Robert N. Brown is a programmer and game designer. Here we catch up one year removed from the release of Kingpin: Reloaded. | https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertnicbrown/ | www.captaindeath.com | https://inthekeep.com/ | https://www.patreon.com/InTheKeepPodcast |

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an ENT our entire generation of people so I'm 29 you're also 29 uh 28 but

turnning but turning 29 soon in a couple of months yeah but people people not like starting families and and whatnot

like and and I feel like a lot of people say like oh we can't or it's you know this gener or into this you know how

could I have a kid in in this world and all that kind of stuff like who can buy a house uh what but what do you think of

that how does that resonate with you you know man I actually try not to worry

about it too much and what I'm trying to do is I'm um basically just trying to

for me I realized that the previous generation of course had a different

time and compar comping yourselves to them is also not really I think our our

time as a generation right now it is unique as it is right now and I understand that everybody's always we

always compare things with something and stuff but and I know that notion I know

that the houses are expensive and the family is all difficult and stuff and again they're comparing it to previous

generation like oh look like even our fathers like and I don't know how old was your uh family do you know when they

had you like I think my parents were around 24 25 when I was born but my dad

already had two kids before I was born too so he started early he he was just

like a machine gun just like that old uh Temptation song like Papa Was a Rolling

Stone kind of thing and then he had two more after me too so he he just kept on going and I'm

not I can't tell you to be honest if he if I even know all my brothers and

sisters from my dad so you see you see and your mom how

old she also show was approximately in that same range right yeah she was she was 25 and I was her first

child so you see so but the thing is that like again that's why it's our like

direct comparison because they're literally the generation before it because then they are like born I don't know in they're the 70s I don't know

generation or I guess mine is 70s my father is 71 and and my mother is 76

yours are like a bit older or uh I think 70 and 71 yeah yeah dude like we're ex

like exactly the same so actually your father was 24 like when we he had you but of course you said that he had

others uh but actually my father already like was also 24 when he had me you know so you see that's We compare it to that

but that was like still a very very different time I don't know man and I wish I mean of course part of me wants

to join on the suffering and be like yeah it's really hard and really house is expensive

family is expensive but it doesn't really help me because I still want those things like and it doesn't help me to know that like all the houses are

expensive like I'm super aware and now I'm just like more modest I don't know more I don't know how the again

generation before did it but yeah what do you think well I just think it's interesting it's like this thing in our

head I don't I recognize that there are differences in in economies and

especially where you're from the econom is a lot different than it was say 3 four years ago um you know so obviously

things change over time and I when I was younger like when I was like 22 23 I

think I would have said a lot of the same things like oh you know how could you ever our generation's just never

going to own a house or our generation's Never Gonna you know if I have kids and then bring them into this crazy world

like what would it be and all that kind of thing but then I think you know cuz you said just like one generation back I

think about like my great grandparents generation which same as yours were in World War 1 and two you know and they

didn't [ __ ] make up excuses not to have kids granted when they came back from the war the economy went in a

different way they went through the depression like the Great Depression in America yeah and then you know World War

reasonable for a person to just be like yeah if you work hard you know have a have a pretty good job you should be

able to afford a home and you know have a few kids and and everyone kind of subscribed to that idea but they weren't

like the kind of people who made excuses not to do the things they wanted to do they would think about things like uh

we're lucky to be alive and we we should work really really really hard to get where we want to be and I feel like

young people I'm talking about people our age you know like my yeah our direct friends

and in many cases have this Cloud over their head like I'm never gonna I'm just

never gonna be able to do that and then and it's like they just give up so yeah

like my C my cousin's the same age as me and he just had a vasectomy he's like I'm just never gonna have

kids oh just on purpose like that yeah and U I mean that's his choice I'm not

judging him for that but I'm also like what is your reasoning for it like if your reasoning is but you personally

just don't want to have children ever yeah yeah that's one thing but if it's like if you have a fear in your head of

like oh well if I what if I accidentally have a kid and they're born into this you know crazy world that we live in and

all that kind of stuff it's like it's never been better to be alive yeah dude per capita it's like

this that that's that's insane you are you are you are so you're so right man I I agree with you with over there for

sure like one thing is like okay if we're comparing to previous generations like let's also compare their

circumstances exactly like like they had to do it like I don't know for example even right now thinking

about uh my my my wife my wife sister she's gonna have like her fourth kid and

uh is just thinking about um basically how how are how are how how

like she already had three kids basically and the fourth one and um and wait I'm forgetting what was the point

that I was trying to make with this it's okay wait a second I'll come

back to it um but yeah what was I trying to say that um basically a couple of things because

I was agreeing with you there so about the generations you have to compare the circumstances and I don't know for

example in the old times like you didn't have the hospital and the doctors looking after you like there are stories

I don't know even going to like 18th century I don't know even in the Russian Empire times where they just basically

had them like in the field I don't know and and uh there the people were living many like way less years as well you

know so it's like I don't know I feel like each generation is born in a unique time and it's only comparable to that

specific time frame and to that specific you know generation and and and and right now in this time it's like we have

extremely like unique circumstances that others like that even the guys before us the the 70s and even 80s guys did like

did didn't didn't have that you know so I feel like we're with you there on the same page like that

we agree with what's happening and do the best we can out of it make the best

out of there's also like you know my just I'm just going to pick on my cousin because it's easy and he probably won't

get mad at me but you know we're talking about like a a white dude Living in America who's fairly wealthy like has a

good job and all that kind of stuff and you know to make the decision like I'm never going to be able to do those

things whereas like you like one of the reasons why I like you so much is cuz you're like one of the most positive

people I've ever seen despite the circumstances you've had to deal with to get where you are now we'll get

into all that but it's like you are not making excuses even though you have way

more reasons to to make excuses than most of the people who I know who would complain or be afraid you know it's it's

very interesting yeah I know I know I know completely like that's what we were talking about with my brother also that

he also has friends and people especially in the west I feel like I also feel like this urge to kind of like

complain about these things is also it's of course we also have it in our third world countries too but I also feel like

it's a dominant thing to be living in a like developed country and be like complaining all the time and then like

that the house isn't insane and expensive I don't know like for example even we were just doing the calculation and the kid for example is not really

like that super expensive it's more about of course like the diapers and stuff I don't know but um it's more

about emotional it's more about being able to stay awake without any hours it's more like that rather than like the

monetary and stuff so I feel like yeah people just like come up they think of opinions and like they have opinions and

then they try to find agenda that fits that opinion I don't know and something like that yeah it's it's just a it's

like a mindset to me and I I said earlier like I was guilty of it I I was

definitely like of that mindset and then I just as I I don't know if it's as I got older or just experiences that I had

or something but I just kind of woke up one day and I'm like I don't want to keep saying that to myself like just

because I feel that way doesn't mean I can't do it and I think I think that's something I've dealt with a lot in my

life is I will have a really strong maybe negative belief about like what is

possible and then I'll just decide one day like I don't want to be a slave to

that belief so I'm just going to go try I'm just gonna see if it's possible and then if I fail it's going to hurt a lot

but at least know as as opposed to just assuming before I even give it a chance

you know that I'll never be able to own a home or I'll I'll never be able to be a father or I'll you know I'll never be

so many people just to base level like I'll never be able to leave home you know I have so many ties here

responsibilities and all that kind of stuff I broke that barrier early I mean I was 20 years old when I left home for

good you know B I'm going to go out and see the world and all that stuff no and and I feel like that's so that works so

well with like I'm trying to understand the logic I guess of this universe in a way because so far I've been like kind

of analyzing everything I've been dreaming and and wishing for and I'm like in a weird way but like it's all

kind of happening like it's all coming true and the things that I dream about and want to happen like they slowly like

slowly but start to happen and I'm like oh my God what is going on you know and we were I just like was uh came from

trip to Chile that's why I was remembering and yeah uh this uh uh family of of my wife and stuff and

basically we were talking about what about like we're talking about some theories I don't know and I don't know

what if like the universe kind of just like you know in this super strange ways

I don't know Works in a way like how you see it I don't know and if you say that something will not be possible you will

be like hell yeah like that's impossible you know and if you say something that is possible it's like it's like

unconditionally will support your decision there is a shitty one or a good one I don't know like I thought there's

that I mean there's a lot to that in terms of like spirituality but like just the concept of manifesting your destiny

like like uh it's like that you know the secret you know the book that Oprah Winfrey was selling and everybody and or

there's there's even a documentary about it but and it's kind of woo woo silly hippie sounding [ __ ] on the surface but

I mean the idea that if you just you know believe in yourself or believe in

what you want you're forget about whether it will happen because you believe it or not it's like it's more

likely to occur if you're open to it yeah and and you do it and you do something for it because some people are

like only thinking that they just have to think about it and just think really hard like no no no like okay you think

really hard on it but then you also like do something towards it like small steps like every day and I don't know it's

what the [ __ ] is going on but for me has been working like I don't know like again maybe it's it's to be proven in in

the long term I don't know when I'm 60 years old I'll let you know for sure if we have the saying that's like

um if someone says like I wish I had a million dollars right but they're not doing anything to earn a million dollars

they're just I wish I could win the lottery that kind of [ __ ] we would say um why don't you wish in one hand and [ __ ] in the other hand and see which one

fills up faster I don't think wishing is enough I

feel like you got to pursue like yeah what what's your plan what's your 10year plan for a million

dollars yeah yeah no exactly because well I was thinking million dollars so a millionaire is a person that makes a

million a year so it means they make like a 100K per month roughly that means that per per week they're making like

$25,000 or something like that and then how and then $25,000 div so five grand

per day I'm like okay so what can I do I don't know like and then you start

yeah but but instead of like so yeah I agree with you also we're with you on that same page and that's what also

unites us with you Tyler we're like like dreamers also like we have like things we Aspire for and like big things and

stuff and but we're also like doers also because there's dreamers and there's doers and I'm glad we can be both you

know and kind of go towards it and then we fuel like off of each other's like

for example I'm right now fueled up by your success that like you have made it and you're like going to that beautiful

life that also I want to arrive to with the with with with all the humans I think all the humans are here to you

know to have a good time to live uh 70 I mean ultimately subconsciously we all

just want to be like 70 80 years old have a good life have the family like of course some people have different things

but ultimately just a good life and stuff and and here you are and we're the same age and you're you're getting there

you know and and that inspires me and then like that like we work as a

friends inspiration I don't know yeah um so I guess we should talk about you a

little bit um can you can you kind of Enlighten us the audience and everything like what so you're currently in like

the London area right yes what was your journey and you

could we could take as long as you want for this but like your journey to get to where you are now oh my God man it's crazy like if we

are talking like the depends also in which aspect so I don't know for example

for me to be in all all the aspects because there is like for me I differentiate like four I I feel like

kind of not for ultimate happiness but some of the points for me to be happy are that these four points one is the

partnership second not not like one two three four but like in overall the four things is the partner the job the

location and the friends I feel like your partner your job your location where you are and your friends who you

surround yourself with those are like the four fundamentals that like influence your world point of view and

how you see things and your perception of stuff so like to like at this point I'm finally like arriving to the point

where I'm like at all four of these aspects like basically some are like super covered

and some are like getting covered and it's like and and it's been hell of a drive to come here because yeah like you

mentioned I'm from Ukraine so I was born born in like in this very small town and

stuff and um I didn't even want to do like specifically music what happened is

that it just naturally came and I got um I think I got you have to navigate me

here there's too much ground to cover Tyler I don't know where yeah so I mean you you you let's just start from the

beginning like you you were born in rural Ukraine and then you you know you

grow up with a workingclass family from what I understand and yeah eventually

you develop a an interest in music so let's just start from there like like

you you originally thought a bunch of other things but you arrived at I want to be a musician how did how did that come about hell yeah yeah yeah so it was

special time because it's like a I'm kind of like a first posts Soviet Union generation like truly post Soviet Union

like uh because I was born like right after it collapsed and things have changed a lot like uh so before like 91

uh and then after 91 so uh basically one big thing that it was a big part of my life is like Western stuff so like

in like 2000s and like in 2000s I saw like lots of lots of lots of American stuff like that was a big big window I

guess that opened because Soviet Union like had very strict like uh you couldn't watch I don't know American

movies just like that so a big part of like my inspiration to like come also to

like my creative being I don't know that I that I am now um is definitely like all of

that media like that I was growing up and then on top of that my mom uh she

was a a singor like in a choir um very beautiful she has like a beautiful

soprano voice actually uh I was also like I'm also kind of able to sing so that's like probably from her or

something and then um my grandma was like a accordion player and so an

element of like listening watching American movies which got me really inspired like I don't remember seeing Marvel movies and uh listening to

American Music a lot of it really like I really grew up on like Green Day and like Blink 182 and Link biscuit and uh

all of this like System of a Down all of this stuff that like predominantly came from like us specifically

um like that music and all of that and then and my family's background and actually nobody from my family ever

pushed me to be do music because in fact in my family on my father's side and all

the male guys are all militaries so it's more much more expected that you will be doing like a military you know

profession or something um so that is like what is more respected musicians are more like the guy that plays in the

in the park like my father for example had I don't think he had any clue so you can do like Sound Engineering and you

can be in the studios you can work post-production pre-production like no it's just that dude with the with the

guitar in the in the park and I don't know man it's like a combination of everything and then I just was listening

to and I started with the guitar so that was my that was my thing I started playing a guitar when I was like 12

years old so I also started pretty late with my journey there and then we

just because the teacher didn't have time to like privately teach me because they knew that teacher and anyways like

long story I was enrolled in this music school and so um yeah man and then from there I just really did the music like I

mean did the rock music because that was really my first Vision my first Vision was to have a band and was to play like

