Damon Castillo on Making Music, Letting Go, and Creating for Others: S10E5

This episode is really special for me. Last month for NaPodPoMo I had the extreme pleasure of chatting with Damon Castillo for this episode. Yes, THE Damon Castillo of the Mess of Me album that we've been using for the past 2 years in all of the Geopats Podcast Network shows. We talk about the longevity of the Damon Castillo Band, his geopatness, my favorite song on the Mess of Me Album (Saint Cecilia), his recording studio in San Luis Obispo, what music he listens to and some creative struggles. In short, we cover the elements that make up the language of music, lovely, lovely music. 

Original publication date: December 24, 2020

Damon Castillo: https://www.damoncastillo.com/

💰Best credit card for Americans living or traveling outside the U.S. NO transaction fees, only a once a year fee. Pays for itself in no time. Chase Sapphire: https://accounts.chase.com/raf/share/1805579379

📬 Traveling abroad long-term? Traveling Mailbox gives you a permanent US mailing address you can access from anywhere: https://travelingmailbox.com/geopats/?ref=3422

💰Need a global bank account: I use Wise for multiple currencies https://wise.com/invite/dic/debrad107

📸 Instagram reels from my past and present life abroad: https://www.instagram.com/geopatsabroad/

🎥 Daily video clips from my life abroad: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnfWdoMjmqpcbULZw-hVgew

🎙️Start your own podcast. The podcast host I recommend most often is Buzzsprout. Use this link and get a bonus when you upgrade:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2022201

📬 Weekly podcast discoverability tips to help your older episodes keep getting found:  https://podcaststeph.substack.com/

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hey there, this is Steph from Stefffuccio.com. Alright, so this is the replay from last month from Geopetz Nal Pod Pomo National Podcast Posting Month. I had this episode on that feed, but I wanted to share it around so that y'all could get a sample of this experience. Why? Because the music that Damon Castillo has graciously allowed us to play for the past few years is on all of the Geopets podcasts, or at least it has been for the past two years. So I wanted to share it on all of the different podcasts. During National Podcast Posting Month, which is basically a podcasting challenge, similar to NanoRimo and all of the all of the challenges that have come out from that idea in November. It's to post an episode a month, the entire month. I did it! And this is one of the episodes that came out of it. Most of the episodes were longer, and I did go back and ask previous guests from all of the seven different podcasts to take a listen to their old podcast episode and to reflect on it and to update us on what they've been up to. And I'm going to be moving the podcast episodes that are connected to this particular podcast over here within the month of December. So keep an eye out for that. If you don't feel like waiting, you can go over to the Nalpod Pomo feed, and I'll put that in the show notes for you, and you can hear them now if you haven't already heard them. If that is just too much to process, you can go to Stefffuccio.com, S-T-E-P-H-F-U-C-C-I-O forward slash podcasts, and you can see the Nalpod Pomo feed there, and you can partake of any or all of the episodes, whether they're lit whether they're connected to this topic or not. So this is an interview with Damon Castillo, who has graciously uh allowed us to play the songs from the Mess of Me album from him and his band for the past few years. So you've been hearing his music for a while if you've been listening to the podcast. All right, let's get into it. This is a conversation that I had last month with Damon Castillo.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

After I create something, it's time to release it to the world. And and if somebody can enjoy it and get something from it, I'm more than happy to help.

