2024 Predictions: Podcasting OUT / Vlogging IN

a conversation with People in Dreams' Austin Anderson

Happy New Year!

For the first post of 2024, I wanted to start off with a new do trend, earnest conversations between me and other artists do-ing something special.

Still from the music video for “I Saw You in the Blue” by People in Dreams

I had an amazing conversation with Austin Anderson, an artist and musician going by the moniker People in Dreams. Austin released a wonderfully unique, expansive, and personal EP called Skin last year.

Austin and I both attended Drexel University years ago, had mutual friends, new of each other, but never formally connected until we became mutual fans of each other’s work online during the pandemic.

What drew me to having Austin on for my first convo is the YouTube vlogging he began late last year. It’s rawness, earnestness, and fearlessness drew me to it and felt similar to my approach with this newsletter.

Topics discussed:

• utilizing uncertainty

• what Rogan-ites get right

• why vlogging is cool

• balancing serious musical projects & superficial ones

• our mutual friend (and Austin’s roommate) Sugar Pit

• why my health satire podcast is basically over

WILL DINOLA: I think we have a mutual sensibility in terms of music that we're interested in, but I think also just [our] general approach to things. And then I know you were a [vocal] fan of Beyond Being Well, which I really appreciated.

AUSTIN ANDERSON: It’s the best. What happened with that show? Are you guys putting out another season?

WD: There's a couple things with it. The first was that I got a job editing podcasts, which I recently quit. It ended up just taking so much of my time that I was like, I can't do more editing of audio because it's too much.

AA: You know I worked at a hip hop studio for a while, and like, I'm comping and editing vocals and I'm getting mixes done all day, and then I come back home and try to make music like — forget about it. I feel like I have no room to separate those things, especially when everything is made on the computer already.

I was talking to my friend about maybe doing a profession of some sort that you use your hands, something crafty. That is completely lets your mind wander. So that when you do make music, you’re using another medium to craft things.

WD: If you're on Pro Tools all day already, there's no way that, for your own health, you're going to be able to do anything [musically later]. It was so much I would look at a blank wall and see the Pro Tools session.

With Beyond Being Well, it kind of fizzled out. The only thing I will say is that we did shoot a short film version of it, which I'd like to put out.

AA: I really liked Beyond Being Well. I listened to every single episode. And I don't listen to podcasts because they're… I mean, what do you think of podcasting? There seems to be no bigger picture project going on with them a lot of the times.

WD: The main ones that are popular are just conversations, like what we're doing right now. They don't really have much more to offer unless you're just interested in the people. You know Spitfire Audio, right?

AA: Yeah, totally.

WD: So they launched a podcast, a composer podcast. And I have been liking that podcast so far.

AA: I was getting into Spitfire a lot during COVID. The thing that's really hard about being a film composer— I didn't do it for that long and have aspirations to do it at some point again— but I feel like for film composing building a brand for yourself is really important when it comes to gaining notoriety.

I know this one guy, Geller, he makes hyper-pop music and he got his break off of a movie score. From what I've seen if you are going to be a film composer I think the best thing is to use some sort of content. His was TikTok, but it could be anything. Building notoriety from that is even way bigger than the scores you're going to do because there are so many people who can make really good scores.

There are so many musicians I was reaching out to that were incredibly good and broke as hell. They could probably score a bunch of really amazing films and that was the part that was hard for me to navigate.

You’ve probably heard of the assisting. You assist a composer, which is a win. If you can do that, that's a win.

WD: It's kind of romantic in terms of working under an apprenticeship sort of model. But you come up against the thing we were talking about before, which is that you may not have the stamina to work on any of your own material. I scored a movie with some Drexel people in 2020 before I got [a podcast job] and I was worried about my creative muscle. [For 3 years] I was itching to make sure I keep that skill and not lose the confidence I had.

AA: There's a big thing that I've been feeling towards especially the arts, that there's a huge pressure, especially when you go to Drexel and you go to these schools to make money at this trade. I remember I got there and I was like, okay, I need to make things sound good. I'm here to be a mixer.

And then I got there and I was always making music and it was always so much more fulfilling for me. The well was so much deeper. But the truth is, I just wasn't ready for that. I had not crafted my skillset to make a record that I felt was appropriate. It just it didn't feel like the right time.