11 uh before I went to us for the first time because that also changed my life a

lot when I went there for the first time and yeah man so that's it started with

the bands you know so um I don't know should I should I skip this part or

should I go to the next one what do you think that no you're good like so I I want to I had a few different little

tangents to go on just from there so the first one is something that as an

American as an American I find very interesting uh listening to what like what music

from from the states reaches other people and it's different from different Generations but like you specifically

the stuff that you're citing which is like Green Day and system of it down like first of all we're the same

generation so I'm listening to a lot of the same stuff did it ever like so what

I what I hear what people talk about like oh I really admired American Music I really liked you know that kind of stuff did it ever click for you when

you're hearing these songs that they're talking mad [ __ ] about America like System of a Down in Green Day

specifically like most of their music is is literally like criticizing America our government our

way of life like and then you know and then people hear that abroad and they're

like America is amazing and there's part of it it's like they're allowed to talk about their government and say bad

things about them and no one's shooting them or you know there so many elements

in that's cool no no not really man because we didn't really care that's one thing I have to say that up until this

day I don't really so much pay attention to is the lyrics man for me because is so much more for me the music is I like

to listen to the guitar rhythm I like the the drum I like the the Kik of the drum I like like later as I started to

do more production I started to notice even more things uh for me so for me the vocal is almost like this sprinkle like

a part of it's one of the Melodies and vocals are extremely important but in terms of like the lyrics lyrics uh no I

didn't know like now I'm re listening to some of the stuff I've been listening to offspring also like and I know that

there is a lot of like definitely criticism I understand that um but I don't know if it necessarily changes my

like I still enjoy that music even knowing that it's what it's about kind of I don't know well just I I'll just

really quickly here the lyrics to American Idiot by Green Day is I don't

want to be an American Idiot don't want a nation under the New Media can you hear the sound of Hysteria the

subliminal mind [ __ ] America welcome to a new kind of tension all across the Alien Nation where everything isn't

meant to be okay in television dreams of Tomorrow were not the ones who were meant to follow for that's enough to

argue and and it's so like I remember being a kid and hearing this out because

I'm little I'm like I'm like 10 you know this is like I'm just now like I'm I'm a I'm going to be a punk rocker dude I'm

cool like I this is the kind of music I like I'm I'm not like all you other losers listening to country music and and rap and stuff you know I'm a rock

and roll Kid and then you know and these lyrics like had an impression on me I

think I'm a lot more lyrical like I have that discussion a lot with my wife because she's really into hip-hop and

there's a lot of good stuff there don't get me wrong there's some great I have a wuang clan tattoo on my arm like I love hip-hop I love all kinds of music but

it's really easy to like on the surface like she'll she'll be listening to something and you know she's a lady and

some of the lyrics are like really it could be interpreted very easily is super misogynistic you know like they

refer to women as [ __ ] and all this kind of stuff and I I get it it's cultural thing and it's it's also it's

art but I'm like how can you like in good conscience listen to this man like talk about how all all hoes is [ __ ]

and and pouring you know wine down your butt crack and you know exploiting women

in the club and being a literal pimp and a drug Pusher and she's just like I

don't know I don't pay attention to that stuff it's just a cool song and then for me I'm like I hear every word this

person says and I'm thinking what do they mean by it and so that that might be a key difference there but with a

with green dead I'm sorry if you had a point to make that's cool no no no I just wanted to add yeah on top of that

that I wanted to say that um it's definitely depends on what are you looking for in the music in the in the

song itself like maybe your wife she's like she she's listening to the music for example for for the beat and for the

flow but then you are listening to music for the lyrics you know and for example somebody who is listening for the lyrics and I will be like okay the guy is

telling me like oh the lyrics are amazing I'm like which lyrics are you talking about like the beat sucks like

what do you mean the Bas sucks like you know I'll hear completely different things I'm like how can you listen to this the okay yeah the lyrics is great

but the track sucks and then for example for you maybe it's the other way around you're like how can you listen to this music like the lyrics suck you know so

it's it's all depends on like each person looks for like their own thing I want it all I want everything about this if I'm

going to listen to music if I'm going to pay money for a record I want every bit of it to be amazing I

want you know the the the 10 out of 10 music so the lyrics have to be there the

singing's got to be there and it doesn't have to be like the best singer in the world or whatever but like it's got to add up to something great you know I

want the if you're putting together a rock band right I want the best drummer the best bass player the best guitar player the best keyboard player the best

singer the best lyrics the best production value all of it wow you're an

ambitious listener for sure that's nothing there are bands where only have

one decent guitars you know and that's all that's great like I I will be listening to like a really really good

metal album and then I'll be like H bass player kind of suck like dude this is an amazing song

it's really heavy I'm like but yeah but the bass player is just hitting open the whole time and they're like I don't even hear the bass how do you not I'm like

how do you not hear that but I think that's like it's anytime that you know how something works like if you are a

musician you're going to hear things that other people don't hear if you were a rapper you're going to be more

critical of another rapper than someone who's just a fan yeah right yes yes for sure for sure it's like the the same as

um um with like I don't know architecture for example like I always accept architecture as it is but way

like I was remembering like so my wife she's like an architect so it's like more critical you know I'm like wow

this is an amazing building she's like well that's just kind of like these three things put together it's not really that amazing you know so it's

like I don't know well it I think it transfers to all forms of art you know so that's the cool thing about the yeah

about that U so moving along so you're listening to all this like American Music you end up in music school um

you're basically focusing on the guitar but and you have it in your mind you're going to be in a rock band or something something like that um sure so did you

did you start any bands did you did you have like a a school band or like group of buddies in the garage yeah dude

exactly that me too you also had it you also played yeah I I was in a lot of

different kind of iterations of rock bands while I was mostly when I was like middle school and high school um I think

I I grew up kind of fast once I hit my 20s and I didn't have as much time I still played music with people but it

was not with the ambition of it being my I I want to say I gave up I didn't have

it in my mind that this is how I'm going to make a living anymore I was just like I just want to play music with my friends on the weekends you know and

have a good time I remember Tyler I remember just now you sent me I think a video of you dramming right yeah that's

when so I was that was like my my weekend we meet up once a week literally

like that that group of guys this is in Monterey California and we were all in

uh military school we were all like uh learning different languages or whatever

and every like I don't know if it was like Friday or Saturday night just that group of guys we would meet up at this

uh kind of Club they had on the base and there was an open mic and we would just sit down for like two hours learn or

write one song and then perform it once and then come back the next week and do something completely different that was

like you know that's insane but it's it's just like it's it's

a way better way to just get the music out of you rather than thinking putting the pressure on yourself I have to make

a living I have to like I'm want to be the guy on the tour bus and like all that kind of [ __ ] like I I don't want

that life the more I traveled I'm like I really don't want that life that's a hard way to make a Liv in man yes yes

yes yes no but that's cool but then wait but you were allowed to use that open mic equipment to practice just like that

or I didn't understand yeah yeah so it was like a i it's a military thing so like essentially they know everyone's in

you know stressed out through training exercise whatever the hell and so they would have like a you know think about

it like a youth club or like like a church you have you know just they have a drum set and they have a you know

microphone a stage you know maybe a couple of amps or whatever we bring our guitars in drumsticks or whatever and

then just it's just something to do on the weekends you know and we're slugging beers and you schol that's cool that's

awesome that you had that and that was like at your disposal like any weekend you could use them yeah yeah it was just

at that Rec Center Recreation Center kind of thing that's amazing I had we

had to pay 30 Grievous so at the time one that's the Ukrainian

currency that's going to be one of those things you say when you're like an old man talking to your grandchild like well

it cost 30 gness like Grandpa's crazy he it was 30 gness man it was it was

that it was to the to the to to the garage guy because like I went to the school and to music school I went into

the city the city is called J it's like kind of considered big city and stuff but like in that small town where I was

from which was about 5 kilometers away we had garages and I had to pay to Nicol Nikolai K is his name and I had to give

to K 30 griess cash and that would give him us one hour and a half I think or

something like this in the garage that we can be loud you know because it was like a garage section so you could be as

loud as you want you didn't have a that issue that you had to be like quiet oh so so that that was later on in my life

like the band that you saw in that video but as a kid so this is a key difference

and I think especially talking to people from you know Europe and other places so I didn't have this loudness issue in

terms of like my parents don't want to hear it or my neighbors don't want to hear it because we lived

like on 5 acres of land it was like a farm you know next to me on the left

side of my house was a an old lady with a lot of land and then on the other side was a Buffalo farm so we would practice

in the in the barn like my band like all my friends would come over you know on Friday night and then we would spend the

entire weekend practicing in a in a barn literally like drum set in the middle of

the place or or whatever and that was kind of like normal amongst people in our community like if you if I went

somewhere else it was like We'll go out to the workshop or the barn and that's where we can play and Mom doesn't have

to hear the drum set yeah that's cool but that's amazing like for that other

hand side like also that you that you had that you know like ours it was it's interesting to draw these comparisons

because like mine was like in this small town so the reason we were living in this small town as called as J I was

because my father he he's a pilot and he was basically given an apartment for

free like because he was a pilot in that town and that town is like specifically built for like uh like it's basically a

military Town honestly and and and the apartments are were built and it's it's it's a young one too because in Ukraine

everything is super ancient in Russia in Ukraine belarussia in all European lands you know that Tyler like everything is

[ __ ] thousand years old and 500 years old you know that also would makes all

of our compli our relationship so much more complicated everything is super old and stuff and has lots of History but my

actually very very small so I actually always had to like keep in mind the loudness and then you on that hand side

so that's that's cool yeah it's just like it's such a weird cultural difference but we have this uh this

other saying that somebody told me but it's like in America a hundred years is a long time and Europe 100 miles is a

long way right okay like it's so funny like if you're

if you're in uh in Denmark right and uh you're in alore and then you're like you

guys want to go to I don't know Copenhagen or whatever and they're like ah all the way to Copenhagen I'm like

dude it's like a [ __ ] three-hour train Rod you know in America we just get in a pickup truck and make that

drive in a day and then come back home at the end of the day if we really wanted to you know it's not that big a deal but then but then if you tell

American like oh this is a 100y old bar like wow 100 years and then I I go to a

[ __ ] like Zurich and it's like this church was built before Christianity

existed oh like this this church has been here since before Jesus died for our

tent okay awesome

and forget about forget about Europe like the Middle East like there's some really ancient stuff yeah yeah there is

I always wanted to visit I always really wanted to visit that that area like Syria you know so interesting

everything's [ __ ] 10,000 years old that's in saying yeah and and we can and we're well anyways that's another thing

that I'm thinking about but yeah what you saying ah we could go on as many tend as you want but like so for you I

remember reading I think it was a biography of like the Bas player for

corn uh and I don't know I don't know too much I know the band of course and I

know there songs but yeah what about him what about him well I me just he was talking about how like they how they

would practice and stuff so they grew up in like California and not in like rural

California but in the city like in like Los Angeles San Francisco and I would read about these guys and they were talk

same situation as you like you'd have to pay money for Studio space or a place to practice you know and that was a cost

you had to figure in and I found that really weird first hearing about it I was like why you had to like pay money

for time and space to play your music like what you know there's so many

things like that like just just forget about what country you're from just like the difference between City Life and

like living in the country life and yeah that was one of them like so like you have to pay money to like rent a space

every time so to me in my head I'm like that's like 10 times harder like for me if I wanted to play music it cost me I

need to I need to buy the instrument and then all right barrier of Entry broken

but yeah for you like you have to put in the extra and not only you know if especially the drummer not only do you

have to like have the money to buy the instruments that you need or whatever

but then you also can only practice when you're in the space where the instrument is and you're allowed to play it and

that just seems so much more diff like you have to try so much harder and so much more than I

did that's insane but then you see maybe because you kind of like I don't know I feel like we appreciate things that are

tough to get and maybe because it was so accessible and so easy like maybe you didn't Ponder your interest so much you

know like maybe I don't know I'm just theorizing over here and then the corn guys because they had to was so

difficult and to find that [ __ ] space and you know it's almost like that uh forbidden fruit is more desirable you

know so the more difficult it is to rent that St St space the more determined you are to get it you know and then like I

don't know and that also inspires you like that because in this it's all about

like the how it's called not the persistency like yeah like persistency is like yeah regardless no matter what

the [ __ ] is happening like you still are like persistent and that's like the only key you know is that consistent

consistent persistence if that if that exists could

be the name of your next album that's so cool that's I I should I

should save that yeah man so you know yeah basically I was playing in these bands and so yeah I did a couple of

bands so we played so first of all in my um so one kind of musical thing that you could say I would did was a dancing

school so in this but it was not so much about music I mean of course it was a lot about music but it was around

dancing and it was folk folk dancing and that was in it's uh there's very cool videos uh online of these guys and

anyways and the thing is that um all my friends all of a sudden so I started like a guitar disease because

the so interestingly I was two bands uh got me into music and one soundtrack I

mean got not got me into music but of course other things got me in music and the movies and the music okay that's one

style but another side is also uh this this game so it's the Prince of Persia

the war within that is the most badass soundtrack ever like that got me so

inspired that I really wanted to play those Rifts life then it was and actually how I disc and through Prince

of Persia I discovered gosme also I think I told you that that is like insanely influential like that's my dark

all my dark stuff is like very heavily influenced by like gosme and Prince of Persia and now I'm trying to do

something more with with that sound but basically in overall that's the roots and on the other hand side on the happy

side I actually had switch which I didn't know in United States it was like a Christian band I had no idea

about again because I don't really listen to lyrics I just really love them musically a lot and they like first

album leged of chin is just wow it's it's uh then lots of Inspirations over

there so those are like the guys that got me to pick it up and that was the summer and that was uh and that was July

I think and then uh I tell my grandmother you know you know I want to play the guitar like again nobody ever

sudden I have that desire like okay I want to learn to play and they find me man this [ __ ] old Soviet Union guitar

from the basement like from depths of of I don't know like they had to go really

one two three like yeah something like 30 years old guitar that is right uh that is like ready to like not ready to

be played at all but it has the body and but it was like the Riff was really crooked you know so kind of also

remembering um like learning on it was really difficult it was the first two months and the string was too high up

from the the the action height was it was it was too high up and that was I

don't know like maybe if I gotten a great instrument right away like it would have been different and it would

have been more insane guitarist but at the same time like things happen how they happen and that was a big part that

that's Soviet guitar and then everybody in my dancing school also really wanted to learn to play guitar because they

learned that I started to play and actually they were learning on this Soviet guitar so I actually had a couple

of friends I learn on this Soviet guitar and I still have it somewhere and we changed it after like four months but

yeah that's one snippet that I remembered yeah about that I think like

every I mean every group of teenage boys is going to have a percentage that are like

you know I want to learn how to play the guitar because it's like that's that's how I'm gonna get girls to pay attention

to yeah probably also there a big part of it it was like I remember you know

there was the same you know kind of age group there's just this explosion of people who all you know all guys that

play the guitar not all guys but yeah there are girls too but mostly boys and

my my high school had like so it was like the ninth grade year they started a guitar class so it

was like in the the room where like the classical band director would instruct

and the instructor was the classical band director like the guy who was like marching band and like Symon band and

all that kind of stuff that guy was running this guitar class the thing is he was like a a cornet player like which

is like a trumpet but he did not know how to play the guitar he literally could not play the guit guitar it was

hilarious like he I mean he could like pick one up and like you know [ __ ] her like this is a G chord like but he couldn't really play and so it was like

me and my friend Brett and then like I don't know 30 other guys who didn't know

how to play guitar uh but Brett and I had both been playing for several years at that point and so we basically just

took over this dude's class like we just instead of him teaching we just started like look why don't you go [ __ ] do

what you really want to be doing and like that's the marching band's next football game or whatever and we will

just teach everyone here how to play the guitar I love so we it was basically like a free like a hour and a half every

day that we just were all basically jamming and you know showing each other

how to play different licks that was another thing and I'm I'm curious how how it was for you because maybe you had

a bit more classical training but we didn't learn how to play like by reading music we learned how to play by like

memorizing songs like You' hear like Metallica and you like maybe read the

tabs or or watch a YouTube video if you had access to that and then we would just like recreate what we heard over

and over and over again in many different aspects and then like sort of subliminally learned how the guitar

worked by doing that wow man that's very very natural I

would say and like sincerely I don't know passionate way to learn an instrument man that's that's cool like

that's cool that you but then you didn't yet know how to play it but you were kind of figuring out with the class Al

together right I I already knew how to play a guitar at this point like I think I started when I was 11 or 12 and then

by this time I was like 14 or 15 so I had a couple of years under my belt as a guitar player thank you for listening to

