I am rectangular. I feel it in my bones. I am rectangular. I feel no hole.

Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well. And today we are having an exclusive conversation and interview with musician, songwriter, singer, Mr. Sean Stevens himself, who we have covered on the channel in my Instagram reels reaction series that you've seen on this channel before. Sean is one of several musicians, I think maybe the biggest and most prominent of all so far, who, since that series has started, has reached out and reacted to my thoughts on his music. He seems like a generally responsive and self-aware guy when it comes to the reception that his music has gotten. His music is quite popular on Instagram reels, getting a lot of viral attention on a weekly basis. And I wanted to just basically pick his brain about that, his songwriting process, this recent music-based trajectory he has been on in his life and anything else that comes up in the conversation.

Anthony: Sean, thank you for taking the time.

Sean: Wow. Thank you for having me, my good man. I really appreciate it.

Anthony: All right. I guess the first thing I wanted to ask before we dig into anything super specific is just how this crossover and connection is happening. I've been on Instagram reels for a while, and people's music just happens to pop up in my face on a regular basis. And when I'm just going through the algorithm, your music, just by chance, happened to do that. Even before, I was on YouTube. I think I might have even said this in the video. But as I was organically just scrolling and screen capturing the whole thing for a piece of YouTube content. I've already seen your videos half a dozen times at the very least, and just not only seen that legendary video of you in Times Square, although I don't think it's just the one. You've shot quite a few of the same video of that style and have ingeniously reposted it for maximum viral exposure. But not only I had seen that video a bunch of times, but others you had done as well and seeing the reception that you had been getting. So in my head, you were already like somebody who had some motion and something going.

What was your initial reaction when you saw me reacting to your stuff on YouTube and talking about it in a somewhat like, jokey fashion?

Sean: That's nice. I appreciate it. The reality is, any attention a musician can get at this point in history is just lovely. And you do a great job for a lot of independent musicians. The reality is negative or positive attention, the reality is on Instagram, is dissonance. That dissonance leads to interest. That interest leads to people looking more deeper at musicians that otherwise wouldn't have looked at them. I appreciate any and all attention The attention that I get. Listen, you did some posts and said nice things, and you couldn't find a more humble and thankful guy than myself because you brought a lot of people my way. I really appreciate that.

Anthony: Okay. Well, from what I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but this music trajectory that you've been on in your life, on social media, releasing music on streaming platforms, so on and so forth, this has been a more recent occurrence? I guess being an independent musician, was that always an aspiration that you had for a long time, even when you were younger? Or was this a sea-change in your life that came about by some experience or just a change of heart in some way?

Sean: No, on the contrary. So I became a musician coming out of high school, in high school. I really wanted to be a musician for the rest of my life. My family didn't want me to be a musician, so I went to university and did a lot of music during that. At the end of university, declared myself as a full-time musician, worked everything I could, made records, did a whole bunch of work. I didn't get a lot of support from family and external, but kept on doing it and grinding as I could. Then started working just so I could support things, had a family, and had to put music down for a bit. Then COVID, being home and writing again and doing things, picked up the mantle, started writing and doing a lot more music again, and actually released a record the old-fashioned way, made the record, put it out. Both people who listened to it thought it was great, but didn't get any exposure. I didn't get any visibility, trying to do it the old-fashioned way, which is play local jazz festivals and things. I went, there's got to be a different way to approach this.

It was only a couple of years ago. So a couple of years ago, I found a great guy online, Damian Keyes, who made recommendations on, Stop thinking about music that way and start thinking about a new way, which is go to where the people are, go to the watering hole where people are drinking the water, which was TikTok, Instagram, other places. I started making the videos, Instagram videos about music. And to be honest, it's been really fun. Millions of people have heard my music. If I'm in an airport or anywhere around the world, I'll have people come up and say hello. I never had as a musician in the going from club to club experience. So it's been really fun.

Anthony: When you're talking about that period of time where you put it down or had to put it down for a bit, what years are we talking about? How long was that period per se?

Sean: Well, I didn't ever pull it down completely. It's always been in the back of my head just wanting... My passion is music, my interest is music. But I also got pretty good at business and started built a little business on the side, have a lot of fun with that. And so I would say, really It really was mid 2000s. I put it down a little bit. Then by the end of... By 2010, it was down completely. I had a whole bunch of life realities, a sick daughter and some other stuff that meant I had to make a choice. So I made the choice. And then life continued. She's amazing. Everything's amazing. I got to this point in life where I can pick it back up. I would say it was COVID that I started playing and recording again more seriously.

Anthony: And when you were originally grinding and gigging, I imagine this was what? This was mid to late '90s, early 2000s or something, just putting the time period.

Sean: Yeah. So I spent '97 through '99 in a studio making a band, blah, blah. And so during that, a lot of me and just a guitar. And I did a lot of gigging three, four times a week from 2000 to That's right about the time that the music industry was collapsing around everybody. Right. The CD was collapsing. Napster was coming out. I was still like, sell CDs, make records. Really in that, this is the way the music industry should be and fighting against the man and destroying music through online streaming. And then it took me, obviously, a long time to realize that that is the longer of the way people absorb music. That was a shjft.

