[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m Rhett and I’m link on this week’s ear biscuit where we gather around the round table of dim lighting we talked to Julian Smith talked to him about what it was like growing up as a home schooler who was also already a video professional by the age of 15 how I got into YouTube and we answer the 10 million dollar question that’s on all of your minds Julian Smith where have you been why are you not making comedy videos on YouTube anymore well one of the things he’s been doing that we talked with him a little bit about is he’s been having a baby or at least a woman that he impregnated had a baby his wife he became a father I mean just a number of weeks ago so that’s that I mean that’s that’s the big news that’s the first thing and you know in being father’s it’s always I always enjoy talking to somebody who is you know it’s just become a father they’re going through this milestone you know I don’t like to get too you know advice laden and I want to be like okay well here’s what you got in store in that kind of thing if they have questions you know will answer them kind of thing but you know it reminded me that he leans going through this milestone of becoming a father I feel like I’m going through a very significant milestone as a father and that is really that my 9 year old lock is now texting me you gave him a cell phone did not give him a cell phone now a lot of people be controversial and I don’t think he should have a cell phone but maybe this kind of slipped the cracks is what happened is he has an iPod Touch well you know what he has he has an an iPhone 3G that is just an iPod now because he activated it doesn’t have a SIM card in it so it’s essentially an iPod Touch he can play games on and that kind of thing well my kids also have those right but we go back home my old phones that I don’t want anymore we go back home to North Carolina for our friend Mike’s wedding over the weekend and you know my wife and children stay for a few extra days to kind of hang out with family and that kind of thing well he finds out from his cousin Isaiah that there is this app that you can put on your phone and using a Google account you can essentially have an iPod touch functions as a phone if you have a Wi-Fi signal you can text you know basically iMessage kind of thing but he can also call so oh he can call you on a telephone right but right but he can only call like the few people that are in the you know so he but he’s texting you mostly what are these texts well the first texts I get from him yesterday is it’s me luck okay that’s a good subject so I know who that is and then then he says I got this for you and it’s a there’s a link and you click on the link and it is a picture of a king sized mr. Goodbar you like you like those I do I do like them but that’s good he’s thinking about you I think this could be an added dimension to your relationship but the problem is he can also communicate with older females that’s what that’s what you got to be watching out for you got to limit who he’s gonna talk to well of course I’m gonna do we talk older females well because they have cellular telephones really doesn’t have their number like the text but you don’t know if he has it they didn’t even know he could communicate via text until you got one well that’s true but then I call him I call him on this number and the first thing he says is he’s like hey dad I’m like and when i say older females i’m sorry to interrupt i’m just gonna come clean I’m talking about my daughter here no I don’t want your son texting my daughter oh he’s okay yeah that’s not gonna happen they’re just friends there’s a good friends one year apart so he I get him on the phone after this because it can clock and call this number that I’ve been texted from and I can have a conversation with him so the first thing he says is he’s like hey dad I’m like hey like he’s like hey I got you a king-size mr. Goodbar yeah I got the text so I mean that was important that a redundant and I’m thinking okay how that how’s that thing gonna do on the plane I don’t know keep it out of the heat you know I don’t want melty mr. Goodbar but then this morning at 8:55 a.m. I get another text Taylor Swift just came out with single sweeter than fiction this is a nine year old so he’s giving you entertainment news yes so now he’s always on top of things but you know we listen to music as a family we are Taylor Swift fans the boys love to sing her music and that kind of thing so so we get the Taylor with text but then right after that he follows about where the text it says and pleased by it also by deaf punks new album it’s a good stuff I mean all this said week I’m getting Daft Punk recommendations okay about this uh it’s a good album I own it and so I agree with the lock you should buy the album I mean it’s a very trendy thing to do the helmets and everything that’s very cool music it’ll make you cooler do you feel about my nine-year-old texting me about mr. good bars that’s one thing but then texting me about new albums that’s pretty cool I think it’s proper usage of of the appliance well so are you gonna get this app for your kids so they can text you never know I got to keep more control over them but by that daft punk album Lincoln music you’re younger than luck he listens to me play that one and it has up all night to get lucky right which is not necessarily a song that is appropriate tell me I’m gambling for my eight-year-old son to here until I hear him singing it and I realized that he thinks that lyrics are Mexican puppy Mexican puppy upon sicken up up all didn’t even hear that up all night part because it’s when the robot starts singing it just sounds like Mexican puppy like like a chihuahua I’m yeah I’m like you’re singing about a chihuahua okay so arm less you know so as long as I’ll tell like that’s what it says Mexican puppy okay well then I’ll let my kids text with him that no and then we’ll share all of this with Julian who is a new father alright let’s get to our conversation with Julian Smith he is a longtime friend of ours so we had a great conversation with gotten a lot of things related to and proceeding to his YouTube channel which you’ve want to check it out if you don’t know Julian Smith 87 he is known for his incredibly cinematic and credibly funny comedy sketches and you’ve probably seen them even if you don’t know that you have because he’s got some videos out there with what 20 million views a Malc he put his cat in an oven and waffles which hey we’re partial to that one because we might be in that one may or may not be in that one here it is our conversation with Julian Smith [Music] okay so Julian you are fresh off of having a baby I had a baby yeah I didn’t have the baby myself but yes we’re talking three weeks ago three weeks this is one of the first things I’ve done are you don’t look sleep-deprived this baby is a freak of nature it sleeps better than I can after this you’re still calling it you don’t know if it’s a male or it’s surprise you heard of you heard of people parents waiting to find out what the gender is well put until it comes into the world we’re waiting until it’s 18th birthday we’re gonna shave its head every week okay good good good never look in the diaper without that’s not how you tell the sex of a child by the length of the hair I’m just newsflash is an indicator they’re culturally that’s right no you have to look you have to look at their private parts wait now you haven’t done that yet all right what what’s your child’s name Nora Eleonora we call her Nora Eleonora middle name Eleanor Eleanor everybody’s calling her Eleanor I said Eleonora yeah you said it right I’m just correcting all the people that are in their cars right now calling her Oh Eleanor hmm Eleonora Lynn Lynn Smith Smith but she goes by Nora yep she goes by Nora baby with no age with no age you know all right you know or II know is this an eventful delivery anything exciting happen did you faint serious everybody’s healthy now let’s just listen I don’t know let’s have a spoiler you you want a spoiler yeah I need to know that Sarah’s okay the baby’s okay is good baby’s good I assumed I would have heard that before now well I gotta tell you I came here because I knew it meant a lot to you but really at home okay okay now I can breathe easy you can just tell me the the delivery process how does that work I don’t know how much you want to know but all of it but Sarah’s water actually broke which is crazy because that only happens like eight percent