Sean McCarthy | Matt Connarton Unleashed - Matt Connarton Unleashed

Speaker 1: Found Mary.

Speaker 2: She been gone all after the cemeteryly pleasing flowers in full blown lead in the grass, and then her mind.

Speaker 1: She went back to another triumph. Found Mary.

Speaker 3: We found Mallie.

Speaker 4: It was a moundane man died in the options.

Speaker 1: Cause my life, don't take my love.

Speaker 2: Found Mary going for a drive outside of town river Place.

Speaker 5: Where she sat down, tipped her head up to the sun, little two eyes to be with the one.

Speaker 1: A drop of rain felt.

Speaker 4: From her eye beneath the heaven of a clear blue sky.

Speaker 1: We found Mallie.

Speaker 4: It was a Monday, got in the rock.

Speaker 6: She was three.

Speaker 1: Lights. Don't take my love. So manyst together with our hospital lever.

Speaker 4: Sometimes Mary still ways down.

Speaker 1: Found Mary. She'd been gone all after her lift the cemetery.

Speaker 1: She's in flowers. It was a loud day.

Speaker 4: Died in a rocky lt don't take color.

Speaker 1: Sways together with the hartfor.

Speaker 4: Sometimes Mary, sometimes sometimes Marry.

Speaker 1: Sometimes Mary down.

Speaker 7: That has found Mary. And the artist is Sean McCarthy. And we've got Sean McCarthy joining us right now via Microsoft Team. Hello Sean, hey man, how are you good?

Speaker 1: Good?

Speaker 7: It has been a long time, my friend. When did I When did I interview you last. Do we even want to think about how long ago that was?

Speaker 8: We don't because then it starts to you know, you're right ray to tell everybody we're not twenty five. But it was a bit. I think I had just finished a recording a record in LA and yeah, yeah, that was a while ago.

Speaker 7: That was a while ago. Yeah, there's a little uh, there's a little speck of audio that shows up from that, uh in the in the documentary which I'm dying to talk to you about Resilience and Sacrifice? And when when did this come out? Or is this out yet? Officially?

Speaker 8: So it's officially out. It came out last year, so it was the the film festival release was early twenty twenty five, okay, and then the screenings in the theaters was spring summer, and then I guess spring and summer, and then it kind of officially came out around November of last year.

Speaker 7: Okay, okay? And can can you describe it for us? I mean, what, how do you for someone who hasn't seen it? Obviously I watched it, but for someone who hasn't seen it, how do you describe what this is about resilience and sacrifice?

Speaker 8: Well, there's a you know, there's an official you know write up about it. But the short version is it's about an artist who, well myself, who relentlessly for years, and you know, after missing the first three years of my daughter growing up because I was on the road, I just you know, it's kind of an awakening to realize what are the priorities in life right now? So so through that, you know, I made this decision to not quit music altogether, but but seriously put it on hold, and you know, no zero regrets with that.

Speaker 8: But then when when I decided I was gonna get back into it, kids had grown up, I had jump back in done some shows. And then it alludes to my getting what's called muscle tension dysphonia, which if you're a singer, that's that's one of the worst things that can happen to you. And it comes on with with no warning and and what it does is you you can't sing anymore. You can speak right and singing more. So it goes through that process a little. It's certainly not the entire focus of the film, but it's a big part of it.

Speaker 8: You know, A good note you know, came through that, yes, but it goes through it goes through my music career pretty in depth. Doesn't touch everything, you know, there are a lot of bands and projects I worked on that didn't make it, but it hits the highlights. You got to kind of cram it all into a you know, a ninety minute film. Yeah, it's easy to it's easy for us to tell our story in you know, three hours, But who's going to watch that?

Speaker 7: The muscle tension dysphonia is do I have that right? Dysphonia? Yes, that was particularly There's a number of elements here that I want to ask you about that we're interesting to me. That that part was interesting to me because not only obviously, like you said, if you're a singer, you know that's that's kind of your worst nightmare or something like that happening to you. But it was also interesting to me because I don't know, if you know a gentleman named Mike Lachlan. Do you know Mike?

Speaker 8: The name is very familiar.

Speaker 7: He's a singer songwriter from the Lakes region here in New Hampshire and he's a very close friend of mine and he's been on the show a million times and we've done some work together. But Mike also suffers from that now in his and he's talked about it on the show. His last couple of appearances on the show, he's talked about it and managing it. So when it gets to that point in the documentary, I already I was like, Oh, I know somebody else who has this, and so it was it was interesting to me, you know, because I've heard how how he's dealt with it and how you've dealt with it.

Speaker 7: Unfortunately, the way Mike has dealt with it. And I don't think he'll mind me saying this because you know, he talked about it openly on the show obviously, but he has not you know, maybe he needs to get connected with Liz Bills, who you talk to in the documentary about, you know, her struggles with it, because he he has chosen to just kind of deal with but you know, he manages it the best that he can. He doesn't he doesn't book too many shows consecutively, you know, to try to give himself a break.

Speaker 7: But he also said that whomever he spoke to about it professionally told him that you know, it tends to be and I want to get your perspective on this, that it tends to be more psychological than anything else. There might be something in his self conscious, subconscious rather that is causing him to experience this dysphonia where he has difficulty with his vocal cords. He's still able to perform, and he can go out and do a three hour show. He just can't do too many. But he's been struggling with it for probably five years now.