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, getting into that a little bit, is that something to, I guess, you've said it, but to dig into it, was that a reality that you feel like you had a difficult time adjusting to, given that as you were growing up, a majority of the music that you were listening to and consuming was either through a CD or a tape or on the radio? Was it difficult jumping into the social media and streaming pool, given that that's not where your formative music experience has happened younger in your life?

Sean: Yeah, this is really interesting, I think, change, shift, I don't know what this is, but I still have this feeling of a record. There's this piece, there's a series of different songs that all glue together as this intention. I can think of my favorite records as opposed to songs. And now I think there's been this shift. And if you look at the way Spotify wants you to promote things, according to Spotify, as I understand it, it's they're looking for at least three songs, one every four to six weeks on this constant basis. Some people say, "release a song every week or every two weeks, and you'll get more traction." The reality is, as you know, Instagram will give you one minute. So suddenly, songs, the hooks have to be different and the approach has to be different. That idea of the larger record idea, I still have baked into me. I want to make records. I think of songs and how they group together in a meaningful way so that they can pass up nicely. You know, Abbey Road. You can't really listen to a song of Abbey Road. It's like you got to listen to the record.

But I think that's shifted, I think. I'm new to this. You've been around for a while doing amazing things. I'm brand new to the Instagram TikTok scene and looking at what is the new way, the new world order of music. It seems to be shorter songs, almost irritatingly short. But most people, millions of people have heard 30 seconds of one of my songs. How many people have transitioned over to Spotify? I still am free with that. How to get people to go from the millions that listen or watch a short and then move over.

Anthony: Right. So you yourself have personally had, and I think this is the case for a lot of independent musicians. You've also seen the effect, despite a lot of the traffic and attention that you have been getting, you've had yourself a hard time translating all that traffic that you're generating on Instagram over to a platform like Spotify to listen to the entire thing or the entire album.

Sean: Exactly. In fact, do I even think that an album is a thing anymore? I'm still internally struggling with, will we write this in terms of albums, or is the world changing, especially with AI and other things that are changing? And is it really about the song as the ultimate piece? I mean, we go back a couple of hundred years, Mozart wasn't writing it at records. He was writing concertos or hour long or two hour long things. And we crushed that down into half an hour to 45 minutes. And that may be crushed even more. And the question will be, are songs in the future only 30 seconds long? I certainly hope not, for the record. No pun intended.

Anthony: No, I would hope not, too. It's interesting to hear your separation in your mind on this because simultaneously, I know, or at least a little I know or understand of your professional life, you seem like a pretty tech savvy and tech forward guy in terms of your business dealings and so on and so forth and Treefrog. Do you feel like there are two sides of you in that way? Because, again, your professional life, it seems to be very tech-based, but simultaneously, you seem to recognize what you view as these negative downsides that tech is having on the music and art world.

Sean: So I wish that I could have a band and play a band and be successful as a band and make a record and continue on with that logic as what was started 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 70 years ago, and so how that worked. But as a business person, you're always looking for what's happening in the world of business, what's happening in the shift of technology. And so I see that since that shift is happening, I either don't have anyone listen to my music because I've not approached it in the proper way, or have millions of people listen to my music and just accept that that's the shift that you need to make as an artist in order for people to listen to it. The skill set of the music industry as it was in the late '90s is not the skill set of the industry as it is now. I mean, with DAWs and manipulating music and the changes of autotune and the one thing after the other, even the electric guitar is a massive technological shift from playing in an orchestra 200 years ago. So as the technology shifts happen, we've got to adapt them as quickly as we possibly can and still entertain and find people where they want to listen to or be entertained.

Anthony: So it's essentially just about chasing after an audience for you in terms of adopting, in a tech-savvy way, some of these platforms. Something that I wonder about as a content creator and looking at other musicians like yourself as content creators in your own right is a platform like Instagram, do you at all, as much success and attention as you have gotten on there, do you would all feel maybe a little bit slighted by the exposure business model over there? Because they are generating millions and millions of hits off of what you do and your content and your music and the stuff that you've made and created in much the same way that you would expect there to be some kind of, even though it's very minuscule, some payment through Spotify, people were to be actively clicking on your music. Do you feel like Instagram, in a way, is exploiting what you do and saying, Well, he uploaded it here for free, so we can just expose it and play it as much times as we want to get people to listen to it and stay on the platform without having to pay this guy a dime?

Do you feel like creators such as yourself, musicians such as yourself, should be getting paid by Instagram to have their content on there, engaged with?

Sean: Wow. You're going to get me banned from Instagram at this point. I'm kidding.

Anthony:  I want everyone to get a ban from Instagram, honestly. I would love millions of bans flying from Instagram to the musicians that keep the platform interesting.