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everything that I'm talking about here over at inthe keep.com thank you

bless you and enjoy the [Music] show but I learn I learned by you know

learning songs and then just recreating that and to the point where I'm like oh I kind of know what I'm doing now and

then you know you people learn in different ways like I think I'm more autodidact where I like I I do better

when I teach myself how to do something through repetition than I do from like reading the instruction manual or having

a you know someone say like okay and we're going to here's the sheet music I did do that too but it was like

trumpet and I hated I hated playing the trumpet so much what that's crazy I didn't know that I'm finding out some

new facts here you also played a trumpet you have some musical some in some Universe if there exist multiple

universes you know in one of them you became a a a a trumpet star you know

like I don't know I I wanted to be a bass player more than anything like I I wanted to be like a bass player in a

rock band and then yeah this interview is not about me I'm just giving examples of like different ways people learn so

did you did you learn uh the guitar in a more classical sense or like how how did

you pick up the instrument yeah yeah yeah so well the first there's a there's

a there's um two phases I would put it like to to to this to to that summer of

200 and8 so July through September is when I was still so the thing is that my grandmother she loved C Mia she was like

really appreciating that place a lot and also because of her health conditions she needed the sea water the Black Sea

Water you know and because it has salt and stuff so it was like very healthy for her and every summer dude like every

summer for the whole summer she would take me with her to cria for like the

basically the whole summer basically like June July August and she will save so she was making money uh all as um she

was the had several like she had one job that she was the uh um in music school

she was the accordionist H she was teaching accordion and then uh she was also in the kindergarten one of like so

so she had like her income streams and then she was using her pension to just like go to this Crimea to this trip and

so every summer me and her and Grand and grandfather uh so the three of us were

summer of 2008 I was of course in Crimea that was the different thing is that every summer we could go to different

place in cria so I'm like pretty familiar with Cara and overall and like that place because I've been many cities

and so um it was in F I remember that which is like a city on the on the on the East okay doesn't matter and then um

for two months while I was there I wasn't still home I was just learning through Guitar Tabs and I remember that

like I I learn um switch with song let let Let Your Love be stronger which is

like a very very like emotional song and then I learned um which other one and then of course I was learning the Prince

of Persia Rifts also like I really wanted to play them you know and I learned about drop D and then when my

family saw that I'm actually like persistent with it because the thing is that the instrument was really really difficult to play and um and then I was

like three hours a day like practicing by myself like just I was so super curious about it and I'm just like

playing the Taps the guitar Taps then they were like hey in jto which is like

back in my in the north of Ukraine we know uh a great guitarist uh who uh who is a great

guitarist because he was um student of he's my mother's uh student in college

that grew up to like something like some connection from those times and then he could teach me how to play properly and

like how to actually teach me in the classical way so and then he told me dude I cannot do private lessons for you

because I'm too busy and he said to my mom that I should be enrolled in the music school instead so actually there

wasn't the plan that I'm in the music school it was like it had to happen because that was the only way I could have this teacher so I actually

considered myself very lucky because this guy he's really really good and he gave me like a very good like classical

guitar and jazz guitar like basis and fundamentals like the three years like

two basically two years like that I've been like with with him studying so that

was my curve learning the classical like all of this sheet music you know all of

that a music Theory and S that was really the only time that I had like a formal music education was those two

years so so that's that's that's where and I'm actually grateful for it man because I agree completely that you

don't really need for example all this classical stuff to play because anyways you're there to like because when he

asked me what do I want to play of course I want to play [ __ ] hard rock and alternative rock and I want to play

that I don't want to play this like classical [ __ ] like I mean not I'm beautiful music but like for me as a kid

it was like some classical boring [ __ ] what versus like badass riffs you know

of ACDC or something um but I still I'm like maybe maybe it's some I don't know

if it's conservative or something but I I do feel like a classical music background like actually really helps

like to later do your cool Rifts you do your your cool stuff but like it's good

to have as a base like I found it a cool experience okay somewhere here I should stop because I'll just keep going no

it's like it's really interesting especially to hear it from you know from your point of view

because there there's something about uh the purity of music that I find

uh people argue about it and they get really especially musicians get really in their own head about it you know

where for so for me for the longest time like and I did have the classical training that came from playing the

trumpet right and being for some time you've been for some time doing that or

for how long that was from the sixth through e8th grade so three consecutive

years of playing the trumpet and like a concert B damn I didn't know so you also

had that classical yeah yeah so keep going you know so you also had classical backr so I understood how you know

rudimentarily like and I'm talking I did not pay attention in class I hated it like I I'm telling you like I didn't

learn a damn thing really but I I understood how like scales worked like this is you know this is a treble cliff

and this is a Bas cliff and this is the a scale and this is the B minor scale and all that kind of [ __ ] yeah yeah so

even though I did not learn to play the guitar from like reading sheet music or anything like that I I still understood

like how music is supposed to sound you know like it's supposed to you know when I play this note and then I play another

note okay well obviously that those don't go together right yeah yeah so

they they say that it's like a very good for actually children like just to do music like like not because they're

going to be musicians or something but just for like actually it's like good for your like brain or something

especially when you a kid like just to understand the scales and how what sounds correct and it's like the way the

music waves they influence I don't know your it's like they influence your your your mindset and and and it kind of

helps I don't know to think more clearly that's a a really beautiful way of looking at it and there's there's

definitely an aspect of that but if I'm being completely honest with you it's like in like nowheresville rural Alabama

all people care about is football like college football is the biggest thing in the world and the marching band plays at

the halftime show of every football game so it's like a big deal to be in the

marching band you know and that's like most of the you know music program in

school is kind of like they start you like when you're in the elementary school so you're like in the fifth grade

and you're about to go to Middle School they the band director comes to the school and like shows everybody instruments and kind of picks people out

like you know you're G to be drummer you're gonna be a trumpet player you're gonna be a French horn player you're going to be a tuba you know nobody wants

to be the fat kid with the tuba right but or and it's all the all the girls

are like you know I want to play the flute and I want to play the clarinet and the OBO and you know it and it

progresses from there there were no stringed instruments I remember like there's no violin in a in a marching band or concert band um yeah I mean

right yeah which was a little bit a let down because that's I think that's what I would have gravitated towards is like

string maybe I could have been a cello player since I wanted to be a bass player and that would have been more applicable to my Pursuit but yeah so I

ended up getting you know the trumpet which was I wanted to be a drummer at least like that would be you know at

least that's in a rock band I mean no I know and you are a drummer too like I

mean you do play also drums and I remember that oh yeah but what I realized early was that the system is

not going to give me what I'm looking for here I'm going to have to go buy a drum set and practice on my own time at

my house the school system is not going to reward my want my need to be in a

rock band they don't they're not looking for that they're looking for when I get to high school someone to march with the

stupid uniform on at every football game playing the trumpet that's what they want

yeah right right by the time I got to high school I was just just it was like a if if you want to be in the band at

all no matter what instrument you play you have to be in the marching band and that meant a lot of commitment like

every summer you're you have to practice with the marching band and you every you know all these weekends are taking up

instead of you know being out party and with the boys you got to be at the football game ready to do the halftime

show and I was just like no dude I don't want to spend all my time doing this crap dude I I understand you dude yeah

like but that's the thing you know that's like what I realize yeah that that's the price to that's the price to

pay you know like um like yes you want to say no I'm just laughing I was just

that's what I was just thinking like that's exactly like that's the price to pay for for them it's almost like the way I see for example Texas is like

Texas for me is just the way to pay to the government like for being in this country that's my rent like my Taxas is

my my rent that I pay to the country to live there so like that's my payment so the government doesn't touch me just

doesn't bother me I just do my business my work and here is the texes as my rental payment same way like I see that

they are teaching you all of this so that they also want something in return like that's why they're of course putting time into you so that they can

then put you exactly in that marching band and stuff like but I can imagine how many parties like or hangouts you

probably had to miss out on because of this yeah I just didn't want to do that so I I just didn't and like I when I got

to high school I was like I'm just quitting the band and I'm gonna start my own band and then that's how you know

that's how I became like all right now I'm going to be a a rock musician so then then that became you know a bunch

of [ __ ] teenagers like playing in metal bands and you know it we didn't do anything good it was just like you know

garage parties or you know House parties and or like whatever and you know just

basically just drinking beer and playing guitar smoking weed whatever nice nice

nice nice that's awesome that's

um so from your from your end what what kinds of did you guys

perform like your your bands did you have places to perform or are there like so that's where my so a breaking

2011 like within those three years I was like playing and we're trying different things like it was me and my friend the

two of us playing some like uh me singing him playing both of us on guitars then we're like us and like

somebody else then I had some like we tried we shuffled basically a couple of people around my brother he's a drummer

my younger brother he started to learn drums and we were also with him so I had a couple of these things things things

things and then the life-changing kind of break I don't know not break but like big life change was when I was in

Ukraine and I actually win an exchange program to to United States for like to

go for one year to study in Oregon I was like in Hillsboro in Hillsboro High

all happened because somebody very important came up in my life this guy is actually his his name is Matthew he's

like that summer that I picked up the guitar it was like a difficult time emotionally because my family was like going through some stuff and then in

2009 my family like basically divorced and then this and then it was just me my mom and then like my two younger

brothers and basically I was um well in the dancing school actually I started to make money so when you were 15 or 14 or

something you can so I was like working already and then I was doing the music and stuff and then that same time I met

this guy Matthew and this guy I'm like he's he's from Dallas he lives in Dallas and this guy like changed my life

actually so I was listening I told you how like a big part that I grew up on like this American music and all of this

he actually introduced me like a very big chunk of it like if I knew already by that time I don't know the Green Day

and whatever and and like the system of it down and and I don't know in go gosm switchwood whatever like he helped me to

like I got to know like Weezer I remember I got to know uh the I don't

know 20 One Pilot I didn't listen to them so much but still like uh some a lot of a it's hard to remember but a lot

of a lot of bands like and then he inspire me to like go for one year uh I

mean to try to do this Exchange program to to go for one year to study so um

those are like two separate stories talking about this guy and then coming back to the music stuff that yeah long

story short I win this program there were three tours it was really tough to do but it was like first tour was like a

test then second tour was within the two weeks and then third tour was like an interview like anyways again another

story about how that went down but ultimately I win it and I went to us

that's where I got like the closest to my dream because I actually formed a band over there like I mean I I for

formed them before but it was just trying things out but here we were like forming like doing covers and we were

doing covers and we my base player actually helped me to come up and the band it was called Almost Americans

because because I'm like from Ukraine but I'm like so inspired with all the things and then he's the guy he's he was

born in us but like his first generation but his second his mother and father are like from Mexico and then the uh drummer

he's well he doesn't count already because he already like second generation American but his grandfather came from Germany so we were like almost

well pretty much all Americans like almost Americans so and we did like covers man yeah we did

there's one video recording online out there um it's a Blink 182 cover adamon

yeah and it's like our our very first yeah very first time so we did that like and that was a big one because man at

the end of my high school year we actually did like a solo concert like we're actually people even paid money

like $10 we were charging people uh just because we also had to pay a rent I remember it was $130 was our rent for

the venue and the venue could fit like I don't know 20 maybe 30 people like it wasn't big it was a small one but we're

able even to make some money and then we had a onh hour concert like all covers of course all of those bands I mentioned

above uh and yeah like so that's like a story of that band uh yeah yeah we would

we would do like a like a party or like a I don't know one time we did like a wedding like the the husband wanted a

metal band at his wedding so we were like we set up at like a stage in the garage and we would we just played like

Metallica you know Slayer that kind of [ __ ] all the whole night and we you were on vocals I um this band I was the bass

player and the vocalist I wish I wish there was some

recording man I would love to see it that that particular band I think there's one recording of but it wasn't

playing covers it was like an original song that I wrote but uh but it it was one of those things where you know

nobody was a particularly great singer but we could all sing so it would it would be like this song calls for AJ's

Voice or this song calls for Tyler's voice and we kind of you know like so me and the other guitar players would kind

of like take take turns at the microphone yeah yeah yeah yeah but we

just put a shoe box out and it was just like that just a box where you put shoe

a shoe box a literally sh shoe box yeah we just put it in front of us and like people would come up and like either

throw money in the box or like sneak because we were all kids or they sneak us a beer or whatever like and I

remember the eventually like I think the one of the one of the adults like realized we were like we had like red

Solo cups of [ __ ] booze on our amps and like kicked us out so no really but

we took all we kept all the money it wasn't much it was you know enough to buy another you know 12-pack of beer or

whatever um that's cool that's cool memories that that's very cool you also remember those so you also had those

those cool me it's cool to have those memories I I love that yeah I wish I remembered more of

it you were too much drinking you I definitely burned a lot of

20s my teenage years and 20s my up up until you know the last couple of years

maybe like a lot of it is just a blur I think it's going to be one of those things when I'm older and like they're

like what was it like and I'm going to have a lot of stories but I'm also going to be like I wish I remember more more of it like uh there's this great great

song I'll send it to you later but it's by Willie Nelson and Billy strings playing together and it's called

California sober but there's this lyric in the song where he goes like um um I

have ears I can't recall but I'm told I had a ball or at least somebody did who looked a lot like

me uh I was told I had a whole a bow yeah a ball is like a party yeah ah okay

okay okay I was explain I was told I had a ball and then

trying to yeah so I'll slow my English down and try to fix my accent for you I have years I

can't recall but I to I would I'm told I had a ball or at least somebody did who

looked a lot like me so the idea here is that he spent so many years drunk and

[ __ ] up and then he's like now he's got you know people telling him like oh yeah you had so much fun and he doesn't

remember all the fun he had right right okay okay now I understand sorry now it's not cool when you have to explain

it I wish I could understand it it's okay without okay so that's nice you have

really really good English uh speaking and comprehension compared to a lot of Eastern Europeans so dude that's all