I got out of school in COVID and all of a sudden I was making songs like “Woke Up” and “Smoke.” And I actually took a step away from that to do film scores because I was so used to the thought of doing a trade and bringing value to somebody else, but internally if I just gave myself permission to be aware of what I was feeling and what I was actually connected to, I probably would have just been like: this is the well that I'm creating from. These [songs] really resonate with me.

Doing things that are more of a trade, they build technique and they build technicality. They allow you to experiment. But I do feel like personally, sometimes the thing that it is societally less rewarded is definitely the thing to do.

Especially on the last project, I remember I had the first versions of “I Saw You In The Blue.” It was just the drone, my voice, and guitar. But I never felt that before. I was like, okay, there's something to be had here.

If you felt that way back in 2020 [about film scoring], it's really good that you came back to it. I have a large skillset with mixing. I feel like I could mix records if I really wanted to grindset in that field, but I could definitely see myself looking back and being like you just didn't do what you wanted to do. You wanted to record string sections. You wanted to record a pipe organ. You wanted to make a project about this thing and that thing and they meant a lot to you and you didn't explore those things…

WD: I watched one of your vlogs which was about uncertainty. [There’s] this balance between skillset and uncertainty. There's good things about buckling down trying to learn a skillset, whereas uncertainty is where the risk is.

I feel the same way where I, for three years doing this podcast, got very good at Pro Tools. I got very proficient. I have a way to continue making money, doing podcasts.

When I'm looking at film composing stuff, it lights me up, but it's also uncertain because I feel like there's gaps: more [music] theory to learn, beat mapping, DAW organizational stuff. There's already been things where I feel like I'm a baby again.

It's a really interesting balance because I think uncertainty is what stops a lot of people, but it's nice to have that reframe that uncertainty is maybe what's also exciting and making me feel like this is the right place to be. That's what I'm hearing from you a little bit.

AA: I'm a big fan of Rick Rubin. I know some people hate that guy.

WD: I have his book here. My brother gave it to me for Christmas. Have you read it?

AA: Oh, I thought it was my Bible for Skin, every time I needed to refresh my awareness and try to come at it from like an objective view. Because when you're working on a record like that, you're just working on it for a year. [Rubin] his way of getting you to tune into what is [the] best part of yourself.

[With] Skin, I had never done anything that taxing in my life. It was just pure patience and pure trust all the time and without any attachment to outcome of how it's gonna be perceived for so long. And I got out of that and got really good feedback for it, but then it was like: what's next?

Projects are a lot like getting a tattoo for me. I have two tattoos and I probably would get rid of one of them. [For] the experiments that are needed to make [a new project] happen and make it come through a hundred percent, I have to do these grand experiments and that's what is scary.

I had this other project which I created probably like 25 minutes of work on and that will come out relatively soon. I went from like listening to Bobby Krlic, At Eternity's Gate, and The Microphones and stuff [to after Skin] listening to pretty much only like Trap-A-Holics Mixtapes. Both of these things are me, but one is very reactive and one is very intentional. And those worlds haven't really met up yet.

When I make music, I have to put it out. There's no not putting out music. I'm not Frank Ocean. I can't scrap a project because I feel like it doesn't resonate that hard.

WD: It sounded like in that vlog, that you were kind of struggling with your expectations of what [the projects] should be. I kind of got the sense that you might scrap them, but it's interesting to hear that you still want to put them out.

Something that's funny that I'm just putting together is your artist name is People In Dreams. It is multiple People.

AA: I think there's a balance to all of that. I think the awareness of saying, okay I feel like this part of me is very casual, a bit more surface level, and a bit more instantaneous version of myself. And that's okay. But what I'm trying not to do is not let that make me comfortable so I don't do the more grand and more lasting things.

There's a specific artist that I resonate with really hard because of how he came up and his influences. His name is Quadeca. He was like a white, corny rapper/YouTuber who like raps 20 different styles. Everybody wrote him off as this really corny guy. Then he released a record like a couple of years ago and it's like top 20 on everybody's album of the year.

It's an opus of really cinematic, really immersive music. There's Sunday Service Choir on it. There's Danny Brown on it. There's Thor Harris from Swans. But [lately] he's been releasing these projects called SCRAPYARD, which is a more casual side of him and it's all making sense.

To me it's made him more likable because he doesn't have to sit on this plateau of sound design excellence all the time. That's been something I've been resonating with.

WD: One of the reasons I wanted to have you on as my first interview portion of the newsletter is because the newsletter's namesake is this album I released called do as well. I just was like, I'm going to release this, even though the standards weren't really there in terms of like, this is the best thing that I can make. The performances are sometimes messy, but it still is worthwhile, I think, to share. It seemed like you resonated with that, which I really appreciated.

