S1:EP13 Breaking Boundaries with Brian Sebastian Pt 1

Episode 13 • 12th December 2023 • Mindful Mutiny • Jeremy Van Wert

WEBVTT

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I'm with a couple of people which will be good.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, yeah, II think so, too. And

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Jeremy Van Wert: you know, these people that you're gonna have on. III would like to read their bios before II get in. So I kind of know who I'm in the room with and all of that.

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Brian Sebastian: Yeah, I'll send those to you at a time.

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Brian Sebastian: Actually, I'll send them to you after this.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Was what I sent to you write for what you need.

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Brian Sebastian: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was perfect

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Jeremy Van Wert: awesome.

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Brian Sebastian: Yeah. When we're doing a lot of stuff.

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Brian Sebastian: when I go in, and ISI submit all the shows, for, like iheart and spotify and stuff like that, they can, only they will only let me put 500 words in the description. So I have to like, edit everything out and every everybody's file. So I put what I can in there, so people will find them interesting.

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Brian Sebastian: Yeah, I mean, 5,000 for Youtube description.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, I I've I've found Chat Gpt to be incredibly helpful.

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Jeremy Van Wert: you haven't used that yet. Maybe I'll play with that one day. Oh, it's it's it's so helpful. It writes all my descriptions for me in that kind of high SEO sort of way.

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Jeremy Van Wert: okay, I'm going to count myself in and I

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Jeremy Van Wert: I sometimes read too quickly. And so my

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Jeremy Van Wert: I have to take a second shot at a bio. But I'm just gonna have a dialogue with my editor. Well in when I'm doing that, so

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Jeremy Van Wert: Alright, you ready to go.

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Brian Sebastian: I'm ready. Okay.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Hmm.

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Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4,

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Jeremy Van Wert: 3.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Welcome to the mindful mutiny. Podcast I'm, Jeremy Van Wert, CEO therapist and transformational coach helping. You get unstuck from burnout and stagnation on mindful mutiny. We thoughtfully rebel against everything that keeps you from achieving your highest potential.

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Please don't forget to subscribe to this. Podcast leave a review and make sure that you're supporting this podcast so that we can continue making excellent content for you today on mindful mutiny. What you're going to get

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is, I have a guest that is so incredibly special. He has worked himself up in the entertainment industry, doing incredible interviews with people you're going to learn about resilience. You're going to learn about not giving up. You're going to learn about overcoming all sorts of of things that are in your way, and roadblocks that are inside yourself and outside yourself.

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Jeremy Van Wert: I'd like to re I'm gonna start right from there, William

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Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.

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Jeremy Van Wert: I'd like to welcome. Our guest, Brian Sebastian, Brian Sebastian is the dynamic force of time, but one more time. William

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Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Brian Sebastian is the dynamic voice behind the famous podcast movie reviews. And more, please go check it out with a passion for entertainment. Brian has become a seasoned host, producer and dedicated his entire career to the world of movies, art, and culture

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Jeremy Van Wert: as the driving force behind movie reviews. And more, Brian brings a wealth of experience, insightful interviews, and infectious energy to his audience, join us in welcoming Brian Sebastian to the mindful mutiny, podcast Brian welcome to mindful mutiny.

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Brian Sebastian: hey? I'm glad to be here. So this has been fun. I've been waiting for this for years and years. You just didn't know.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, we met a really long time ago. And we're definitely gonna kind of get to that. It was an interesting meeting that sealed a couple of fates here. But I'm so glad that you joined us. Your podcast is huge, and I would like to just get into your life and and explore how you got to where you are. But can you take a moment and talk about movie

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reviews, and more where it is, how to get it and what you do there.

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Brian Sebastian: Well, the first thing I would say I always say this, because, you know, instead of 10 s, you should always be able to tell everybody what you could do in 10 s, because people have a 7 s attention span. And that's definitely true. And you will notice that's not 10. It's not 15. It's 7. So I always say this on Brian Sebastian movie reviews. More, one of the best TV ready outlets in the world with 20 million views in accounting

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Brian Sebastian: when I say that they hear either the best.

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Brian Sebastian: maybe remember my name, if not Sebastian, and then 20 million views. So I always start off with that. And it's one of those things where, how we got that ways by having our hand and everything, if that makes sense and depending on who I'm talking to.

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Brian Sebastian: And what state I may be in talking to that person, depending what the political aspects may be, because you never know. Everything is always important. And you don't wanna set certain people.

