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Transcript: Episode 8 of Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing

Episode Title: Amplify Your Message with the Right Music with Jess Grommet 

Jess Grommet: Music that’s made for media. It’s all the same philosophy. At the end of the day, you’re trying to just elevate and support whatever’s happening on screen or in our case, on audio, the narration or the interview, trying to support that and guide the listener a little bit with the way we want to make him feel.

Clark Buckner: That’s Jess Grommet. He’s a musician, songwriter, and audio producer based in Nashville, Tennessee. He custom composes much of our original music for our clients here at Relationary Marketing. He even created the music you’re listening to right now. Jess joins us to explain why music is an important piece of the podcast puzzle. In this episode, he shares how podcast music should add brand identity without distracting the listener while they’re hearing your core message. You’re in for a treat, because he’s about to walk you through from start to finish his process for creating music that fits each show uniquely.

Clark Buckner: Welcome to Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing. The show all about how to build a professional-branded podcast that delivers on your business’ goals. I’m your host Clark Buckner, partner and co-founder here at Relationary. We’re a turnkey podcast production agency for B2B Content Marketing. We help brands and agencies create engaging content to establish thought leadership, nurture key relationships, and promote events. For a recap and transcript of this episode, and to download our free five step guide to building a branded podcast, head on over to relationarymarketing.com/podcast.

Clark Buckner: Now, let’s jump in.

Jess Grommet: I am a musician. I make music for a living. So that’s touring around, playing shows or in some cases, working with a company like Relationary Marketing; doing editing, mixing, production, and I do some songwriting as well.

Clark Buckner: Excellent. I remember at one point we were on a trip. We were in San Diego and you were telling me basically for a living, “I sell air.”

Jess Grommet: That’s it. Well, that’s what you do too, really.

Clark Buckner: Tell me more about what that means to you if you sell air.

Jess Grommet: Well, that’s all that sound is and some audio engineers going to punch me for probably botching this or something, but you’re basically just pushing air, like a speaker is pushing air at different frequencies. And that’s all that’s happening. Even into our headphones right now, it’s being processed through some electrical currents and some converters, but at the end of the day, we’re just selling air. I’m so glad you brought that up. That’s so funny. I can’t even take credit for that quote, but it’s a good one.

Clark Buckner: I love it. And I’m always hearing some fun things like that because you’ve studied music all of your life. And then that’s…we met at Belmont University here in Nashville and we got to work together since on and off. And then more recently, pretty regularly now, which has been great. But you actually started off studying classical guitar right at Belmont?

Jess Grommet: Yes. Technically because I actually auditioned for their commercial program and didn’t make it in.

Clark Buckner: Their loss.

Jess Grommet: Well, I ended up auditioning in and stuff, but initially I was in the classical program because that’s sort of where a lot of my, just growing up, playing piano and clarinet and things in band, that was more where my instincts were. So I had to kind of re-learn the practice of commercial music. And so I worked my way in and got in, but yes.

Clark Buckner: You did get back in, you’re saying?

Jess Grommet: Yes.

Clark Buckner: Wow. And not everybody in college actually ends up using their skills. And I feel like you’ve not only used it, but you’ve thrived. You traveled the world now, touring, it’s been a real deal.

Jess Grommet: It’s been a rollercoaster ride, but I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. It’s amazing.

Clark Buckner: Whenever we tell people, when we’re talking to either current clients or new potential new clients, we always say, “All the music we custom compose for them. It’s all made by local Nashville musicians.” And they think that’s the coolest thing just because of Nashville and the attractiveness of it. And you’ve been from the beginning, one of our key people that we always can turn to and you always hit the mark with creating just wonderful music for any of these projects. A couple examples we’ll talk about today, but we want to get into the mind of you, someone who is professional musician, talk about the importance of sound and podcasts, but I really want to talk more about music and the role music plays for podcasts. So how about we just start off with some tactical things of when you think about music and podcasts, so our approach, what comes to mind, what matters, what doesn’t, I’m just firing from the hip here.

Jess Grommet: Sure. Absolutely. Well, it seemed like most of the time when we get a new request from a client for a custom composition, the best process that always works is they’re able to give us a list of adjectives. So something that’s bouncy, but not too playful. I like when they’ll give us one thing and then a qualifier, but so energetic, but not…like sassier. A lot of these companies want to appeal to modern audiences. That’s probably the reason they’re getting into podcasting in the first place, but they don’t want to be appearing like they’re too pandering.

Jess Grommet: So it’s kind of finding something that meets that middle ground. And it’s actually a lot like the way I describe just the process of composition. It’s a lot like cooking in that if you want something to taste spicy, you can put paprika in there, a number of things. And music’s totally the same way. I’m trying to think of an example that we’ve maybe had. Something that I think is so funny that people say is techno. I think that’s so funny, because that could mean a million different things. But when I hear that, as someone that makes music for podcasts, that typically means they want to something that sounds electronic. So I’ll use an electronic drum machine or I’ll use a software synthesizer. That’s usually more of a color thing than a musical element.