Matthew man that's all that guy that when I was 13 years old like he actually gave me a chance to like pick up on the

accent and stuff and and um and he later visited like anyway so so yeah man so

then this band actually so even though I left us that year and then kind of came back to Ukraine to KF and that's

actually where we are going into the switch from guitarist to a production of

music that was there was a switch there right after that so and then in that um

I came back and then of course we cannot play anymore with the band and we ended on such a high note and so many people

came around and I was promoting the concert and that's why one thing I also will say is that I had a really good

time in a high school at that time because I'm like very like extroverted in overall and very like outgoing and I

really like I love to hang out with with people and stuff and then like in us I was like very very much like accepted in

that way in and it was so cool like I remember in high school like I could never do that at my school man but I

went out with a guitar like to promote our next concert like two days before and I was the whole day with the guitar

like jamming and playing songs and singing songs for people like kind of promoting like that we have this concert

coming up in two days and we also play during the lunch time also during the lunch hour like wher everybody was in

those lunch tables and like so that was so sweet and I'm on that hype coming

from uh from from from us back to Ukraine and uh I can't like do them like

the thing is like because I had the the Basse player like it's also having a band is like it's it's it's a really

really insane job in overall because you have to like Vibe with all these people

and and it has to work out a very I don't know it's like one one in a million I don't know because like and

for example me and the bass player like agileo is his name we are super good friends we still talk uh and and like we

will be great as bandmates like we we've established like uh that like with our

drummer it was interesting but it was not like I know that ultimately if we kept being a band we would have to like

change the drama and stuff and um because yeah but that was another them but yeah I couldn't I couldn't do it man

and so but I still wanted to do and then also I was in a jazzband I also forgot to say that same year so I was on this

hype of music and then I come back and now it's a choice for me now it's insane because I come back from from us and now

it's time to make a university Choice hold on hold on before we before we get to that I I have a couple of questions I

wanted to ask about like the foreign exchange you know experience yes ask yeah ask me ask so one is what were some

things that you had in your mind about what America would be like versus how it

really was well I have to say as a kid like

everything that I've dreamed of and imagined for me United States was basically that to be honest was met your

expectations 100% basically like yeah because I was like watching I don't know American Pie you know and and and I was

like okay that's cool that's the parties they have in the house and that's the Hangouts you know and I know that everybody's like super joking you know

so uh yeah like and then and then I had that I had those House parties like I

had that like American bu experience in that way like so okay that was for me so then the second question was

do what what was it like to be Ukrainian in an American High School and

how did people like like because most American kids don't even know what the [ __ ] of Ukraine is

right are you you know hi I'm Kyle I'm from Ukraine what's that is that in is

that in Mississippi um you dude I had so much fun with that because yeah you're

a camp where for three days in Ukraine in KF we had like a preparation for us

and one of the things that they told us was that like if somebody asks you where are you from you just say like oh I am

from Ukraine that in Eastern Europe or that's close to Russia I even remember that like uh something close to Russia

don't say from Russia yeah exactly and I remember

that and I remember that explanation like to to I don't remember if I

actually used it but that was one of the explanations they give and I had so much fun man because like literally they had no clue like some of the students in

school didn't know where it was and I remember I was pretending that we have horses you know and I don't know what is

a car I remember that I was like looking at a car and like oh my God like what is

that like I mean I don't know just joking with this technological I'm like yeah of course I ride horse to to my

school like in Ukraine yeah like I go on the horse and and they were like didn't understand if I was joking or not like I

was like no come on like we've got also the same things we also have the computers and so yeah that was that was

uh but you were asking me how the American guy like in overall really good

like super welcoming super good I have to say you're very very War warm people and you make like of like instant like

instantly very warm and it's you I don't know that was that was very cool um I

had one problem with like one guy but it was not I don't think it had to do because he's from America specifically

it's just like a person thing yeah but uh we did have like one he was like joking or something like that my accent

or something like this and he said like some out of out of place comment and that we had some like kind of mini

confrontation you could say but that was just like the only bad thing I can remember because pretty much now that I

think about it like mostly I had like very positive and people accept this

enthusiasm because in Ukraine is like the people always think that like oh are you like high or something or are you

like on like why are you so charged up or something I'm like I'm too overwhelming like I'm too much for some

people like from Eastern Europe like in because you in general they're more

like I don't know serious or quiet I don't know it's not really like I don't

always jive with like everybody like but then from us when I first came there like that was the place where like with

everybody the whole the school was like 1,000 students or something like and I'm pretty sure like more than half of it

like knew me by the end of the year because we all had chance to hang out and stuff I don't know something like that does it

answer yeah no that's really interesting man the answer is whatever your experience was right so um no that's so

cool like just the idea of so I had like foreign exchange

students in my school as well and but mostly like French and German um maybe a

few others but like I I'm still to this day like really close I I won't say really close it's not like we talk every

day but my one of my best friends in high school was a foreign exchange student and like when I was actually the

same year you met me at Gamescom uh she came out and had a few drinks with us

like she she wasn't too far from cologne so what and it was like a like a family

reunion kind of thing like oh my God I can't believe I'm seeing you again like how are you and all that stuff so and

you and you haven't seen each other at that time like from since high school basically um I think we've seen each

other once since she was a student there so she she would kind of like every once

in a while come back and visit her family that she stayed with like you know while she was in America just you

know spend a week or so and you know go around and meet up with all of our old friends and stuff and you know we would do that I'd pick her up and go to the go

to the mall or whatever um but it had been a long time like it that was like you know shortly maybe during or shortly

after school and then you know this was eight years later like yeah yeah yeah

yeah wow wow that's so surreal that's so surreal but I'm really good I'm like a lot like you I try my very best to keep

in touch with people that I care about like I'll gent like check in like hey what's up you know that kind of [ __ ]

yeah yeah no because it's so wonderful I mean there is like that's also like speaking of these four things of like I

was talking at the very very beginning of like the partner the job the friends and the uh location so like speaking

about friends I feel like that is so important because there's like because the friends also very very much impact

also like your like you know world point of view and and also like subconsciously

you kind of still want to like I don't know if all my friends are chilling not doing anything I'm also like yeah you know what [ __ ] it I'm also going to

chill not do anything if my friends are like doing something working on something getting somewhere I'm like okay okay I also have to do it like it's

also part of like uh so so in out of eight billion people I don't know you want to like have I don't know for who

10 or 20 or 50 I don't know like but when you find somebody like meaningful

like this it's it's really really beautiful like you can identify that and and in in and you never know like when

exactly like with this German girl like you never know like maybe you will have a new phase coming up where I don't know

you'll be in Germany and like I don't know it's it's cool so it's great that you do that also I don't know that's

kind of the point uh let me take a quick minute I'm going to go grab another cup of coffee maybe we'll get a bathroom

break and then let's go back to your returning

to you uh at this point you've returned from your foreign EX change uh Journey

yeah and you I think you mentioned Kev but I'm assuming you at home so yes yes

so dude so basically um so KF is actually relatively close uh so J to KF

is one and a half hour to uh travel by by car from my town is like 5 kilometers

okay 1 hour 40 minutes whatever but main point is that I knew that we were talking about this I think with my mom

or something that I knew because it was time for me to go to university and that was like a very life also changing

summer because over that summer like I arrived like in June I graduated from my school I skipped actually my last year

of school and that was another thing but um because I did I did it in in high

school in us but the programs are extremely different like between what we study on 11th year and what people study

in United States so but they let it slip and they let me just pass that year uh and then um and then I was going to

universities in Ukraine you can apply for five universities and of course given that I just came with my super

band my almost Americans uh and then also I came with my uh jazz band

experience and I just came like I came like all super charged up that I am going to um like do something with with

the guitar with the music so out of five universities man I applied for four universities like in Guitar like

studying guitar so it was like uh and I remember I Was preparing a program and I was playing some like complex classical

music stuff like not super complex but still not bad you know and I I have the Rhythm you know maybe I don't have so I

I didn't have so much the techn technicality and stuff like I cannot be like shredding like crazy you know but I

have a good sense of Rhythm and and that is like I guess one one good thing like that hopefully helped so yeah and I

wanted to study Sound Engineering and then basically in Ukraine you can study for free if you like super if you have

super good grades but because I didn't have a proper year to prepare for my graduation actually my like I had to do

an exam for like an entry exam for University and the results were like okay they were not incredible and

because they were okay I couldn't I wasn't eligible to study for free so then it means you have to pay for the

University and then I cannot pay because I'm just having 17 years old so I'm like okay and then my father is the one who

will pay so then my father comes in and as you remember from my very earlier stories he was like very skeptical about

this and he was like which music what is that what is you talking about uh and then just out of curiosity I like

applied for not of like just in case I don't know I was also interesting to try something different I actually applied

for languages like to be a translator to be like a linguistic guy he's like for that I am paying I'm not paying for this

like for this I will pay because it was the same amount actually to go as a sound engineer into this one pretty good

school actually that is like in Ukraine is considered to have some respect and then uh this other one which with

linguist and so he was like No And even within that University with Linguistics

they had a faculty for music but then I just remember that a big part of me not actually studying music and that's why I

don't have that like was was that summer also because like uh I couldn't afford

to pay for it myself and so I was like uh kind of had to just choose like what

what kind of my previous generation thought is is better for me and yeah man

and so I started to study languages after after all of this after all of

this Insanity like with the band and we were playing some open we were doing open mics were're playing in the bars we

had our solo concert at the end we played in high school like with the Jazz Band we also played on stage I was like

okay now I'm GNA do something with that uh my friend my bass player he got inspired to actually study bass guitar

like in in in in La at the time and so I was also with that idea and I go go to

study languages man so I was just studying languages but then interestingly while

this because now this is also an important point where I go into production uh at the same time one of

the reasons I went to KF was because there was somebody over there somebody with like a mentor figure Vibe same as

Matthew like if Matthew was my mentor figure Vibe like from my 13 to like 16

17 this guy he became my mentor figure Vibe for like from 17 until 20 I would

say for like next 2 three years like the next two years he will have like a lot of influence over me and over the way

that I think and over the way that I do stuff and the way I organize and and the way that I live in overall so like very

big on so this guy believe it or not he was like my grandmother's because I mentioned earlier my grandmother was in

a music school an accordion teacher so actually this was one of her students so he was like he was my mother's sister

age so he's uh 85 like so he's like basically my generation but kind of

before like anyways we had like 10 years difference and then um he at that time

um became like a m big music producer on like a on a on a Ukrainian TV channel

same time he started his own music studio because his TV channel needed a music studio to work with because they

were signing a lot of artists and they needed artists for like Ukraine's Got Talent the voice like all these like

American shows but like Ukrainian version of them the voice we had the talent show some other ones and they

were signing a lot of artists and so he was the main producer so he's like actually I decide which music studio

this TV channel is working with so actually he was super cool because he got like income stream revenues from

both of this Channel and from this music studio uh because he was getting like a lot of a lot of a lot of um zakaz zakaz

a lot of orders like there was a lot of orders that he was get and it was him and his brother and then he had another

assistant so it was the three of them so he also like very much inspired me to go to KF and he was like very inspiring

figure for me man because he was like a musician uh he plays uh Aon because he

was my my grandmother's student and then um and then uh he's in the music and

he's you know the producer in the super cool TV channel everybody knew this TV channel and he's in the studio like he

was oh man like he was super inspiring also a person in that face and

ultimately like he helped me discover that like working doing music for games

is like something that will bring me a lot of a lot of joy and um yeah and then

I can get to how I discovered that but that's to quot that thought kind of I

I was born 2008 I was 12 years old I pick up the guitar and then I was like 17 years old and then he because we were

talking with him in depth about like um about this aspect of like doing a job

that you really enjoy because I feel like in life it's almost like either you make good money but you don't really

enjoy this job or you really enjoy this job but you don't make any money so it's like [ __ ] it's like always one or the

other you know and and and and that's where he helped me to understand that that like doing what you love and making

money on it is like the ultimate Joy like so that's so [ __ ] cool and um the way he helped me is that he told me

like okay listen dude uh make a list of like 10 things that you really enjoy in

life and that would be like random stuff like I don't know walking outside I don't know whatever looking at the skies

like not something ridiculous like sleeping but like still things that well maybe a sleeping also but anyways and

then in my and then he said okay now make like top five like top 10 like which are the most favorite and my like

top five things were like music it was video games it was selling because I love like also like that uh part like of

sales and working with with the other people also like then it was like um

traveling I love traveling like and getting to know people and then it was like English because that was a thing

for me back then like to use English was a thing like so I was like yeah I want to speak more English and then there was

something else and then basically he's like dude I'm here looking and the idea is that your job unites like as many of

them as possible and he's like dude if you do like music for games you're like satisfied on all of those aspects like

you got your music uh craving done you got your sales craving done you got your

like traveling you got your like and it really is that like it really in a

scenario where I am uh like uh like like right now for example my current

scenario where I'm like full like right now I'm like fulltime working on soundtracks I'm not even so much doing

the sound design like I'm doing specifically soundtrack music like uh and and wow like that's that's insane

and so I was like 17 when he helped me to to come to that understanding and I

went back to United States later and I was with that thought man for like for

like four years while I was still doing another job and I was doing production just like on the side and I never kind

of it's been 10 years now no now I'm 28 so 11 years since I got that like

specific job position and then yeah man and then and then that's where our agreement was

that I was helping him on the studio and then he was um because like on internet

I helped them translate the website to English like I was like a helper basically on this I would even honestly

offer like to like clean the BL and stuff like for the chance to use their Studio to use their equipment and I was

like staying there man in the nights I remember I had like um yeah like I I

remember many nights that I spent and then they teach me Arrangement and mixing and like I learned mixing

mastering some sound design like all these skills like in those two years that I lived uh in Ukraine in K of like

while I was studying Linguistics like and on the side doing that so kind of

like that man okay

so uh the bum dropping on you after that you basically spend two years like I

mean studying but obviously that wasn't what you wanted out of life and then you

are basically using your free time to while your dad's paying for you to study learn what you actually care about um

yes yeah that's pretty smart that's a good way to do it you know that was cool I mean I still was catching up on my but

I have to say one thing that I did fail is that I only lasted like one year in that University so I only like uh

unfortunately I was like expelled because I wasn't yeah like it's kind of shameful like but I wasn't really doing

too good in the University but I also have to give myself an excuse that at the time I didn't see the point in

studying and actually I was doing the music studio and then I had a job I had a part-time job that I was making me

already like for Ukrainian standards like some nice money you I started like $200 or 300 but that's like crazy over

there like and being an 18year old kid with that like so I had so much more like I was like why do I even I I kind

of like I feel like if I put my mind to it I would have went through with the university but then uh yeah like I just

was more interested in making money doing that I was in Customer Support working uh for for an IT company like a

support customer support and then I was doing the music so I found that like more entertaining to do and and then I

actually I enrolled in a un in the new University next year which I already was

paying for because I was already working at the time but actually I don't know why but I went back to the Linguistics

it's just that I needed some kind of like uh I already had my entertainment which was the school sorry which was the

music studio and job so I just needed like so interestingly I could have

probably paid to St keep studying but and I wasn't planning to stay in us anyways Tyler I also have to say that

when I came back from my Exchange program I was with the mindset that I'm just here in KF in Ukraine for two years

come back to United States for 2 years after I arrived so I had to wait until 2015 so I knew that like I'm not anyways

going to study here so I was like already I enrolled in a private university that just doesn't bother me

that just like I just show up once and I get my grades and that's it like we have

a lot of those in Ukraine so um yeah so and then I was looking for a way to come

four years like you know some bits and pieces of that story so yeah so you you

uh you you're waiting for the day when you're you know all right now I'm allowed to go back and so you saved up

for a plane ticket I'm assuming and yeah you're GNA go to New York the Big Apple right like so I'm assuming you've got

like this idea in your mind of what that's going to be like and yeah yeah

which is like the Marvel movies man like the Spider-Man movies of had like that's how I and I was actually going to New

York with like one of my intentions was that I was really inspired by like stock markets and and that was another career

I was considering at some point is like all this Finance stuff is also interesting the stock markets and stuff and I was studying a lot about that and

I remember being so hyped with the movie Wolf of Wall Street and I saw that like like a few months before my arrival to

New York and I don't know as a as a 19yearold I got like super inspired that

I'm going to go to Wall Street and like like some do a lot

Brokers party a lot yeah like and make crazy money like

yeah all right then I found out you need to get a stock broker's license which is 60 Grand and then I was like no it's

okay it's okay but yeah okay so you get to you get to New York you're you walk off the airplane uh

what's the plan yeah dude so I came with with the work and travel program so I had to be obligated to the job there so

I had two jobs while I was there one job was at a campground which was just like a it say Activity manager but I was

actually just doing like um um well activity management I mean but I was

doing all kinds of stuff around the campground like uh selling tickets and I

don't know and pool like cleaning the pool I remember that I remember picking up some garbage like some more physical

like stuff but the thing is that it's I don't mind to do that kind of work but the thing is that I'm not really using

my my brain too much and I wanted something that I can use my brain and that's where I researched like

researched like another J1 job that happened to be actually in New York because this one was in Upstate New York

uh so this was like not actually in New York but it's like two hours away and then I found it man and it was this

company yeah it was I don't think they're now existing but it's called elementum and um they were doing trip

ticks photography and um yeah man they they we had some interviews and they got

me on board and that is basically like a huge huge huge gap of my life because I was basically like working there until

was continuing to go to my dream of like I want to do music and now I separated

music studio T the music it's called T music is the this guy my mentor

basically he was so I I actually saw myself at some point that I'll be with them and one of the things I did in New