Sean: Yeah, it is interesting. The reality is the entire life of a musician really isn't fair anymore. That is the truth. Even Spotify. So in order to make any money on Spotify, a million streams is $2,400, right? That's the basic concept there. That's the platform that hypothetically pays you. But a million streams for an independent musician is a huge amount of streams. That's incredible. I haven't achieved that yet. I mean, in terms of all songs, I think I have. But the amount of the cost to even buy a guitar, a nice guitar costs a thousand bucks, a couple of thousand bucks. And so even to be able to make the music, you're not going to make that money back from the paid platform. So the reality is the entire business model that is music, it's got to change. And I think it has changed. I think actually I've made more money selling versions of this mug and T-shirts than I've made it off Spotify. Just because people don't want to recognize me as a musician and they're like, "Oh, I can't buy a record, so I'll go buy a T-shirt or do something, or buy a sweatshirt or buy recognition."

I think that as an artist, is it fair? Absolutely not. No, it's wrong. But we're also not paying Instagram a lot of money. I mean, maybe they could share more or give it creators in a different way. I think Google and YouTube, or at least, there is some way to make money through that mechanism, and that makes a lot of sense. But Instagram and TikTok and Red Note and all the others, they're all just preying on the creators for the most part.

Anthony: To dig into what you were just saying there, especially taking into account that you've been making music and have been aware of the music industry on some level for multiple decades now, do you feel like it's, despite the fact that you have access to platforms like Instagram, where you can put your stuff up and potentially get an audience that you wouldn't have had otherwise, do you feel like it's more difficult for musicians to make a living now than it might've been in the '90s or 2000s, generally?

Sean: Well, see, in the '90s or 2000s, I was still working a day job in order to make music work. Sure. So not the right guy to ask. I know there were those band members. There were band members in my band who were, I'm going to say, famous in Canada, really, really well-known musicians, and they were still having trouble paying their bills and feeding their family. When was the last time it was fair for the mid-level or independent or beginner musicians? I don't think it's ever been. It's not really fair to anyone that wants to be an artist, and I've been fighting that my whole life. But one thing I would give with all the technology, I have a day job or two, and I'm able to accomplish all of that. But with Instagram, with those technologies, with support, I'm able to get visibility for the passionate thing that I do around music and other things and get visibility for those, thanks to that. So am I bitter about it? No. Is it fair? No. Am I just using that, finding ways around the way it currently works? Yes. But could I be a full-time musician at this point?

No. My lifestyle would certainly not allow for that.

Anthony: Is that something that you eventually aspire to? Is that a goal in mind, or do you feel like you're still approaching this and just will continue to in a hobbyist way, but obviously putting the drive behind it in order to get the exposure that you wanted to?

Sean: And those are great questions. You know what? I would say this. I have a really complicated, fascinating, interesting life. And not everybody gets to do 25 things in their life as I have gotten to do. And as a result of that, if the only thing that I ever did again was music, if I was stuck on a desert island, the only thing I could ever do was play music, I'd probably accept that. But I really am deeply interested in technology and the way it's transformational to life. I'm really interested in other forms of art, like dancing and other things. I have lots of different passions. So would I give it all up just so that I can... I mean, to really make it as a musician, you have to be 100%, absolutely all in, gigging every night, cranking it out. And I did that for five years of my life. And it is hard. It is so hard. When you are up till 2: 00 in the morning and you got to lug out all the drums down the back stairs of the smelly place, and then you take it in and you put it in a car and the car gets stolen.

The life of a musician is terrible. I seriously suggest to become a CEO. It is way better. As a life because the reality is there's a little bit more cushions around you to enjoy life. And then being able to be a musician on the side is just honoring my earlier self. I feel like that person deserves to get some credit for all the emotional output that they put out.

Anthony: Yeah. You don't want to put yourself through that hell again. You'd like to maybe just engage with the music without having to do the amp lugging, without lugging any amps.

Sean: I'm not afraid of lugging an amp, but I'll lug an amp all day. But it's not even necessary anymore. When you can get a post that we had, I think went to think almost a five 5 million views that I just reposted you. 5 million people saw us together. The number on that is crazy compared to going and playing X number of shows, which I'd rather play somebody's birthday party than play a big show at this point.

Anthony: Okay. Let's talk about, I guess, some of the inspirations behind some of these tracks and obviously, some of your biggest and most well-known songs. We can start with "Rectangular" obviously. Again, I'm not familiar entirely with the release process of not just this song, but also your Chasing Butterflies album. When you were creating the music during this album cycle that you did, because obviously you've been generating a lot of stuff, and in your posts on IG reels and elsewhere, you've really leaned into the song in terms of promoting it and generating a piece of content after content after content of this song promoting it. What was it about this song that among all your others that you've written, you were like, "This is the one. This is the one I've got to push." And I mean, and I would agree with your choice here, obviously, it's the track that took off. I feel like any other track probably wouldn't have gone as hard. So what about this track really drove you to be like, "I got to push this one. This is the track I'm writing. This is the one I'm trying to sell to people. This is my elevator pitch."

Sean: Well, I think one is the... Number one, it's not my favorite song. I think I do love the message in it, the idea that you can accept somebody the way they are. People are fundamentally different. And there's been this big political shift in the world recently to make everybody the same bland, boring sameness as possible. And I love people who are interesting and different and unique. And the people interesting and different and unique tend to fall away from sight. They tend to get shoved out into the corners. And so being the spokesperson as the person who accepts all those people and says, "Hey, come on in the middle and be rectangular with me." I love that as a message. As far as the song goes, I wish people would go a little bit farther than that one song and go listen to all the other music. I think I've got 100 and something songs on Spotify. There's lots more material there. The obvious reason as to why I pushed that, you'll see that the release logic was this: I had decided to make a record, came up with 12 different songs, and the social media people that I had talked to had said, "Look, don't release the whole record again. That's a terrible idea. Release one song at a time. Release them every five to six weeks."