of the time when your water breaks at home you guys probably know that because you have trying it happens 100% of time in the movie in the movies happens all the time because it’s like the most exciting them it could possibly happen but you know so was this ahead of the due date or what it was after the due date like three days and three or four days yeah and so her water broke at home and we hauled it to the hospital and what were you doing sleeping oh she was asleep we were we were asleep it was like 1:00 a.m. when her water broke he’s like 145 and she was like Julian you’ve peed on the bed again yep and you’re like me this time I think we need to get you but was it was it panic was it it kind of was she she I was I was like dead asleep and and I wake up to honey I think my water just broke and like within 13 minutes we were out the door I remember looking at that’s good yeah so it’s crazy and then traffic traffic could be an issue in this town so but not no not that or not that early in the morning yeah that’s a good thing I got there and we when we we moved from the valley to Venice mid pregnancy and we decided to stay at the hospital that we had in Tarzana because we liked our doctor so much so we were oh well you know it was a long drive but I got there in 20 minutes that was the best possible yeah you know timing yeah it was the go in the middle at night cuz I could be like a hour and a half drive you guys I was going so fast on the 405 yes that is the fastest I think anybody’s going on the 405 now was it was she like screaming I mean was this how dramatic was this she wasn’t screaming but it was definitely you know it was intense neither it wasn’t really knew what to expect we haven’t you know I’ve never had a kid mm-hmm never been through that process I was just get to the hospital as fast as possible because especially because her water had broken if it was like mhm you know it was just labor you know we would have had like five hours to chill the house or whatever yeah and you know so we were just we just knew we had to get there the contractions were were happening on the 405 you’re like pedal to the metal yep I am now there was a moment it be the boy I’m kind of a crazy driver I’m a safe driver I’ve never been in an accident that’s my fault okay and and Sarah is always like you know she’s a she’s a she’s always telling me that I need to chill out when I’m on the road because I’m very aggressive you know on the on the road and this was the one she looked at me it was like this moment it was like that moment in the movie where she looks at me and she goes go fast and I was like I can do that baby’s more I went fast and I got there I got from I went from Venice to Tarzana and 20 minutes that’s that is close to a record if not a record that has to be a record seeing your wife in that much pain I mean you know that okay in principle that’s gonna be part of it you know that it’s natural not necessarily anything wrong is happening but it still has to be a bit of anguish to see her go through so much pain if you want to know what someone would sound like is an animal just get them pregnant really brings that out it yeah so what animal is Sarah a triceratops well you said Triceratops no I’m not I’m not into puns Rhett I know I demand that you take me seriously right now okay okay you feel different yeah it’s like you know they say you can’t my dad called me the week before Nora came here and he said you don’t he’s like you know the the kind of love that you feel for this human being you don’t even have a slot for yet and it is gonna blindside you and that’s like exactly how it is it’s like a it’s like a totally different like I didn’t even know that this like sensation could exist it’s really strange for me anyway it’s probably different for everybody but for me it was just it just I don’t love my kids so I mean like you were very removed you’re only a few weeks into this thing I you know I think there’s something that I’ve observed a lot of people are still very new mom the mom there is this instant connection because the previous nine months right for the dad it’s a little different and I think I’ve heard that it’s it’s common for the dad to feel even a sense of guilt for not feeling an instant connection yeah what am i doing what it is it’s definitely different for me than it is for Sarah I can tell that and you know and you know I’ve had friends that have had kids and they’ve like they’ve said that oh I had to sit down my wife today and like you know it’s like they she thinks that I don’t like love this kid because you know I it’s not the same for me as it is rehren and she has you know she’s been totally understanding like she doesn’t you know she totally gets it you know and and you know it is different but I still it still is like it hit me immediately it was like this totally it was like this rush of emotion that I didn’t when I was holding her for the first time sorry I started like talking about light now had no frame of reference for what I was talking about when I held Nora for the first time I was like rush with these emotions and you know I still everyday though it’s like I feel like I’m getting to know this person you know and you can only get to know someone so much when they don’t even speak English oh yeah you’ll start learning a lot when Megan’s trying to order a Taco Bell or something so was there was that bad should I have not said that in the not gonna buy the intercom the difficulties with the intercom yeah is that is that is that technologists pissed but that’s it’s okay here we good good was there was it traumatic at the point of delivery were you like oh my gosh yeah it was crazy I mean up to that point I thought like I don’t wanna when the baby’s head starts coming up that’s when I look away and that was like the moment where I shocked myself I was like I can’t stop watching this this is amazing like I didn’t I didn’t know I wasn’t like weak at the knees or anything I thought it was gonna be but I wasn’t your father now you joined the club yeah we can we can compare notes welcome on this will tell you about all the failures that we’ve had so far maybe you can learn something and you know improve I have no desire to learn but let’s let’s go oh that’s smart of you it’s a good mentality I found okay so I’m assuming that you were born at some point I think so I’m still waiting to find out I’m all about surprises and where was that where are you from Nashville Tennessee now you’ve got a slew of siblings mm-hmm and the second oldest of six second oldest you got older brother sister older sister okay she has six kids she’s pregnant with her sixth right now crazy I got a lot of work to do the pressures just kidding I’m not doing that you don’t aspire to that okay you got an older sister and then let’s see so that leaves four younger than you did I just do that right I think so yeah six of you total yeah okay so so what six kids in this day and age just a lot of kids what’s the dynamic here growing up dad do what your mom did so when I was really young my dad was a he was an executive at a record label he worked he actually he he worked you know he had a pretty long music career in Nashville doing like country and Christian music kind of I mean that’s pretty much the only market there I think it may be growing a little bit now but we’ve got um back in the 80’s and 90’s that’s pretty much all there was so he was he was pretty influential influential yep is all they’re even better than influential that’s my southern coming out adding syllables now he was he was he had a pretty long career in music and my mom is a what as an executive like doing a tower finding bands signing them and and what does he have like a claim to fame and my dad is those modest person yeah I don’t I I still I get the feeling that I don’t really know everything he’s done but like every three years I hear like the two years ago I found out that he that he is responsible for Garth Brooks cutting the dance what and I was like what I know about this it apparently like Garth Brooks came into my dad’s office like as a nobody and was like like playing colds like cold playing songs for like record labels along a no-name guy and and no he wasn’t no name maybe he had it was before the dance so I’m not super familiar with Garth Brooks or what his you know yeah that was on his first like this breakout okay I got me pause you for a second now Rhett can you sing some of the dance do you remember it looking back on memories of dance we shared he loved us alpha means no