Clark Buckner: That’s helpful. I love hearing that. Any other examples that come to mind?

Jess Grommet: I can think of places like say if someone wanted to make something that sounded beachy, there’s colors you could use for that, like a steel drum or ukulele, a pedal steel guitar, the Hawaiian element. Someone wanted something that sounded West European, Spanish. There’s a couple different scales. There’s a Spanish Phrygian scale, that’s way down in the music theory rabbit hole. But there’s just different scales and different things that you can use. I remember there was one client that we had that wanted sort of a special Halloween spooktacular kind of episode thing. So there’s just tricks there, like minor chords, the dominant of a minor key, that’s a spooky sounding. There’s like a lot of things harmonically, you can do. Different sound design things. I have this sample library on my computer, it’s made by native instruments called The Giant.

Jess Grommet: That’s basically someone recorded a bunch of noises of them hitting the guts of a piano and scraping the strings and flicking it. And it’s all these weird sort of spooky sounds that our ears don’t recognize. And that’s the thing that I would use for a spooky thing. I’ll start with a rhythmic groove with podcast music, because even a lot of the podcast that I listen to in reference the music that they have is something that’s not too harmonically, melodically distracting, because you don’t want to be singing along with it unless it’s isolated. It’s a catchy theme song, but if it’s music that’s underneath some narration, you don’t want it to be distracting from what’s happening in the narration. And the best way to do that usually and keep that sort of feeling momentum going is with some kind of rhythmic bed. So a lot of the music that I end up creating for this stuff is almost entirely rhythmically-focused.

Clark Buckner: So when you say that, can you describe that a little more deeper of just what you’re describing? Because that might be a good segue to a clip we’ve got.

Jess Grommet: Well, one thing that comes to mind is the music that I did for the Jack Daniel’s podcast.

Clark Buckner: I thought you were going to say that. So it’s inside their Lynchburg distillery. Every drop of Jack Daniel’s comes right at Lynchburg, Tennessee. And I remember hearing this…

Clark Buckner: So it’s the sound of single barrels coming down the line and they’re holding each bottle by hand, inspecting it. And it just created this rhythmic sound and this doesn’t always rise as quickly and clearly, but in this case, I remember sitting in the studio later on and I was sharing this with you and you were sharing some of your thoughts on it. So when you think back to that sound, how did that guide you on that new music?

Jess Grommet: It was the perfect starting point because again, being able to have some rhythmic reference is such an easy place to start. It’s a good backbone for the music. And in the case of the clip that you just played, you can hear that it’s a constant rhythm. And so I chopped up a certain point of that, of the audio that you gave me and found what tempo it was at. And I actually worked with a friend of mine, his name is Taylor Watson. He’s a drummer in town and actually now, he’s a tour manager, so he’s traveling all around the world doing that. And he’s still playing drums, but at the time that’s how we knew each other playing in bands together. So I had him record a couple loops of him playing drums over the top of those sounds of the bottles.

Jess Grommet: And additionally, he took some weird percussive sounds that he had around his house, like sheets of metal and glass bottles and added some layers of that chains, layers of that, just very dirty organic noises, very natural stuff. So we started with that and then I put on top some bass guitar, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, and deliberately played it in a way that felt not too heavy, not too professional. In a way that was a little sloppy because when I think about the music and the musical heritage of where we’re from the south and Tennessee, and it’s a lot of just oral tradition music. Music that isn’t written down, music that’s not too organized. It’s all feel and all instinct. So that, it’s just one chord, basically, it’s this sort of this funky A situation happening over the rhythmic bed of the drums and the bottles. So it all comes together to create this vibe that feels like you’re in Lynchburg, listening to someone picking guitar on their porch or something.

Clark Buckner: Oh man, I love it so much. And so when it all comes together, it sounds like this.

Jess Grommet: Very rock and roll.

Clark Buckner: It’s like rock and roll, bluesy. It’s this very particular vibe you’re trying to take from the adjectives we had. Man, I just love the way all that came together. Another, we can’t go through all these, but another one I love that reminds me of that. It’s this podcast we do called Navigate, and it’s through the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. And let’s talk a little about that one. And I know you created a collection, a sound design for this that had not only the theme music, but other elements created from that, that we can use throughout the show. But that shows a little more narrative, which is a little higher touch, more labor intensive, but here’s one of my favorite clips from that.

Clark Buckner: What motivated you in the way to create this music?