So I just chose. I'm going to release one every single month. So I released one on the 14th of the month, every month for a year. And at the end of the year, I just wrapped it all up and called it a record. And there was a logic there which it got a lot more traction and visibility and a lot more distance. So in my mind, even though Chasing Butterflies is a record and always was, most people would listen to it. They were actually all independent songs that came out. I'm doing that again, starting off with one and building one at a time. And now I'm just going in multiple directions The marketing hat that I could wear, because I run a marketing company, has basically said, Look, you've got this easily memorizable, easy to almost irritating I'll say. Everybody now knows it. They're slightly irritated by it. Great. There's some distance.

Anthony: I mean, yeah, it's stuck in my damn head. So you've done the right thing.

Sean: So I'll do another song and promote it a little bit. And it won't get any traction because it's a brand new song. Nobody's heard it before, nobody cares. So then I go back to "Rectangular" and everybody goes, I'm going to hear that again. That's great. And then they're listening again, and then I give them another song. I listen to this one. And I hope at some point one of the other songs gets this thing. I try to not to write irritating songs, it's not my purpose in life. I'm trying to collect my emotions and put them all in a little jar and then show that jar to people, and hopefully, they'll get something out of that.

Anthony: To maybe get people like, hyped or jazzed or digging a bit deeper into the record, specifically Chasing Butterflies, since that is like your latest full length. What is your favorite song off of that album? I mean, I've spun the record from front to back a couple of times. I'll say "Magnetic" quite dramatic. There are a few others I wanted to pick your brain about, too. But is there a personal favorite on the album of yours that you feel like people would gravitate to more other than "Rectacular?"

Sean: So I actually really love all the songs on the record. There's a few that I like less, but there's a couple. I would say "Strawberry" is probably the best song on the record.

Anthony: Second song on the record, Strawberry.

Sean: Yeah. I'm not sure if it's my favorite song, but I'd say it's the best song. I got just a well-constructed did. If I could make another 100 songs like that and nobody listened to them except for my kids and my mom, I'd be happy. But there was a lot in that. There's some other ones like "Circle" or "Square", which are all like... They were fun attempts to take off on the "Rectangular." I love those ones, too. I don't know why those didn't take off. Or "Butterfly," which is also one that went really far. I would say that most people who listen to the record say "Sunrise" is their favorite, and most people call it out as the best song I've ever written. But I don't know. It's complicated. It's like, choose my favorite child. I'm never going to say that out loud.

Anthony: Well, you're not going to hurt the song's feelings, but with that being said, You're talking about especially with "Rectangular," and there are other songs on the album, too, that express this feeling of otherness or feeling a little out of place, being different, so on and so and forth. What is it about you in your head that you feel like rectangular-ness represents that message or idea? Does it have to do with, I guess, the metaphor of being square, or is it something beyond that?

Sean: I think the thing that makes me rectangular, and what rectangular is, is that most people are looking for other people who are like them. And the reality I have had a very interesting, completely different life than most people. And the reality is I'm not like anybody else. And there's a lot of other people who aren't like anybody else. They're not like me. They're just not. It's like the not-likes. That's the people who don't fit. And increasingly, the world gets more interesting and more complicated, and people have more complicated life. There's more and more people who don't fit, who are not going to dress the same, look the same, act the same as everybody else. And we're we're going to take pieces of life and pieces of other experiences and have our own magical, magnificent experience instead of living somebody else's life or somebody else's expectations. And so that's, I think, the thing is that if there are other people in the world who feel like they want to have a unique life that's different than everybody else's, then we're going to be best friends. But if they're looking to be the same as somebody else and adopt somebody else's sameness, then I'm happy to be friends with one of those.

I don't need to be friends 200 of the same person, if that makes sense.

Anthony: No, I get what you're saying. I guess in your head, symbolically, what makes you feel like rectangle represents that idea, I guess, as opposed to anything else? You could have thrown... You could have associated lots of different images with this idea. You know what I mean? But what drove you to the idea of a rectangle being like, what makes you feel that or you associate that with that feeling?

Sean: Right. Okay. So to me, it's obvious. And obviously, I have not articulated this well. There was a meme on the Internet for a while, and it was a person. It was a little kid toy with different shapes on it. And it was a person who was putting the shape inside. There's a square and a triangle and a circle and a... And the kid, you have different blocks, and you put a block in the right hole. It's like, "Which hole does it go in?" Anyway, and so there was a comedian, and I cannot remember her name for the life of me. I'm so sorry. Super famous online comedian. And she is talking about a software developer and just talking about a software developer watching somebody use their system being being used. And the person keeps sticking all the shapes into the same hole.

Anthony: Okay, I think I've seen that meme that you're talking about. It's very funny.