stars above it sounds like it take it in that you’d ever say goodbye and now I don’t know how long I just can’t stop looking at him Clojure it looks like it hurt how does the course the way it all would Ian way it all would go I can only imagine Garth Brooks sitting in your dad’s office I remember Dan even know the song that’s what that’s how good of a son I am I never even listened to it to that song in the Rua 10 building my let’s see ninth grade Melissa somebody was in 10th grade and she wanted to dance with me after I broke up with Tabitha and that was the dance that we danced to wow that was a good song but that was the song that I think established Garth Brooks yeah on the scene yeah I knew that my your dad can yeah so apparently apparently my dad was pushing for Garth Brooks to do that song and nobody wanted to let him do it they were like didn’t believe in the song I didn’t think it sounded right and my dad was like pushing from the beginning like I didn’t do it and my dad was like one of the key people that ended up like pushing the I don’t know what the expression I should which expression I should use here but he was the one that ended up like well only one guy can do a song so once that song is paired with somebody in country music other people can do it later but I mean in modern country music that does it doesn’t happen that often a song goes with a guy and that’s his you know let’s see there’s ticket it either works or it doesn’t right it’s my understanding yeah so that’s pretty big deal yeah so I’m always finding stuff out about my dad I’m like gonna find out one day that he was actually like a secret agent and I never really knew his real name so he was he was dabbling in country music and Christian music he was doing the Toby Keith in the TobyMac type situation yeah actually yeah Toby Mack – he did some stuff with DC talk okay uh-huh yeah and you were born in 87 87 because that’s your username on YouTube yeah let’s not let’s not talk about that so user name I got stuck with it okay so this is I guess this is around that same time so he was working in that business when you were before you were born and then even through that yeah what about your mom my mom is a published author and playwright and she my earliest memories of her was I have a lot of memories of her directing dinner theaters and things like that so she you know my parents definitely both influenced me a lot you know I grew up in a really creative house all of us pretty much all of us play an instrument and do something with the right part of our brains they told you to get guitar lessons is that what happened yeah I’ve actually never had a guitar lesson my dad taught me some basics as a kid but I was never really good at a like classroom setting it’s like half that’s like a major reason that I was home-schooled for the large part of my life we’re all your siblings homeschooled yeah after I was in I went I was in elementary school until third grade and then my parents pulled me and the rest of my siblings but one of the one of the big reasons was because my kindergarten teacher thought I was autistic told you guys about this no I don’t think so might like based on I guess at the time they were really big on analyzing like drawings that the kids were doing and based on my drawings like my like the facial features of the people I would draw were out of place like they would have noses for ears and like ears for eyes and things like that was really wacky drawings and they had a few meetings with my parents they were really worried about Julian and like my parents were like he’s just he’s just weird he’s not autistic he’s just weird do you think your noses are funny yeah yeah basically I made a personal I’m not being to talk totally fair I was a little bit I don’t think I was a problem child but I definitely like pushed my teachers a little bit like I was I would find out that they were having a fire drill you know do you guys remember fire you so I’d find out that there was going to be a fire drill happening and I would tie my shoelaces to the chair so that when the bell went off like I’d just be like sitting in my chair and like the teachers would be like what are you doing I can’t get up and like they’d have to help me untie my double knotted laces from the chair and that’d be like the last one out of the classroom so I think that I think there was some of that too I think they were kind of like he’s just the things that he thinks of are not good and now in third grade they took you out yeah they said we’ll do the homeschool thing yeah your sister they they took her out your older sister out and then my younger brother who what he wasn’t even in school at the time so all the rest of my siblings were and still are some of them are still homeschooled so actually only one of them is still in school so you had this okay to creative parents mmm-hmm you got six kids being homeschooled so did you guys do like family productions is it one of those situations like where they were like you know let’s let’s sing together let’s do this play together and while wearing gene jumpers my we try to do some of that but it didn’t really work out I guess I don’t know so I mean some things would work like my mom would put us in some of her dinner theater things like doing like live drama and like that you know we did that setting worked but like I remember she also tried to get us to do like a family band at one point and that just went terribly like I didn’t even think there was anything south of Nashville until I realized you could go further down that did not work you mean on tour no I just mean it was so bad oh I realized that word yeah baby I’m now and now I am doing the puns look at me I mean that I definitely I wanted to hear that you guys like put out an album because when I hear about a really creative family with all these children I just you know it’s like daddy sang bass mama sang treble one think that’s what my mom was hoping for naturally you don’t seek trouble mama sing the tweeter okay but I didn’t happen didn’t happen now so did you fit the stereotypical homeschool upbringing and you know I will say you know this we homeschool our kids yeah and Rhett and that’s why Jessie home schools their kids so that was a big factor in us making a decision was the was the stigma in the stereotype you talk about the gene jumpers yeah and the ultra ultra strict and ice sheltered and I guess is the word I’m looking for what was your experience growing up homeschooled it was it a sheltered type of a thing I would say was sheltered you know it was actually it was really great for me because I knew from a very early age what I you know what I wanted to I knew I wanted to be in either music or film like very early and so I was in high school I mean now I’m skipping a little bit but in high school I my friends and I would shoot little like home videos on the weekends was for fun and then that eventually turned into me you know freelancing editing for other people and so I was like and I was like 15 16 and I was doing my school at night so that I could do these like day jobs for like I was like getting clients and stuff like that so home schooling was great for me for that reason so you’re you so you did have friends yeah you weren’t your friends weren’t just your family members oh you want to talk about friends you had friends see I’m still trying to figure out what these are no I’m kidding no I I think that the secret to home I think that a lot of parents want to they think like okay so we’re gonna homeschool our kids we got to make sure that they’re social so we got to get all these home schoolers together a talk and I think that’s like the like that’s okay but that can’t be their only social interaction because like I don’t know how it is today but when I was in elementary school I would go to these homeschool get-togethers like I remember one very vividly that was at a roller skating rink every week oh yeah so terrible it was like I was like seven no no yeah no I was probably like eight or nine don’t even understand what it means to be like good or bad at a social setting I’m like this is awkward they didn’t have a cookie cake I don’t remember anything like that I just remember like leaving every conversation with every kid feeling very dissatisfied and confused and like it just didn’t it seemed very like weird and it was weird and so I just I didn’t like going to those things and you know there was a homeschool prom and I was like I’m definitely not going to that you don’t be called good