SPEAKER_05 2:52

If there is a man to be strum a chord and sing to me that there will be another time, a time for you and I, with candles, books, and wine crafts, albums filled with photographs, and rooms that echo tune for lives. I'm so happy I could die.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Hey there, this is Steph from Stefuccio.com with another episode of Geopath's Nobod Pomo. This is the 27th of the 30 days of posting an episode a day. Oh, challenges are not easy. What we have been doing is an episode a day of bringing back previous guests from all of the seven different Geopets Podcast Network podcasts. That's a lot of podcasts, all in one. So today we have something a little bit different for you, but I want to share a little good news before we get to today's episode. Are you ready for this? I'm so excited. We have two goals for this month. Well, one, actually three. One is to reach the 30 days and post an episode every day. We're doing good on that one. Thank you. Number two is to uh share the word about the entire Geopets Podcast Network. There's seven different podcasts in the network. There's Geopets Language, Geopets Podcasting, Geopets Coffee, Geopets Books. You get the idea. You can go to steffuccio.com forward slash podcast to see all of them. Or the super easy way is to type in Geopets and hit enter in your podcast app, and you should see all seven. All right, so goal number two is to share for you, for you, hello, please help, to share about the network. I have a pre-written social media post in the show notes, and you can go in there, copy it, and paste it to everywhere. Really appreciate you posting that all over the place to help us spread the word about the network. The goal is a hundred listens per day by the end of the month, and that's a few days away. Number three, da. I'm very excited about this one. Our goal was 30 coffees in 30 days. That's buymeacoffee.com forward slash geopets. 30 coffees in 30 days. We started eight days late, so I'm not surprised that we haven't reached the goal yet. However, we've made some serious progress. We are now up to eight coffees. Eight coffees have been bought at buymeacoffee.com forward slash geopets. Don't forget the S. So if you'd like to help us out in any way, shape, or form by buying one, two, or more, it's not really a coffee. You know that, right? Yeah. It's basically a tipping site, but you get to pick a cute thing like coffee or something else. I like coffee, so I just kept it on that actually. Buymeacoffee.com forward slash geopets. Alright, what are we doing today? Today's a very, very special one, folks. Very, very special. To make a long story short, uh about two years ago, I reached out to a musician I greatly admire from the city that I lived in when I went to university and I asked if I could have like one song to use on my podcast. That one was not available. However, he was gracious enough to send me the entire album, the instrumentals and the MP3s and the WAVE files and just tons of stuff. And so I have been using, you guessed it, Damon Castillo's music for about two years now. And I finally have an interview with him, and that's what's happening today. So this is not the regular things that we've been doing this month, but it's also an experimental month. So ha ha, it fits. With that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Damon Castillo, and we're just gonna chat about his geopatness, his creativeness, his band members, what he listens to, and some more. So I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Damon Castillo, who has been on practically every episode via his music in the past two years of all of the Geopats Podcast podcasts.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

I've been wasting all of my time standing at the back of your line. Trying not to lose my mind here when all I'll ever be is your some type guy.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Thank you so much, Damon Castillo, for joining us on many and any of the Geopaths podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

For those of you who have listened before, you may recognize his voice because a lot of the song, actually, the songs that we've been playing for the past two years have been Damon and his bands. And before we go too far, should we give credit to the band members as well?

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Why not? Yeah, I I've been playing with these guys forever. Um, Kim on saxophone, Christian Ducharme on keyboards. Right now, Brian Lanzone is playing uh bass with us, or was before the pandemic, of course, and Sean Sullivan and drums. And yeah, I'm I'm a really lucky guy to have this crew with me. Just phenomenal musicians and great guys.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, you guys have been together for so long. I remember I was doing my my whole trip down memory lane. I remember being in San Luis Obispo and watching you guys when you were jive and direct.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's like 96 or 90, 96, 97 is when we kind of started things up. So yeah, these guys, they're they're my family.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yeah, and that comes through in the music. You guys are smooth.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I I I like to think that there is something to this, like what happens with the longevity of band, all the communication should happen really quickly and smoothly. And and hopefully that comes across on on the recordings. But live, it really it it really helps out because we we can just look at each other and we know, okay, we're going hit this way or we're going that way.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And I love watching the YouTube videos of you all live because I'm I'm super far away and I have been for a long time. So my only access to you live now is through those live videos that you post, but also a lot of times other people who are just in the audience keep posting videos of you guys, and it's so much fun to watch.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully we'll get back there soon.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Yeah, yeah. I was just gonna say it's kind of a sour thing to bring up right now because oh gosh, when was the last time you all were allowed, or not allowed, but able to play live?

SPEAKER_03 9:39

I wanna say that our last show was in February.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Ouch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Yeah, yeah. So so we're we're itching to get playing again. I I I know I am. I I'm lucky enough to be super busy in the studio with production projects and stuff like that. So I'm still working a lot, but I do miss playing live.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I bet. Well, I hope you all can do that soon.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

We have to do your geopatness. I torture everybody at the beginning of the episodes by talking about where they have been in the world and or what cultures have influenced them in their lives. So whichever or both of those that you want to dig into here.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

Okay, so I I need to actually travel a lot more. But I guess one place that I've been that comes to mind because I know you've lived there is w when I was a kid, when I was like um 13, like 12 or 13, my dad decided, hey, let's go to China. You're in Beijing, right? We went Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Suzhou. We also landed in Hong Kong. This is before the hand the handover. Sure. So this was in 89. We were actually there during the Tiananmen Square riots and it was a crazy experience and crazy time. And um, we didn't really realize kind of the uh the the historical moment while we were there because information was not uh readily available, and it wasn't until we got back that we we realized okay, that's why we were having like that's why there was so many people out on the streets in Beijing and why we are having a hard time getting to the airport. And it it was yeah, it was it was kind of a remarkable time and a time before China I mean it's a totally different China than that than what you saw. So that was a wonderful trip. I really enjoyed that. I and and the whole reason why we went is my dad was at Disneyland and they had this circular um the circular um like movie theater and and the film they were playing was all about China and that's how he got the idea. Like I we gotta go.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