Speaker 7: Maybe that's yeah, go ahead, I.

Speaker 8: Will say that in my experience, it is. It is one hundred percent psychological or neurological, Okay, because when when it when it happened to me, it happened in a single rehearsal really with my band. I was warmed up, just like a normally do plant hydrated, and then all of a sudden we were doing a song and I'm just singing, well, I may have been sharing leads in that a particular song and kind of opened my mouth and everything was dry and and and you can't like form vowels, consonants. It's just in an instant, it just took over.

Speaker 8: So it is it is something that's in your your psyche that you can't pinpoint what it is. You may never know what it is. But I was I've been a singer my entire life, and and thousands of shows and night after night after night, and one of those things where you never even need to warm up because you're just always singing. Uh, never ever had a problem. And then when this came on, it was, that's that's the that's the cause, right, But you don't know what the specific cause is because it can go back a long time.

Speaker 8: It's it's kind of your your brain is just going, it's great that you have all these plans, but you haven't dealt with some things. And we're not going to tell you. I'm not gonna tell you what you have to deal with, but instead I'm just going to stop you in your tracks. It's you know, I want to equate it to you know, people having heart attacks or something the same kind of thing. Usually you get some warning with that, or you know you're eating terrible or whatever. Sure, but with with mt D, you don't know exactly what the cause is.

Speaker 8: But but it is important to deal with somebody and and bring somebody in that has experienced it. Liz Liz Bill's was a singer, is a singer, but she was in the band New England band. I think they were I'm pretty sure at Massachusetts band they were called Analog Heart, and they were I actually discovered them after working with Liz. This band was was phenomenal, very you know, she's listening, I don't know, but very paramour ish, but with more of an edge. Just this this girl could sing her butt off.

Speaker 8: And they they had released some records, they had opened for bon Jovi. I think at Mohegan they had done some great things. And and the way she told it to me it was a little different. She just she had pain and and she was struggling, and she she just kept pushing through and pushing through, and she had had worked through it all herself. And I found her online and she she had these this hour long daily routine and I was just like, oh my god, you've got to be kidding me. I just don't have that kind of patience.

Speaker 8: But it takes that kind of patience. I so so Liz and I. I currently don't work with Liz now, but I did for two solid years. We met every week and prior to that, Mark Baxter and Mark Mark is a phenomenal coach. He Steven Tyler's coach, Johnny Just the list goes on with who Mark works with and has worked with. But I needed somebody that had experienced this, and Liz is the person that experienced it. So yes, I would highly recommend that he reached out to her. She is, she's fantastic, she's wonderful.

Speaker 8: She if you hear her sing now you you would just never know she experienced any of that. But you it requires I think a lot of us from a certain era work, you know, power singers, sure, meaning we may not have done the right techniques. And and I think Liz had said to me once she goes, it's like, you know, you're you lift things a certain way, you always you lift things, you lift things, and one day your back goes. You can't do that anymore. You have to do it differently, And and that happens. I mean, you know, Liz, Liz is not old.

Speaker 8: That she was was not old when she got mt D had nothing to do with that, but it was you have to retrain your voice completely to use complete upper technique. You have to you have to really take care of it and accept baby steps because you know, when you break an arm or something, it happens in a second, takes six weeks to heal, right, with with something neurological that affects your voice. There's there's a lot of time into You've got to be able to be willing to put the time in. R it is. It is humbling, it is frustrating.

Speaker 9: You know.

Speaker 8: My I played a couple of shows like that after I knew it was coming on, and I had played a show at a venue, and you know, and I'll be frank about this, this is not something you'd normally admit, but I'd played this venue and I remember somebody it was. It was across the street from from a concert venue, and the crew was all over there, like on break and I played a show there and I remember some of the guys coming up and going, what are you even doing here? Like why are you playing this little venue?

Speaker 8: You should be playing here. So that's always nice to get. But my point is, so then I played that same venue the next summer after this happened, because this happened in the in the fall of that year. So I come back a year later to the same venue and I was like full blown MTD. And what that means is my attention is good. But I opened my mouth and the vowels and consonants don't connect. There's such a disconnect with everything. It doesn't sound good. And my agent called me, texted me the next day and said, so the venue owner wants to cancel your shows and replace you.

Speaker 8: Oh god, I literally it went from phenomenal, good show, you know, to the venue owner doesn't want you back. And in my entire career that had never happened to me.

Speaker 7: And then was was that kind of a turning point in terms of how you how you decided to deal with the problem or.

Speaker 8: Well, at that point I still didn't know. I still didn't understand what was going on. Yeah. So then I I played another venue and he called me. I remember I was going I was like a band rehearsal something. I was in Rhode Island and I did this show and he goes, hey, I got another call. I mean what and he goes, yeah, he goes, but this time I asked him, I said, what is it? And so the venue owner said, you know, we love Sean. He's been here, he's done great for us. His guitar playing is great. He goes, it's something about his voice.

Speaker 8: And then and then I kind of came clean to my agent and and he's he's amazing, and he said to me. He goes, Okay, listen. He said, okay, listen, we're gonna you tell me what you want to do with your next shows. He goes, I'm not going to say a word about this. Whatever you do, I'll come up with an excuse. He goes, whatever you got to do. But I didn't know what the problem was at the time. I just kind of cleaned to him and said, look, there's something going on. I don't know. So it was it was shortly after that I just started researching and I went to a near nose throat doctor up in northern New Hampshire.