York is I went to different music studios and I was blinded not to see it

back then but they were basically offering me internships which I didn't take on but because I was like no no no

but I want for to help these guys because I was very grateful to them for teaching me all this music production

stuff and and then it started to happen a transition where I was like okay now I

think I'm going to separate from these guys it was like gradually but then we had like some argument or something and

like work kind of Kyle msco was born in a way like you could put it that way as a as a like brand like because right now

for me it is like as a brand for like soundtrack stuff and um on that note I

gotta say this real fast so I was at a uh I was given a speech on like game

production in Bros laava and yes yes yes yeah and I'm I'm

like I went up and did my presentation and all that it was really nice uh it was like this it's called anime show but

it's like kind of a all-encompassing kind of Pop Culture Festival they have there and uh they invited me they're

like hey you know all the speakers and like certain you know people who are here going to be invited back to the

game tent uh this evening for party you know kind of and I'm like cool um I'll

be there so then I went out and had dinner with my friends and everything and then I come back and I'm at this party and it's like it was like free

[ __ ] Slovak wine which I I don't know if it's that good but it was at the time

enough to get you drunk so and I'm just hanging out with all these like you know these guys that are like younger

aspiring game devs actually one of them was Boris who was on the show pretty recently and they're all like talking to

me about like different stuff and I don't remember how you came up but I I I mentioned like yeah this this guy you

probably never heard of him he's like a musician named Kyle uh msco and then like four different people were like oh

Kyle like every like everyone [ __ ] knows you because you're so like active on social like LinkedIn and like you're

good you're brand you have a brand right you know and yeah they're all like oh yeah every Everybody Knows Kyle and it's it's not like a bad thing but they're

like you everyone in games like knows it's the it's the guy that comes to

every booth and is like hey you know me tell mus yeah I know I know I

know no dude I know that's that's great man like something like that exactly it's like uh I had I had on Spotify like

nine monthly listeners for ages and I didn't have anybody like joining there and then I used to do all the random

dedicate that that name to like soundtrack music and it's just some magic started to happen now it's like

some 2,000 monthly listeners and it's like it is slowly very slowly but it's

like happening like and some of the stuff I'm working on right now is actually from uh one of the conferences

like from that um uh like not not in Bratislava but there is one in Bruno

also called game access so anyway so that's cool man that's cool I'm glad that you some people recognize me that's

awesome so anyway so the the Kyle msco brand is born and you're you're putting

yourself out there like a a musician for hire and key mostly for games I know

that you've done some other stuff too though like uh yes and I was Kyle Myers at the time so because I just had that

idea so one quick story about this name Kyle MCO so my original name is Kil so

Gap when I was working for the customer support service while I was in the music studio blah blah blah that that that phase of life so we we needed in our

support team we uh some of the companies that were hiring us they didn't want to

like disclose that like they are in Ukraine so like they had to pretend they were like in us so some companies would

be like oh like some customer will call and be like and where are you guys based because we'll support multiple uh Brands

you know like I don't know mostly software most like mostly software like oh we're based in like San Diego in

California you know and it was like oh no way I had some people who lived there in San Diego and they're like oh yeah I

was just driving by by your office and it's like super kind of awkward uh moment always uh but then I also needed

like the name that it was not so Slavic because K is like very very Slavic and it is difficult to pronounce for like

people who don't pronounce the they pronounce like especially in english- speaking world it's like are so like

they yeah it's like Cal and it's like in in high school I was still Cal and I was

like like Cal like keep it real like that was my way for people to remember like but mostly I um my boss at that

company she was like she actually came up with Kyle and she was like what can we think and everybody was coming up

with their like American version of their names and my friend Constantine he was like a Tom you know and my other

like friends who had like yasl I don't know or like very obviously Slavic names

and then um yeah and then she was like why not like Kyle you can just be Kyle I was like yeah why not and actually she

came up with that for me and then that very much sticked and then I was uh

signing my emails at the end like best regards Kyle and then I had to come up with the last name and msco is also a

pretty Slavic last name and then I was like also changing that so I had I was Kyle Myers and I went through a couple

of versions I was Kyle Myers and that was my first um Pim like on my music

then Kyle Chadwell then I I had like different last names and then it was one year after sounds like you're going to

be in a porno like Kyle Chadwell

I don't know you how I had like three or four different

last names like that I was thinking and then I was like no the last name I'll keep so the last name is my original

last name but um but that one was um that was that and then I actually the

idea hit me was um I was in the park it was Winter I was not having my job because I was working on street fairs

you know with this company I was doing street fairs Christmas markets I was working in streets of Manhattan also like in Manhattan you can set up your

booth if you're like 6 feet away from the main entrance like there's some rules to follow and and I was like basically my WEA my job was depending a

lot also on the weather and so like in the winter I didn't really have much job so because it was too cold and nobody

was buying anything outside and our pictures were like $180 150 so you want

like good weather conditions when making that like impulsive decision to spend something like $300 $400 and then

basically um in the winter I was going in the park and then this idea hit me

like oh I want to do like because I want to do the soundtracks for games but how can I start like and then I was like um

I was I was looking for many ways I was emailing many studios like I was trying many many things in fact I had my very

some tracks from games that I love like which are Super Underground games that like nobody in US knows or in UK like

it's us Eastern Europeans like specifically played like like I don't know like Legacy of cane Soul rer like I

don't think that's like super popular or like Heroes of mind and Magic like that is Mega popular in Ukraine and like not

popular at all like I mean I haven't met so many people Warcraft 3 like everybody

loves the World of Warcraft but no for me I didn't play World of Warcraft so much I played it also but Warcraft 3 was

my thing like and I started to revisit all this unknown [ __ ] underground like missed also like a very I feel like it's

a niche also you know it's not your mainstream AAA games it's like some games that just made their way to

specifically Eastern Europe I don't know and then I started to do those uh remakes like roughly in that all same

time while working in this main job so that's like continuing that's that's

my let me know navigate me Tyler if I'm I need

to it's cool like that the whole point of this show is to just like where what is your

journey what's your experience like I think that it's really easy for people to get it in their own mind like I'm not

being very interesting or something like that and then from my perspective it's like nobody that I know except for you

knows what it's like to go on this journey that you've been on like you it it sounds to you like your life and

that's normal but most people uh who exist have not gone through all of these

steps like it's just not a thing okay okay

thank you thank you yeah because I you you have to if anything feel free to like stop me at any point and uh but um

I definitely I definitely do want to like as a as a as a conclusion in this podcast to like arrive to this point

because yeah it was definitely a trip so it was those three years and then that's

where I was just doing uh this remakes of soundtrack so I was doing the legacy of King so I started with I Legacy of

came for some reason just resonated with me uh I mean because it's like I don't know it was like a these childhood games

they they play like a big part um I don't know in my inspiration in the soundtracks from them and stuff and then

all of a sudden that remake is like going good and then I was like wow like there's some views like people are

checking it out so my biggest Legacy of Kan remake to date has has like like 53,000 views or like 54 the other one

has like 45 maybe depends on what are you comparing you on which scale on some scale it's a lot on some scale is small

uh but for me it was insane like for me it was crazy like I remember being just in shock from from that and then I was

like okay I kind of carried on with doing these remakes and I I I got obsessed with the idea to do uh like the

blood Omen so Legacy of King has like four games blood Omen blood Omen 2 soul raver Soul rer 2 and then it has defi so

it has five games in the series and I just wanted to remake the Sun the sunre for for Sol reer Games and then I

reached out to a team dude I was working with actually a Russian team they're all from Russia and we were working together

soundtrack like 2016 2017 and um like

one of my first experience is like I'm not paid anything you know I'm just doing it just like that because I have

my main job and I'm just doing this to understand what's happening the only paid project I had up until that point

was just all trying things out and then yeah and then I got the and then it would just went in the spiral because it

was the blood all man after that it was this I started to look for a team that is remaking the Original Soul Reaver

game and that's where I found Monica which actually she's from

Slovakia actually you were just talking about Braava and she's like actually

just now uh she was revealed as the Director on the new Soul River remaster

because the Soul River is actually getting a remaster after like so many years and uh it's coming out like

already very soon and actually like we were working with her closely on remaking that original soundtrack from

Soul rer and like now she's the director like it's crazy like how something in

is when I started chatting with her and now it's 2024 almost 2025 and like almost 10 years later like uh she got

that because she wanted to remake that game and I wanted to make a soundtrack for

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tuned now back to the shift

and then that's was that was those four years man it was also a lot of production just random production like

on the like really random stuff like whatever comes to my mind I was just

doing stuff on the weekend and then I started to like separate my sounds and

that was one thing that helped me a lot uh when I just like when I told you earlier like Kyle msco for me now is

like specifically like for soundtracks for games for films but it's like that sound track style and then I did a lot

of electronic music I also started to dig I didn't know electronic music a lot because I grew up on rock music and that

because and the reason I transitioned into electronic music was because I was listening to radio hat actually at the

time and then Tom York the lead singer described that in their last album Okay

um their next album was K and that came out in 2000 and that had like a very very different sound an okay computer

and they're like two or three years apart I don't remember exactly but then he said that he got inspired because he started listening to eex Twin and to

Eker Eker is like a British Duo and FX twin is also like electronic guy and

then um I I was like okay that's interesting and every time I listen to band I love to listen to the whole

discography I like to go with the first album second third and like that I did the same with the with the FX twin

actually with one of the first ones and and that like kind of coincided at the same time of me actually separating from

the Tatam music from that Ukrainian Studio starting slowly I was still Kyle Myers at the time like even my first

cover on YouTube is Kyle Meers so you can see that like it say there but then um that's same time I started to dig

into Electronic Music Man and then I just got consumed like I love electronic music it's like but it came way later

like but I I was listening to dead mouse like a lot of dead mouse uh but is

brasia that one is incredible he's from Germany um like and and all this like uh

house and techno and um and wow and I started to bring those elements also

into my production as well so that was cool I don't know it was like slowly

shaping this sound I don't know yeah I get it

and it's interesting how you like you kind of got into video games from the perspective of like looking at lesser

known things like lesser known gems from maybe from the past or whatever and then

primarily now I mean the way that you break into this industry as a musician is going to be to work on indie games

like you're not yeah so many people like there it's interesting because there are very

few like famous rockar game composers

you know there's like Mick Gordon Andrew holel and then you know your B your AAA

games have like symphonic soundtracks you know so they go hire a composer who's does other things that aren't just

games right yeah um and that that kind of thing uh and then so if you if you

want to be if like someone said like I want to be a musician and I want to work in video games I like well you need to

get as many Indie clients as possible that's that would be the F first piece of advice I gave them but from your

perspective like what was that that kind of journey into it like like did you

know uh a Target did they yeah yeah yeah exactly so that's a great one man

because to be honest I was like very very much in the blind going into it so for four years that I lived in New York

I always had the main job so I was really just like doing this remakes I was doing some side side projects like I

worked on another game and stuff but it was not ever done like super professionally it was just me testing

out the ground seeing what's happening and then it was one of the ideas is that I had a big life thing that happened in

2019 and I had a choice whether to keep staying in the United States or come back to Ukraine and um that's where I

heavily was considering to actually return back to Ukraine for a for for a short while I never never envisioned

myself like living over there forever or anything like that since I was a kid and then I was like because I thought one

thing is I could actually finished that I don't know if you remember but I started that second University in uh

when I the first year didn't work out in that original University that my father paid for and then I started to pay for

this private university and actually I wanted to finish I wanted to have the degree because just like just to have it

like that's the thing also in Ukraine so I was like okay I can finish my degree and then one of the big selling points

to come back was that yo I can actually try to do this like full time because I

couldn't try it in New York and New York had to do like $1,500 $2,000 just to like cover myself you know because I

mean of course I could live for cheaper for sure and I rented like room for $400 like and I could like live with I don't

want like a window in my room you know and then like I want more things and then that kind of place was like costing

more and kind of my my life was really nice but to have that to keep going with that life I had to keep it up at like,

1500 2K like just minimum you know I had to keep it up there and then I just couldn't know if I could deliver like

and most likely I won't deliver doing it like trying it with the music so I was a bit trapped and I was stuck also with

the company like I couldn't work with other companies and stuff so I was like okay actually going to Ukraine could

back already with now she's my wife but like my girl she was my girlfriend at the time and then we got to talk about

that too that's yeah go ahead so that that how to yeah and then and then we

come back in October and then we were figuring out where are we going to live because I lived three years in Ukraine

and I lived in all three parts of Ukraine like all like Eastern like I lived in harv one year harv I lived in

jir and then I lived in leiv L leiv uh so that's um uh yeah so basically that

that's that's that's that's the three three life three years over there and all of those years like that was my that

was the time that I used to kind of build up something that now I can like because now I can live actually like for

now everything is looking good and like I can live in London and do it full-time and actually like um I don't comp I

can't complain like right now it's very good but it has been like very it did take like a lot of [ __ ] trials man

like because I had no clue about anything like I just only Lov my old games that's why I just do it because I

have some some something uh special in my heart when I see this uh old games

with their old Graphics like there's something cozy about it and now the Indie Market is crazy so like it's super big so you can like now work on games

and and and that's all man I I didn't have any like idea about actually the

industry or or the music industry or the industry like how much should I charge have no

clue what are the rights exclusive non exclusive commercial license dist distribution license like it's insane

it's like um so it was a lot of mistakes dude it was like so many I can think of

mistakes and like where uh was like under of course like not even talking about undercharging and stuff like that

but also in overall like giving away too many rights Without Really realizing it like uh being like because the people

out there who they're not going to be like ah you're new to this let me help you and explain everything how it works

here like ah you're new to this well let me find a way that I can like use that you are ignorant and maybe I can like so

I had some unfortunate situations where I was like just some shitty deal like

look good on the surface but actually the the deal was not so good and stuff you know so I had to like I

wouldn't say burn some bridges but like kind of like in some yeah burn some bridges I guess to some extent uh before

I like uh learned what is you know how the industry works I haven't worked with Publishers before I had no idea about

that and the contracts like like already like last year I had like lawyer consultation now I'm like much more

aware but starting out I was like uh not sure man and I didn't even know what to

find this work anyways and I was just like okay maybe I go to I was like on Facebook I remember finding all my first

projects on Facebook groups and just like literally adding people to friends and just like hey I love that game like

can maybe I can do some music or something and also because I was in Ukraine I didn't have such a super High

Cost of Living so like uh you I could actually like pull it out working on it

fulltime so that was my first dream like Can I Do It full time and I remember asking uh my family even like actually

and Fernanda was like the only one who truly not the only one but she was one of the people who really really

supported me in that but to be honest my my family and my friends were not really like so much supporting that idea I

don't I don't remember much support to be honest I know now yes now of course

they're like yeah yeah dude you got it you're [ __ ] great like but I'm like a little bit also started to that's where

it's so important the relationships and the friends also and stuff like because so important to have somebody there that

that uh support and stuff and um and especially of course Co was happening for everybody but another thing in 21 so

of my career is also intertwined with like life things I was living at the time also

and yeah it was like a turbulent jgy died man and okay so where where were

you when the war started so that was supposed to be the

perfect year because we had the first year in KF which didn't quite work out because of like the co and other stuff

last year in Ukraine uh we knew that it was like the last one because we wanted to come anyways ultimately to UK like

Fernand has been dreaming about coming to London also and and um and I also wanted to try here because I lived like