at that thing yeah so I I just think that those things aren’t quite the answer I think you got to find you got to get your kids involved in something else and so I wasn’t how does youth find real friends at like a nine year old that’s a good age I was really involved with my church at the time so I had a lot of friends involved I had a lot of friends through my church but I also was like I don’t know I was just most of my friends were through like I was just like a I was like a social virus I would just like find if somebody that I liked and then I would just like force my way into their life in hindsight it’s kind of weird I would just like meet all their friends and so I actually ended up I didn’t go to my own prom but I would go to I went to like five of my friends proms and like I would so I had all these different like groups of friends and none of them really knew each other but I would I don’t know I got around there was pressure I was like I was I was like I was like a friend a friend prostitute now your dad at some point didn’t he switch to be like a pastor of your church Yeah right he left the music industry when I was around 11 or 12 and my both my parents are very entrepreneurial and he you know tried he started a few different ventures on it on his own and he still got a few of those going and then somewhere along the way what an inventor know like music stuff like doing music on his own you know I think he just got tired of being a part of like the big label industry and it was so I don’t know I mean everybody knows what I mean when I say that it he just wanted to be like a lone ranger like doing his thing and you know so he’s kind of done that over the years and he’s done a you know he’s the guy can do everything so he’s done a plethora of things over the decades including pastor a church yeah and he started pastoring a church about gosh I didn’t know how long it’s been eight to ten years ago something like that did not yeah eight years ago probably is around oh four or something like that yeah so about ten years okay so I mean you you were kind of transitioning into adulthood yeah and I actually in the early stages of that I was I was around 17 or 18 and I had found this job I was like I was out of high school and I my parents were like okay you’re either gonna go to college or you’re gonna find a way to make money doing this video stuff that you know you’re passionate about and so it sounds like you had been doing for a couple of years yeah they said you were fifteen or sixteen and you had clients yeah I mean I was I was you know I was doing more than the average like fifteen or sixteen year-old was like work-wise but a what I wasn’t like going and looking for apartments you know so they were like you either got to turn this into something stable are you gonna go to school and you know learn how to make a stable so when I graduated high school I went on monster.com which I don’t even know if that’s still around anymore is it and I started looking for jobs in the area and one thing that came up was a there was this there’s this mega church in Nashville called at the time it was called Bellevue Community Church and they were looking for a full-time video guy and I was like I’m gonna try out for that did the monster listing say Mecca Church yes I just say that because it’s like when you say a church way okay good sure it’s like like what what when when you usually say Church people picture like pews and like 50 people and it’s like so when you say video guy at a place like that it’s like what kind of what are you possibly making you know and maybe as a point of clarification for people who may not you know being in the south and even being in Nashville yeah I mean we have what we would call mega churches where we come from you know being in the Bible Belt you’ve got these massive commune for all the majority of people go to church and then you’ve got these massive churches with thousands of people and then in Nashville I know it’s so I mean there’s we don’t see much of that even even out here in California right it’s very different it’s a very big part of the culture there in Nashville so it’s just like that’s what those of you listening that’s what a mega church is it’s not like a church that’s about to take over the world it’s just a very large Church it’s basically a giant business that is like that well the coffee shop yeah yeah they have a coffee shop they have like a staff of a creative team we have an audio guy they have like all it’s like a it’s like a mini production house they like we had this church that I went on to work for they had like they had their ol like creative offices that was disconnected from the church and it was like we worked on a creative staff there and it was that was like where I learned the bulk of you know what I’ve learned today there’s just you know I got to you’re talking about the job you took the job I took the job was the position a video director well tell us how we got to YouTube let me rephrase that I know how I got to YouTube how you got to you tell I got to YouTube yeah well I I just when YouTube came out and things were starting to kind of go viral on there I was like well heck I’ve got hundreds of these videos I’ve shot my friends I could put a couple up there and see what happened and so I started putting a couple of my favorites up there and and it was like really unofficial it wasn’t even like I wasn’t even trying anything I was just like I’ll put him on YouTube so I can send them to my friends easier and stuff like that and then I went in any videos that we that are still up that we we would know I think there’s a couple there’s actually yeah there’s one called keV it’s an awkward I did it I had a series of videos that I did called awkward moments and one of them called Kevin’s bro is still up I think I think it’s the first video I uploaded okay I had uploaded several before that they’re now unlisted but that’s the that one is like before I was actually trying anything legitimately that was just like me and friends goofing off right not trying anything okay so that’s still on there I think but I remember I went through a I went through a pretty serious breakup I was with this girl for like three years and this was in Nashville and and I wanted to get out of Nashville let me guess the megachurch pastors daughter no I wasn’t that southern okay yeah no but uh and I decided to go move to Buffalo New York with my best my best friend Lou that’s quite a breakup okay you’re with this girl well we it was pretty it was pretty serious relationship we were like you know in the shop aged no but pretty close to it we’re pretty close to it I mean in the South you guys hide is it’s like you’re a teen star thing about marriage so there’s that kind of so with a high school home school high school sweetheart type thing yeah yeah well she wasn’t homeschooled she was in a real school she was in a real school I heard her problems one of the ones I actually went to so though no very notable but anyways we broke up and I was like well I kind of want to just get out of this I had been kind of wanting to look for something this is right when the partner program had been introduced and I’d kind of heard about it on YouTube and I was like well maybe I could try to do some like weekly videos and see what happens you know and so we broke up and I moved to Buffalo with my to live with my best friend who was up there and and I just I shot this series guy I want to know your frame of mind now so forgive me for digging on and so forth were you was this like heartbroken situation I just leave the state yeah this was like I don’t want to do her I dumped her but it was like it was really hard like I still really cared about her but like I knew it wasn’t gonna work because we had we were just too different and like I knew that if we got married I’d be really I’d be a really unhappy 40 year old one day so I just I’d called it off it was really hard I actually I did it the worst way to I wrote her a letter oh no Julie I wrote her a letter I was such a – more than a text though yeah I mean we talked we talked after that how long was the letter it was a long sentence it was like a three-page letter it was really we were I mean it was a really hard thing it wasn’t like you know it was a pretty intense thing and I could have handled it better in hindsight but I was like I didn’t know I didn’t know anything so he wrote a three-page letter than you went to Buffalo yeah went to Buffalo and I just had a phone conversation with