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Brian Sebastian: you know. I always say this, you start with certain people, and then you go from there, and it's one of those things where

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Brian Sebastian: I have to always start in this way with the drum core world starting at age 6, 7, 8 in Connecticut, watching the duel, the Drummond vigor, the new London surface walking through a if you can imagine this Jeremy walking through a cemetery at night.

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Brian Sebastian: because that was the shortcut to go see a drum core, the the surfers performing it would have taken me another 20 min to go around, and then they would finish at midnight, and then I would walk back to the cemetery

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Brian Sebastian: slowly, cause you still the kid, and you still like thinking you're not sure or anything like that at that point. But you don't want you don't want to see them. You're just like I'm going through here very softly. I just saw a a great core, and I'm like, maybe one day I can be in that, not knowing how. And then

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Brian Sebastian: definitely to my mom, my mom did 3 things she put me in. She put me in the drum core. She made me go to Europe. And there was one other thing that she did. Oh, she moved it to to east Line, Connecticut from one time. Are you talking about here. When is this that you're going back to here? This is the early seventies. So I have a pretty good memory. So it's one of those things where I'm thinking of things

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Brian Sebastian: going back to literally like 1968, 67. And I can remember those things, because in the world of Drummoor you're supposed to remember things. If someone says, play it like this, you're gonna play it like that. And you remember. And when you hear those old sound and records, as you know, you could still play those things like that. So it brings back memories. So if that makes sense. And at that point, I think that's why I have a good memory because of where you started people who left our impression on you, and you take it to the new aspect, this stuff. So this is in

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Brian Sebastian: New London, Waterford, Connecticut, at this point and mixed neighborhood a great neighborhood. We played every sport in there. We played with football, softball, football street hockey. My favorite baseball team was the red Sox that came in because either we gotta be a red Sox fan or Yankees fan, so God forbid you couldn't be a Yankees fan. So we became a red Sox fan.

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Brian Sebastian: So at that point you're talking. Call your Streamsky, Jim Rice, you know, you know everybody like that. So I never played baseball, because in summers I was marching in a drum corp.

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Brian Sebastian: So when you come to things like that, you start to learn a lot of things. And then in the mid, you know the late seventies, you know, I mean, yeah, I started working with the Coastguard Academy. So my first job I made 7 $50 an hour

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Brian Sebastian: when I think the minimum wage was 2 25, 2, 30 somewhere around there.

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Brian Sebastian: So also the Coastguard Academy was where the surface rehearsed. So we had the best facility indoor facility on the east coast. And we had. Yeah, we had. We use the Coastguard Academy. We used to go there every on Sunday's rehearsal, and then I ended up working there. So I imagine that what's the chances of that happening.

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Brian Sebastian: And as I'm thinking, back to these things, what is the chances of that happening working at the Coast Guard, but also being able to go to the facilities and perform there. Now, you can't get on a lot when when it comes to things like that, because the world has changed because of 9, 1 1.

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Brian Sebastian: But when you start putting those things together you don't take things for granted. We were always told that people had to wait until they could go outside. Well, we didn't have to go outside because they had a great indoor track

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Brian Sebastian: football field facility, which is huge

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Brian Sebastian: and so we could rehearse through all the time. And we were just we were okay, core. We weren't the best, but we always looked up to someone like the Vanguard or 27 Lancers on the East coast, or or the people like that. So at that point, you're looking at these things thinking, Oh, I wanna do this. And this is kinda where it goes to. I kinda knew where I was gonna move to before I knew I was gonna move there, based on where drum course

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Brian Sebastian: were placed.

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Brian Sebastian: I always thought I was gonna end up in Madison, Wisconsin, because of the scouts, or that I might end up in Denver only because at that year we went to Boulder, Colorado in 1977, and I loved it. But I thought about no, I'm not gonna stay in Colorado because of the winters.

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Brian Sebastian: And then, you know, as I'm getting on a plane halfway, I need to land it and went to Anaheim. II knew once I landed in California. I'm gonna I'm gonna live in California. This is a 1986 jumping ahead.

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Brian Sebastian: So at these things, you start to project what you wanna do where you might wanna do it if that makes sense. And that's how we learned in the world of German legal court. And then when you go to regular high school people like that. We're gonna go out and drink. I'm like, well, that doesn't sound like fun, as I'm in the parking lot listening to Drumcore records, you know, and then we had a band that they were terrible, and the band directors name was Fitzgerald. He didn't like people who are in Drumcore. He absolutely was one of those band directors that hated it.

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Brian Sebastian: And so

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Brian Sebastian: you know, mid, you know, at that point. This is this is 1977. As you're starting to age, you're starting. You're starting to travel. You are starting to like, oh, I love this. I like traveling now because of drunk court, not because of a family.

