start playing and.
Conner:
[1:37:56] Make it with the flow yeah um
Tyler:
[1:37:57] And i like that a lot.
Conner:
[1:37:59] That's awesome yeah i actually i started out on the guitar too i i my first instrument was a six-string electric guitar i had like a squire strat that i had in middle school and
Tyler:
[1:38:10] The wemmy bar.
Conner:
[1:38:11] With the wemmy bar yeah exactly yeah that's it so i i'm just yeah it was a toy it was a glorified toy basically it's okay to learn on but yeah
Tyler:
[1:38:22] I mean that's like everybody's you know most people their first guitar is a the basic Squire with a 15 watt amp and the right halfway whemmy bar and it's a great it's a great instrument to learn on.
Conner:
[1:38:34] Yeah good to learn on yeah that's what I had I think I got that in like 8th grade for a birthday present or something and I went to college and kept trying to teach myself I eventually got like a nicer Ibanez RG so I could like really shred and do power chords on and stuff like that and yeah i was it was it was a self-taught situation where i was like in my dorm room i was off in college i was like trying to like just kill time i was like yeah i'll look i learned how i taught myself how to learn tablature or read tablature so i'd like look up random riffs and just songs i liked and try to learn to play them but i never like built a real skill set i never like just got proficient at the chords and you know the
Conner:
[1:39:14] The blues scales and the progressions and like i just i never got a handle on any of that advanced stuff or even basic stuff honestly and so i i basically put the guitar down years ago i never really touched it again and then a couple years ago about a year and a half ago uh the fall of 23 that's that's actually my when i last got laid off from a job like my last period of uh between work i uh yeah i had time to kill uh and i decided i'm gonna give bass a try like i've tried guitar for years and didn't really get didn't really get it um but i i gave the bass a try again my first bass was squire it was just a squire uh precision affinity series precision bass and once i started trying it out like i fell in love with it it was like oh this is way more my speed like this is way i definitely gel with this more and uh yeah it's it's been what really put me over the edge though was like yeah when i met my bet when i met my band on facebook i was i was like on like a local musician's page and these guys were looking for a bass player and i was like i'll come try out you know give me a few songs to learn and i'll come jam with you guys and it it clicked like once we started playing together i was like oh this is great like you know like you said like the like the feeling of playing with other people uh for me it's irreplaceable there's nothing quite like it it's it's such a one-of-a-kind feeling of like locking in with other people just you know feeling the rhythm and all that it's great
Tyler:
[1:40:41] Amazing yeah i think like ideally nowadays because i have so many other things going on like i would love to just work with someone who writes all their own songs and like has a vision for what they want to do and then i would just play every instrument but the one that they play and that would be great like i have this one friend who this will probably happen one day because he's building a music studio right now and he's a songwriter and a great amazing guitar player and i was always just like if you ever get ready to record an album i will play every instrument on the album that you can't play which is basically all so i'll fly out i'll take like a few weeks or whatever you have the songs ready i'll do the drums i'll do the bass i'll play the rhythm guitar like throw some keys on it whatever you want as long as i don't have to be the one who manages everything because the most exhausting part of trying to like take a band seriously, is managing all of the people in it and like it's so fucking disappointing when you're the only one who's like really serious about it and everyone else is just like i don't really care it's a hobby yeah.
Conner:
[1:41:46] All that kind of um
Tyler:
[1:41:47] You can't be like half in half out if you want to tour record make a living at it um yes there's no room for that and what.