I also think with this newsletter, it's called “do” for a similar reason. It's that Shia LaBeouf video, it's just kind of going out and doing it. The reason I wanted to have you on is because I really enjoy the sentiment of your vlogs, which [seem] similar to the newsletter. I read it as about process and about journey and for other people to see that— to give them this honest look at what the start is and being vulnerable with the worries, the insecurities, and seeing that anyone can do it if you want it and if you're there for the right reasons.

AA: I think that my first thought of doing [the vlogs] was [that] it just felt right to do a long form content version of this. How is it to be an independent artist in LA? Because if you live in Illinois and you want to move to LA, you have no idea what that actually looks like for you.

I had a thought process of doing a vlog for a while. I recorded a couple videos, and they actually just never came out, because I realized that through that process, I was really not coming off well. I was kind of scared of it because I looked at the first two videos and I was like, I wouldn't hang out with this guy. That turned me off at first, [but] then I came back to it and I made the first thing just about being a musician. That was my outline.

The greatest thing about this type of content is it just evolves by itself and I know that [it’s] going to turn into something that I've never expected it to turn into because as I'm editing these things that are sometimes very long, I'm [becoming] aware of [my] feelings, maybe some that are more irrational, some that are rational. And it's through that process, of the editing actually, [that] I create solutions for myself.

That one that you actually watched I didn't post anywhere because I have these vlogs now that are edited and I feel like they're kind of beautiful and they have an aesthetic to them and I'm creating art with them. And then, for example, that vlog was something that I did in the morning when I just woke up and was going through things in my head. Those are untitled vlogs that are very cathartic.

The biggest influence that I'm finding is subconsciously from Nick Cave. [Cave] has a book called Faith, Hope, and Carnage. And he has this website called The Red Hand Files. People send him letters and he answers them online. They're fully written, thoughtful responses that he sat on. And they're just so vulnerable and incredibly intense. He has kind of been given this responsibility to validate these people. And he's talking about it in this book, and he's like, at first it was just a way for me to talk to people and then it just became this completely different thing.

That's been probably the most exciting thing that I've done lately is just letting [the vlogs] grow. I feel like I'm supporting the narrative of Skin to just provide that openness. It's amazing. If you provide openness to people, they just want to tell you everything.

WD: That kind of brings it back to what we were saying a bit earlier about uncertainty. One day what's scary becomes what's exciting and that's what keeps you going, but then the next day or the next hour, even, it's just too much.

With the being open, you can kind of get that outside validation, just through other people connecting and being like, oh, this is this is working. This is a valuable pursuit.

AA: That's been something that I've been a bit surprised about doing the vlogs is that people will actually reach out to me and be like, I watched your vlog. I really like what you're doing. I would love for people to be more transparent and vulnerable. I think that the world would really benefit from that, especially being in L.A.

I mean, it's just the climate of Joe Rogan-isms, like when I posted on my Instagram because this guy said I need to be on testosterone. It's such a harmful thing to do to say that somebody like a man can't express themselves in a way that is very open, that all men should be closed and take TRT or whatever the fuck it is.

There's a big thing for me, like internally, where I want to do these things that always allow for space between me and the world and the universe. And men in general have a hard time with that.

For me doing yoga, I've always had a thought process of like, I really want to bring yoga to men. I want to bring yoga in a way that is specifically for men and I want to make it a thing to allow men to open up. I can see myself getting something certified in the next 10 years and being open as a man on the internet and owning the hell out of it.

I've always felt like just being really transparent has always worked for me. I feel like it's always worked for everybody. I feel like I do close up sometimes, but when I'm open like that, things happen. And hopefully, as I get older, I'll get better at continually being like that. But right now, it is a back and forth thing. The vlog is helping me out.

I've always felt like just being really transparent has always worked for me. I feel like it's always worked for everybody. - Austin Anderson

*Hi again! If you’ve been enjoying the conversation and want to hear about how Austin and I are inspired by cold showers and roommates, the remainder of the interview is for paid subscribers and just a few clicks away.

I want to keep most of this newsletter free and accessible, but I do want to experiment with the subscription model. Five dollars a month or a discounted fifty for the year will get you access to the remainder of the interview and future posts like it, as well as providing me with monetary encouragement for keeping this newsletter going in the new year!

Thank you for your consideration! Now back to more yoga and Rogan.*