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Brian Sebastian: And I'm like, Wow, I can go more places with with my friends in a drum core than I can with my family. So I became a lot more independent if that makes sense, not knowing that. But you start to develop your independence. So when you go back to school, you're like. Oh, we went here, here and here, here! How did you do that? Well, within the London surface drum and bugle cord in London, Connecticut.

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Brian Sebastian: Oh, how do I do this? Oh, well, rehearsal start in 2 weeks because we started. We stopped Jeremy at Memorial Day. I mean a Labor Day weekend. That's when East Coast Finish, which is the same weekend that senior course would finish. We started Memorial Day, which is with the first show of the year, which was the weekend of May 2426, we had the very first show that started off drum course season. So you can see how my summers were built. If that makes sense.

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Brian Sebastian: So, as the season started to get shorter as time went on with drunk court well, I kept that season. My season starts Memorial day weekend it ends

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Brian Sebastian: the weekend that Dci ends. So when you got that mentality, you start to put everything in, and when you start to have a short window of you start to do things, you start to get good at what you're doing if that makes sense.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So you're really into this whole world of marching drummabel, goo, drama, bugle, core, and everything. And your

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traveling around and seeing these different groups and you start to, I'm assuming.

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Jeremy Van Wert: have a a real respect for the creation of art, and people who are are dedicating their lives to doing the creation of

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a a large artistic thing. And I didn't ask you about your family. You you was, was Drumcor, a place that you kind of went because it was a family that you were able to have? Was it? What? What was? What was the drum core connection for you that really filled your heart back when you were in Connecticut? And and you know, growing up

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Brian Sebastian: well at that time you had parades, so all drum course marched in parades. That's how you made money. You might make a hundred dollars in a parade, and I remember them saying that now $100 back then is is $100, which is a lot for a drum core. Well, not really, when you think about it, as you would have known later on. But it's one of those things where we did a lot of drum. Course, I mean a lot of parades. So that's how we got a lot of our money to go on tour. So my uncle's, you know, Dane, Sebastian

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Brian Sebastian: Dale Williams, which is interesting. We had 2 day away, which we had a white day wins and a black day, Williams no relation, and they were both in the Home Line. It was interesting, but it was one of those things where you you got a chance to know certain people. You start to follow me. And as a kid it's almost like if you played football, you looking up to the football players who are ahead of you. Oh, I wanna be sort of like this. Well, I didn't play football. I didn't play baseball

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Brian Sebastian: because the the timeframe of what we were doing. I was in in the band director. You know he didn't like us. So I'm like, this band is terrible. I can make this band better. But he was not interested in doing stuff. So someone's not interested in in making something better. And you came from something else better than a band. It's not gonna work, is it?

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Brian Sebastian: So you start to see, you know. Does he not know what's not working, that people don't like it? And when you have a first period in high school, and that's your band period. You're not gonna get it. Anything done.

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Brian Sebastian: So all of a sudden.

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Brian Sebastian: you know the late seventies, my mom moves us to East Line, Connecticut. So we went from a mixed neighborhood of playing all the sports outside to an all white neighborhood where no one played anything outside. So imagine that that starts to play with you, because all of a sudden we're all the kids. Well, and then they're being driven to school where I came from. You didn't drive your kids to school. Everybody took a school bus. So you walk to school.

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Brian Sebastian: So that was interesting to me. So you I'm starting to get 2 different worlds. At that point one mixed one all white.

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Brian Sebastian: however.

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Brian Sebastian: the White School, East Lime, Connecticut, which I love. Till this day that band Director Don Mctavish, loved Drumcore.

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Brian Sebastian: He allowed me to do stuff that I shouldn't have been doing. He goes, Brian, we are. Our school colors are marine and gold are marine and gold. Well, Garfield cadets.

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Brian Sebastian: we could have those uniforms. Did you know we have the Garfield cadets uniforms, because that was the school colors. So he let me do that. We played.

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Brian Sebastian: The twenty-seventh glances Drumcore Street beat, and in London Surface Street beat Bobby Craig, one of the best drummers out there. You play with the polis falcons? He marched Tom Brown, who ended up going to Santa Clara Vanguard see the connection on things. Didn't know that 2 years later. So when you have those things like that, he was that that black percussionist

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Brian Sebastian: who ended up making the Polish Falcon cadets who missed finals in 1974, that good. So you, when you got someone who's that good and it's a person of color who you never knew who was really that good you start to see things in a different way, and when you start to travel you start to see who you got the South, where it's not so friendly to our person of color, but your band in that drum core. And then, when you go to an all white school from the mix school, the mix school. The band director didn't care. Hate a drum core. The all white school band director loved Drumcore

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Brian Sebastian: so I could have been all screwed up. If you see where I'm coming from, but because of Don Mctavish.