Conner:
[1:41:55] That sounds awesome dude if you ever yeah when that happens tell me tell me because i want to listen to it sounds awesome
Tyler:
[1:42:02] Uh i i would love for that to be the case just so i could say i did it like i i don't i'm not gonna like be old and regret not having been a rock star or anything but i would like to just you know get that out of my system in some cases yeah i'd like to like even my own self like there's songs that i've written that i would wouldn't mind recording but i don't want to do the work of like i don't want to be a famous music i've figured that out like i don't want to be a famous musician every famous musician i know doesn't go well like it's like it doesn't sound like an ideal lifestyle for me yeah i want to be home most of the time like even even with wrestling that's like the the hard part is the traveling the wrestling is fun if there was just like one place in town i could just go to every weekend that would be easy but if i have to like every weekend wake up at five o'clock in the morning and just drive or fly to another place another place another place like that's that's the that taxing part of that lifestyle absolutely yeah eating fast food all the time yeah.
Conner:
[1:43:01] It's unsustainable i
Tyler:
[1:43:03] Yeah yeah same.
Conner:
[1:43:05] Like i don't i don't ever well i'm not in this i'm not in i'm not doing acting to get famous or rich and famous i'm not doing music to get rich and famous it's yeah it's just fun like it's something we enjoy doing like actually just this past weekend this past Saturday my band played a little gig we did like a quick half hour set at a bar here in town and I'm like I can look back at that like dude I played music in front of people like I played to a room of people and that's good enough for me like I'm good with that like I don't need anything else
Tyler:
[1:43:39] Yeah, the other thing about it for me is like the lifestyle surrounding that stuff.
Tyler:
[1:43:47] So like I don't want to be in a bar. Like I don't drink anymore. So like being surrounded by people who are drinking and doing drugs and shit like that. It's not like I'm putting them down. Like, yes, your life, do whatever you want. Like I can't, I cannot sustain that lifestyle anymore. Like you're talking earlier about like, what did I do with my 20s? Like i drank my 20s to oblivion fucking like i got the most out of life you can get living that lifestyle and i can't do it anymore my body doesn't want it my my soul needs to do something else yeah.
Conner:
[1:44:20] 100 respect that yeah you're absolutely right it's yeah it is it is like you gotta pick what kind of energy you want to be around and like with yeah even just like i was around like annoying drunk people that night and like i i'm not a fan of that any more than you are but like it's it's it's one thing i can put up with it because like i'm you know i get to play music but yeah you you definitely do decide what room you want to be in and what you're comfortable with and yeah there's 100 nothing wrong with that it's a good thing to know about yourself too
Tyler:
[1:44:55] I think i was like 19 ish i had this like job uh as a like event security kind of thing i'm i'm five foot seven 140 pounds don't the only thing is that like i had a martial arts background so they were like yeah you'll be fine like you could wrestle and stuff you'll be okay i'm like cool but it was like i was uh guarding the door for it was like the mobile civic center or something like that or the Sanger Theater whatever and it was uh Jerry Seinfeld was playing the theater that night and, That's the first time that I like saw someone who was doing that life. Like he was like doing the touring and going everywhere, but he was like, so not fucking around with all the shit. Like he, he like had a private tour bus. He walked in the door right before he was going to go on stage. They had a private green room with all of his shit ready for him and stuff. He just walked in. And as soon as he was off, he walked off the stage right out the door, got on the bus to the next town. And I'm like, that's, that's a way better way to do this yeah infinitely better because yeah yeah even even with wrestlers it's like as soon as the show's over it's like all right let's all go fucking get drunk and shit and i'm like ah okay we have like we have to do something with our lives.