Sean: It's very funny. Anyway, so that idea that everybody belongs in their own hole. You get the hole and you belong in the hole. So get in the hole that the shape that belongs to you. And I'm like, dude, there is no hole for me. It's not even everybody.

Anthony: Okay. The concept and the whole lyrics, it's all coming together. It's all coming together. You're explaining. You're giving the context. You're giving the background.

Sean: Exactly. Actually, the cover of the single is a picture of that toy, which is that we put the shapes in the right hole. I think the realization for me was all of these other people are jumping in somebody else's hole, but I don't seem to fit in anybody's hole. We're not going down this hole metaphor right now. I do speak about holes a lot. Maybe this is where it comes from.

Anthony: Yes, you do.

Sean: We're going down a rabbit hole here.

Anthony: Yeah, a rabbit hole. No, a different kind of hole.

Sean: That's right. So the big question is, do you fit in the hole or not? And I don't seem to fit in the hole, so there you go.

Anthony: Okay. Got it.

Sean:  You may need to put one of those explicit things on this.

Anthony: No, it's fine. Innuendo is completely fine on this channel. Speaking of which, since we're on that topic, yet we're explaining lyrics, please tell me on the track "Square" what you mean by that you're going to be jumped on, jump on top like a Chihuahua. I need that explained to me. I'm not familiar with that metaphor. I've never owned a Chihuahua. My experiences with the Chihuahua's are limited. I need to know that's all about.

Sean: There's another meme, which is, I think it's a Trump doll and a Chihuahua. And so if you just type Trump doll and Chihuahua- Are memes usually this central to your Lyric writing process?

Anthony: How many lyrics are based on memes that you're just seeing on the Internet? I must know this.

Sean: Where would I get the rest of my content from? This is where all good content comes from.

Anthony: Okay, so you're saying it's close to 100 %. You're saying it's close to that number?

Sean: Yeah, well, that is where I get all of my thoughts. It's from bad memes. I'm trying to reposition that.

Anthony: Understood. Okay, so the Trump doll meme? Go on.

Sean: Trump doll and Chihuahua. I'm pretty sure. I can't do that right now. But if you type in Trump doll and Chihuahua into Google, you would probably get the sense of what I'm talking about when I say-

Anthony: Is the Chihuahua mounting the Trump doll?

Sean: I think that's the word.

Anthony: Yeah. Okay, got it. Okay, got it.

Sean: Mounting.

Anthony: Okay, I need to...

Sean: This interview is really descended into-

Anthony: Sir, these are your lyrics. I'm just merely asking you the content of the words that you are saying.

Sean: Some lyrics are best left alone. Do you know what I mean? It's left alone inside the hole.

Anthony: Listen, I just feel like you're almost like a Prince-type figure. Instead of the gender fluid symbol that he has. You have the rectangle instead of purple, you have green. You have these very salacious, very suggestive lyrics sometimes that I think need a little bit of exploration. With that being said, I also wanted to... I would be remiss if I did not bring up, and we're a big fan of him over here on this channel, and I've talked about his music on multiple occasions. Mr. Geordie Greep, who you've met, big fan your work, big fan of your music. Obviously, he's performed your stuff live, and I wanted to know, chat would most definitely like to know, if in the wake of him expressing enjoyment of your stuff, performing it, linking up with you, so on and so forth. Have you had an opportunity to listen to any of his music? Do you have any general thoughts on that? Because I think in a lot of ways, he exemplifies some of what you're talking about in terms of him being the artist who makes an album. His latest record It feels like an album-album.

It's not a record that you necessarily just want to listen to one single song out of. Sometimes he's got some very racy and suggestive lyrics, too, on his new record as well. If you've had a chance to really dig into his music and his catalog, do you have any thoughts and feelings on what you've heard?

Sean: I love his music. What's interesting is I was introduced to his music not even knowing it was him, way well before we connected, I'm going to say, musically.

Anthony: Okay.

Sean: And it's like, he's on my top 10 list of things listened to, "Holy, Holy."

Anthony: Okay. Digging out Holy, Holy. Banger, man.

Sean: Right? And it's about holes.

Anthony: Yes, another hole, another hole connection.

Sean: I'm not sure if anybody ever picked that up, but yeah. No, he and I obviously have this super relationship at some high level of musical rectangularness, let's call it. So he obviously got the idea. He's also one of those, You could not put that guy in a box. It's great. It's like jazz, funk, rock meets all the things. It's like somebody made a brand new piece of food out of a whole bunch of other foods that you could not normally combine inside. It's delicious. His music is delicious.

Anthony: So you feel like you're on a similar wavelength in terms of he's just wild and out there, and he's in the rectangle club, is what you're saying?

Sean: Yeah, I would say he's possibly even more rectangular than me. Just as being unique and interesting and just leading an incredibly interesting life. And this whole band is filled with amazing players, amazing people.

Anthony: That's true.

Sean: Love them all. Love them all. Yeah.

Anthony: Are there any other... Because chat has asked a few questions about this. Are there any other Bible-type records that to you that you feel like you pull from in your head when And you're thinking of some of the greatest of all time you mentioned, Abby wrote earlier? And are there any other contemporary artists who you feel are devoted to album craft, that you tend to enjoy and you think chat might enjoy as well that you're attracted to musically?