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Brian Sebastian: and he would take the best kids in Connecticut to to Europe 5 years in a row in the summers.

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Brian Sebastian: So when I stop marching, not due to me is just, you know, II stopped because I didn't see the core get anybody and all that good kids went to the Twenty-seventh Lancers to Madison Scouts beyond Bridgeman North Star. And at that point you start to say, Oh, okay.

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Brian Sebastian: I'm gonna go start the travel around on my own to see drum course, not playing baseball in the summer, not doing family stuff, but seeing the old family one day graduate. Cause, you know, you know, when you graduate you're 21. That's like, Oh, I can't march anymore. What do I do? Is the end of the world for you sometimes.

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Brian Sebastian: What do you do? Well, some people go to college, and at that point I picked the places where I wanted to go to college. So as I was going to Manchester Community College, because I knew I was gonna be a Dj, that's the only thing I knew. If I stayed in Waterford, Connecticut, I for certain that I would have ended up

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Brian Sebastian: in prison or jail because there was nothing to inspire me there. There was no music thing there. I didn't know how to read music.

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Brian Sebastian: so that music director wasn't gonna teach me. I don't even think he liked me because I marched in Drumcore, and that's all I did was I love jumping mute core? That's that was my inspiration. If that makes sense. So when you have that inspiration, as you know, you take that with you to what you're doing. So you got your own discipline. You travel more places, and people have even thought about, even with their family. By 1980, when I graduated East Lime High School, I had been to

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Brian Sebastian: 23 States in 4 countries at that point. Now, when you think back to that without their family.

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Brian Sebastian: So that puts you in a more kinda echelon of things. And then I started traveling on my own. I would drive up to Massachusetts in my rickety car to see the CIO show, and I would bring kids with me. I would go roller skating. That was the only thing I did outside the drunk core activity. And then people started coming with me to go roller skating. So I started to bring them all. So I was designated driver. I wasn't that person who drank on weekends that was boring to me.

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Brian Sebastian: Let's go get a keg and do what? Sit around a tree and drink that was not exciting to me, and I saw them getting drunk and stuff like that. I'm like that is an interest to me. So when you have that again, going back to that drum core. Mind, I'm like, you know what you don't. Wanna do you know what you wanna do

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Brian Sebastian: so. I knew I wanted to be a disc jockey. This is one rep is coming. In 1979,

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Brian Sebastian: Stockholm. They started to have a sock hop, and I said, I'm buying albums, because my in my, you know, when I was working I spent all my money on buying albums. I would buy albums every week. So at that point you're in the Disco age, the late eighties early, you know, I mean late seventies.

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Brian Sebastian: So at that point that was my only out that I like to do.

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Brian Sebastian: and I couldn't think of anything else. I wasn't gonna be a basketball player I thought of for a minute, but I'm like, I don't think I'll do that. So for me, going to the all white High School, East Lime, Connecticut, East lime high with a maroon and gold colors of Garfield cadets. You know. He let me do the drum solo. So the drum solo is 1975 clocks

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Brian Sebastian: that we played in 79, and 80. Our our color guard, who we march with his name was Bobby and Jeff. They came from Twenty-seventh Lancers, but they were with London surface. So the people I marched with ended up. The last 2 years of my graduation at the All White High School ended up being our instructors. Imagine that. So it's like being reun reunited with friends. Gary Rupcinsky, who played xylophone with us, who came from Waterford, who graduated 4 years before. 3 years before I did.

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Brian Sebastian: He came to be our instructor. So in 1,980, when I graduated we had the best band in Connecticut.

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Brian Sebastian: We played everybody, from the Bridgman to the vanguard, to the cadets, to 27 glances. We played all of their stuff.

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Brian Sebastian: and so at that point I knew I was given freedom at the White School that I had that I didn't have at the mix school.

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Brian Sebastian: So see the difference. So when you start to get that as you're graduating and you don't go out and do drums, you don't drink, and all I did was buy records and go roller skating and listen to drum core. I set my sights on what I wanted to do, so I wanted to do communications, and as that point I'm getting into going into the high school, I mean the college where I wanted to go.

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Brian Sebastian: I knew I didn't want to take sats. I did not take sats. I didn't believe in them.

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Brian Sebastian: I it made absolutely no sense to me as a sophomore. How you could study for sat, and then hope to get into school, so you could see. Now, if you think about SAT. So really not worth it. But at that point, oh, you gotta take these to get into the college that you need to get into.