And from that to a family vacation in the country. That sounds like a very cool dad.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a wonderful dad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

And you haven't been back since.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

I haven't. I haven't. I hesitate to ask travel questions now because of everything that's happening, but do you think you would ever go and take I would love to go back and see Yeah, even then it was like kind of the start of I remember being Beijing and and and looking out the window and seeing just crane after crane after crane of of high rises going up and yeah, the the the country was beginning to transform.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

The cranes are still there, but there's now buildings next to the cranes, but the cranes are omnipresent, omnipresent. It's yeah, it's hard to go anywhere in any of the first tier cities like Beijing or Shanghai without hearing and seeing what's happening with the cranes. It's amazing how explosive the country is in a in a booming good way.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:41

What if we finally find a way to travel to this beautiful mid-night sky? Oh what if we are starting to like they say?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

So we've been using the mess of me album, and first and foremost, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Oh, you're very welcome. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm glad you're you're enjoying it and glad glad you're playing it. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, no, it's been amazing. It's sort of like at the end of my workflow when I add the the song on, it's like I'm done and I get a reward of the song. Like I switch out the different songs. So it's it's it's a nice like treat at the end of an episode. So thank you for that. I selfishly want to ask you about Saint Cecilia because that one really, really makes me grounded and super happy and peaceful. And I'm curious what if you would uh be willing to share what the background or story is behind that one.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

Yeah, um, so a life in music isn't always the uh the easiest uh path, right? It's it's I I like to joke that uh music's been my get rich quick scheme gone gone wrong. So all the rewards that you get for a a life in art and life in music can be uh really really balanced by some serious challenges. And Saint Cecilia's uh is about this kind of love affair with music. Um Saint Cecilia being the patron saint of of music, this love affair of with music and the trials that go along with with loving her. And I I got to collaborate with uh a really wonderful string. Um I I I I wrote the string arrangements, it's just get me on guitar and voice, and then I wrote the string arrangements, but I collaborated with my buddy uh Pete Whitfield, who's actually in Manchester. And um, so that's uh um one of the kind of wonderful things about music right now, you can collaborate with people all around the world. And so he recorded the uh string quartet uh in Manchester, sent him back to me, and and I mixed it up and and and it was on uh made the record.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Okay. It's not a person, it's a creative connection yearning.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

No wonder. Oh, that's amazing. Wow, wow, wow. I I have to go re-listen to it. Sorry, Lemele, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:10

Saint Cecilia, I have always been in love with you. You have been then it's true, Marcus Williams. Good end your time to spend the day. You could spend the tea space if you want me.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

This might be weird to ask. But we we've never met until this Zoom call. So why did you say yes and let in and send me all of those recordings? I was so incredibly touched that you did that. Because I was like, I have I it's a passion project. I was not even trying thinking about monetizing the podcast and or any of that stuff. And when you sent that file, I was like, oh my gosh, that's the nicest creative thing ever. Why did you do that? Sorry if that's too pointed of a way to say it, but no, no, I mean it in a good way.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Yeah, it's a good question. I think for me, after I create something, it's time to release it to the world. And and if somebody can enjoy it and get something from it, I'm more than happy to help. So yeah, I'm honored for to ask. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

That's the best answer ever. Because I feel the same way. I I joke with my husband that once I have an interview, when I'm doing the edits, I'm basically in labor and I'm like, please leave me alone. I'm in creative labor, please leave me alone until it's finished, because I will be as grumpy, I think, as somebody who's who's literally in preg like female, whatever regular labor is, because I I have to get that done and I have to get it out into the world because there's that creative urgency. And then when it's out there, it's like oh, it's that that moment of release that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 17:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I get that. I get that. Different medium, but it sounds like a similar process.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Totally, totally. Yeah, making a record um can be pretty painful sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

Made them back to me.

SPEAKER_05 17:53

I won't take another dirty doll.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

You were just talking about being able to do the kind of online collaborations and things. Are you doing more of those now that you're not able to do the live stuff so far this year?