Sean: Like that, the idea where you deeply want to sit down and listen to a record from the beginning to the end?

Anthony: Yeah. Either in terms of favorites of all time or newer artists that you feel like are still devoting themselves to that craft, even though it's obviously not as trendy today in the age of streaming.

Sean: Yeah. So I got two answers. One is an old answer. So my favorite record... Do you know what? I'm sure you've heard of the desert island disc or desert island records.

Anthony: Sure. Yeah.

Sean: So you get 10 desert island records to take with you. So my number one record is the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magik. From the beginning to the end, listen to that over and over and over and over.

Anthony: Okay. All right. I actually see the connection. I see the connection.

Sean: Right? My second on that list is also Blood Sugar Sex Magik. My third isBlood Sugar Sex Magik All 10 are Blood Sugar Sex Magik In case I wore one out, if I get to that at any point, I wore one out, or a broke one or scratch one, I would need the other nine, the other eight, the other seven to survive.

Anthony: Backup copies.

Sean: Any time I'm feeling down. I just pulled that record out. I know all the time. I could turn it off and I could continue to sing the rest of the record from the beginning to the end. From I can say a recent band. There's a band that's unknown in my local area called Shoemaker Levee. They're one of those bands that should have made it, and for some reason, I don't know what happened. Their latest record, Phase of Days. It's just one that you could start at the beginning. The songwriting is amazing, and they are a make-a-record-band. And every song is good, don't get me wrong. But they think with the record. I talked with the musicians in that band, and they're all remarkable musicians. I bumped into many of them many times. I just love that record. Phase of Days. It's fantastic. Okay.

Anthony: Okay. Chat's got that recommendation locked in. They'll look into it.

Sean: Let's go.

Anthony: Speaking of the album recording process and so on and so forth, what do you feel like your main takeaways with having completed, released, and had time to digest Chasing Butterflies now? And how is your next album process shaping up, especially since now you have this greater awareness of you and your music, and effectively, an audience that you might not have had before. Has that impacted your writing and creative process for your next record in any way?

Sean: Yeah. So possibly, and this might be a good thing or a bad thing, is what's happened in the last few years of being gathering a lot of recognition where I had to have zero recognition before. It's emboldened me to now go off in different directions and be even more genre-fluid than I was before. And that's sort of where I am right now. If you listen to my music, you'll see that I don't really... This is probably one of my biggest musical failures, but it's what makes me me, is I don't really have a style. I just want to experiment and play with everything. I want to taste everything, try everything, enjoy every type of music that I can. Right now, I've actually started to work with many different producers in many different genres going different directions. So I'm doing a little bit more the latest song that I just put out, "Masterpiece," and the ones that are coming up now are going to be a little bit more so Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, that style, because I love that music. Peter Gabriel, Us, is another seminal record to me as an example. Then I'm also working with my previous band from...

We did a record called The Midnight Radio Show, and the concept was, because we were getting a lot of college station play, like top 10 on college stations in Canada for a long time, we wrote a record with the idea that you could start it at midnight and play it nonstop to one and not get bored. We even have the record piece. It was exactly one hour. The idea was for that My Band and I, my drummer, and I say almost like my spouse because he's been my drummer and I've been a singer forever, we're going to make another hour long record. It's actually already an hour of music already completed. I'm just finishing it all up and it'll be released as a record, as if it is a radio show hour, exactly 60 minutes, that concept. Different concept. Then also working with the drummer from OK Go to do a little bit more, even take some old stuff and work with that in a new direction. Different directions. Now it's gone, now let's see where this goes from here. Because I'm not gigging all the time, because I'm taking this new approach to music and being a musician, which is because I have kids and because I run a business and because I'm doing other stuff, I don't have the option as easily to go on tour in the same way.

I get to go experiment in these ways, work with different producers, write different songs, redo past stuff. And I've got all this material and all this work to now go think of those records in my head, but still have enough material to release on a constant basis so that Spotify might actually listen to me, no pun intended.

Anthony: Yeah. No, I mean, it's Beatles style. You're a studio rat. You're White Album. You're just hold up in the studio, you're worried about the studio product, which I can appreciate. With that being said, what are maybe some of these different genres that you're talking about experimenting with that you might have not touched on before?

Sean: Maybe this is Mr. Greep's influence on me, but I'm currently working on a salsa tune.

Anthony: Hell yeah.

Sean: Which is just– It's got to be out there. Maybe some of his band members might come in and tickle me a little bit.

Anthony: Okay. That'd be a crazy crossover, please.

Sean: Really? Right? That was so fun. Running a bunch of just solo acoustic stuff as well, having fun with that. And then in that sort of style of college radio style. There's lots of just throw anything at it. I really like interesting instruments. So sitar, if you listen to my music, there's a lot of sitar, handpans. I like to go in different directions, different culturally interesting places that I've been, people that I played with and pull that stuff in. So I like the world music. So between the Phil Collins stuff, the world music stuff, the college radio stuff, the OK Go which will be more classic, I think rock and roll-y stuff. I'm having fun going every possible direction of music. So we'll see where that all goes.