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Brian Sebastian: Well, I'm like, who says so. My mind was thinking opposite via in a different way. So I got into a Community college class.

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Brian Sebastian: Manchester Community College, going to Central Connecticut State

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Brian Sebastian: at that point Central Central State was before came, became became a university, was known as the number one party school. Well, I wasn't going there to party. I was going there because they had a good communications class.

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Brian Sebastian: and then I wanted to break into radio some kind of strange way, not knowing how, because no one told me.

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Brian Sebastian: And then the interesting thing was I learned from the Guidance counselor because I wasn't taking general modes. Classes like math and stuff like that. I'm like, I don't need math to be a Dj. And I didn't

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Brian Sebastian: they? But the general, the guidance counselor said, you need to take your general own classes and don't worry about getting that job, cause I was going out to get a job at Merv Griffin Station in New Britain, Connecticut. He goes like this. Don't worry about it. You're not gonna get that job. This is a guidance counselor told me that. Do you know he was wrong? I ended up getting that job.

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Brian Sebastian: So that's 2 things right there. That band director that didn't like drunkor, the one drunk band director that loved Drumcore, who inspired me just to have my freedom. If that made sense to do what I wanted to do and going from there. So I started to develop my independence, not knowing about that. So when you're not taking family trips, but you're taking trips with the drunk core. You're bonding with your members and friends like that. You learn to grow in a different way. So III chalk it up to like the animal kingdom.

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Brian Sebastian: your birth. And then the mom lets you go out on your own, and you do your thing. So when I started traveling on my own. That's how I kind of looked about that. I didn't have that family education. I was never told that I was loved, but I knew that I was liked in Drumcore. If that makes sense.

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Brian Sebastian: So I should develop these things. It's almost kind of like how I how I grew up on my own, even though I really didn't, grew up on my own. If that makes sense

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Jeremy Van Wert: well, right. And and you you get them into doing the Dj thing. So where was your first Dj. Gig

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Brian Sebastian: a sock off at high school on a Friday night after the and you know what I said. If I've got the Dj outs already, and I was buying everything, and I was being exposed. I already knew motown and drunk, core and stuff like that, and I knew some rock like my brother, for whatever reason, loved kiss.

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Brian Sebastian: and I remember it being he was a little kid, and for whatever reason we would play the kiss. Live in Detroit all over on those big, huge stereos. So if he liked, kiss.

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Brian Sebastian: I like kiss. And then I started to get into a little bit more so if I when I'm on the whites because I'm listening to sticks Kansas stones, Jeffrey Rotel, everybody like that. And at that point I started to mix it with Richard Pryor, with yes, lo! Owner of a lonely heart, as Richard Pryor is talking, giving his comedy in the background, I said, if I can do this, I'm gonna volunteer to be the Dj. And I did. And I said, How bad would it be if I'm not the Dj.

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Brian Sebastian: And I'm the black guy with all the albums in a white school. So I jumped at and had it, and I had my own equipment. I brought my stuff in. And it was okay. It wasn't what it needed to be, but it worked. And people like the music that I was playing. And I said, if they like what I'm playing, and I'm playing it for them, cause I know their tastes. Then it was working so at that point I kinda now that I'm thinking about it, I got a chance to understand.

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Brian Sebastian: Get the people what they want, and they will come back more if that makes sense.

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Jeremy Van Wert: And do you decide at this point that with your communications and with

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the Djing and everything like that, that you wanted to get into

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Brian Sebastian: doing like radio Dj work and and interviews like, how did this come to be that you decided I wanna do. It was definitely Miss Music. All you wanna do is just play the music at that point, but you gotta get in. Well, how do you get in? Well, at that point I don't know. If you remember this Columbia School of broadcasting. You ever hear that name before where you would pay like literally $1,400 to go

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Brian Sebastian: make a tape and all that stuff, and supposedly you would get a job because you graduated from that. Well, I think it was a racket. I know it was a racket, because someone but that that they and they would say, guarantee you a job at a radio station in the somewhere in the country.

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Brian Sebastian: Well, I don't know of anybody who did it. I knew people who are paying, but I don't know of anybody who got that because you only had 9 spots.

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Brian Sebastian: You had morning.

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Brian Sebastian: You had, you know, 10 to 2 you had 2 to 6, 6 to 1010 to midnight, that kind of thing, and then sometimes depending where you were. If you didn't have someone to playing the tapes overnight, and I did that up North Griffin Station.