Speaker 8: And you know it was it was during the time when everybody was afraid of breathing, everybody's anything. And so she comes in the room with like full mask gear on right scopes my throat and she goes, you you have acid reflux and that's what she told me. I went, no, that's that's not what this is. Right. So she goes, but you're welcome to get a second opinion, and where do I do that? And she goes mass general. So I went okay, because and it was like and she was kind of I think she was being facetious because they're the best.

Speaker 8: Master General's Voice Center is the best, hands down. So I went, Okay, So I get home and I call Mass General and you know, speed that up. I went down. They said, you don't have acid reflex, you have this and we can help you. So I was there every for a few months. I drove from Vermont to Boston for for some therapy at the Mass General and we had some good breakthroughs, kind of broke the ice. And then I started working with Liz. Found out she had been to the same Voice center, we had the same therapists.

Speaker 8: Okay, so it all really helped. But it was it was it was very It was very humbling. It's still very humbling too. I always knew how fragile the vocal. You know, people call them vocal cords, the are chords, but they're called vocal folds. And if you haven't ever seen your vocal folds, everybody should take a trip to an ear, nos and throat specialist that can take a picture or a bet or better yet, take video of you while you sing right and people say, well how do you do that? They scope you through your nose and they have you sing.

Speaker 8: It's the strangest thing ever doesn't hurt. But when you see how fragile those things are, you you just want to put a big, you know, case around your throat and take care of it, and then you don't question why you wrap it up with a scarf and the winner it's it's it's kind of a scary thing. So so so back to you know, you know the other guy who you're saying has this. Yeah, if Liz, Liz is phenomenal, I highly recommend her. There are probably some others, but she specializes in it. Yeah, and she could get him on the right track.

Speaker 8: And if he's willing to do the work, it it it's so worth it. Yeah, But because it's it's a mind game itself, you know, taking away what you've done your whole life with ease that you all of a sudden can't do.

Speaker 7: In his case, he described that he never learned to sing properly, so he doesn't sing from his chest. He just sings from his throat. That's how he's always done it. And I guess the professional who he spoke with told him that because he's a throat singer, that might be why he's gotten away with this problem as long as he has, because I guess this problem has been plaguing him for a while, but he kind of, you know, he's just been working around it. And I guess because he's a throat singer, that's how he's been able to work around it.

Speaker 7: To some I forget exactly how he explained it, but no, very very interesting. Now where are you with all of that? Now? Is this something that you have to continue to manage or do you just take better care of your throat but otherwise you're good?

Speaker 8: Well, that's the thing. Doesn't matter how much you take care of your throat, that's not really it. It's like going to the gym. Now. I hate working out. I hate working out more than probably anybody you've ever met. But I work out every day, and not to build muscle, just to stay in shape, to stay toned. And you have to do the same thing with your voice. There are certain exercises, very strange ones that you probably don't want to do it in front of strangers or much. I try not to do them in front of my family.

Speaker 8: But there are things you hold your tongue and you make weird sounds. You know, it's about It's about doing the certain exercises regularly that just keep your voice in shape and don't let it fall back there. But the other thing is you have to deal with the psychological aspect of it. That is important because you can keep refilling, you know, a bucket that has a hole in it, right because in the sense, that's what you're doing. If you don't deal with the psychological aspect or neurological aspect of it, you're refilling a bucket that has a hole in it.

Speaker 8: Every day you have to refill that bucket. And it's good for us, say twenty four hours. At the end of the day, it's going to empty. You've got to fill the hole. And I'm not a big fan of talk therapy. I don't like to share things with strangers. I think that is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong. I know it's great for some people. It's just not great for me. I have a trust issue.

Speaker 7: I think I can I can relate one what you just.

Speaker 8: Said, you know. But and then there are there are therapists out there, there are wonderful you know, cut props to them for doing it. I feel, you know, I'm the type of person that thinks about a therapist and goes, oh, wow, how many hours a week do you have to go to a therapy or deal with it? You dealt with every week? Like therapists are amazing. Yes, yes, but it's not my thing. And I also don't have the patience. So I have another friend who had had gone to see an em DR therapist. It's eye movement, the sensitization and reprocessing.

Speaker 8: Sorry as long so e m DRS for sure, and what that is. So he had told me. I knew him. He told me about this and he said I was I was like crazy, suicidal and that was just not me. I don't know what happened. He goes, So I went, somebody told me about this this therapist. I went, she saved my life. I could. I don't even know what it was. And I said, well, he explained it to me. And I said, well, how long did it take you? Because I saw her I don't know six or eight times, so six or eight hours and done.

Speaker 8: And I was like, well, maybe this can help me. I wasn't suicidal, but it was also about you're dealing with something neurological, and he said, you don't have to talk about anything. So so I saw an md R. Therapist. We hit it off, meaning I was very comfortable with her. And she said to me when I was on the phone talking to her initially she said, there is no guarantee that this will work. She said, but I will tell you I have done nothing but this for the last four or five years. She goes, and it has worked for one hundred percent of my patients.

Speaker 7: Wow.

Speaker 8: So I was like, oh, I know, guarantees, but pretty good those odds.

Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8: So, and what it does is where talk therapy, you sit down and go tell me about your childhood. You know, you got to start way back there and you just see this last thing forever.

Speaker 7: Let's talk about your mother backwards.

Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Like, well my mom did this. But with the m d R, you you you you talk, you literally focus on So so when with the m d R, you're uh, you get up to a microphone, for instance, like it only happens when you sing. That's the strange thing, right, But if if in the case, you get up to a microphone and you go, all right, I opened my mouth and then right then, what are you thinking? What is on your mind in that exact moment, So you focus on that, uh, you focus on being in the moment exactly how it makes you feel.

Speaker 8: And then it's bilateral stimulation. Usually it's like with a light, your eyes follow it back and forth, almost hypnotic but not.

Speaker 7: Yeah.

Speaker 8: Yeah, And if you if you just at that point don't think of anything else, then your brain takes you backwards through all these memories yeah that are that are somehow connected. It doesn't make any sense, but you will have You will remember things that you didn't even know you remembered. So what that really is is your brain connecting. It's reconnecting all of the things that somehow got disconnected. And and the therapist just tries to touch on certain things that pertain to how you feel when your voice doesn't work, and you know, it's trauma response, right, That's really what it is.

Speaker 8: So something traumatic happened to cause muscle tension dysphonia, So that that was was a huge additional support for me. It also brings to light a lot of other things, you know, so it's you're always a work in progress. But for me, it just required completely retraining my voice, Like I don't sing anything like I used to sing. Really, you know you were talking about his voice being like of a throat singer. Like, the truth is all of our the air comes up through our vocal folds, right, but then and how close together you know how they are.

Speaker 8: But the actual sounds that come out come out of your mouth, right, So what you do with your lips and your your tongue and your teeth and like, that's where the sound comes out. Like it there's a there's a there's a sound that comes up through your vocal folds. But what the end result is is all about what you do with your face and your mouth, right, So without being a trained singer, we all just we just naturally do it. You know, a toddler makes sounds, right, they're very natural, it's all when if we could all go back to being toddlers, you know, this would all be fixed because it was so natural.

Speaker 8: You know, you dance well nobody's looking, or you don't care if anybody sees you. It's so natural to sing and make all these weird sounds. And if we could get back to that as singers, or at least that portion of it, we'd all be in a better place. We're doing things proper because it's natural, but it becomes very unnatural over the years. And you know, things we'd go through in life compound and then one day your brain shuts off. So even though you can fix the physical aspect of that through daily you know, routines and things like that, your brain is still holding on and you have to get your brain to let go and be comfortable again and accept that, Okay, this is a safe this is safe to do again.

Speaker 8: It takes a lot of undoing, and it is again, I'm the least patient person in the world. But so where am I? Where am I with it now? I still put in the work. There are still things I work on. Songs that I even my own songs that I've sung for years, I had to have to sing them differently. Yeah, you have to erase the muscle memory and the neurological memory. I have to trick your brain to go because it wants to go back to the way it was and you can't do that anymore. So anyway, that's a lot on the MTD subject, but but it is.

Speaker 8: It's an important thing because I think a lot of people don't know that a lot of people are not diagnosed, right, I just don't know what happened. So by all means, if you if you are a singer or even not a singer and you have voice issues like that, like go see in Arno's throat specialist. Even the you know, any any one of them are at least gonna look at your throat, make sure your vocal cords are good. And then if you find out that that is kind of a thing, you have look it up, like there's so much online look up.

Speaker 8: Liz Bill's very simple. I love her name because it's so simple, and she has countless videos and she's she I believe she only works with vocalists who have MTD because there there's a lot of coaches out there, but she specializes in that. But you know she can she uh, she helped save my career and I can say that with.

Speaker 7: Confidence, absolutely absolutely, No, thank you for sharing all that, Sean. It's such a you know, and it kind of expands a bit on on what's in the documentary. And No, I appreciate you talking about that because there might be somebody listening to who who does experience that problem, or has experienced it, or may experience it in the future. You know a lot of musicians listen to the show, especially so so thank you for talking to us. About that. Another thing about the UH and I should say, if you're just joining us, we have Sean McCarthy with us, and we're talking about his new documentary Resilience and Sacrifice.

Speaker 7: And another thing that really jumped out at me about the documentary is, well, let me ask the question this way. Have you always been right from the beginning, right from the beginning of your career, which obviously started when you were still in school, have you always been meticulous about documenting things and making sure that you had audio and video of things from the beginning, Because I something that I just marveled at was I was just thinking, like, if I wanted to make a documentary like this about myself, I wouldn't be Not that I would, but would I wouldn't be able to do it anyway because I don't have you know, I played in some bands and whatnot, but I don't have video of you know, early performances or anything like that.

Speaker 7: Blake, have you always been meticulous about documenting everything?

Speaker 8: No, So this project started, I thought initially, I said, you know, it would be really cool. So I spoke to a friend and I said, what would be really? I said, I want to do a twenty five or thirty minute video scrapbook of stuff I've done in music. I said, I've come across a couple of videos and I have, you know, some record. I just want to put something together. I think it would be cool to have for my kids and you know whatever, just something. And he said to me, and actually it was Matt Dido or our mutual friend.

Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, and so so I said that to him on a phone call. We kind of started out the phone call that way, and he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, kind of like sounds great. And he goes, oh, listen, I'll call you back a little bit. Click, and he just he just let me go. Yeah, it's weird. Five minutes later, I get a call from Matt and Matt's and my mutual friend in La who's a filmmaker, and he goes, hey, what's up. I said, I don't know what's up? And he goes, well, I don't just told me to call you.