Anthony: I wanted to ask you specifically about that track, "Masterpiece." Not only do I see that Phil Collins connection that you were talking about there, but I just wanted to talk about maybe a bit of a variance lyrically there. I think to the opener of your recent album and how there's a bit of an insecurity and a sadness there in terms of how you're writing about yourself on that track. And it seems like you're in the exact opposite place with this new track. Is that a result of a progressively changing mindset, a perspective on yourself that you have now that you might not have had at that time? To what do we owe that mental There's a full shift there.

Sean: It's interesting. I'm going to this period in my life, now that I've got some recognition in music, I want to be able to honor my earlier stuff, honor my earlier self. And you'll see songs like "Mamkhulu" which is a song I just released recently, was actually a song we could I went into that I wrote a long time ago and rewrote a little bit for recent experiences. The song I'm about to release is one that I wrote when I was 17, I think, and I'm reproducing it in Phil Collins style because people have asked me to reproduce it. Then recently, just the idea is that, I mean, I don't set out to write a song about a thing. I am not that good. That's where there's no comparison between Prince and I because he could actually sit down and go, "I'm going to write a song about X, and then write it." I'm more like, my toenails grow and I clip them off. And I didn't intentionally grow a toenail. That's what came off the end of my foot. And it needs to go.

Anthony: That's quite the analogy, Let's just pause. It's quite the visual. That your songs are just being slowly clipped off of your body because you're just growing them.

Sean: Yeah, and I collect those in jars and I show them to people. That is–

Anthony: Yeah. That your songs are like a toenail collection that you're showing to the internet in a jar.

Sean: Yeah, that's about as close as it gets. No, it's not intentional that way. It just comes off and I show people. Here's the thing. You got to be really careful because, and I learned this gigging 20 years ago. When I was gigging every night and I had to go through the same emotions of the same stupid breakup over and over and over again every night. It is really hard on a musician when that happens. Like, really hard. I think that's why a lot of musicians fade out or die. They have to go do something else at some point or shoot themselves in the head, unfortunately, because they just can't handle that anymore. I get it. But I also don't... The toenail that comes off me isn't like, "I'm so happy in a low, which I wish it was. It's just the emotions that It happened to have grown out in that period, the things that are happening to me. I would just say that in "Masterpiece," it actually came from a comment that was made from my girlfriend's child who said to her mother, "Mother, you're a masterpiece." You're a masterpiece. And that was just like out of a kid, was such this amazing realization that if you look at yourself as a masterpiece and you start thinking of other people as masterpieces, and the fact that we're all actually a masterpiece in the disaster that we are, it's not actually that far from the "Rectangular" idea. We're all super special in being super unique and trying to get back to that ultimate sameness doesn't make sense.

Anthony: I mean, from the mouths of babes.

Sean: Right?

Anthony: Exactly. So getting into that, perceptions, opinions, outside thoughts that people are having about you, about your work on the internet. I want to get into that a little bit, maybe starting from a more personal place, especially when it's come to a lot of the attention that you've gotten recently. Thus far, what has been, I guess, the reception and from those in your life who are closer to you, who aren't maybe necessarily based in the music space, be it a partner, your kids, so on and so forth? What are their thoughts on the amount of time that you're devoting to this and the way people are receiving it on the internet?

Sean: Well, good question. So there's a couple of people who are super close to me, my two kids, my girlfriend. My two kids in particular, they watched the musical thing throughout COVID and me release stuff and so nothing happened. And they got to, I think, got to watch. They're the most involved in my music writing. I will play a song to them and I'll be like, "Should I record this?" And they'll be like, "Nah, that sucks." And I go through five of those and like, Okay, that one. Yeah, I'll play that one. That one doesn't suck. So they're super involved. At the beginning, when I first took when "Rectangular" came out and got some traction, there was a lot of haters. There still are a lot of haters. And they were really upset by that. But the reality is, I don't care if some person on the internet thinks I'm an idiot. Why would I? They don't know anything about me. If they would actually sit down and have a beer, they probably wouldn't think I'm an idiot. Maybe they would. The reality is they think I'm an idiot because they hear that I'm a CEO, which is... Anyone could call themselves a CEO. What does that even mean?

Anthony: I suppose that's true, yeah.

Sean: Yeah, call yourself a CEO. You're a CEO. I bless you. What does that mean? So the reality is at the beginning, I think they found a little bit hard when they saw that I was being attacked online all the time. But because it doesn't bug me at all... In fact, the opposite. If somebody feels the need to hate somebody, feel free to hate me. I got wide shoulders. It bounces off me, genuinely. So why not hate a random guy with green hair on the internet because you're had a bad day? And then if you get all of that horror out of your body, hypothetically, you'll be nice to your friends and your family. So get it out on me. I don't care.

Anthony: Well, hopefully. And honestly, the fact that you could bounce your stuff off of your kids is pretty cool because they're giving you the cheat code.

Sean: For sure.

Anthony: They're letting you know what's going to play well with the next generation, hopefully, when you're uploading stuff. So that's just increasing your likelihood to hit and get exposure.