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Brian Sebastian: that's not a lot of spots, and then you might have one or 2 people to fill in. So that's not a lot of people. And I think you know.

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Brian Sebastian: let's say there was 1,400 radio stations in the country.

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Brian Sebastian: That's not a lot, you know, when you think about it. or see the 1,400 to 14,001 or 2. But I mean that number still, not a lot. So in radio when you move up market the market. So in Connecticut we're in market 39 or 36, one of the 2,

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Brian Sebastian: and at that point I knew I didn't want to go to New York. I wasn't interested in going to New York. All I saw was problems with New York, whether it was you know, weather conditions or whatever. That's all I knew.

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Brian Sebastian: But I did know I wanted to go cross country, and I and like I said, the only reason I didn't settle in Denver was because of snow. I didn't wanna have my friends come see me cause they would see me and being trapped in Denver in the snow. It's snow storm. I knew nothing was having weird winters then, but I love being in the Midwest, because, me being close to Madison, I'm like, Okay, do I wanna go here? And I knew I did not wanna go to Massachusetts because Massachusetts in Boston was having.

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Brian Sebastian: They were having problems when it came to. They would have some race wars there, because things were segregated.

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Brian Sebastian: and South Boston and things like that. So I didn't wanna go and live in Massachusetts and not be light whatever. But I did like the Lancers, but II knew if I went there I was gonna stay there, and I knew that.

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Brian Sebastian: So as I was in Connecticut, getting hired at the at the in the Merv Griffin station, which was news radio 14 in New Britain, Connecticut.

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Brian Sebastian: And it was one of those things where I'm I finally get to Central College through the back door, going to Manchester Community College, driving up every every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in my car would break down Tuesday, Thursday, just like a a drum core bus would break down. You learn on how to fix it on the off days and get ready for the days you need to go to school, which is an hour away.

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Brian Sebastian: and then I would drive back. So I drive up, and I drive back that same day sort of like being in Drum Court. You go to the show, do the show. After that you're going back home. So I worked on those things, and I used to get into the rhythm I'm like, Oh, I might go to Central Connecticut because all my kids, one of my friends, are going there.

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Brian Sebastian: or else you went to the University of Connecticut, but they called it Connecticut High School, because everybody wanted to go to Uconn. I did not want to go there, and I didn't see a good communications class there. So why would I want to go there and stores.

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Brian Sebastian: you know, and you know they had. Their van was terrible. Their football team was terrible. The basketball was. Team was terrible. Now their basketball team is always great men's and women's now. But back then they they were terrible.

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Brian Sebastian: So at that point, I'm like, Okay, what do I wanna live? Well, I've been to most of the States seeing drum. Course, I wanted to be near a drunk core, so I just didn't know how to get there. So being in radio in the early eighties.

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Brian Sebastian: I'm like, okay, how do I make a tape cause you have to make a tape

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Brian Sebastian: you know a 2 min tape just not the music just showing your voice, checking if they like you or not. Now I didn't sound black, so I knew I could get away with a lot of stuff. But I also know when I'm working at more of difference news radio 14. I was interviewing people on a real, the real tape. So I got a chance to talk to Gail King at this point. No one knows who's Gail King is now, you know, you know, as Oprah's best friend, or being on Cbs. Now.

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Brian Sebastian: But then she's on Channel 7 ABC.

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Brian Sebastian: In Connecticut, and then I'm talking to our senators. I'm talking to everybody who's in a power position, and I'm tape recording them and just learning the spice reel, the wheel tape, and I love that. So I was a desk assistant.

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Brian Sebastian: and but you know you got paid terrible because you're just breaking in. You're just happy to be working at a radio station. So over at night

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Brian Sebastian: I had the weirdest position hours ever

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Brian Sebastian: it was from 10 to 6 in the morning.

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Brian Sebastian: You can imagine that on a Saturday night II did it for 3 years. I only missed 3 nights, cause I checked so much, but it gave me a chance to listen to Larry. King. Larry King was on mutual radio at that point. So before I met Larry, I you know I'm meeting all these people I'm like, Oh, he's huge, I mean, how did how did he start? Because there was no Internet then?

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Brian Sebastian: And there's no way to find these people. And you're working from Griffin. So it's news radio. So I wanna get into real radio. So no one breaks them through news radio getting into top 40. That's not how it works. You're going into news and sports because you wanna go into news and sports. I wanted to do the opposite. I went in backwards again, the back door getting into radio, getting in the top. 40 kiss FM.

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:: 29:39

Brian Sebastian: Kiss FM. In Harvard, Connecticut. There's a bunch of kisses around

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:: 29:43

Brian Sebastian: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and I think there's one or 2 more. But it's one of those things where once you get on that everybody knows a kiss, and it's a huge station at that point.