Speaker 10: I was like, oh, so, so Tommy Durant is a is a filmmaker, Emmy Award winning in his work.

Speaker 8: So if you saw shows like I Show Truckers, Dellie's Catch, Dan Rather, Interviews, and so so much more, he is the has been the supervising editor and of those producer worked on a whole bunch of things. So anyway, I I knew I had a lot of stuff I had. It's funny I used what I had creatively and it probably looked like I had a lot more than I had. Okay, So but I'm not meticulous, I other than my wife, you know, hating the fact that I hold on to every cassette recording that I've ever made. Yeah, and she's like, you know, I move this box around and She's like, can we get rid of that?

Speaker 8: And I'm like, no, so it I don't. I don't. I don't usually keep all that Oh I have that stuff. Everybody has a scrap book of things, features and things.

Speaker 7: You got to keep some sort of an archive. Yeah.

Speaker 8: So the funny thing was there was one. So no, I don't have a lot. I have a good amount I did. I couldn't imagine that this was ever going to turn into a full fledged, you know, documentary film, right, but there was one thing I wanted so right, you had sent me like the nice is you record these interviews? Right, So I and you sent that to me and I went, I know, I have this somewhere and I listened to them and I wanted to include so much more, But then I decided to look, let's just put in like some some radio introductions and things here and then and then I had found one that really fit what I wanted to do.

Speaker 8: But there was one clip that I said, this is so important because in the duo Johnny whatever I was in, which we were at the time on the cusp of some really great things, and we had played so much. It was a unique thing. It was. We had a song on the radio all over the place and then Kissed one to wait in Boston picked it up one night and we were like, what, but they I don't They called me. They called me up and said, hey, is this Sean And I went yeah, and they said, well, we we have your the song Goodbye in front of us and we're about to put it on our new new music Spotlight.

Speaker 8: I went, what, like, this is a if you're a musician. At that time, Kiss went away in Boston. Keep in mind there's no streaming services. This is big in New England. So they said, we don't normally call the artist because for instance, last night was you know, some other huge artist and tomorrow is this other huge artist. He goes, But I just thought i'd let you know. So I was like, all right, So I grabbed some boombox and I record it nice. So I have this cassette, right, Well, I do the documentary and I'm done.

Speaker 8: I'm basically done with it. And it's been a year, every single day working on it, and I've been looking for this tape everywhere and I cannot find it. And I know I have it. I even know what it looks like. But so I and I said, well, I guess it's not meant to be. I thought it was important in the film, but I went, I guess not. And then one day my wife comes to me and she goes, I'm going to need like five thousand dollars. I mean, what, what do you need five thousand dollars for her? She goes, because look what I found.

Speaker 8: And I jumped back into the editing of the film, and I was like ecstatic because that was that was a key moment. But I don't know, I think the story is important, right, Like everybody goes, I don't have I don't have all this you know, footage or pictures because none of us carried video cameras around that was for like the big bands forward that stuff. But I will say right now, I'll preface this and say, if you're in a band, if you're a solo artist, I don't care what you do. You're doing it because you love it.

Speaker 8: So who knows what you're gonna do with it later? Who knows if you're not going to do anything. Who knows if you're going to want to do a twenty five or thirty minute you know, scrap book right right? Like document just document it, get people to do it, and get it people to send it to you, put a date on it, throw it in a folder, and forget about it.

Speaker 7: And there's no excuse not to No Sarah.

Speaker 8: Bring yes, like, just just record it, because even if you don't do something with it, it's amazing to look back and see what you done, right, So so do it. Take pictures and and even if you don't look at them all now, just just put them somewhere. That that is that is kind of the biggest thing ever. But I kind of forget out my train of thought. But no, I didn't have all that, and I found a lot, but I also had I think there's sixteen people in this film with me or along with me. So I knew I had to fill space, and I went, why don't you, you know, tell me about working with me, tell me about your memories of me.

Speaker 8: And they were so wonderful, you know, people, I was I half expected somebody to say, man, Sean mcarnethy, that man, that I was a jerk. And and it's so nice that whether they felt that way or not, they only told the good stuff, right right, So that's true, but it was nice. And but the one thing I will say a lot of people, a lot of people will put out things and they say, you know, we we all name drop. We all have name drop stories where we say, oh, we worked with so and so or did this or did this.

Speaker 8: But one thing you realize quickly when you know people are going to watch things, if you don't have the receipts, oh yeah, don't even say it, whether it's true, whether it's not true, whatever. If you don't have receipts to back it up, You're people are gonna check out of your film really fast, you know, because I've seen something, Oh yeah, I was working with so and so back in you know, ninety whatever, and and and then you expect to see something showing that more than maybe a picture. If you don't have that picture or the video or or that person about to speak, don't put it in because it's it's the music industry is full of people telling stories and and and a lot of people do that to help boost them up a little long, of course, and it's it, you know, is fine.

Speaker 8: I guess it's fine.

Speaker 7: I mean everyone everyone puffs up their resume a little bit.

Speaker 8: Yeah, well if you don't, who's going to write? And initially you have to make yourself look better than maybe you are. But here's the difference. The people that succeed are the people that throw some promise up in the air and then go turn around to your band and go, hey, guys, I'm really sorry. This is what I just told them we do and they're like what. So then you get So here's the successful people. They rise to the occasion and at the end of the show, the buyer of the show just goes, man, you've delivered way more than you promised.