I had my dosage let's say it that way of United States and I wanted to try some new country and then I was like okay

let's go and then we were living at the time in leiv and we just applied for a

scholarship program to study in UK our master's degree for free we didn't win but that was the memory from that time

and then we just moved to our like amazing place it was like our year in L we had the best place in the center like

uh it was amazing conditions to have an amazing year but yeah for some reason

like the whole year in in in UK in Ukraine that that whole War year

2022 then what was like the like the feeling on the ground like what did you know

like what you were going to do immediately or did it some adjustment to

like kind of come up with a plan like yeah so so my cousin he's in the Army

and he did tell me like I was I have to say I was advised to kind of like leave

if anything like uh about a month before like so in February the war started and

my cousin he's like in the Army and of course like who is there has connections and stuff so he knew that something

something was coming up and he said look if you you if you can like do leave so I was actually advised to leave and Fernando actually also really wanted to

go and we had a perfect we had a good opportunity to go to Poland but I have

to say um partly we we actually partly didn't leave because of me because I didn't believe like I didn't believe and

also the environment didn't believe that this war will actually happen they were like d which because we already had the

yes the war of course like on the East because that was already for for uh for from since 2014 it was already eight

years of that but then nobody thought that it will just like come to this point and

so yeah man there was lots of lots of feelings happening there but um like we

stayed then this war started and then it was gradually it was like today we thought it will be just one day then two

days and three days then it started to p on then we thought okay it's just going to be a week okay and then and then we

have the martial law implemented right away like like that doesn't allow the guys to leave and everybody has to be uh

like enrolled and stuff um and then but the first couple of months were I kind

of know it was like we we thought it's going to be over sooner so I thought like okay it's fine like let's just wait

it over here and everything was comfortable we just got the apartment like it was just too soon to leave like

just wanted to get a break and before we go to keep hustling and yeah like that's

that's that's where it started uh to continue like it was like March then it

was April then it was May uh we made one big project which was the Ukrainian folk album that was like

one kind of patriotic I'm not really patriotic person in overall like uh for me is that I have like some my own views

and stuff like but that moment I felt very very like patriotic that I've never felt before like and I was like okay I

want to do something and so that Ukrainian folk album is like definitely a big part of like uh that era and that

album actually very much resonates a lot with like what was happening in the time and how we were feeling and it's like a

nine tracks that remix the folklore music the Ukrainian folklore uh and I

think I sent it to you I don't know if you had a chance to listen like what it's good stuff know that one it's like it's just

like it's nothing like I've ever heard before but on the other hand it's like this it sounds like uh in my mind like

stereotypically like oh yeah Eastern European folk music at the same time it's really cool like and I think one of

the one of the interesting things that I've seen if there could be any good that came of this and there isn't yet

but to to some degree like the kind of the unification of Ukraine as a nation

and like the embracing of like we we have a culture we have a you know an identity and then a lot of artists

especially like yourself um you know and and even like game designers I mean stalker too just having come out was

sort of a big thing yeah right but like this this sort of rallying around the

idea of being Ukrainian um and I don't know much at all other than you know what friends like you tell me but it it

does seem like it was sort of um interesting how I mean a lot of

people in Ukraine speak Russian and are ethnically you know Russian I mean as

you said in the very beginning of this podcast like you you know you were born kind of right after the fall of the Soviet Union so yeah definitely then

there's this like Resurgence of people saying you know like we're you know we

want to translate games into Ukrainian and all this kind of thing and whether that's a financially smart decision to

make or not it's just like we want to preserve what this is um definitely

definitely and you're right like for example even myself you know my mother she was like born in Russia you know in

in budia which is like really far away it's like L byal and like she was she grew up mostly in Ukraine but she was

born there my and her side like my grandmother she like is like yeah she

moved to Ukraine like uh in the 90s or something but I don't know the first 20 or 30 years of her life or 40 years she

was like over there and stuff so we do definitely have that uh a lot of yeah

common ties I had like Russian language in school like now it's interesting like I still speak Russian with uh my

brothers and stuff but they don't know like my youngest brother he doesn't know really how to spell like he uses I mean

because he has autocorrect on the phone he knows but he doesn't know really like the grammar of like Russian language

because like I actually had to like I had Russian language in school where I was like learning how to do the sentences and like and and and and stuff

like now I wouldn't ever ever imagine having that like there will be that class you know but now um but yeah it's

it's it's insane honestly like that yeah mostly it was like most of not most of

Ukraine but yeah big part of it was speak in Russia and stuff so I don't know big thing came up for you in in

language school but one of the most interesting things uh especially having

the benefit of being a native English speaker is that you can kind of tell a lot about other people's grammar by the

way that they speak English when they learn it so like Russian grammar I mean just since

you brought it up is so like interchangeable like you can move words all around in the sentence

and more or less come up with the same meaning uh and it's not nearly as particular in a lot of cases as English

is so and for the best example that was ever given to me is like my friend who

is a she's a professor of Russian in uh in Prague and so she like teaches people

Russian and she was talking about how like in America on computer it come up

and it say something like you know this is Sasha I hope you're listening to this she's like the computer will say would

you like to delete this file and she's like in the Russian it's say to delete why do you have all these

polite words it makes no sense and I'm like that's a it's a perfect example of

the difference between the two languages like so like then I had this running

joke with her like forever where it's like anytime that she would say something instead of me saying like you know um she she would explain something

to me and then see instead of me saying like hey could you explain that to me more thoroughly I would say do

explain right right do elaborate yes what's the best way to get what I want

out of you with the fewest amount of words possible that's great man

very practical you know exactly yeah yeah it's like we're cold and we don't have anything to survive off of but

potatoes and [ __ ] vodka and beats so we don't want to waste energy with all these [ __ ] polite

words get to the point and I love dude it's this dude it's the same with the

Soviet architecture it's so practical also it's like [ __ ] it doing all of these like gorgeous things and on all

this like facad and build them for years let's just do like a nice here you have the building you know it's a box it's

works you know big box you know here you come in and like and very practical not

only yes in the language what do you need for a house toilet you need water you need a place to sleep okay we make

box 40 of these fit in box D

yeah exactly dude that's awesome that you got that that experience so yeah man so that

was that was my thing and then we realized so just to kind of like to come back also to like just to return just to

say that like we realized at some point that it's not working out the war is not being over we still have to keep staying

um I was doing like my soundtracks at that time like half of the time I was in

the house the other half of the time we went to the B like we were in the shelters for some hours then you have to

come back then like um then it kind of chilled out and people stopped going already like at some like the first

three months was like more intense and every time we hear Sirens we have to go to the bit and I have to like delay like

like for example the case of the golden idol soundtrack like I wrote like pretty much that whole soundtrack like like in

these wartimes in between like the alarms and electricity outages we had like a very really like a tough schedule

of electricity because it was different every day and there were like three different groups that you could be in so

if you're in group one on Monday your schedule is like 1 to 5 you am you don't

have electricity 5 to9 you have electricity 9 to one you might have so 50/50 1 to 5 you don't have and we had

like like basically a schedule of electricity that we had to work around with they were both working online and

um and we need of course like constant internet and meetings and stuff so uh yeah so it was like uh pretty like pain

in the ass to to to handle and also and then on top of that the other level of difficulty that uh added on top is that

um the Ukrainian guys like started to also enroll like people like on the streets already to uh to the military

because like we don't have enough people right like because we're just like we were 40 million population then when the

war started like in general the statistics started like like around 8 million people left like uh to different

countries and stuff so you have like roughly 30 million people and then uh half of them is like the women's and the

children's you know and the seniors you know you've got like 15 million then maybe you get some other like let's say

roughly somewhere roughly like million guys like you can actually like enroll you know and then the Russia it has like

150 million you know so it has like triple like so it's like it's no matter like even if we have like the most

insane it's like the hundred Spartans you know 300 Spartans against like maybe you can withstand okay 2K 3K people 4K

to be being a small group of 300 but like here is just like super numbers and yeah and so the Army was like started to

like more actively enroll also and like started to enroll people like on the streets which wasn't up until that point

you know so that was like the first four months were kind of fine like of course

aside from electricities and and the uh and the bo you know going to the shelter

you know sometimes and stuff uh but it was our shelter was like across the streets like so it was then it started

like this this thing and then I was like and I'm was never um um well it's a

whole another thing and topic and stuff but like uh as I explained I'm not really like Patriot in in general I'm

not really like a patriotic I'm very like selfish person in that way right like I only care for me for my wife for

my family for my friends you know and then like and the country for me is like uh already like uh it's a like I almost

look at it in a selfish way for me the country is like a tool like that they can like or like they can help me get

there with my goals and stuff but like I I was not like keen on the idea of like giving my life for the country like I

understand that a lot of people find it honoring and I definitely respect people who who who who are that like but that

was not like in my case like uh my way was like I I want to contribute to

Ukrainian culture and I believe it has a lot of like potential but I have like my own creative way to kind of do it but

they're not interested in that they don't want my creative input they want my my physical body there like you know

shooting stuff so like let me put that in American's perspective because this is one of those things where like if I

talk to people from other countries and then I talk to Americans and I talk to you about this exact same

subject every single American has a pretty healthy understanding of you're

allowed to love your country and hate your government so like I totally

understand the point of view of like you care about your friends your

people your your family you know the the general culture of Ukraine and I'm not going to [ __ ] die for this government

you know like it what did what did the Ukrainian government ever do for me like you know what I'm saying yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

that's that's exactly it man like exactly that's also another element here is that it was also like yes dying for

the country like how they would put it but also like it it is also like the government and and and big part of it it

is also dying for like the decisions that because I've been watching a lot of this stuffman politics and stuff and

it's all super super super shady and then I also experienced with my father my father was trying to be a politic uh

and he was like uh having very good chances to win an election and you know

he was with the mafia like yeah there was like some Mafia coming with the previous guy you know and like

threatening him and stuff like that if you don't you know take out your application we're gonna like uh we know

where you live and we know where like your family goes like so I know that it's like very like the politics is like

super super super super sketchy and I don't want to and I don't want to know anyways my world is like yeah soundtrack

the video games all of that like I don't want all that Darkness you know and and I don't want to yeah and kind of I don't

know well you're an artist man you're supposed to create things not destroy them I mean that's who you are like in

your soul in a lot of ways it's it's not just your personality it's like your spirit I mean your instinct is to make

things and create things and that not to you know shoot stuff or people I I I

don't think I think that's a healthy way to look at it because it it's really interesting say like the idea of like

dying for your country is like I was I'm six-year Air Force veteran

right I I don't think about it like if I had had to like go to war and lay down

my life for whatever reason it's not I'm not I'm not dying for [ __ ] Lockheed

Martin and Dick Cheney's wallet right like I'm I'm dying for the idea of like

protecting the American values or people in America or you know all of the

children would then I don't know be eaten by the Russian war machine or taken over by China or you know like

that's the a better way to think about it than just like I'm just going to die because some politicians can't get along

or because they want money or or control of an oil field or whatever like I don't [ __ ] care about

that exactly and then also it's like what are they like it was also very much

like the opposite in the way of like because we are like fighting also for the freedom and stuff like I know again

it's like it's a tricky one and I know people have different opinions but it's just that it was strange that we're fighting like for the freedom and stuff

yet like we don't promote like the the the the freedom of speech any how you know like in Ukraine we actually had some kind of like even before prior to

war there was some kind of little bit some little bit dictatorship Vibes to to be honest again maybe it's not maybe

it's not nice to say but some of the things and and stuff so I'm also feeling that it was it's not for like because

for me I'm like humanist right like I'm for I believe that like uh our like

like a self kind of perfection and and and being and being good and and making sure everybody's good and and growing as

a human being and becoming spiritual and reading you know I believe in a lot of like self-growth and and all of that you

know and and and I don't like we don't align like with our opinions like uh like even the way that I see Ukraine is

like different like what I love what I love about this culture is different from what is advertised what I should

love about that culture let's put it that way like the government has their own view of like what they feel like the

Patriot is and which should be the reasons and stuff but I have another reasons and we're not like uh vibing

like with the with with the opinions there so I don't know something like so

like you know you make your decision as the as a man to get the [ __ ] out and do

you go directly to Montenegro or no no so it was a tough one so it took basically it took me half a year to like

make it basically uh to to make it all possible um I I don't know if I can get

into like so so so super many details but in general what happened is that sure yeah let's protect

your whatever that human smuggling out of Ukraine route is it's not expose

it yeah yeah exactly but that's that's what I'm saying like exactly it's it's

like a strange thing and stuff but it was it it did uh like it did take some tries and it did take like different

ways uh and then it also did cost a lot of money like do people also like because it is also like a big business

that opened you know and there's people making like insane money on that also like we're not insane but like we're

talking like like easily like five grand 10 grand 15 grand like people pay like

and it's all dollars you know everybody wants Euros nobody wants that g nobody is all about the cash and stuff and and

like in a way in our government also country the way it works is like when you prohibit something it's like just to

create like a new way to do it but just like now paying cash basically I don't know in some in some loss you know you

can still do it like but just now not not not legally allowed to do that you know so um so yeah insane like uh you

had to not only you had to have like some some like big savings also like uh

like um you also had had to be very I

would say honestly it took a lot of balls to do it man because ultimately I was like really scared to to do that

whole thing thing because you have to like uhe like uh pretend in some in some

cases and stuff and it's uh difficult to kind of pretend when you know that like

if they find out that you are like pretending like then it can be really hardcore so it was a tough one man for

me maybe I'll I'll share it some someday but it was yeah it was a lot of a lot of

tries like six tries and uh and many many hours in the line the lines are

very long Al so like they're like 5 hours 7 hours 12 hour long lines you

know and and very slow and every single person who is leaving is questioned and

and it's very yeah it was it was a tough one and so when I I I really thought man at some point that I won't be able to

leave like there was that point where I didn't know so and we couldn't also go together uh with my wife also because

the way that I needed to go is I needed to go like solo and so when I like we didn't know like if we we will also see

each other and it was um it was a very difficult time but then yeah like finally that day came and that was like

you would never think that you will be so H like in a wicked and twist twisted way I was like so happy to leave like

you shouldn't feel happy to leave your country right like but but I felt like oh my God like thank God you know and

I'm I'm like at this point it's like I I want to like I don't want

to get close to to that anyhow and kind of part of me wants to get as far away as possible from that because it really

like traumatized me in some like psychological ways like that experience and leaving and living all of that you

know and like if anything like if United States like in New York and in Oregon

you know I'm grateful to those places because they gave me courage and and and power and I really believe that like in

myself and if I really put my best heart into something I'll be able to do it and

if I just like completely came with bunch of armor like level 60 like I

don't know came with a bunch of armor to Ukraine is like what I felt to me again is my personal opinion I know and I know

like my fellow guys like wouldn't support me in that way for sure like I

have like misunder understandings with with my people unfortunately but basically kind of like I felt like more