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Definitely, because we're lucky like in in the production aspect of music, we've had tools for a while that has enabled us to collaborate with people all around the world. And my I have a twin brother also in music, and he lives up in Portland and he has a studio up there, and so we collaborate a lot already. But since the um uh since the pandemic, yeah, I've been doing projects. Uh I just mixed a record for an artist that was in Hawaii and the head of the label was in another part of California, and we would have virtual mix sessions um where I could conference them in and we mix the record live together. And then for recording the recording end of it, I'll collaborate with people everywhere. Like um I I recently got some drum tracks from Aaron Sterling down in LA. Yeah, so it's it's it's a good a good tool to keep music uh making alive right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Oh, for sure. And it needs to stay alive. We need we need things to go back eventually, if not the same normal than a different I don't know. We just need things we need live music.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

It's we do need music, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, it's an important part of life. So your recording studio, is that for your own use, or do you rent it out to other folks? Or of course, you know I'm gonna ask the question do you have podcasters that rent it out? Like what's what's the story behind that?

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Yeah, yeah. It's called Laura Lane here in San Luis. Well, I've been here for like in the space for 20 years, and I'm just shocked about how time has flown by. And it wasn't until maybe the last maybe the last seven, eight years that I really opened it up to outside artists and I I started to produce more other musicians that uh like my records that I was doing just for my own records. They they came to me, hey, can you help me out with this song? And so my own music making making kind of uh took a turn and and and just uh led me down, just helping other artists produce and uh engineer their music. So that's been a a lot of fun. So yeah, no podcasters yet, really. But when you're in town, we'll we'll do uh we'll do an episode here.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yay. It was actually a toss-up between coming to this is gonna sound crazy. What's a toss-up between coming back to San Luis Obispo and coming to Toronto?

SPEAKER_03 20:30

We lost.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

I know, I'm so sorry. It was the extra thousands of miles in an airplane that did it. That and housing is a little bit more in San Luis Obispo. Oh my god, has rent gone up since I lived? Yeah, I left in 2001, is the last time I was there. And yeah, I had an apartment for 500 then.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

That no, yeah, those.

SPEAKER_05 21:07

It takes a little while. You can try and just forget it, or you can try to fall a mind become my heart that we're starting. Oh yeah, in the California minute.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Do you write all of the music that's on the on the albums?

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Yeah, so for for most of the music, I'll write a song and bring it into the band. And it can be it can be different for each song. Like a song like Saint Cecilia, like I'll write and arrange everything and and stuff. Um for a song, like for I'm trying to think of some of the other songs on on Mess of Me. I'll write out the bones of of of that song and have kind of like a working idea of the bass, drums, guitar. And then maybe I'll bring Larry in and say, Hey man, let's just have some fun, and he'll blow a saxophone and we'll come up with some horn parts. Or I'll bring Christian in and say, Hey, let's just have some fun and just blow a little bit and we'll we'll we'll chase down an idea. So it can be something that's uh kind of fully already arranged and and written out to something that's a little less arranged, and we can just kind of feel that out together as a band.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

And what do we have in the future for the Damon Castillo Band. Is there anything coming out soon?

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Okay, so I um I have songs written and recorded. But for me the biggest struggle right now is just finding time to complete an album because I I have so much production work. Um among um producing um albums for other artists, I also uh produce music for licensing for for film and television. I've been doing um commercials like with my my brother so we've done um music for Miller Light, Olive Garden, Welches, Starbucks, PayPal, a bunch of commercials for broadcast and stuff. And so that's a that's a lot of fun and a lot of work and I'm really busy. And then with all the the albums I'm doing, I'm having a hard time finding time to do my own album. So I do have stuff coming. I'm not sure when I have a an offer from a record label to put to put out a record. So it's just about getting a record done and finding the the the right time to release it too.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

It's a tricky thing to balance your own projects and and other projects and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I don't know how you do it. Because I've I started doing podcast editing for some other folks and it's okay so far because I'm not working a lot in a day job but it takes away from my podcast listening time which partially creatively feeds what I do because I listen to a lot of stuff that's kind of similar and it kind of gets my brain going. And so listening to my client stuff, although it's lovely, it's kind of taking away from the other stuff.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Yes it's it's a hard balance yeah yeah yeah yeah I don't have any answers.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

No no I neither do I I'm just I'm just going around in circles. So I just end up that with the earbuds in my ears literally y'all the whole time. I'll like wake up and go to sleep with with listening to stuff because it's just yeah that's my world too you need input okay so what do you listen to? What music do you listen to other than the stuff you work on?