Speaker 8: And you and in your back of your mind, you're going, I can't even believe I delivered what I promised, right right, But because that's it, and I don't. I don't over promise, but I always over deliver, right, But the key is back to the receipts, Like like, if you're gonna put something together, I don't care if it's a five minute clip of you eat, because then that's credibility, you know. And in this film, I made sure you know, Tommy, my co producer on this, was very adamant about that and that and I got it.

Speaker 8: Yeah. So when I there are things I wished I had, back to your original question about do I have this, you know, I don't know back catalog of stuff and I store everything. No, So I had a lot of I had so many really great stories and actual experiences, but I couldn't back them up with anything. So they didn't make it, you know, because that's that's just the way it is.

Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, no, but you know you handle it the right way. And yeah, you're right. I mean it's in the era that we live and it's very easy to for people to verify things and fact check and all of that. You're you're you're right. So I mean, how long did this take? Because again I would imagine and I've I've interviewed other people on the show over the years who've made documentaries, and it sounds like it's a pretty involved process that takes. I mean, I'm assuming it was at least a couple of years right to make this.

Speaker 8: So I am overly ambitious. Yeah, anybody who's ever worked with me knows that. Yeah, and to a fault. So I thought, well, imovies cool. Right to tell you something, it is cool, but it will not make a certain level documentary. But I'm also one who says, you work with the tools that you have, and nobody ever knows what tools you had if you're willing to work hard. But I actually so this took. It was let me see, it was at least last year. It was finished so that the film was ready for festivals at the beginning of last year, year and a half ago Ballpark.

Speaker 8: So if that puts in say January, so then go back

Speaker 8: not that not a month ago December, but the previous December is when I had that phone call with Matt about my idea.

Speaker 7: So about a year.

Speaker 8: It took me one year. But what I had to do in that year was this. I had to realize that iMovie was not going to be sufficient. I had to learn editing software. I chose Da Vinci Resolve Studio, which is phenomenal, and I'm gonna throw this out there. There's a free version you just downloaded. It is amazing real editing software, and I mean amazing, even the free version. If you want all the full functionality, it's like a one time cost of I don't know, three or four hundred dollars done. And then you and I would dare say almost every studio that's making movies and and television shows, they're doing all their color editing in that software.

Speaker 8: Most a lot of So there are other There are certainly other other software to make your movies, and there's two or three other key ones that are used. But so I had to think of what I was doing. I had to completely learn this software. I had to get all the interviews. I had to learn a whole bunch. And then I kind of got it done, and I, you know, the first round, and I sent it to Tommy to view, and then he mentioned something called broadcast filters, and I'm like, what are broadcast filters? And and you know, when television was done over the air, if you sent signal that had too too bright of a certain color, that the tubes in it, that that it came in and broadcast on.

Speaker 8: You would overload them. They weren't made, they wouldn't display things. You could kind of ruin your broadcast. Yeah, so you put a limitter. Basically what you would do is you would limit the color. So I color corrected a little bit, and then I threw this broadcast filter on and it all had to be redone. So I had to learn like and then I'm a I'm a music producer, so I knew audio, but dialogue in film audio that's a whole other monster. So so I'm making this film and I'm learning all this stuff. And then in about a year start to finish, did all that and had this finished film.

Speaker 8: Wow, it is a monstrous undertaking. You have to be overly ambitious. And I know there are other people like me out there. I know there are, But I see why it takes a crew. I see why things are outsourced. But I also see that when things are outsourced they take a long time because you're you're waiting on other people.

Speaker 7: And they cost and they cost a lot of money.

Speaker 8: They do cost a lot of money, for sure. Yeah yeah, But more than that, I'm not very patient. I don't want to wait I'm like, rather than wait for someone else, I'll just figure it out.

Speaker 7: Myself, right right, Which I admire. I respect that a lot about you. Yeah, that's incredible and it's important too. Just for people who haven't seen it, haven't watched the trailer, don't know anything about it. I mean, this is a real documentary, This is a real film. This is not this is not a YouTube video that you put together, you know, this is this is the real deal. And it looks fantastic. It's it's very very impressive if you're just joining us. Sean McCarthy is here with us and we are talking about his documentary Resilience and Sacrifice.

Speaker 7: Was it was it hard tracking down any of the people who are who are in the film or was it pretty easy to locate? Or were there people that you wanted for the film who were not available?

Speaker 8: So yes, and yes and no. Some of them I had to track down. Some of them I hadn't worked with in a while. And I'm like, man, I wonder if they even remember me, you know, And and I must have made some sort of impact because they all remembered me. But then it's asking them to do like will you do this? And and most said yes, And I am forever grateful because it is not fun when you there's a moment when you do that where you go, oh man, everybody's gonna see this. I'm It's one thing to give yourself a little, you know, social media clip of you doing something, but to put yourself in front of a camera and and talk.

Speaker 8: All of a sudden, you you almost realize what it is you're doing and what you just agreed to. And it's it's nerve wracking. And I personally despise being on camera, despies it, but they so so so I appreciated that. But but I had to do a little tracking down and some people yes. I I asked an old friend of mine who's the drummer, if he would and he's a filmmaker himself, and he said, I know, I don't feel comfortable to be on that side of the camera because I'm sorry. He goes and I said, it's okay, it's I understand, And I said, can I are you okay with me using some archival footage?