her after we talked a bunch we actually almost got back together who glad that didn’t know really yeah that always happens that after you moved to Buffalo or but yeah after we after I moved to Buffalo I rolled up there it is cold up there meaning that’s what makes you want to go back to Nashville and be with the work the work look at me like that I was like why are you talking about the weather I’m with you rat don’t worry yeah you can get it so I’m up there and I’m like I’m just gonna dig my head in the ground and try to focus on you know making little funny videos and releasing them and I was up there and a friend of my my friend Mark the guy that I moved up there with his friend Chris Porsche came over one day and introduced us and Chris was like a very quiet like reserved person he’s like a he’s a he’s a scientist he’s like one of these people that’s actually a scientist for a living and and so he was like very quiet at first but he started kind of warming up and I was like this guy’s actually after a couple days of hanging out there like this guy’s actually kind of funny and so I asked him I was like if I could think of something to shoot with you would you want to be in it and he was like you know kind of taken aback I could tell because he had never heard that question before he’s like yeah sure I guess and so I had this idea to shoot a series where I get kidnapped and I’m not gonna I’m gonna get killed if I don’t meet a certain amount of subscribers so this guy Chris Porsche ended up being like the guy that is now called Gabrielle on the kidnap series and so we shot that and I met my deadline and I shot a bunch of other videos while I was up there a deadline of subscribe subscribers yeah what was your goal I think it was a thousand subscribers and five weeks of thousand subscribers yeah okay something like that so I got there and then I moved back to Nashville I moved back to Nashville and just kept making videos I did that for and I still hadn’t gotten partnered yet this was still like you know I moved back home and I was like living with my parents and they were like what are you doing what is this YouTube nonsense you know and they were very supportive of my end goal you know which I wanted to make movies one day but I think they weren’t they just weren’t as familiar with the framework as I was and how you are you making a living at this at this point I had saved up a bunch of money from freelancing cousin making pretty good money at the time so I just saved up a chunk of money so I could live off of for a while so I was taking like I took like several months off and just was focusing on this okay so I after moving back to Nashville from Buffalo it was this was like when I I had I had met my kidnapped goal of subscribers like okay maybe I can do this maybe I can like do this enough to where I could get like partnered and start getting a little bit of money from this and so within like four months of that I shot this video called I see was it four months it was like yeah is like four or five months later I shot this video called twenty five things I hate about Facebook and this was back when YouTube actually featured stuff on the home page and they featured it right and it was like overnight like my channel just blew up like that we were shooting another we were shooting a video I was shooting video with like ten of my friends at my parents house when a friend of mine text me was like you’re on the front page of YouTube right now and I had this moment where I had like the camera on we were about to shoot some we were about to shoot this take and I like froze for a second and I was like wait a minute I was like really and like everything stopped for a second and I checked my email and this is when I had all my notifications going to my email and I had like 3,000 emails or something like that and I was like I better turn these off so I turned those off and you know like overnight like I got partnered like like almost immediately it was like two days later I got partnered and I was able to start generating a little bit of money off of my channel and my my parents were kind of like at that point they’re like okay I could see how this could work but I still wasn’t I still wasn’t full-time doing that until like a year later or something like that so you’re still doing the freelance yeah I was still freelancing a little bit and doing YouTube on the side so connect the dots from the Facebook video to getting partnered to then getting on the television show smash cuts yeah yes so I was still living in Nashville but I was traveling out to LA about once a month twice a month and I was doing this a lot for just general roles and stuff like that and auditions I had an agent out here but it wasn’t like making enough money to justify moving out here yet so my agent you know and I had met Sara I met Sara on one of these trips and we immediately started dating and I was like this girl’s awesome we were making me her she actually I hate telling the story she wrote she was working for a blog at the time and she was like writing an entertainment column and she wrote about 25 things I hate about Facebook and her company wanted to meet me since I was out here for all these generals so I came out her company meaning the blog she wanted to meet right know is actually her company social vibe was they they had all these like they worked with a bunch of different youtubers at the time and like doing like I guess endorsements or I cannot know what the what the scenario was but yeah they they said if you’re gonna be out in LA we’d like to meet you and Sarah had sent me a message on Facebook I think it was because at the time I didn’t have a I don’t think they had fan pages yet so I just had a personal profile like 5,000 friends or something like that and she had added me in case I made anything else new so she sent me a message and I saw her picture and I was like so basically from your perspective of fans sends you a Facebook message yeah and you’re trolling your old Facebook messages for good-looking girls yeah basically no shame in that yes we started dating and I was back and forth between Nashville in LA for several months and so she interviews you for the blog and then it turns into a date well no we actually I had seen her picture from that Facebook message I remember that so I she and I started I was like I should get your number so that I know how to you know a slightly got her number and we stepped out of what call you you I said so I know how to whatever I know so I I don’t know why how I got her number but I was like we should just it was like I think it was I think it was clear why I wanted her number but I made it seem like it was business yeah and so we started texting and and then like I found out she had a really good sense of humor and so then we started like talking on the phones before we had ever met so when I’m when I came out to LA for those generals the night I got there I took her out to dinner so like it was like before I even had the meeting with her company I was like taking her out and getting to know her that’s good that’s oh no so then we were long-distance for a while when I was back and forth between these two places Nashville in LA and my agents called me and they were like hey we have this there’s this show that we want you to audition for when you’re out here next month and so maybe just bring like a bigger suitcase in case you end up getting it because it would start immediately so I didn’t tell Sarah because I didn’t want her to like get her hopes up said I was gonna be moving out there but I just packed like a big suitcase and came out is actually a crazy story I had like 40 dollars in my bank account when I came out for this trip I couldn’t even afford a rental car Sarah didn’t know any of this she just still doesn’t know any of this no I’m kidding so I was I was staying at some at a friend’s house who was out of the country I was using his car and and that’s how I was like getting by out here with no money and I’m gonna saw dition and and I’m like I don’t think that audition went very well I’ve never been good at auditions so I walk out and my my car got towed my friend’s car got towed and he’s out of the country I have no way of getting in touch with him so I’m like how do I get home how do I get this car how do I pay for the car if I can even like prove that I know the guy who it belongs to and so I called my dad and I’m like dad can I borrow some money if I can prove that I’m and responsible for this car while my friends