Conner:
[1:46:20] Yeah no it's at a certain point you realize like that kind of just partying every night thing is not sustainable at all i've never been i i still drink occasionally like i'll have a beer or two here and there but like i've even like in my early mid-20s like the height of my party days which i barely can even call them that like i was never like a stay out till 2 a.m type of guy like you know close down the bars hit the clubs or whatever like i've never been that guy i just don't i just don't get it i don't really see the appeal um and like yeah i'll get a good buzz going and have have like relax and have fun with people but like i don't know man there's i i can't even fathom doing that more than once a week once well a couple times a month it's like people do this every single night like this is just your life like yeah how the fuck do you keep that up it's
Tyler:
[1:47:10] It gets dark man like especially in the like in the military it's just a ritual it's like yeah it was like unheard if i went a day without drinking that was weird it was like oh i didn't drink yesterday that's strange because it's like every day that's as soon as you're off work you know you're just basically Like, I don't, I cannot honestly say I've ever, like you said, had a couple of beers. Like, I don't even know what that is. Like, just drink two drinks and then like, all right, well, that's the end of the night. I'm going to relax now. It's like, no, you just drink until you pass out. You wake up the next day, you go running with a big group of people, sweat it all out and you keep going. And it's like horrible. Like in the UK, that's also normal. Like everyone just does that. Like as soon as that you're off your work at five o'clock, you go. Hit the bar, the bar closes at midnight, exactly everywhere you pass out. So you go get more drinks, drink until you pass out, wake up the next morning. And then you go eat beans and toast or whatever greasy shit you have to do to get through the hangover and you repeat. And that's every day. And it's, it's exhausting.
Conner:
[1:48:17] I no way.
Tyler:
[1:48:19] Yeah. I just, I was just got so tired of like living like that. And it was, it was a habit too. It was like, I couldn't just stop either. I had to like, cause that's the, hardest lesson that i learned because like when i made the decision like i'm i'm gonna not drink anymore and i understood you have to taper off of it but i dramatically underestimated the effect that that has on the human body so like the first time that like i tried to do that i ended up in the hospital because my body was like having such an intense reaction to it it was like i just for basically a decade not gone any extended period of time without at least some alcohol in my system my body was like what the fuck bro.
Conner:
[1:48:59] That's wild yeah
Tyler:
[1:49:02] I wouldn't recommend it.
Conner:
[1:49:03] I i i appreciate that i i i wouldn't either i i actually have like a family history of alcohol abuse uh and so like i've seen it happen and it is one it is one of those things like where i've i've been i've done therapy for years too and like i've talked about therapists or i've talked about this to therapists where i've kind of explained that even you went on a social occasional drinker now like even doing that i i still keep it very front of mind i'm still very cognizant of like examining my relationship with alcohol like when i when i drink the little amount occasionally that i do now and even then i'm like okay am i doing this to relax am i doing this to have fun with friends or am i doing this to escape from something or am i doing this to kind of like you know suppress something it is like one of those things like if you're as long as you're examining your motives and like you're kind of keeping keeping front of mind like how you're feeling about everything like your state of mind when you intoxicate yourself like it's kind of like it's a good habit to be into like how am i feeling about this and why am i doing this i guess but or or obviously a completely valid way to go as well as like just you're done with it like that that part of your life is over you're not doing that anymore like there's no wrong answer for that it's kind of like it's whatever you need to keep going Yeah.
Tyler:
[1:50:26] No, I, I definitely was like the escapism person. Like for me, like the idea of just like going through a day and facing it, like raw dogging life was, ah, who does that? How can, like, I, I literally like, if someone's like, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't gamble, I don't curse. I'm like, then you probably, you're a pedophile. Like, what is your vice? Cause you have to have one.
Conner:
[1:50:48] How do you, yeah. How do you function?
Tyler:
[1:50:50] Yeah. And yeah, obviously that's just a fucking lie you tell yourself, but that's genuinely how i felt i mean from the age of 14 until 29 i just didn't do the whole like no more than like six weeks or some shit you know like just being sober was insane to me i'm like how do you wow like who how do you fall literally like how do you fall asleep if you're not intoxicated, like um like who who could just like lay down and just go to sleep i had like the was it robert uh robin williams used to talk about that it's like no as soon as i lay down it's like a monkey with a you know cymbals in his hand crashing and like the circus comes on that's how I felt so I just, either drank or smoked weed or whatever the fuck to get through that wow.
Conner:
[1:51:35] Insane well I'm just on a personal level man to man I'm really glad you've reached a point a point where you're kind of more at peace with yourself if that makes sense I'm glad that like you've figured out what you need and that you're at peace with it I guess um
Tyler:
[1:51:52] Yeah.