Sean: Exactly. My kids are as involved in and social as I am, to be honest. They're all over it watching, and they'll text me like, Hey, so and so said something. In fact, when you reached out to me, my kids were the first people to go like, Hey, somebody reached out to you. It's great. I have so much fun. It's super connected to them. It's really fun.

Anthony: Well, in that sea of what maybe I've seen as a sea of negativity on some of your videos, we know that there's also, obviously, people enjoying what you do, people who are in the musician space, but just regular people, too, as well. I wanted to know if from your perspective, from what you've seen so far on social media and elsewhere, who is that Sean Stephens fan? What is the Sean Stephens demo? Do you have any conception so far of who fits that archetype? Who's that person who's actually genuinely connecting with your music, enjoying it, following you, and looking forward to what you're doing next? Who's actually enjoying your stuff and separating themselves from the haters?

Sean: That's really interesting question. So I get to meet a lot of people in real life as I walk, literally walking around in different countries. I end up all over the world. And where I meet people, it's always kind of the same group. So it's always Instagram-friendly people [...] 90% are men.

Anthony: Pause, pause right there. Your Internet connection fried for a little bit, and I didn't hear anything that you said. Last thing that you said was like, last thing that you said was like... Sorry. The last thing I heard you say was Instagram friendly people. So take it from just before that. We'll edit out the gap. Just take that answer one more time.

Sean: Yeah. So I think most of the people that are following me are... And as I go around the world, I find all these interesting people, and they tend to be people under 30, under 25, tend to be that age because of the Instagram friendly group, a TikTok friendly group. And I'd say 80 to 85%, maybe even higher, are men, males. Again, it doesn't matter. But the reality is, I think what people find is the idea– I love this idea, by the way. The idea that a guy who had a passion in his early life didn't make it, but is now in a place where is getting some traction and getting somewhere. That idea that you don't have to give up, that there's a second life for you, maybe even a third life, maybe a fourth life. So if you don't get it now, there's a possibility of you getting it later. I think that's a group that are really interested, really inspired by the idea that someone can have a multi varied interesting life. So I tend to attract people who want a more complex interesting life. So a lot of people I meet, I'm like, wow, this is a super interesting person.

They're obviously following me. They obviously like that rectangularness, if that makes sense. So just really interesting people that I keep meeting over and over again.

Anthony: That's interesting It's interesting that your story is resonating with people.

Sean: Not sure that's a–

Anthony: No, no, stop. That's the answer. It's a good answer. I support that answer. It's interesting that your story is resonating with that demo of people in that way, and maybe it could be for a few different reasons. I think there are a lot of younger people now as a result of the way things are currently, politically, socially, and economically, are probably looking at the next 5 to 10 to 15 years, if we even have that, and thinking like, Man, all my life plans or aspirations I'm going to have to put on hold or something, or all the things that I really wanted. Things are looking so dismal in some ways that I might not be able to accomplish goal X or Y or Z in the amount of time that I wanted to. So it's cool that you're serving as a bit of an inspiration for that. And another thing that I find interesting, and I don't know how much of this you get in some of the responses as to what you do, but even I get this. And honestly, I don't put myself out there into the world in the same way that you do.

But sometimes even me with, I'm just going to be turning 40 this year, which I'm sure you think is like, I'm a spring chicken in comparison to you. But still, even with me at my age, if I do anything online, at least even a little bit silly, I'll be battered with dozens of responses. Be like, "Oh, man, this guy's pushing 40. Can you believe it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." So there is It's this really weird conception that after you get to a certain age, I don't know what it is, 25, 30s, you can't have fun anymore, or you can't do anything creative, or you can't do anything for yourself. You just have to, I don't know, just be boring and want to die every day. So it's cool that you're not giving into that.

Sean: Listen, is that not what we've been taught as a society? Is you're allowed to have fun in university and you have to stop and your life has to be horrible until you retire, and then you have to go play golf for the rest of your life. And that's what we've been sold, right? And that's a hallucination. I mean, it's ridiculous. And in fact, the entire concept of life, people typically only lived to 30 or 40, 100 years ago. Now we're living to 70, 80, 90. We can have three, four, five interesting lives. We don't have to have one. If, which is the case for me, I had to make choices because I didn't have the money and didn't have the ability and whatever it was to put music down for a bit, and now I get to come back and enjoy it. And the reality is, can I go five nights a week, be gigging twice a day? That is a lot of personal energy that probably won't do. It just doesn't even make sense from a financial growth perspective. But am I going to still make the best music I possibly can and share it with everybody I possibly can?

Absolutely. I'm going to do that until I am a thousand years old.

Anthony: Sean Stephens, I appreciate you coming through and beig an open book and answering all my questions. You're the GOAT.

Sean: On the contrary, my friend. Thank you. Really appreciate you bringing me on your show.

Anthony: Listen, we'll be looking forward to whatever you put out in the future. We'll also be looking to any future Geordie Greep collabs, anything like that. We'll be on our radar. Keep doing what you do, and I look forward to you popping up randomly in my IG reels algorithm very soon.

Sean: Thank you very much. You guys, stay rectangular, my friends.

Anthony: All right. We'll see you later.

Sean: You got it.

Anthony: Bye.

Sean: Love.