head up the country and so my dad wires me some money because they’re gonna demand cash right right and like probably $250 at least yeah so my dad’s my dad wires me some money I I can’t remember how but somehow through a freak of nature I guess it was my social virus coming out again I prove that I’m connected to this guy and I get the car back it was he was around he was like that same day I get the call my agent called me and they’re like by the way you got the gig on the show and I was like oh my gosh like that is amazing cuz I don’t know like how I was gonna eat next week you know like right so so what was the audition it was basically an improv audition and I it was like I remember it it was like they just threw a bunch of curveballs at us they were like okay so we did the game The Improv game where you one person likes as a sentence and the other person says the sentence and you have to tell a story and like it’s one sentence at a time and they just like switch it at random and then I did another actually the it’s funny because I I still tell Donovan Jordan the guy that’s in a bunch of my videos I I still tell him he’s responsible for all this mess because he was he had already gotten he was already cast on the show and he was in one of the auditions I had to do one of the game improv games I had to play and I was yo I was in I was auditioning against this one other guy that was up for the same role as I was and I guess I did such a mediocre job in the audition that the executives of the show I didn’t know which guy they wanted to hire so me and the guy walk out of the room and they they oh you were both there head to head no we were taking turns with Donovan oh wow and and Donovan broke my sunglasses in the in the during the improv game it was intense so he felt bad for me and told them that they should hire me that’s how I got the kick Donovan Jordan I guess and so okay and and I can kind of tell this a little bit from our perspective because you ended up well you haven’t said what the show eating on the show smash cuts yeah which was a clip show that talked about viral videos right and with four hosts which incidentally some of you might know that in 2007 we were on a show called online nation on the same network right on CW that was about viral videos that had four hosts in our in it’s a very it’s a very successful network well we’re trying a lot of things now the interesting thing is is that as I know that you know we have our own set of embarrassments related to our job with all nine nation and a note that you have your own set of embarrassments with smash cuts but from our perspective when I saw the show we were like okay well this is a lot better than what we were involved with that was the first thing I thought and then I was like you know what and my four-year-old son really likes this show he he when the first time we ever met you he was like I’m meeting Julian from smash cuts he absolutely loved the show that’s funny so anyway so yeah so same show we we had the same position only difference is two years later and yours went a little longer and somehow was syndicated it was like a season but then they kept replaying it when it got renewed but it’s actually the long the long short of it is that the show lost a lot of money in development because there was originally like eight seven or eight hosts and like CBS there was a huge miscommunication when they sold the show CBS thought they were buying a sketch comedy show and then they like I don’t know how they have this happened but like they got we shot like four episodes and like commercials for the show and everything and then they CBS finally decided hey maybe we should watch this and because CBS like I guess so you shot four episodes of a sketch show yeah yeah and they were including some of my sketches from my youtube channel in the mix and I was like really excited about this so men CBS sees it and then they’re like oh well we thought we were buying a clip show and so then they send all these executives to set and there’s like two weeks where they’re eliminating hosts and nobody knows who’s getting fired next really survivor yeah and and so like I was thinking like man if I lose this gig like I don’t know I have to move back home I’m gonna tell Sarah like I have to move away again because I can’t support myself off what I’m making from YouTube and I had this apartment that I’d signed the year lease on it was kind of expensive and like I didn’t know what I was gonna do so I fortunately didn’t get cut but they lost so michaux lost so much money in development that the only way they could make their money back was if they the show got renewed and they didn’t reshoot anything and they just kind of repackaged it and mixed the episodes mixed the footage up so it looked like they were unique episodes but it was actually made up of non unique footage and smart and they didn’t have to pay their hosts royalties because it was a quote-unquote reality show so we all had these lousy reality show contracts and I didn’t see a dime for any of that syndication oh well terrible now our old problems it was at least much more of a perceived success your show was an hour’s hour we shot eight episodes and they aired four oh really they aired four and I remember we would we didn’t live here in LA for that of course they would they would fly us out for like a week and we would shoot three episodes or so because I know we flew out three different times in the third time we flew out we were shooting when it was our time we flew out that we we thought we were coming out to shoot the the next four episodes but the show got canceled before we came but we had already bought the tickets and so that was when I came out for meetings so trips no trips with the four episodes the last the last one that we filmed they had already started to air and the show wasn’t good and we were shooting The Last Stand as I stand ups tossing to the to the videos before we fly back and we turned to our to co-host Stevie Ryan and joy Leslie Stevie Ryan has a show on vh1 now oh wow yeah sketch show we turn to them and as we said the last times you said all right Stevie and joy it was great knowing you that’s how they told you this is it no that’s how we we know like we knew that the show we had announced that it was that it was gonna be canned we just knew it because we had seen the show on television we turn to Stevie and join really all right great knowing you that was great there was like what oh my god yeah haven’t you watched the show ain’t gonna continue the same way about smash cuts every episode i watch I I eventually stopped watching it I was like this is gonna get canned and I don’t want to know when it’s coming I just I only watched like four episodes because you’re basically just doing a Bob Saget I mean yeah I’ve had some fun with it and you had some other things that weren’t just America’s Funniest Home Videos trying to be modernized but it’s really just pretending to try to make Internet videos relevant on television and it just was admit it just was a miss yeah yeah after after smash cuts rapped I’d say like two or three months afterwards I was full time YouTube and I signed it maker at the time somewhere around there and then yeah and that was like when I signed it maker that was around the time where I went full-time because I remember them saying they were talking about my strategy and they were like if you keep this up you know next month you’ll be there you know you won’t be doing freelance anymore and I was like great so I remember that I remember that day where I got that where I got the news that I was like where I realized I was gonna be able to do this full-time and it was like I was sitting in my car and I was just like so thankful it’s a I’ll never forget that day yeah well I mean as as people who were friends of yours and I definitely fans you know our perspective and I think we probably speak on behalf of a lot of people who are fans of yours you know we were like this guy’s doing things that are I mean you know incredibly funny also incredibly slick you know like everyone everyone talks about okay well if Julian Smith does it it’s going to look incredible it’s going to look like a movie you know lots of people the the production level on YouTube has risen across the board in a lot of ways but you were doing that and still do it better but we’re doing it a lot better than a lot of other people at the time and so there was this like when Julian does something he does it right and like what do you think it