SPEAKER_03 24:29

You know okay so I've been really this has been a a problem for me because I I've been I listen to so much and it's all work and I was just talking to my brother about this and he's like hey man you gotta carve out more time for listening and like I have no time and sometimes by the end of the day I I'll I'll work a a late day here at the studio I'll get back home and the last thing I want to do is like listen to more more stuff just because I just want to let my ears take a little break. I'm trying to look through my Spotify right now to see if there's anything that I've been listening to. With my little girl we've been listening to the Rachel and Vilray record Yola Michael Quanica just a lot of older stuff like I've been I've been starting to listen to old cake records again. Madison Cunningham I love her I love her Madison Cunningham she's brilliant Brittany Howard she's she's brilliant I love her records Dan Auerbach solo record I love that record and old stuff I I mean I can't get enough of Marvin Gaye and and Stevie Wonder and the Beatles a ton of Beatles lately I've been I always get inspired by the Beatles every time I think I've invented something uh new in the studio I eventually realize that the Beatles already did it you know yeah that that probably happens a lot yeah yeah yeah they did it all Emily King I love Emily King she's so great but like I said I I've been having a hard time just finding the time to to to just listen and and get inspired by music outside of this the music that I'm working on.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah it's hard. It it it it sounds like you might have to trick yourself and just like hit a genre and press play on Spotify and and let it play in the background. Yeah but then when you live with other people it's tricky because you don't want to wear headphones or earbuds all the time but you want to play it but then they don't necessarily want to hear it and I I can write but I'm so out of touch I'm just sitting there going okay okay I don't know who most of those people are so I've got a little YouTube homework to do once we're done I I usually um get a little a little bit of new music when I'm driving from home to the studio I'll turn on our local our local public um radio station KCBX and Neil usually is playing something cool that I get turned on to some new music and and then I'll go down a rabbit hole and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

So yeah yeah uh new record that I got turned on to recently and she's she's doing some really great music there's a lot of ladies there's a lot of female artists that are totally inspiring me right now.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Very cool I'm gonna have to look these up and listeners all have all the stuff in the show notes so don't worry about any of that. David I was so excited to have this moment with you and to be able to share it with the listeners like I said they've been hearing your voice and the band's music and all of that for a couple of years now and I think it'd be really fun for them to hear a little more about you. So I'm super excited to share this with them. Thank you for taking interest and thank you for asking so I gotta be right thank you so much to Damon for taking the time to come on the podcast and more importantly for letting us use the Mess of Me album for the past few years. This episode as all of our episodes are sponsored by me stephfuccio.com is my digital self where you can find all of the podcasts in the network uh my podcasting services which include but are not limited to podcast editing podcast consulting and more so this is a daily experience for three more days I have a few different uh kinds of episodes coming at you the next three days so it's gonna be a little bit different from here on out and I think you're gonna like it. I hope you've liked this month. I would love to actually hear from you about what you've thought about what we've done this month giving you a schmorgage borg and I have to say it like that a schmorgage borg of uh the different uh the different geopets podcast podcast this month a little bit of this and a little bit of that I am Stef Fuccio S-T-E-P-H F-U-C-C-I-O on Twitter Instagram and LinkedIn it's also my Gmail address so yeah anywhere you'd like to reach out and let me know what you think of any of the stuff that we've done this month I would really really appreciate it and again thank you for all your support in helping us with the goals of sharing the social media posts that's in the show notes as well as buying us a coffee if you can thank you so much I'll uh you know be back tomorrow Do you remember exactly when we met I wanna write a history I wanna take it step by step If I remember every moment past I can solve this mystery I can make it past I will be back I will I will take I went every moment I go we got a free each and every passing band as if our eyes were better than the sweetest music the green spinning green all this time when we don't build things not will come on fall forever is not near for me to love you I will remain I will remain I will remain back in the When I clock out of the hospital at 6 p.m I'm not done for the night that's when gamer nurse 40 clocks in and she's got orcs to slay.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Sure I'm playing a 13 year old in Scranton but he's a level 53 mage with a filthy mouth so I need to stay on top of my game. What'd you call me? That's when I crack open a Heineken00 zero alcohol but just as refreshing. So I can focus on stealing his gold before his mom tells him it's bedtime. Take that kids Heineken0 0.0% alcohol now you can must be 21 plus to purchase enjoy responsibly membership fees apply after free trial cancel anytime.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

You know what's wrong with health and fitness you weaponize it against yourself. Why didn't you go to the gym today? You're so lazy why did you eat that? You have no self control. Stop it. At Beachbody we think training and caring for your body in a way that works best for you should be about loving yourself. Let us help you without all the judgment here's how. Go to Beachbody.com to claim your free membership and start feeling great.