Jess Grommet: Well, I think going back to our adjectives and our ingredients and our recipes metaphor, I think what you had asked me to do was because we’re working out of the Nashville Entrepreneurs Center and that’s the podcast there. You wanted something that felt Nashville, whatever that means. That could mean so many different things. But luckily for me, that’s easy because this is where I live and this is where I create music. So naturally, a lot of the things that are in my toolbox as a musician are things that people would call Nashville. Country guitar, playing rock guitar, playing that kind of stuff is just my butter as a professional. So it was easy to pull out whenever you asked to do that thing. So with that track in particular, I think I started with a drum loop, that sounds like it was a drum loop.

Jess Grommet: There’s a company in town called That Sound, little shameless plug. They’re a really great drum sample library. It’s Paul Mabury, who’s a fantastic drummer. And he has a business partner, I can’t think of his name. I use their drum sounds for just about everything. And I find that their loops are really inspiring to start things with just because it’s a really great drummer getting great sounds through great gear and it comes out to sounding like that. So I think in this case, I started with one of their loops. I booked a day over at the Spotify studio in east Nashville…

Clark Buckner: It’s a Secret Genius Spotify studio.

Jess Grommet: It’s really great. It’s just a great space to write and create, so. And they have all these guitars and bases and things. So I picked up one of the basses that they had and just started jamming with that loop, playing along to it and found something that felt good. And then they had a Les Paul, I think that I doubled just some low stuff and just sprinkled other little toppings in organ and some percussion and elements like that. But again, just to go back to the whole rhythmic bed thing, one of the first things that I think of when I hear that is just the rhythmic character of it and less of like, you couldn’t really sing that back to me, but you could maybe sing, “Oh yeah, it’s like…” You remember that. And at the end of the day, that’s what I want the music to be is just rhythmic because it drives the momentum forward and it gives the impression of forward movement, but then not too distracting either.

Clark Buckner: I love that because we often like to say, you would notice if the music was not there, but sometimes when the music’s there, it’s like, we just want it to be a cushion to support what the content is describing. It just has that feel that it matches our number one adjective, I think that goes across all our podcasts and that is authenticity. And like you were saying, Jess, it’s all about how is this pushing forward, the message. And so we were at PodX, it’s a podcasting conference that came through Nashville and we got to meet Jonathan Mitchell, who’s a really talented audio producer, sound designer. And here’s the little clip we had talking to him.

Jonathan Mitchell: I feel like sound design should come from content. So it should start with what you’re trying to communicate and be an extension of that. So you’re making sound design choices based on how you want people to feel about what you’re saying and what it means. And you’re trying to reinforce that.

Clark Buckner: Of course, he has more of a B2C approach while we’re focusing in more on this B2B approach, but no matter where you’re creating podcast content, the music has to be supportive of the bigger picture. That’s the message.

Jess Grommet: Agreed. Absolutely. It’s when you think of your favorite movie soundtracks and TV soundtracks, any music that’s made for media, it’s all the same philosophy. At the end of the day, you’re trying to just elevate and support whatever’s happening on screen or in our case on audio, the narration or the interview, trying to support that and guide the listener a little bit with the way we want to make them feel or the way that we hope they feel.

Clark Buckner: Do you have any specific tactics on how that actually works? Any strategies that have really worked well for you to actually support what is being said via the podcast music?

Jess Grommet: Honestly, a lot of it is social cues. Us as people in the world and experiencing culture and watching movies, we’ve been conditioned to think that certain chord structures and harmonic ideas mean certain things like a minor chord feels sad. I don’t really understand a lot of music psychology. So maybe there’s probably a lot more to it than that, but my guess is we’ve all grown up hearing so many movie soundtracks and TV soundtracks that we’ve just been conditioned to think that there’s certain cues that direct us to certain emotions. Without getting too heady into music theory, that’s the way I would describe it. So going back to what we had talked about with the rhythmic stuff, the reason I go with that approach, if I wanted to, I could hire a string quartet and play really slow, sad chords.

Jess Grommet: That’s not going to work for a podcast about Retire Happy about investment advice or Navigate about being an entrepreneur. I think a common thread with a lot of our clients is being B2B. A lot of the content, it needs to be fresh and intriguing and professional. And it’s interesting. It’s not quite as emotional. We’re not trying to make people cry, really. We want people to be interested and intrigued. So the way that I think of that basically is harmony that rather than being really gut punching and heart wrenching is something that’s a little easy on the ears. So if we want to get into theory of tonic chord and I think… it’s been a while since college… subdominant, the four chord, those are soft, easy chords that I rely on a lot, is a focal point for the music. And then again, having that rhythmic force driving things lends to that sense of forward motion and like, “Oh, I do want to hear what they’re talking about. What’s next?

Clark Buckner: I love it. Next, could you tell us little about your creative process? Where’s that at today? How do you describe that? You’re such an interesting dude. So I’d love to just kinda hear…

Jess Grommet: I don’t know. It’s just like to do at the end of the day.