is about you your personality your approach to things like what is your perspective hearing that from us that that’s how we would perceive your content is like oh yeah we might make something that’s really funny and it might look pretty good but then Julian does something it’s like man this is like an this is on another level what’s your perception of yourself and your content in that way I just got really tight I mean I didn’t making videos for so long and I got you know I started making videos and I was like twelve and I was very I became very familiar very fast with like every year I would look back on the videos I did the year before and I’d be like ashamed of how it looked and how it sounded and like because I was learning so much and I was I just got to a place when I started freelancing where I was really tired of not liking things that I made like three years later and I really enjoy liking things years after I make them and so I think that’s probably why I think it’s so valuable to put all that time into it because it does it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense monetarily I could make a whole lot more money if I just didn’t care about that part of it and that you know just like you know hired 16 year old to come shoot it or something like that you know actually I could do a lot I could make a lot more content is what I’m saying you know yeah but I I would much rather look back like you know I’m really happy with what’s on my channel right now and I I wouldn’t trade that for anything you know I want to get to your music and and where you’re at with that and how that was how your audience perceives where you’re at right now having done the music but before we get there I also wanted to touch base on the amount of videos on your on your channel started to dwindle a little bit more and you were producing equals 3 yeah ray william johnson and so how did how did that start happening in terms of what strategy for you you know when I heard that I was like okay I didn’t think so are you producer now production company what you have produced are the goth boy video – yeah yeah that was right around the time you were like well I’m gonna I’m gonna you know I want to make my own stuff but I want to produce other people stuff we’re like hey we got this project and so we collaborated on that so yeah kind of what led to that sort of change in strategy I didn’t like intentionally stop making videos I mean I was definitely gonna slow down and try some new things you know that I’d been wanting to try for a while I’ve known for years that I wanted I’ve always wanted to make an EP and essentially I still want to make a full-length album one day you know these are you know I wanted there’s a lot of things I want to try I loved at all but you know I the I never intended to not make anything in 2013 right it was just kind of how it happened you know so you know I definitely knew that but you did make a choice I’m gonna work on music I’m gonna do the production thing but then I’m going to make it a priority to work on music and it’s not good you know from from our experience when you told us I’m focusing on music okay so like funny songs like more of the same but just more songs and you’re like I remember you looked very disoriented when I told you I was just I was just role-playing what your audience would think right right kind of no but you did make a strategic decision to focus on music and instead of your sketches well you know I was writing a movie I was writing a movie at the beginning of 2013 that I thought was going to be you know I’ve written a million not a million different like three movie screenplays that I thought was gonna be my first movie and then I decided later I don’t want to do that when I’m gonna I can do better than that you know I want to push myself a little harder so I was writing a movie at the time that I knew I I wanted to make and I knew I was really getting stressed out with figuring out what next to do comedy wise on YouTube because I had done so many different kinds of things and I didn’t want to just like repeat where I had been you know and I can tell I can tell I could tell from some of the stuff I was releasing my audience like you know like you said they’re like where’s the next mark you know and it’s like you know I don’t want to be the guy that just releases stuff because like there’s people there waiting on it that’s not how I look at my channel like I said I look at it as like a way to exercise a muscle and so if I’m not pushing harder than I have in the past then I don’t want to do anything you know so that’s how I was looking at it and so yeah there was a while there was a few months early on in the year where I was like yeah maybe maybe I’m done with YouTube maybe I’m just not cut out for this because it seems like there are so many other people in my life that are doing it that are like you guys have been doing it for so long and I have no idea like where you muster it up like I just you’re so good at it and like you you keep coming up with stuff that seems fresh and I just I you know I I want I think I I think a part of me was like I want to focus on this movie because I know I could I know I can make a movie one day and maybe I need to find something that I can maybe I need to just experiment a little bit so I can buy myself some time to work on this movie and so I was like well I’ve always wanted to make an EP and I’m and I had been also writing a lot at the time like a you know I’ve always written music in my spare time but at the time I was writing a lot and I was like well maybe I’ll just make an EP or at the time I was thinking it might be a full-length album but it ended up being an EP so yeah there was a few months where I wasn’t sure what was gonna have him with my YouTube channel but I never you know intended to like shut it down or anything like that or like but when you were focusing on music you said okay I’m gonna I’m gonna make an album of X number of songs they’re gonna it’s gonna be a sincere album it’s not like it’s gonna be a comedy album but but you you knew that you had to know that people would expect okay he if he’s not gonna do YouTube at least he’s gonna give me something that’s comparable to what he’s been giving me it’s you know how much of those thoughts entered your mind because you certainly paint a picture as as an artist who is you have an internal standard and it’s a very loud voice that you that you follow that you know for us maybe we follow our fans to a fault but was there a concern there of what they were going to think I mean across my mind I knew people were gonna lie when I announced that there was gonna be an album I knew people were gonna immediately think it was gonna be comedy but that wasn’t a concern of mine I you know I I I don’t know I just I just do things I want to do well is it okay you know is it frustrating though is it frustrating to because you because I mean you know you actually you let us see the the music video before it came out yeah gave us a little preview and we were like this is awesome yeah you know we expected no less of how great of a song it is and how great of a music video it is and and then I and I look at some of the comments and of course there’s there are perceptive fans and I think it was there was a very positive response mm-hm overall but you still have those people who are like you know so when is that you know when is that next thing that you like what you used to write you there was a lot of zero so confuse people they didn’t really know I think it kind of came out of left field for some people and you know I guess I guess I am very I am very that my fans are a factor absolutely in in what I do and you know I definitely think that you know I owe a lot to them because they you know they’ve enabled me to keep making things you know so but at the same time you know the way I look at my channel is so strange because I’ve always looked at it is not a I don’t look at it as like an enterprise or like like it’s not a it’s not really a business to me even it’s it’s it’s just a place where I get to put things that I make you know I get to post them there and they get yeah and that’s how it started and when I mean that’s Russian the channel name is Julian Smith 87 so it wasn’t clearly started with any intent of it’s an expression of who you are as an artist I think is what I’m hearing you say yeah not is that a place to fulfill expectations right and yeah yeah I’ve never there’s never really been there’s but there was like