Conner:
[1:51:55] If that's not too familiar of me to say.
Tyler:
[1:51:58] No, it's fine. I'm pretty okay with just being real. Like, I feel like people don't, like, I know so many people who do have these problems that do not talk about it. Yeah. And it's like, so it creates this illusion to people who are in that trap that I was in where it's like, well, no one else is expressing it. And then like, when you do talk to people who have gotten sober, it's like they found Jesus or they 12 step program. There's nothing wrong with those things. I mean, whatever gets you there, but I mean, like, it's not relatable necessarily. So I would just say like, for me, as soon as I knew I was going to be a father, I'm like, I have to just like, it was like a light switch moment. I'm like, I look at who you are right now. Does, does that, does that what you want to be as an example to someone else? Like I was thinking about like, I don't want to like, you know, it's four in the morning and my kid's crying and needs me and I'm like just fucking hung over on the couch. Like I can't do that.
Conner:
[1:52:55] Yeah, absolutely. Um, I, uh, for sure. I, I, I've always felt that I'm, I've always been, I've always tried to be kind of an open book. Like I'll talk about anything. I'll, I'll open up about anything. Cause it's like, what's the harm in saying it? You know, like there's like the, if, if you're, if you've accepted what's happened to you and what you've been through and what you've, what you feel about things. Like there's no harm in saying it like no one can yeah it's i guess for the judge i've never had that fear of judgment i guess it's like no it's it is what it is and yeah i mean it's what yeah especially when you're becoming a father it's like yeah you really do examine like yeah how do i how do i want to be who would i want to appear what what kind of yeah what kind of example do i what do i want to set what kind of father would i have wanted if i was a kid and like how do i be that person and all that stuff, and it really makes you reflect, uh, for sure. It's big.
Tyler:
[1:53:50] Well, I just, I just, I don't know why, like, cause obviously that switch doesn't necessarily come for a lot of people. And I'm just happy that it was that obvious to me that like this has to, and I had wanted, like I had said before, like I wanted to get sober for a long time. I just didn't have like that reason, like that, that thing that's like, I'm just going to hold onto this and this will be my motivation. Otherwise it was, I mean, it was just like, oh, well, you know, I made it two weeks. It won't hurt to, you know, have a beer, smoke a joint or whatever the fuck. And then like the next thing I know, I'm like right back to where I started. And, and it was always like hanging out. It was like, I was talking about going to the bar or whatever. It was hanging out with the wrong fucking people. Not that they were bad people, but it's just like all of my friends were doing
Tyler:
[1:54:34] the same shit or whatever.
Conner:
[1:54:35] And it's, it's just, yeah. Being in environments that don't serve you anymore. That's all it is. It's like, yeah, I just, I just can't for my, for my health, for, for what I want out of life. I can't be here anymore. No, no offense, no, no hard feelings, but I can't be here anymore. Totally get that. I, book i found it fascinating how like he basically talked himself into his coke habit like how he justified it how he rationalized it like when guns and roses were blowing up and they were like first doing their big tours and when they were like you know writing their first albums like His big thing was drinking. He was just a huge drinker. He wasn't even a big hard drug user. He never touched heroin or anything like that. He just drank constantly. He would just kill liters of vodka and wine and shit like that. And the reason he started getting into coke was he basically would get drowsy from the alcohol. He's like, oh, I need something to pick me up so I can keep drinking.
Tyler:
[1:55:31] And if I don't do this right now, the fans will be disappointed with my performance.