Speaker 8: And he's he had actually said only stills. And it was just because really like seeing hell himself, and and and and I could appreciate that. Yeah, and then you know, I asked, uh An Old when I say, bandmate of mine who was was pretty key in my career, he would do it, And he first said yes, and then you know, he went through some some stuff himself and he said, look, I don't I don't think I'm gonna be able to do this. And I didn't whatever his reason, you know, he was going through some stuff, maybe he had second thoughts, maybe maybe he wasn't able to do it, and it was important to me because he was he was very integral part of the middle of my career.

Speaker 8: Yeah, so I touched on that whole story and I'm like, man, this is this guy was was? It was great, you know, and I made sure that I highlighted that. And is a little thing in the film about him not appearing, Yeah, you know, you know it's and I think it says itself, but you work with We work with a lot of people over the years. Yeah, there were some people that I would love to have had in this film that I thought, well, they're way too big, they're way too famous, they're not going to do this right.

Speaker 8: And I didn't bother asking. Okay, the truth is some of them probably would have done it because again, you know my friend Steve who who kind of starts this off. I mean we went to school together, but he's also had you know, top ten, top twenty hit. He's phenomenal producer. So it was you know, I was so appreciated of him too, you know. And then and then jumping forward to my you know, my current bandmates, like they were, a couple of them are in it, and and they're just so great and gracious in what they said and being willing to do it because again it's it's kind of nerve wracking, you know.

Speaker 8: And and then back to myself not liking to be on camera. As you're editing this, you ignore that it's you, and you treat yourself like any other interviewee. Yeah, and and and that's the way you have to do it. And you just you're putting it all out there, you know.

Speaker 7: Yeah. So, now that you've done this, do you do you have the bug to I mean, do you think you'll ever make another documentary or or you just have You've gone back to music, and and you're just going to focus on that because now, I mean, you know you can do it. You know you can you can successfully make a documentary. I mean, you know, sometimes you hear about people say, people say, oh I got the bug. Now now I want to do more of this, more filmmaking. I mean, where are you with that?

Speaker 8: Well, first, I'm one. I'm never one to say, hey, my new album's coming out next month. I don't tell you if something's done until it's done. I know a lot of I just I know how that is perceived in a way. So I usually don't like to say, you know what I'm working on.

Speaker 7: But this way, I get that. I get that.

Speaker 8: I dorew something out at Tommy after so so so Tommy Durant again, who helped me with the film very graciously.

Speaker 8: He so he basically was the supervising editor. Of course, he looked at what I did and went, that's good. That's good. Might change that, you know, and and we and and and we sometimes politely butted heads on creative you know, ideas, and and and in that I put the trailer together and he looked at it and went, yeah, yeah, well it's good. It's a good start. And I'm thinking, man, if I sent it to you, it's the end, it's the it's that's me right. But but but but not in a bad way. But when he said that, I'm like, no, I disagree, and he's no, I don't think it does the film well.

Speaker 8: And I'm like, man, that is the trailer, buddy, like, I'm sorry, and it's still the trailer today, by the way. That's because I was like, this does represent it. And and and in his defense, he is a professional. He knows what works. What I was doing was not tried and true. It was a little more raw, it was different, and and he, you know, he was guiding me to say, look this, this is what normally works for this stuff. And I'm like, let's let's just be a little different here. Because I made my career off of doing what other people don't off performing songs people wouldn't normally do.

Speaker 8: It has been resoundingly successful for me. So as far as the project, I'll put it to you this way. I had an idea. I threw it by Tommy just before the end of this this film was just wrapping and I said, I said, I think this would be a good story. And he says, well, maybe that's our next project, our next project. What do you mean, you know, like you want to work with me again on a serious level. So so I'll put to you this way. We flew to South Florida in February for an interview. We've scheduled some other interviews.

Speaker 8: So do I have the bug? Yes? I do? And am I working on other projects? Yes I am. They to me ten times better than this personal documentary that I did. Yes, they are cool, Okay, I am. I am excited. I love the process. The good thing that Tommy and I have in it's not in common. The good thing is he loves to shoot film, to get the interviews, to do the camera. He loves it. And I'm like, I think it's great, but I love to edit. Love it. Okay, it hates to edit. Got So it's kind of a match.

Speaker 7: You're a good You're good, You're a perfect team. Then that's great.

Speaker 8: Yeah, So so I'm excited. I won't say, you know, when something's coming out, I won't say what it's about. I'll just say there there's there's something in the works that we're really excited about. And uh, yeah, I have definitely got the bug.

Speaker 7: Wow, that's awesome, good good. I can't wait to see what what comes next. Then excellent, Sean. The time goes so fast, I can't. It's already almost the top of the hour. I am going to put you on the spot though, and say, uh, let's not let another I don't know what fifteen years, whatever it's been, Let's not let that what's time go by go by before we do this again. Because I love talking to you. This has been, this has been wonderful. Before we start to wrap up with you, I want to make sure everybody knows exactly where they can find the documentary Resilience and Sacrifice.

Speaker 8: So so the easiest way so you can go to first Resilience and Sacrifice dot com.

Speaker 7: Okay, spell that out.