there was like one year where there was consistency in my channel where like there was a day you could come and they would be something new I did that for a year and then I realized like that’s not like I’m not gonna be able to keep this up and so ever since then you know I’ve you could come to expect a certain but like there’s never really been consistency on my channel in every capacity you know right it’s never been like a TV station or anything like that were you can tune in and like you know even when it was all comedy like you never really knew what if it was gonna be like a like like which character was gonna be or which song it was gonna be a song I didn’t even know I was flying by the seat of my pants you know so it’s like I don’t know I guess it’s yeah I guess I guess I just don’t really I don’t have any plans with it what so what would you say to your fans who are listening this is what they’ve been waiting for for you to tell them when you’re coming back and how you’re coming back that’s their perspective what would you say to them I will say I you know haven’t having taken the year to reflect and take some time off I have you know I have a very clear understanding now of where I want to go and what I want to do and I actually am writing my movie now that will definitely be my first movie I’m going to try to shoot it and if next year and in the meantime I am going to pick back up on my YouTube channel and keep things going it will probably look a little different than it has in the past it’ll still be comedy it’ll probably be a lot of different things that would probably still be as inconsistent as it always has been but I’m not going anywhere I still really care about that channel I still really love that channel I love having that outlet to be able to express myself and I’m so thankful to have that that place and the people that have come to enabled me to be able to make those things so I’m not gonna abandon any of that I will be continuing to make things I don’t know exactly how soon but I will say soon I will say definitely before the end of the year there will be regular content on the channel okay well I think people will be happy to hear that and i and i think that i mean and and most likely sooner if i didn’t want to do youtube anymore I wouldn’t do youtube anymore I didn’t hardly do it at all this year and you know and I I’ve made money other ways you know it was so that is there if I come back it will not be it’s because I need to make ends meet because I don’t I am not capable of creating on the basis of making ends meet I wish I could but I cannot operate under that pressure it has to be something I want to do so I think in a lot of ways that’s why I started my production company which I’ll continue to keep alive and grow you know I will funnel all of my productions through the production company you know and I still have a lot of plans for it but I think that’s why I initially started it because I was like well maybe there’s other ways I can maybe I don’t have to do as much YouTube content and I can make a living other ways and I don’t have to have the pressure of making something that I don’t really necessarily want to make you know I would much because I if it came down to it I would much rather freelance for the rest of my life if I had that if I then make something a week to week that I couldn’t really I don’t know how to articulate it but I just can’t I can’t I can’t create out of obligation I’m incapable of it I think I mean I think I totally understand and speaking speaking as a fan I’m excited that there’s gonna be some more cons than yeah Channel two very excited that you’re going through with this this movie idea because we’ve always talked about it okay when is he gonna do it when is he gonna when he’s gonna make this feature-length film that I think is going in our minds will be the feature-length film that they point to as okay that’s when the youtuber did transition then did it right I mean that’s not to put the pressure on you or anything she sets a lot that’s you know that’s our expectation at this point so it better be all I you know I I would say that inaccurate and to sum up everything we’ve just said you know I am excited I’m genuinely excited about you know re-engaging my audience and making more things but that said my channel is and always has been and always will be you know subject to me making my first feature film because that’s why I started it I started it to see if I could make something people would actually want to watch and now that I know that that I have an audience I am just waiting till I have that idea finished where I can go do it so everything I’ve done and everything I continue to do will be through the glass the goggles of you know working towards making that movie so it’s all kind of up in the air that’s why I don’t have any permanent plans but I know I can say I will definitely be making more content very very soon well I can guarantee you that uh everyone will be happy I will be very easy it sounds like you were listening to that voice and that’s really what we want or like I said as fans the best thing we could want is for you to follow the internal urge mmm to create as Julian Smith settle your biological clock I’m going compass I’m gonna go to sleep and be a good father so we can help with that and sign the table because you know that’s what time it is it’s time for you to take this well you know you can open it do I sign while we’re recording sure thanks for having me guys and that was our conversation with the Julian Smith I like talking to that guy you know I’m glad to consider him a friend I consider my creative genius hopefully I’d you know I didn’t I was Fanning out a little bit that I was trying to just be honest by the fact that I am a big fan and I really admire his work and I also like all these other people I want to see more videos I was I was fanning out you mean you were fangirling is that what you want to say I use it no I use Fanning out because it means you’re spreading yeah well because physically I was like in it I was standing up in like a jumping jack position the people can’t see a home no you weren’t but you were fangirling but he’s actually a friend of ours not really no appropriate thanks girl that’s what someone who’s a friend I’m a little conflicted because he is a friend he was actually a friend before I was really that familiar with this work but I’m saying that we often use him as a you know or like well what would this look like if Julian did it and so I love to just sit there and pick his brain and talk to him about what he’s thinking and I think it’s interesting that we’ve determined that if our standard is Julian a lot of times in terms of how good something looks how something funny something is his standard is women is on mine you know I guess I mentioned multiple times the voice in Julian said and how he listens to the voice I don’t know if I mischaracterized him as crazy like he listens to a voice in his own head but you know I’m just saying that he’s a what’s well I think you said inner voice which inner voice is much better than the voice in your head did you actually say the voices in your play that’s it that’s the litmus test if you say the voices in your head and you use plural that’s crazy person but if you just say the voice your inner voice that’s it that’s like a television show inner artist yeah the inner voice is a new spin-off of the voice that’s coming out well whatever I said whatever I said I’m minute with the highest esteem and it was a good conversation we gained understanding those who were wanting to know the answer to the question where has he been you know hopefully you’re satisfied well that’s what we try to do here on air biscuits I mean we’re having a good time we’re having a conversation we’re asking the questions that we want the answers for but we hope that we are in one in one sense sort of speaking on your behalf asking questions on your behalf we know that you want to know you know what Julian is up to when his next video is gonna come out what what he’s thinking about and hopefully this was satisfactory on some level you enjoy the biscuit and I similarly the right consistency and the flavor was right I like the on this gets undercooked a little bit by the way like a light biscuit a warm light biscuit for your ears we do it every week and we thank you for sharing the fact that we do this with your friends bring them on in we can handle it we made this for you guys can I steal that can I say that [Music] [Music]