Conner:
[1:55:35] Yeah, that too. I don't get it on stage. yeah right right so yeah he would just justify like oh i'm not i'm not like doing coke just to do coke i'm doing it so i can stay awake and keep drinking it's just yeah it's it's wild it's the types of lives that some people lead it's just it's it's like foreign to me and it's crazy but i
Tyler:
[1:55:56] Definitely can relate like it's just i would have those like 4 a.m conversations with myself where it's like, well, do you want to sleep tonight? Because there's a beer in the fridge and you could, you could sleep. But you, and then you have like that demon on your shoulder where it's like, but you know, you know, you have to stop, you know, you could just not have it, but you're just not going to sleep tonight. And then if you don't sleep tonight, you're not, you know, you're not going to make it to work on time and you're going to feel like shit. But it's like, but I'm going to feel like shit either way. If I don't have this drink, I'm going to feel sick. And if I do have this drink, I'm going to feel sick later. So you're just like constantly basically just putting the problem off until later. Um i would even like it was so easy in denmark because like there would just be beer and liquor and shit in the refrigerator at work and like no one would say anything it's so normal in europe for whatever reason like yeah you know like no one would even say anything to you if you're just like crack up in a beer at lunch like it doesn't matter as long as you're not like sloppy drunk and my problem more than anything is i wish i could have just been someone who was like sloppy so someone would have had to like grab like what's wrong with you but i was always like super i could literally be sitting here having this conversation and go back and listen to like old in the keep episodes there's almost none of them where i was sober like wow i was just like sitting there drinking beer and i was proud of it too i was like yeah time for another beer you could hear me cracking it into the microphone and shit and that's that was the lifestyle and that was normal.
Tyler:
[1:57:20] Yeah yeah and you know as long as it's not a problem no one's really gonna like confront you about it and right it's not it's not for it really anyone else's job to enforce that on you it's your choice what you do right i and it was honestly it was it was never a problem until i wasn't in the military anymore because there were real consequences to like showing up to work drunk it was like if you if you show up to work and you're drinking on the job like you go to jail whereas like in the real world like if you just sleep until 10 30 because you're hung over and show up to work late like as long as your job gets done no one really fucking cares yeah um and that was like i felt like simultaneous is like, I was so happy to have the freedom to make my own decisions, but I was also like, with great power comes a great responsibility that I always had someone else take that responsibility for me.
Conner:
[1:58:12] Right.
Tyler:
[1:58:13] Um, uh, in some ways, like I'm, I'm glad I did live that life so that I can like look back on it and say like, I beat that demon or whatever.
Conner:
[1:58:23] Yeah.
Tyler:
[1:58:24] Um, but there's so many things I think with artists type folks where they get into the, you're talking about Duff McKagan, like you get into that pattern and you, you have all these reasons why you're self-justifying it and it's a for me especially it was like i had so much like anxiety that like i didn't think that i could perform if i wasn't drinking or or smoking pot or something like that like i i can't calm down enough to like sit down and have this conversation if i'm not fucking under the influence and that anxiety um obviously that's not true i had to like figure that out but but definitely if you're gonna quit drinking like anybody listening if you're gonna quit drinking and you're like a heavy drinker or consistent all the time drinker that first two weeks once you get past that it's over but that first two weeks is like rough because you are anxious all the time you're like you're all of the suppression like all it's like if you are out in the cold and then you come back inside and then like when you thaw out you feel all the tingling pain that you haven't felt it's like however long you've been under the influence of any nerve suppressant or whatever that all of that comes back all at once your body is still going to do it it's just been putting it off and putting it off and putting it off so yeah.
Conner:
[1:59:40] That's the big hump to get over and yeah it's i actually you know i i grew up with uh functional alcoholics in my family i kind of saw how like yeah it can it can appear normal but like it's only because they've made such a habit of it that it appears like that's just their normal state of being then yeah when you break that habit it's it really collapses down on itself and it's very hard to live any other way but if you yeah get accustomed to it you can't you can live another way eventually if you get through it so it's it's it's tough though what
Tyler:
[2:00:16] What kind of effect did that have on you as a kid like.