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Brian Sebastian: but you gotta make a date. So to get people making the tapes, they might be getting 50 to a hundred on air air checks is what they call them a week. You might get that a day. If you're in the major cities. How are you? Gonna listen to all this stuff? The answer is, you're not.

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Brian Sebastian: If you know that voice doesn't capture and win the first 10 s. You're not gonna get heard by anybody you know what I mean.

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Brian Sebastian: So at that point I ended going into volunteering a strange way through Jeremy Sandwich, and he worked from 5 to 10 in the morning. 5. Wait. 5, 6, 79. No. He works from 5 to 9 in the morning. Now getting up, going from morning drive. It's cold on the east coast, and at that point do you want to get up when it's snowing and it's freezing? Well, I did cause I wanted to break in some kind of way. You know, you're young. You don't know any better

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Brian Sebastian: drum, core mentality. I'm gonna get in some kind of way. I'm gonna get in. So a lot of it was visualization and determination in your mind. No one to help you cause. People don't understand what you wanna do.

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Brian Sebastian: So it's one of those things where? Okay, thank goodness, from the drum core background and the determination. And just get it done

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Brian Sebastian: kind of worked ethic. And I just know I'm gonna get there, no matter where I'm gonna be. I'm gonna get there. So that drive was always there for me to do those things. If that makes sense.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, it. It does make sense. And you and you're you're in these early stages. And you're doing whatever it takes the volunteering.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, yeah, you're you're you're you're spearheading this just by yourself. So you know, as as you move on, when do the doors start opening, you start making friends, you start making these relationships in the industry. These doors start opening. Talk about how that went.

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Brian Sebastian: Well, you know, as you're as you're asking me, these things, Flashback starts to come in well, in Connecticut, which is interesting, which is a great state to grow up, but still segregated in different ways. You know. Now you're in the early eighties.

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Brian Sebastian: You know the I'm I'm talking 82, 83, and at that point I was driving back and forth. I'm still at the Coastguard Academy, but I'm driving furthest on a bad car. I had the Delta 88 ultra, a gas scheduler, and I could barely put $20 of gas, and that was like I would rather use that album.

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Brian Sebastian: Well, that, too, and they suck gas, and it was always breaking down because it was my, my, my was my mom's old car. She got a Cadillac. I got her hand me down. I was just happy to have a car, you know.

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Brian Sebastian: so it was one of those things where, instead of going to Europe in 1980,

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Brian Sebastian: I go, mom, can I get a car instead? I knew I wanted to go to Europe. But I also knew when I got back I was gonna have a car. So I'm like, I'll take the car instead of going to Europe, she goes. No, you're gonna go to Europe instead.

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Brian Sebastian: I want you to go experience that. So it was one of the best things I ever did. You know, that was the third thing that my mom did

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Brian Sebastian: first thing, putting me in a drum core. Second thing, moving to east line, Connecticut, to make a better call. Moving on up to Jefferson's. We moved on up, and it was one of those things like that. Once you move to the neighborhood, to other neighbors moved out, because in Black family moved in.

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Brian Sebastian: and at that point you start to see things differently. You start to hear things. And then at that point.

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Brian Sebastian: having the rickety car but going to Europe instead. So again, knowing how to travel, I was like, Wow, as kids were getting homesick, I was like, What are you homesick about? Enjoy it? You may never come to Europe again. You're you're here by yourself and like, Oh, I wanna go home. I'm like, Go home. You're in Europe. Look at the castles. We want the 23 castles, Jeremy, and 3 and a half in that.

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Brian Sebastian: So when you're doing all these things. You're seeing things in a different way. I'm out there by myself. I don't. I'm not through a family by myself. So I learned a lot of things. you know. If I don't do it, it's not gonna get done, and then there's no one to help you to do it, because people didn't understand. Well, you want to be a disc jockey.

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Brian Sebastian: Yeah, I want to be on the end. I want to play music at a radio station that doesn't make sense to people

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:: 33:53

Brian Sebastian: it. It just doesn't. What's everybody doing these days? They're doing a, podcast they're doing it, whether we hear that there is no difference. You can play music or you could talk. It's the same thing

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Brian Sebastian: when you think about it. Right?

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Jeremy Van Wert: Well, it most certainly is. And II just love the democratization of the ability to produce something and see if it catches on and see if it goes somewhere, which is obviously what you have done. And so you know your your.

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Jeremy Van Wert: you're in the early part of this, and you're continuing to follow a path that isn't necessarily traditional.