Stripped Away like and it was not only because of like of course the war and it was the family thing and just in general

the situations I had to leave and live and stuff um so like it was like it was

like taking out all of that armor that epic shield and all of that like so when I left I felt like without anything I

just felt like starting once again like building myself back up again so for me

my my former self I don't know some CL line like that um yeah

so I'm gonna have to like do a little bit of mental gymnastics to get to the point I'm trying to get to but so you

you and your your wife managed to get out um obviously it's easier for her

because she's not even Ukrainian Citizen and a lady yeah yeah yeah inly so

somehow or another you got this Chilean woman into Ukraine in the first place so

I want to go back to kind of how how did this whole thing come together how how did you two meet and uh why does she

care so much about you yeah right right that was insane man like that was

insane uh in that was incredible honestly like that that happened so I

think I told you earlier that um about this guy Matthew who has played a big part in my life because he encouraged me

to go to this Exchange program so he came back to visit me in New York in

2017 roughly and he just was obsessed with the idea to see the bul drop he just really wanted to see the bul drop

on Time Square and he was willing to go to like far away extents to do it and he was like staying at my place he stayed

for like two weeks and uh basically um we had like lots of memories and lots of cool conversations but a very important

one was that night he went to see the bul drop and and he was like for 12 hours he was from 12 p.m. until midnight

there like saving the spot and while he was there he started talking with to this one girl her name is Caroline and

basically like started talking with her and then she he was with a bunch she was with a bunch of friends so then they're

like hey join us all together and then I think Caroline she's like from South Carolina or something like I know she's

from somewhere from the south and Matthew is from Texas and actually the friends of hers were also from Texas so

they just like vibed like oh okay cool you're you're my guys and then basically they became Super Friends and then he

calls me and he's like Yo dude I met these super cool people let's go hang out I meet them and then so we become

friends with this with this girl with this Caroline and then like the way it works is that four months later so we're

talking like may she we were like keeping in touch and then she said like

hey actually um there's this hangout like let's go like there's this Meetup

and stuff like let's um anyways not not not important main thing is that it's a Meetup and on that Meetup man that's

where I met Fernanda so it was like you understand like so like it was Matthew

visiting he met this girl Caroline and then this Caroline happened to have Fernanda as her friend and then what

happened is that Fernanda she is from Chile originally and she had a one-year internship in New York City like at at

this company kpf uh and then uh so I and we met in May so we met like three

months into her internship basically and then we just started to like h out and

we were basically like uh really like just hanging out like friends and just

having a good time and stuff and it was insane that it grow into something like now we're married like uh I proposed to

her actually in the war times like that was one of the things also she stayed with me and that was also insane thing

for her to do also because a lot of girls like actually also like from

Ukraine actually that are like super patri like I knew some people that were super patriotic and saying how much they

love Ukraine and they left like the first day second day they left and then like and fan was receiving messages from

Chile and government because the Chilean government just wanted to save Chileans not not ukrainians and they were like

many people were telling her like leave this guy get out of there like it's not safe and stuff and um yeah so we just

to come here to UK because we wanted to do the uh Masters program and then

that's why we came to Ukraine because that would give us the time to prepare for UK and that's why Ukraine was seemed

like a good decision also because my father could get her a Visa so she could stay for a long time like we wanted to

do two years so two years to prepare and to to do it and then already actually in

2021 she already started to apply for this scholarship program so um it was

just and then then she got into this like I didn't mean for her to experience this like like family things like but

it's I've been like feeling so Mega blessed I don't know in that way

to get to know her it's it's insane honestly yeah yeah I remember there's

like probably the day that I met you but we were just kind of talking casually about this and it sounded to me at the

time like you were basically kind of in a rush to get uh you know hitched when you were in the

states and then yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly cuz that so that was my way that

was one thing I was looking for one of the ways that I could stay like um

longer in United States would be like of course if I marry like somebody from United States so I also had definitely

like so one of the like with with

throughout throughout my three year my four years over there I was like looking

for a relationship like with the somebody from us like specifically and I had actually W for like a year

and stuff like but I don't know why man it just was never working out because I was not looking for like the hookups

let's put like the hookups were like straightforward to find but I was looking for like actually building the

relationship and I really wanted to like go and explore and grow together and all of those things you know like where like

for me the relationship is like where are these two ambitious people that are like willing to get places and we are

helping each other to get there like it's almost like a a union you know like together we help each other to get there

you know and we support each other along the way like and she's supported me like insanely on my path also like and I also

of course uh well that's one thing I feel bad about is that she had to like go away from architecture for some time

because in Ukraine you couldn't really do architecture so much full-time and stuff but like hey um uh in a few years

there's going to be a lot of demand for architects in Ukraine yeah well that's why we I don't

know we'll see how it how it goes and stuff like but uh but yeah that's that's that's that's the thing and was looking

and that was also my way so when this girl in common that we know she was inviting me I was with that intent in my mind oh I will meet like some of her

friends and stuff and um I was like potentially looking for a relationship

but when we met each other with Fernando we're like almost like still thinking

okay like we we're just like casually hanging out really like just there for the good times to hang out uh and then

maybe go like on some and then we started to do like some small small things like some short travels and stuff and it was like this very very casual

relationship like that started to like couple of months later to grow into something like

wait a second like this is really really awesome and that's where I came to a decision that if I needed to stay in us

longer because I couldn't anymore do the job I was really sick of the work I loved it the first year two years but

then after that I really got sick of it and then it was like for me the way to stay would be like I thought like if

anything to get married or uh but then I thought like no like I don't want to give this up because what would we had

building with her was so good that I was like no it's okay if I'm meant to live in United States like if I'm meant to

live there some other way will come up like I believe in that you know and and I couldn't do it because you could do it

also for the money you can also pay uh to do it in us for the money and stuff but it was not even about that I was

afraid to like to do it in a fake way I was actually trying to do it for real and uh interesting how it's all turned

out like it's interesting yeah I think that that's a really interesting thing about love is like you mentioned even

like just you not being into the the hookup thing you're like really looking for something that

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[Music] Steam uh but just like even for me like

living abroad and stuff it's it was so like it's so naive to think like oh I'm

just going to go to a place and like find uh I don't know a woman from this country and we'll get married and then

it'll all work out like it's never that simple No Love Story worth telling is

ever that [ __ ] simple right like watch what name your favorite Romance movie it's never like oh and then I

found the like and then it just worked out no it's it's like a whole thing um you got to bargain with the time and I

really like the way that you said like you know if it's meant to be that I'm supposed to live here it will happen in some other way like you and you decided

what what was ultimately more important to you and honestly man if you got somebody who's willing to do all that

[ __ ] with you and travel all around the world and deal with all this nonsense I think she actually probably really likes

you yeah yeah yeah not a lot of Architects out there looking for a starving artist you

know yeah man yeah no exactly man it is it is because it is truly like what we

hope of course it is like truly truly like love love love like truly in it in its way and it's like and and and I

don't know and it's been wonderful I mean I just got back from Chile trip which was like the first time me meeting

her family like we've been six years together and then we got married uh we just recently celebrated two years also

since we married so that was awesome that was great yeah and then it was U

her birthday also so it was it was it was nice and I got to know also her family and everything and so I got to go

to Chile and stuff and I know like like what's what's it like that I've never been wow man the South America it's

insane it's um it was my first time visiting but it was um the thing is that

I didn't get to do so much s scene the biggest focus of this was anyways to meet her family so it's more like her

family and and everything was great and I was super welcome and feeling good but the thing is that um with the travel I

did do some traveling around but not so much and uh well Chile is super gorgeous

because it's like uh next to the Andy mountains it has like super epic entrance when you fly from Argentina

like you are entering through mountains of mountains and mountains I love mountains and you we don't really have

we have Carpathian Mountains but they're not the same as as the Andes and so yeah that was [ __ ] amazing going into the

country and then um it was summertime there because they are like seasons are

switched um and um yeah and then basically we were um we were like for

two weeks basically stain and then we did get to do some side scene like in Santiago like in the center and um and

then we went to the beach also to the ocean to VI delar so that was nice I mean it's super beautiful I I've heard

many times that uh I'm I'm very heavily advised to go to South of Chile because there's a lot of like nature and

beautiful stuff there um but um yeah man so that's it was super cool City the

only thing about South America in general is that you do have to be kind of like cautious you have to be like

Street Smart because uh especially like for me who is like the blonde guy like I super stand out as a foreigner in that

way and then if I'm with the English and stuff like you want to be kind of like more cautious again it's not like Chile

if anything is like the the like one of the best like and like let's say touristy friendly to be visiting like I

don't imagine to go to uh I don't know other places but be not not knowing

Spanish fluently I mean like just coming in as a foreigner completely um so that was that was the only thing is that you

do kind of want to be like uh cautious like with with your stuff you don't want to have your phone out you know and

stuff like so that was one aspect that like that was like that but uh other

than that is like man it's like such a big difference also coming to fernand's family was such a direct comparison to

my family and how I felt super welcome where she didn't feel so welcome like in my family because also our people are

more complicated to talk with foreigners than we have people who just a afraid to speak with foreigners and stuff and she

felt very isolated at times like and also being in Ukraine with her those three years Sav me man gave me such a

perspective also about our like Eastern European Slavic culture from like the

foreigners perspective and it's it's been so important to like I don't know

it was very cool and then coming to Chile like was they're very warm people very welcome and in overall like I find

it very like you just want to um like even if I don't speak the same if we

don't speak the language man I was in the tables I was in family tables with like 10 people around me and I they

always try to include me and everybody's super nice and I don't know I had a good

time if anything for that handset um of all the different places that you've uh been and

lived I imagine the especially because you're you know born where you were born

the food difference has got to be insane like for your stomach

and your taste yeah absolutely man yeah actually I don't know why is there the

Chili Peppers they're not really eating the spicy food uh I don't know from somewhere I had that stereotype ah in

Chile they like like the SP well there is the spicy food of course but actually Chile because it's like next to the

ocean it's actually like mostly there's a lot of seafood actually over there and

they have some like dishes that are similar with Peruvian you know and then it's like Peru will do that same dish

but it's like we have for example in Ukraine we have the borch but then like for example I also know people like in Russia like that live like super far

away near Japan and they also have bch but they have some other recipe for it and other guys I know who live like in

Central Russia and they have another recipe for it so it's like we would have like different recipes for and they will

also have that same thing where you would have a like a dish and then Peru will do it that way and Chile will do it

that way and then Bolivia will do it some other way um but yeah the food has been so like I've been pretty friend ly

like I think my body was fine with with that I don't remember having any Adventures there but um but it was it

was it was good it was good it was Seafood so it was I like that and now you're in the UK so it's like Sun Sunday

roast you know yeah with my beans with English

beans I [ __ ] love an English breakfast so much dude I my wife had a

dream the other day she's like a dreamed that we ended up moving to United Kingdom and I was like you know I doubt

that but honestly like there's worse places like I really really love

England that's cool but no look that was one thing we're talking about this Ukraine thing and I will say one

positive experience is that this opportunity right now to be here for three years I have a three years Visa

now and I can extend it for another two years I can be like basically 5 years living in the UK like that would have

been impossible because before the conflict I told you we were trying to do the scholarship to come here and it was

very tough like but it was like um but it was come it was it was difficult

because it was it was difficult to come because it was difficult uh the the scholarship you there's of course a lot

of competition and stuff and then or you do like the Visa but then to get a company they'll sponsor you the Visa it's pretty tricky so the chance to like

that's one thing is that because like of this war there was this program created like it's called like homes for Ukraine

the only condition is that you have to find a host family in UK that is like willing to host you and that is like

pretty much pure charity in UK because in Europe if you host ukrainians you get some like money from the government you

can get like I don't know 800 900 euros you know so you could look at it from like monetary I guess perspective from

some for some people but um here it's like your charity you like as a host family you don't really get nothing you

just really like are going through a bunch of checkups and I'm so extremely grateful to our host family that it was

like willing to do all of that um yeah and we were researching and asking everybody and then a friend of a friend

of another friend has a cousin and then this cousin has to happen to live in again another crazy but again maybe it's

the manifestation you know we were dreaming about London remember that new year in L in Ukraine that we met with

Fernand like when I was supposed to be already abroad but we didn't so my plan changed also because I was half a year

preparing to leave at one way and then I did it and it didn't work and then in like two weeks I had to come up with a

new way to go out like very quickly and then we meet that new year and we were I remember it was like a tough new year

hours later or something and we're like oh we were really I feel like we manifested England man because we've

been like talking about it so much and uh and then we talk with our friends and

then this host found we made a video also for them like explaining who we are

we just want to have a country like because that's what we want we just we are just too young professional people

we want to go we want to do all the standard stuff we want to get the good life the house the family and we just want like a place where we can do it uh

where like the government doesn't necessarily like directly interfere into your like things and you can just not

not not bother you you like I like that relationship I I I pay my rent which is my taxes and then I just can be here

like working and developing like wonderful relationship and then um yeah and then and then and then uh that was

so incredible that they agreed to host Us in fact it was November 29th like last year on our one year anniversary

with Fernanda that we we got the news like uh like okay the family agreed like

they it was because it's a big decision and it is like a lot of hustle on their side we didn't have to hustle anything

we just brought the papers like the process was so super smooth and then like they on the other hand side they

had an officer visit their house they had to make sure they have a dedicated room they had to like they worked hard

to help us and it was we're we're we're meeting up next weekend so we we keep in

touch with them it's awesome and uh yeah and it's been amazing now we're trying

out to see how life goes in England but I find a lot of soul here man like I do

love us and we we are talking about that if it's not going to be UK it is most likely going to be us honestly like and

we are constantly comparing also lot we shouldn't they're different cities but I am subconsciously remembering New York

City while living here because it's also a big city it's also a metropolis it's also super busy lots of things happening

um but it has been I found a lot of soul like one thing is in in us from some

certain places I was missing a little bit of Soul because it's like more new cities like anyways everything is more new which I love the new stuff but here

is like for the spiritual side again I'm not talking about economy or the politics or

how is it going like that is like another thing but like from aesthetic point of view it's like super beautiful

it's so coz dude like English Villages are so Co they're just so super cozy and

I find so much inspiration for music it's good stuff I uh I don't if I were

going to live in the UK I would live basically anywhere but London like you told me you told me but that's just me

in general like I I [ __ ] hate big cities like uh there there there are certain cities that like when I go there

I'm like hey you know this is really cool but I still wouldn't choose to live in any City I would want to be like at

least 30 minutes away from all of the hustling but and London is a [ __ ]

[ __ ] show it's just you know you're trying to get across you know town and it's like you you're walking across the

like okay we're going to take the underground and then you walk into the underground and it's shut down and he like okay well let's get up and you walk

you know [ __ ] you know down to another area and you enter the underground and you take the underground and it's like the distance like we

literally walked more you know to get from train station to train station than

to get you if we had just walked directly to where we were going but the streets are so busy you can't do that

and don't get me there's some really cool stuff to see I mean I went to you all all the you know Buckingham Palace

and you know looking at Big Ben and like um what's the the Abby that's like Abby Road AB Road

Studios yes all that's all wonderful but I would I still wouldn't live there it's

too much I know yeah I was amazed at that man like I was discovering yes sorry you want to say no no no he good

go ahead no I was just saying like for me also London was a discovery so like uh because I've been like my childhood

dream was like New York because I was like growing up on all this American movies and stuff and like that was my if

anything like I don't know I I I love that but then um Fernando was like more

with with the London like idea I didn't like spe I don't know why I haven't thought about this city but now that

we're here it makes so much sense uh but basically um it's been a discovery also

for me I'm coming to London unbiased like so if you ask me about New York I'm super biased I saw too many movies I'm