Conner:
[2:00:19] I don't it's it's one it's weird because it's one i'll just say it was my dad um like no one else no one here knows him but uh it's it it's weird because i didn't really notice it at growing up it's really only looking back in retrospect you start to notice like i realize like oh shit that was that was kind of sus that was kind of weird that that happened but so like
Conner:
[2:00:42] He would occasionally pick me up from uh i went to school my brother and i went to school and my parents both worked full-time and so we would go to school and the bus would drop us off at basically our babysitter's house and mom or dad would come get us from the babysitter's house when they were off work and so my dad would sometimes pick us up and he would have an open can of beer in his car as he's like picking us up to take us home and like and at the time you know when i'm literally an elementary school kid i don't think anything of it i'm like oh dad's just drinking a beer he does that all the time that's no that's normal i don't put two and two together like maybe he shouldn't be doing that while driving i don't that doesn't occur to me it's only when i look back as an adult like that was kind of weird i don't know why that was happening and then yeah like I would I remember another time he came home from work and he he had like a Wendy's coke like he had a cup from Wendy's he'd gone through the drive-thru at Wendy's and he'd gotten a diet coke or whatever and I was thirsty I'm like hey dad can I have some of your coke can I take a sip of your coke and he's like no cause there's rum in it or no he didn't say that but like he told me no I couldn't and I remember like
Conner:
[2:01:54] Yeah, just for some, like, I look back, I'm like, oh, because he spiked it, he was just drinking a rum and coke casually out of a Wendy's cup. And like, again, like, I think when I look back, I'm like, oh, he was, when I, when I say functional alcoholic, I mean, like, he was maintaining, he went to work, he, you know, didn't like, come home sloshed and beat us or anything. Mean he was a functional normal healthy appearing guy but i think when i when i say functional i mean like it was just a habit that wasn't ruining his life or anything like that he wasn't like destroying our home life i grew up in a stable healthy loving home for the most part like there were bad nights like you know occasionally but that's no less for anybody but like
Conner:
[2:02:35] It's almost it's weird because it's like it's a very subtle in the background sort of thing that you notice later in life as a kid it doesn't really and thank god like i think if if a kid notices a drinking problem and knows what it is at the time that's a big problem like a kid should not know that you have a drinking problem and that your habit is affecting your life and the kid's life um but yeah the fact that i look back on it and notice it like well i guess things weren't that bad that he was maintaining you know it's fine but then it got dark it got bad when my mom passed away years ago it was probably yeah it's coming up on um coming up on 12 years now 14 years now um she she died of cancer when i was 22 i was just out of college and my dad obviously needless to say he didn't cope well at all his uh his drinking problem which like i said had been very subtle and very manageable throughout most of his life throughout my life it became very much not manageable very much not so it's not subtle after my mom passed away and he was kind of alone in that house you know just what could go wrong right uh so it got to a point where he was not taking care of himself at all and it was really bad and so my brother and i basically had to step in essentially pull uh power of attorney and get
Conner:
[2:03:57] You know get him in a situation that was you know sustainable that he could live in um so yeah it's one of the things like when you know when you become an adult and your you know your parents like suddenly rely on you it's something not many people are ready for when it happens especially when it happens like that where it's like oh i i'm still figuring my shit out now i have to help you figure your shit out i didn't know i had to do that and uh it's it's not easy but um yeah no i saw i've seen it happen uh it's it can take a
Tyler:
[2:04:30] I mean i'm sorry you had to go through that but oh.
Conner:
[2:04:33] No that's thank you i appreciate that it's it's it is what it is it's it's fine now things are he's he's actually doing a lot better now as he's met his granddaughter he's you know psyched to be a granddaddy's yeah he's doing well now as well as he can be
Tyler:
[2:04:48] Hey man i always try to think about it like not to get all metaphysical or new agey but the i just think about like life kind of gives you the challenges that you're supposed to face and it's your decision how you how you interface with those things and uh yeah you know like the the the part of your life where you become sort of responsible for your parent it's like at a certain point you know they had that moment with you where it's like they had that same moment as me where it's like do i end my bad habits now like or do i hide it and try to keep it under under wraps or manage it so that this never affects you all that kind of stuff like i it's tough like it's it's fucking really really hard either way yeah yeah.