Clark Buckner: I wanna hear about your songwriting and creating content for us or your clients on the road or whatever, what comes to mind?

Jess Grommet: Well, the really important things that I always try to make sure I have when I’m sitting down to create something is having a plan and the space and the time and making sure I can follow through. And I think that’s a thing a lot of creative struggle with is the feeling that you need to have some creative spark or something, and that’s important, but I think it’s equally important to just set aside a block of time and give yourself a couple ingredients or guidelines. For example, I just finished working on an album with a good friend of mine and our process… His name’s Chris Lee.

Jess Grommet: [crosstalk 00:17:57]

Jess Grommet: Chris Lee is awesome.

Clark Buckner: I thought you’re talking about him.

Jess Grommet: He’s an actor and he’s a really talented guy and one of my best friends. And it was a blast working on his music over the past month and a half. But the way that we did that is sort of a good glimpse in what I do creatively. So we actually sat down and talked through a sonic palette, sort of a thing about an artist palette of colors. We wanted to do the same thing with our album because it’s 15 songs. We didn’t want everything to be too all over the place because we thought about our favorite albums. And how a lot of cases, a lot of our favorite albums are things that you can listen from, start to finish and they feel like they live in their own world, sonically.

Jess Grommet: So we started with there. We decided, “Okay, drum machines, Rhodes piano, electric bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, upright piano.” And basically we made the whole album with that stuff and a couple other… oh, and then we had this in sonic old analog synthesizer. But outside of that, we didn’t really do much else because I actually had a really great teacher at Belmont, Keith Mason, he heads the music tech department. And he always would say that it’s really useful and helpful to have limitations when you’re creating something because it forces you to get more creative and come up with better ideas. Again, I’m going to keep going back to cooking. If someone told you, okay, put you in a grocery store and said, make me dinner, that’s a little bit overwhelming. But if they gave you a box of pasta and some tomatoes and said, “Okay, make me dinner.” Well, you’re going to be a little bit more guided in what you’re doing.

Clark Buckner: I love it. So a final thing is, we’re talking about all these different approaches to making one of the kind music because all the music we create, not only is it made by a local, Nashville musician, it’s all completely original for the client. What are the pros and cons of having custom created music versus just royalty-free?

Jess Grommet: Sure. I’ll start with royalty-free. Pros there, maybe it might be less expensive. I haven’t visited a library in a while, but I assume it’s probably less expensive. And there’s so much music out there that you will probably find something that you’re looking for. But that’s also the con is that it’s going to take a while to find exactly what you’re looking for. And I have a feeling a lot of times that you might find a track that you like and end up crafting the narration around it. And that’s not good. We want it to be the other way around. And that’s sort of the pro of having custom composed music for a podcast is that people like me are able to shape the music around what’s already there. Kind of scoring a film. It’s not inherently distracting. It’s not the focal point. And I feel like a lot of the royalty-free music tends to be a little musically distracting a lot of times because the people that are creating it are creating it standalone. They’re not creating it with the narration in mind.

Clark Buckner: That’s a great point because whenever we create music for a client, we don’t send it to them standalone, we send it to them with it embedded in the audio. So anything else that we’ve not touched on that is on your mind about creating music, creating podcast music, whatever?

Jess Grommet: All I can say is that I’m really grateful to be doing what I’m doing. And I hope whoever’s listening to this, gets inspired and feels because anyone can do this as long as you set your mind to it and set goals and keep working, so.

Clark Buckner: Jess, you’re the man. Thank you so much. How can someone follow along with you on your journey or connect with you or whatever?

Jess Grommet: Sure. I have a website, but if anyone wants to help me build it, that’d be great. I’m working on it. Probably the place that I’m updating my life most frequently is Instagram. And that’s just my name, jessgrommet. I guess instagram.com/jessgrommet.

Clark Buckner: And all right, man. Thanks so much for the time with us.

Jess Grommet: No problem. Thanks for having me, Clark.

Clark Buckner: Thanks for listening to Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing. We’re a turnkey podcast production agency for content marketing. And we’d love to hear from you. For a recap and transcript of this episode and to download our free five guide to building a branded podcast, visit relationarymarketing.com/podcast. If you enjoyed this content, please follow, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts.

Clark Buckner: Are you hungry for more helpful tips on how to build a branded podcast? Stay on the lookout because season two of Brandcasting is coming soon. We’ve got a lot in store, including how to use podcasts as part of live events like conferences, trade shows, and special events all with the goal to promote brand awareness, connect with new customers, and amplify the experience for attendees. Brandcasting is a production of Relationary Marketing. This episode is produced by Simon Mac and executive producers, me, Clark Buckner and Chuck Bryant with editing by Dylan Carrow, music by Jess Grommet, and additional production support provided by Anthony Luciani, AJ Meyers, Riley Wallace, and Jasmine Meriweather.