I'm super biased I'm going to tell you that I love it and it's amazing for me because I just has so much sentimental

emotion but London I was like coming completely like unbiased and I have to say that I'm having like super good time

here because it doesn't while it can feel very overwhelming as the city and especially in the center area there are

like some really [ __ ] cool chill places here like we have friends who just bought a house here in this area

and it's like uh it's like it's north is Finsbury Park so I'm like half an hour by the underground to the center like

one hour by bus but like I go here like into the parks and it's like if and

because most of London is like twostory buildings three story buildings it's not very tall so you always feel the

presence of sky is always there and I don't know it just can feel very very chill like I've been in extremely chill

places in London and I'm like wait a second like I'm still here like that's crazy because it's 32 borrows you know

it's insane so many borrows and every borrow you live in is going to shape also your reality like and also things

change like uh where we are is like good stuff but then if you like go I don't know half an hour that direction okay or

one hour that direction okay it gets a bit more suspicious you know and then you go you know so it also depends on

the area also as well so I don't know but it's cool I uh I don't know see in

my mind I'm like I want like a house in the countryside with like I I want to be able to like piss off my front porch in

the morning with with like nobody offended by seeing my wiener because

they literally like that's that's like my standard for like Freedom you know I

can do anything I want here and no one's going to know or care or whereas like living in cities you just

you have to get used to just kind of compromising with the fact that you're around other people who have needs and

boundaries also always um it's it's true it also depends I feel like on the phase

in life also that you're in and especially for example for the family like I also was thinking about this with

Fern that I really don't think like if we if we if life goes good because we're we don't know like we have Canada as our

plan B we do have residents in Canada as a plan B so we are also considering that but like if things go good here like and

we're like getting that deposit like initial deposit you want like 30 to 50 Grand deposit to get like uh a mortgage

on the house for 20 30 40 years like so like we do imagine that happens and then we like um I don't know if I will also

live like in the city specifically like I think it's a healthier environment also for but also I know it's your

personal thinge I mean you also grew up in that kind of environment too you know I grew up already in the more I grew up

like in that aor in that military town in a small apartment which I had to be always working with the smaller space so

and what I get from the city is like right now I just find it

very like kind of as a creative person the way like I have to be inspired like I

have to keep being inspired like that's my like absolute have to like I like I need inspiration like I'm addicted to

inspiration like period that's for sure and I and and and the and this is the

like location which provides me like a lot of a lot of a lot of inspiration because like it really inspires me to go

to these like I'm going to Game Dev clubs every month I'm going to there's game conference happening there was a Comic-Con happening I have my first DJ

set coming up here which is going to be like December 19th that's going to be so [ __ ] awesome it's going to be video game soundtrack music so that's awesome

then we already have plans like to meet up with these guys from an animation studio in January like I had a Warner I

was at work Warner Brothers working I had a work one week work experience at Warner Brothers post production like you

know I need I need and I fuel on that you know I need these events and like things and and like I need it but then

who knows like in five years in 10 years I could be like [ __ ] it I had my dosage

like I'm ready to uh like I don't know because I love nature as well Ty like I

super share that passion and love for your space and the house and stuff that's cool trees you know yeah just the

I like to be able to like see the stars yeah it's a big thing for me like

I I like being able to just like sit in the backyard or like go for a walk at night and like oh there's Venus there's

Jupiter there's like and I know you know a lot about astronomy in general but like it's a big thing for me like so if

I have to live in a place like especially Denmark was like super [ __ ] depressing because it's like not

only is there light pollution but it's also overcast all the time so like you just never see this guy right right so I

really value that stuff um living in Arizona was amazing because you can really really see the stars there it's

gorgeous that's amazing and that's that's what's most important tell her is that like you you follow your heart in

yeah any what me to say no I'm just agree with no I I I completely by the

way here there's also some overcast like it's not as hardcore as in Denmark but I have to say that I'm testing it but the

summer has been really nice because I've been like so skeptical everybody's like you're going to hate it the weather

sucks and it's cloudy every day but actually in my again I'm just talking about my specific experience in my

the weather and now that November came around I do admit there was like a couple of like uh like like that it's

just overcast for a like a couple of days straight now that it's winter time and it's more closer to zero degrees I

feel like the clouds can't quite like exist in that like they can still exist but not so many so every time it's

different but um so so far I've had a very good time I love that I don't enjoy

when it's too hot and I don't enjoy it's too cold and it's kind of like in between for some people it's a big thing

like the the weather is like such a big thing like people don't go to Canada because it's like too cold for them like

I wouldn't not live in Canada because of the weather like that's for me like the least for me there's so many other

things like the work and the how I feel I'll put on I'll put on clo I'll build a fire I'll make it it's

okay yeah for me like can I live here how long can I stay the conditions like so many many other things so nature was

not a big I mean it's and besides also living in Ukraine in Lev in the west of

Ukraine it's super overcast for a long time so you do get used to that and stuff and and if you remember in my New

York days I was off on days off when it was like shitty weather so because that's when I couldn't work so I

developed some love also for me weatherman is like also genres of music you know sunny weather is like the pop

music everybody loves it top 100 charts hell yeah sunny weather any day I also love that that's mainstream that's good

stuff the Cloudy weather is like some kind of like deep house you know some ambient Tech house I don't know some

more undergrounds some more Niche genre you know and there's different like also

we're learning here in one of the parks there's different types of clouds man there is like the stratus the cumulus

like some are lower some are higher you know and uh I don't know you can become

the cloud expert like I don't know here I was a meteorologist in the Air Force so like yeah very familiar with uh with

cloud types and stuff and my my wife still does that so yeah Alto cumulus

standing lenticular clouds are bad for turbulence and you learn you learn a lot of these things dude exactly like we're

just flying and by the way coming back from South America to Europe we were flying through some hardcore clouds

there man because uh it was like like really shaking the whole airplane so yeah

anyways so I guess to kind of get things wrapped up here because I think we're

about two hours or so and I've got to jump at a certain point but yes yes of

course and I'm sorry I hope it's okay I thought you wanted to do one hour is it okay if it's two it was longer I don't care if it's four hours it's just that I

have a work meetings to go to no no of course and I also need to get some stuff done too but and we made it when we made

it full cycle we basically came to this point but yeah you were in so I mean

just in general like everything that you've been through gone through like this entire Journey that you've you up

to this point because you're not done writing the the book of Kyle misco is not over with but yeah you know like

what what's like a piece of advice or just like something that you would say would help someone else who's going

through difficult times you know what was what was really helpful is that um for me to know is

that like um is that I feel like maybe

again maybe it's all in my head maybe it doesn't happen but I feel like if we come back to that universe and that manifesting stuff like I feel like life

ultimately like if if there is a destiny like ultimately it it will it wants to

get you to that point where you like it wants to get you to the success like I don't know so like the things I dream about like uh like it wants to get you

there but the thing is that um it's so important like it sounds like

super cliche but actually like when it's very difficult it's actually very important to like kind of keep going because you do get the reward like and I

do feel like in life for whatever hardcore things happens like there is ultimately like the good the good times

are always coming up even if they're coming up a bit later on so I don't know

I feel like I feel like in life in general whatever like sensible goal you

set for yourself if you um just like continue persisting to to to get really

really really good at this it's like an inspiration figure for me at some point was maybe some people don't like this

guy but Gordon Ramsey and he inspired me in a way that uh not of course like he's

very of course extroverted and stuff but what I took out is that he's the master of both for example he's the master of

the kitchen and he's Master of the restaurant so he knows all of the he knows which knife to use for which kind

of meat he knows like which kind of food go so he knows very well the kitchen so in the music world that transliterates

into like really knowing your equipment and really knowing the genres and really having that proficiency like as a

professional like in that like uh composition or whatever it is or who

copy paste like any art over here like any anything and then second is he knew the restaurant so he knew like that it's

uh how much it cost the rental over there how much is the space who are the CL cents how many clients he can expect

in depending on which area how many which kind of clients will come in Cuban restaurant will do good here because

there is like I don't know a lot of uh people from Central America living here like whatever like understanding like

their the business of it so it's like so ultimately I think that's what you want like as a you want to like as a as a as

a person who is pursuing something you want to like understand both of those aspects like let's say the left side of

the brain and the right side of the brain the creative side and thech technical like so and then I feel like if you're like going and pursuing that

and then and you're really like even in the shitty moments like um keep keep

keep it going like um because that's when it's difficult because everybody wants to be there for Success you know

but nobody wants like what about the tough times you know like that's the real test like and actually the tough

times like the shitty times you're going to have like in your career like actually I believe they're like more

important than like the success because if you think about it like what can you ways learn on success like not so much

right you succeeded so you did everything well so there's not much to learn but like kind of like look at it in a way that like for sure like uh to

do what you really want to do and to make money on it like that's going to be a tough battle for sure like so of

course like you know that that battle like it's going to be a tough one but also like um yeah persistence I don't

know man and just just going in that direction and and uh trying to and and

trying to build your environment that also supports that like uh that's why I was explaining like the partner is very

important the partner super influences your perspective you know you visit a new place and your partner says oh what

a shitty place and you're like oh well it's kind of shitty or your partner says oh it's an amazing place and you're like yeah it's an amazing place you know so

like the partner very like very much you know influences that and then so so if

you are looking for that like you know understanding that friends super much matter again like if the friends are

just like uh chilling out and like it's good like you also want to chill out if they're like you know I've been like

working towards surrounding myself with like very like inspirational people U Tyler is also one of those people that

inspires me like and I want to like keep keep rolling also thanks to you man so it's like you actually super super much

helped me and support me like last year when it was also like that was a really tough time like leaving Ukraine and then

looking for a new home we lived in Montenegro because we couldn't stay in EU because anyways another [ __ ]

story so but then anyways like it it was it was really important then the friends and then yeah that job and then that

location I don't know so like now here like in London where I like specifically and in New York also and like that's

what I love personally about the big cities like not everybody can have their own thing but like for me it it

definitely inspires me seeing actually a lot of people doing very good like like I knowing I'm knowing people who are

like buying houses like in London or or in the area area and like and are

getting and I'm like okay okay I also want that I don't know so kind of going towards your goal and then while trying

to be mindful of those things I don't know nobody says that you have to like at some points in life you can only have

the job good and then not the other ones or just the location is good or the partner is great but the job sucks maybe

the job is great the partner is great the friends suck and the location suck maybe the location is amazing and everything else sucks so but I I don't

know like that's that that's really it's I think and then it will it will happen

and then the universe is like okay dude I see you putting the effort um I I

think it it it should work out but I don't know that's what do you think

Tyler I think that uh I mean everybody has a different path and a different way of looking at it but I mean your way of

your way of dealing with problems has obviously gotten you as far as you have I mean there's a lot of people from the

same town as you or the same backg or similar you know in a different place or whatever and me too who uh could be

faced with the exactly the same challenges and maybe succeed in a

completely different way or not uh make it yeah and yeah so what whatever it is

I mean to be like really General about it instead of like very specific advice like do this do this do this it should

be like I would say be open-minded and uh hopefully

believe that the you kind of started off your

piece of advice with something similar to this but like that when you're going through something that's really difficult right the reward or the payoff

is directly proportionate to the sacrifice that's not true in every

aspect of life but like overall it seems to be

H oh man you yeah I I'm with you also over there it's

and and one thing I will say that also helped me a lot that's the last thing I will add is that um about these two

aspects is like of course the persistence and stuff and keeping putting doing something about it not

only dreaming about it of course and doing many steps but also like I have to say what helped me lot a lot man is that

like I really love the life like I really really genuinely like super appreciate it and I got that from my

grandmother from my mother like directly because they are people who like really really loved life and since when I was a

kid I was like really as much as possible like appreciating like every single day uh because I know that for us

to like be born is like for us to be like even born here and to be on this like Earth and living it's like insane

[ __ ] chance honestly because for birth to happen in nine months it's like it's insane like so many things millions

of things have to happen and and I even kind of took a step further and I was like

[ __ ] like for us to live like the sun has to be in space and it has to be shining and then the Earth has to be

spinning all the time if it stops at least for a second and so many like chemical like nature elements like that

take for us to be alive and then you add on top of that layer of like the human existing meaning the heart has to beat I

remember when I was a kid and I realized the heart has to keep beating for like 80 90 years holy [ __ ] like and then like

of course then your organs I don't know start to wear out and stuff because you and it has to keep beating it has to

keep working you know so I'm like very very very grateful like uh to life and I

also realize that actually it's not so long because like the 70 years 80 years

like I in New York I actually made a couple of friends for like over 70 years old like I have a friend U he's like 75

and he lives in Czech Republic and he goes to uh like he does mountain climbing so I talk so many interesting

things with this guy with uh this guy from Croatia who was my landlord also he left in Yugoslavian war and he told me

with this guy from Armenia like I can remember like a couple of people like from older generation and I asked them

like guys what do you feel like you are now 60 years old like 70 years old how do you feel man and then he and they are

really nice uh people like we didn't have any like we were talking very open-mindedly and then uh it was not

like oh you're younger we are like you're above our league like they were very down to earth and um yeah they said

like one thing they said is like time do this like when you're 60 you're like [ __ ] I just have like 20 years I don't

know or like 30 years like and that feels like it's faster passing and you want to get more things done and stuff

and like and I realized that it is super super super precious and in my down

times when I can't find the fuel to keep persisting on something like on the path

like of the work I find my fuel like trying to remember that as much as I can like that those conversations I had with

them and that like a ual just like love for the life and and everything you know

every we breathe and that's incredible and uh the trees have to exist to give

oxygen you know and like so many things have to happen and um yeah man so that's

that's that's great and in Maine in in us I met a couple of like friendly spiritual friends also and we also

talked a lot about yeah that it's super rare and it's amazing to to live the life so yeah man that's is cool like

let's do it I don't know what is there like after life many universes whichever like there's many many ideas on what

happens after but the only thing and I don't care like some people are like oh this is Matrix this simulation you live in Matrix like for me it doesn't matter

for me Matrix simulation like all I know is that like I for sure got this life like this reality and if it's a matrix

or not Matrix we wake up in some other world like that is for me right for now is irrelevant because I don't know

what's over there and all I can do is just like make the best from what I have like right now in in in my life and I

just only know that I can like keep waking up like now I know my body is good I'll my heart like I hope fingers

cross everything keeps going and I can get to the old age and and then uh finish that cycle over there so that's

another thing Tyler yeah well that's awesome man I really appreciate all the

all the time and just hear hearing your story I hope that it inspires on so

let's just put it out into the world and see what happens [Music]

the song you are hearing is called the Perpetual beat machine by of course our

dear friend Kyle let's go uh I can't thank him enough for coming on the show and uh sharing his story it's been

something we've been talking about for a long time now we met at Gamescom Maybe

23 so quite a long time ago um and he he's just fantastic I was immediately

kind of enamored with like everything this dude had been through to get to where he is and uh hey if you're out

there and you're making a game and you're looking for a badass musician who can do a whole lot of different stuff to compose soundtracks for your game or

whatever uh his website is kyle.com and that link will be in the

episode notes I uh I can't thank y'all enough I want to I want to say thanks to all of our patreon supporters so to the

to the crew Shannon ant Michael Brad Fred dots um everybody out there who

just uh keeps on keeps on showing that love I support you uh and whatever you do as well man and of course our usual

theme song on this show at the at the top of the show and usually at this part but we replac it with Kyle today is by

John of the shred I definitely recommend you check him out and everything that Scythe de team does that I'm a huge fan

happy some burger Farm it's actually my first ever like official role in a video game I think so uh yeah that's always

going to be in my memories I uh I don't have anything else to say so I love you God love you stay

in the key

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