Conner:
[2:05:41] It's you know our parents are human beings like i think when you're a kid you think of them as untouchable like they you know they seem perfect or at least they you assume they have it all figured out and then like yeah you you become an adult and you realize oh no no none of us have this shit figured out we're all just kind of doing our best
Tyler:
[2:06:00] There's so many things like that with my, with my parents where I'm like, it's stuff that I used to like resent them for. And then as I became an adult myself, I was like, man, I kind of realized like my dad, I'm like, you're the way you are because your mom was the way that she was. And she's the way she is because her mom, and it goes all the way back to like, I don't know, Kane and Abel or, or whatever. The first the 2001 a space odyssey like the first monkey to figure out that if you hit another monkey over the head with a stick you could get more food or whatever right right um it's just a never anything but yeah i think you know a good place to leave off would be like as parents i'm just gonna do my best to not pass along those every single bad there's probably gonna be stuff that i you know never quite work out but i'm hoping like when my when my boy is older he's gonna of look back and say like my dad did the best he could and now it's my turn to carry the torch.
Conner:
[2:06:56] Yeah i'll i'll do the best i can you did the best he could his dad did the best he could it's yeah it's you always try to do better than what came before you like there are things that i i had good parents my i i i honestly could have done a lot worse they were they were good people but yeah there are things that i'm planning to do different from them like i'm going to do better than them on certain things or I'm going to and on the other hand I'm going to try and do as good as them in other things like I'm going to do better I'm going to aspire to certain things and I'm going to do better than other at other things and that's all that's all you can do just try to Try to be better in the ways that count, basically.
Tyler:
[2:07:38] It's one thing I have to give my parents. Like, I think a lot of people have the, when they first have a kid, like the fights with their parents because their parents want to weigh in on what they think you ought to do with the kid and that kind of stuff. And I can honestly say, like, my folks are like, oh, don't make these mistakes that I made. Like, don't do this. They're never like telling me how to raise my kid. They're saying like, don't be like me in this way. Yeah. I really appreciate that.
Conner:
[2:08:03] Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the through line for this whole conversation that we started with sort of a thought about, you know, inspirations and how things are connected and like how creative works are all, can all be tied back to something else. And it's the same way with, with parenting, you know, like we are instilled with certain values and customs and habits by the people who shape us. And we we we get to when we become parents like what like you and i have like we get to choose what we keep and what we don't we we get to choose like hey that was good i'm going to do that too but this was bad i'm not going to do that and it's just sort of like you get to be that uh that floodgate like oh i'm gonna let this through but not that i'm gonna you know improve on this but you know that's that's fine and my wife and i are actually figuring this out too because like we were raised by different people obviously so like her parents had certain things that you know she doesn't want to repeat but other things she doesn't want to repeat and like yeah vice versa for me so it's like hey we got to come together and have an understanding of like you know how we both want to approach different things and be a be a team you know you gotta be a team don't let the baby bully both of you you gotta be a team yeah
Tyler:
[2:09:18] It's there's nothing more annoying to me when i hear like when i hear someone say like oh this this and this happened when i was a kid and i turned out okay so it's no big deal and i'm like yeah no not in this house maybe you're you guys can do whatever you want over there but like yeah no not good enough.