Speaker 8: That'll bring you to a couple streaming services. The streaming platform process is a bit again. It requires patients. People pick that up. Platforms pick it up when they want. You never know who's going to pick it up. So it's on a couple now. But if you go there, it'll bring you right to the trailer and where you can watch and all the IMDb and TMDb stuff about it. You can also go to my website Sean McCarthy dot com. There's links there for it. That's probably the easiest and that that'll that'll at least get you to it.

Speaker 8: At some point, you know, it'll be out, you know, on YouTube. You know, we usually I guess this industry standard is let it sit out there and be on platforms for a while before it gets to you know, YouTube or public Vimeo or.

Speaker 7: Things like that. Yeah, that's that's my impression as well. So that makes sense and anything coming up musically that we should know about.

Speaker 8: So it's funny because this film is about my career, but it also does go into my my well, I say, a new project, but the project I've been in now for for four plus four or five years. I'm the guitar player for the band Beautiful Wreck, based out of Rhode Island, and it's a female fronted band with a simply phenomenal singer and I get to play guitar, and you know, the band is the band is so just great people. We've been through a couple of changes in that short time to to navigate and to dial in what kind of a project we wanted to be.

Speaker 8: But it's very much a kind of Paramour Hailstorm, Ivan Essence, Pink Mix. Okay, if that brings it together. We don't do all female female songs. It's kind of cool when when our singer Sabrina you know rips out, you know, just some some heavy guy you know song.

Speaker 5: She just.

Speaker 8: Is what it is. But the project is great, it's doing great. We were Rhode Island based. We play like one venue in Rhode Island because we played throughout New England. We don't do tons of shows, but we were kind of more of a concert band than anything. Okay, so coming up we have some really good shows. We play it, you know, Ballely's in Rhode Island, the casino we're in mass I think at another casino. We're not really a casino band, but plain Ridge coming up. But we also just booked a show at the met in Rhode Island.

Speaker 8: Excellent, huge for for us and for any band really. So we're doing a full band show, but it's it's acoustic, kind of the MTV Unplugged thing. We're doing a couple of sets and we have a really good friend of mine, Keith Denny, he from Angry Hill, who's opening the show for us. It's funny. I I hate asking friends to open because I feel like maybe that that's a a downgrade, but to me it's not. I Keith has been good to me and my musician friends have been really good to me in the past, and I'm like, man, like, if I can give a little back, I'd love to have love to have him on the show.

Speaker 8: So he agreed to that. So I would say coming up the Met show is probably the one we're most excited about because it's a big it's a big deal to get an a venue like that. Absolutely, you know, we we have shows in Vermont and New Hampshire and all over. But but and then you know, uh, Sabrina and I the singer for the band just she was up here the other day and we started writing originals. So we're we're excited to get get on that.

Speaker 7: It's very good, very good.

Speaker 8: So that that's that's the big thing going forward for me. My focus is really all there. And then you know, hopefully people get to see this film because I think that if you're a musician, you can relate. You You've been some something I've done. In this film, You've done and and there's no way, there's no way this doesn't relate to you, because I relate to all those musicians too.

Speaker 7: Oh oh but but but by the way, Sean just quickly, speaking of relating a comment in the chat room Jenny had made. She said, Uh, this relates to what we were talking about earlier. I just want to get this in. My therapist does em d R with me, uh for CPTSD and it's a huge help. So so somebody see Jenny connected with something we were talking about earlier in our conversation.

Speaker 8: So you know it is EMDR is not just for you know a singer. E M d R is is is trauma therapy. And if you if you have been going through anything, if you have a fear of something, if you're traumatized, something in your life has happened where you just can't seem to get past it. Forget music.

Speaker 6: Uh.

Speaker 8: EMDR therapists are are amazing.

Speaker 7: There you go, there you go. Excellent, excellent advice and all of it.

Speaker 2: Uh.

Speaker 7: Sean McCarthy, thank you so much. I'm thinking about ending the segment with this song Sunday Morning. Of the songs that you sent me, I really connected with this one. Anything we should know just quickly before we uh, before we let you go and we play this track.

Speaker 8: No, I just I'm Matt. I appreciate you always, thank you for this time. I hope we can do it. Again soon. Yes, absolutely, you know again, I hope, I hope people watch the film reach out to me. You know, the streaming services is on. I mean it's not. You know, some are free summer are not. But I want you to see the film. Shoot me a message. I'll make sure you see the film. However, Ye, it's more important that that you see you see it and not about me, but that you can relate to it. I feel like there's a lot of artists who have hit a point in their life where they go, man, I I did this, I wish I could do it again, or I'd like to look back, or I just think it's relatable.

Speaker 8: I think that's that's the important party. But no, and I do think in Sunday Morning. By the way, I think it's one of my favorites. Yeah, there's another version of this song earlier, and this is nothing like it. So I love the reworked version of this and anyway, I appreciate this. Matt, thank you so much.

Speaker 7: Absolutely, Sean, thank you. We will definitely do it again soon. We're gonna let you go. We're gonna hit that track to close out today's show. But yeah, Sean McCarthy, thank you so much, thanks Mat, you got it by bye, all right. That is Sean McCarthy and the documentary is called Resilience and Sacrifice. I highly recommend it. We're out of time, so but yeah, we'll definitely have Sean back again soon because he's got a lot going on, so he's got a lot to talk about, which is very good. So yeah, it was a long time ago the last time I interviewed Sean, so really great to reconnect with him too, so on a you know, on a personal level too.