Conner:
[2:09:38] That ain't it yeah that's not a good excuse that's not good enough because yeah like i was i was spanked and i was hit sometimes growing up like i was disciplined physically sometimes growing up and yeah i think i'm mostly well adjusted now but that's in spite of the physical punishment not because of it like it's uh just because i'm fine generally I'm a healthy person generally. I'm not doing that shit. Like, I know it's wrong. Like, I know it was wrong at the time. My parents didn't know it. They thought it was acceptable, if not, you know, not ideal, but acceptable. And I know now, like, no, I'm not doing that. Even though I'm okay now, it doesn't matter. Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:10:19] That's right. An especially hard cycle to break, I think. It is. And like, it was the same for me. Like, I grew up in the South South too. So like, I would watch like a kid act up in the grocery store and then like, get spanked and then other parents would clap kind of shit and like that's just fucking disgusting, and like i i'm not gonna say his name because it's not fair but like i had a friend who grew up like that and then when he had he had two he has two boys and he was starting to act that way and his wife was angry at him and as she should be you know like don't do that but for him it was just so brainwashed and like well that's how you discipline people yeah that's that's normal yeah had like a come to jesus meeting with him where i'm like look like think about you know like you're so angry and you hate your father right like and he's like yes i do hate my father i'm like, and you know how you can't look him in the eye because of how much you hate him and he's like yes and i'm like do you look at your son and tell me you want him to grow up and think that of you, make that decision and like and he obviously like figured he figured it out on his own but like yeah just like do the do the logic like think in the long term don't just think about right now that's big.
Tyler:
[2:11:30] I don't even fault my parents for doing what they did. I just feel like they had that experience as a kid too. That is how they were taught discipline works. So unlearning that is, especially now we have the internet, we have all of these different outlets to explore what other people think and how they do stuff. And I've had this conversation with my father where he's like, you're kind of an asshole. I'm like okay dad enlighten me and he's like you hold us to these standards of like what we should have known and he's I want you to understand that in like 1975 the only information we got was the newspaper the library what they told us at school and what the preacher said and that was it I was like I couldn't just open up my phone and like google all this information and like see what other people thought of every different idea like whatever they told us on sunday was the truth, and anybody who went against that was an insane person and you're expecting so much of us and like i had to take a step back and like you're right you know that's that's true we we as a generation have done that in many many ways for the better i hope but still yeah yeah.
Conner:
[2:12:48] It's like when you know better you can try to be better but you gotta understand like what you know what came before you like i don't i don't hold it against my parents how they raised me like they they just they did the best they could with the information they had the same way that like i don't really hold it against my dad like what he put us through when his drinking got really bad like i because i know what he was going through i know that he was grieving he wasn't grieving in a healthy way he was grieving in a self-destructive way
Tyler:
[2:13:12] That was the way he knew how to grieve exactly.
Conner:
[2:13:15] That's what he knew how to do so it's like i i can't i can't find resentment in my heart for that like i i'm frustrated with him i was frustrated with him when it was you know when he was putting us through that but like yeah no he's he's he's going through something you know it's not his fault necessarily well no it's uh hey we all we all do our best like we said we all heal however we can and do our best and creative outlets are how we are one one tool in that toolbox you know
Tyler:
[2:13:49] That's what I would say. If you're out there and you're struggling, find something you like doing and do that instead.
Conner:
[2:13:56] Hear, hear. Amen.
Tyler:
[2:13:58] It's been great to catch up with you, man. I know I scheduled this for way longer, but it's because I wasn't thinking. But let's move on with your night.
Conner:
[2:14:06] It's all good. Yeah, free time's at a premium. We could talk all night, I'm sure. But this was great. Let's do this again sometime. Maybe when Stellar Valkyrie's out, we can talk about the game itself and yeah something or just i would
Tyler:
[2:14:22] Love to get the whole team together one day absolutely sectors and like stuff and like just talk about the whole experience of the game that'd be sick yeah um so hopefully that's not too much longer wink wink to the audience but um all right man anyway have a good night you.
Conner:
[2:14:40] Too take care
Tyler:
[2:14:40] Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Howdy y'all i'm being uh quiet right now because i have my newborn infant son in my lap as i record this uh thank you all for uh bearing with me through that little break and be back more, well sooner than later with like even more content and stuff i'm just catching up, uh thanks to connor for coming on the show i really appreciated him thank you to all of our wonderful supporters who have uh endured with us through all these years and continue to do so uh thank you just thanks i love you god love you i'll say more next time i promise stay in the keeps.
Music:
[2:15:41] Music