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Brian Sebastian: Going into a job that has, you know. You go and you get your college diploma, and you go get the job that that gives you that sort of regular paycheck and everything like that. You're going in a really interesting route. And you're going against the grain. You're going in. Yeah, this point. You're always saying you gotta. You gotta graduate high school. So you can go to college to get a good education to get the job that you want. Yeah. Now.

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Brian Sebastian: I always knew this, because when you took out those loans I took out one loan at at that point you had a $2,500. The government took $200, $200 attached. You had 23. Everybody want to go buy a new car. They went on a trip. I said.

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Brian Sebastian: you gonna have to pay that back. Oh, you don't have to worry about that. We're gonna have fun. We got free money that's not free money. It's a loan. You gotta pay it back. So I took $1,500,

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Brian Sebastian: the pay off my bills on my car because my car kept breaking down, and then I needed to get an apartment. I didn't stay in dorms. I didn't want to stay in the dorms. I wanted to stay in an apartment, so an apartment at that point was $1,200 12 to $1,500 for the year, if that makes sense. That was still a lot of money

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:: 35:39

Brian Sebastian: back there, and you had to pay it all at once. So the money that I had went towards that and I'm just getting into college at that point, living off campus, and I didn't have. I didn't necessarily have a car because my car was breaking down.

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:: 35:52

Brian Sebastian: So you know what. So I put it all into the apartment.

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Brian Sebastian: So when you're doing these things and I'm not, and I'm not working at the coastguard anymore. So that month that lot of money that I was making is not there, cause you gotta get a you gotta get a job when you're in college some kind of way when you're off campus, you know, and that's not the easy thing. So when I'm at the the radio station there, well, anything that I had was whatever. So it's not like I was going out parting, because I never really did any of that stuff. I didn't do that

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Brian Sebastian: when I had the free time I was buying album still, and I was listening to Drumcorn music, and then I had a, you know, kind of like my first girlfriend at that point, which was interesting.

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Brian Sebastian: And then at that point, you know. Oh, you gotta start paying for things. You gotta go out as 2 people. I'm used to going out by myself and just being like. Oh, you may not have enough money at this point to do 2 things for 2 people I'm like, Oh, you gotta think a different way.

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:: 36:44

Brian Sebastian: How do you do this? Do I buy? I can't be buying albums if she wants to go out and have a drink, and she like to drink and like, oh, this is expensive. You start to learn a lot of things here and there, cause. Remember, I'm not going out to drink.

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Brian Sebastian: I'm going out, you know I'm in martial arts at that point, and I'm I'm still listening, buying drum core albums when they come out. I'm going to drum core shows. That's where my money went not to go out and get drunk like everybody else, did I? So I was never that guy. If that makes sense.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So you start dating somebody here. And did this lead you to? Kind of a next stage in your life, or.

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Brian Sebastian: yeah, it took me. It told me it taught me again, you know, about segregation and

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Brian Sebastian: going to certain nightclubs things that you weren't supposed to do, because you, you know, and I never looked at it this way, the color of your skin.

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Brian Sebastian: Just because I was a disc jockey. They would let me, and I was good. They would let me go into the clubs, and they were white clubs, but they weren't let anybody else of color in, they would say, oh, you can't! You know your shoes? You're not wearing the right shoes, or it's a private club, or it's a membership. I remember them saying those things. And then I just remember looking out there. I'm like, Wow, this is just me, I understand. But you didn't really get the dish. You just happy to get that job. I'm I'm playing albums in a club

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Brian Sebastian: but you know it was just temporary, because they may not have wanted you. They may have wanted the white disc jockey instead. So you you doing everything to stay in? So how do you stay in? Is that dedication staying up, getting people on the dance floor? How many people are gonna come that night to the club. You didn't control that stuff, but you could. You could control them on the dance floor. And at the same time, if you did a sock off, you know, going back to high school. It was about keeping those kids on playing the music that they wanted to dance with.

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Brian Sebastian: If you think about this led Zeppelin was the song that everybody dance to stay away to heaven. Well, you know that's 7 to 12 min long. So what they love dancing to it, and for like 4 years real, everybody love. The best song was

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Brian Sebastian: Stairway to heaven. No, it wasn't. There was other better songs out there, you know. They just didn't know. So I was playing

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Brian Sebastian: other songs that they may not have heard of before. and I wasn't into James Taylor or

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:: 38:54

not Linda Rods that, but more like Crosby. Still a Nash. I wasn't into them at that point, and Neil Young.

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Brian Sebastian: years later I got into them.

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Brian Sebastian: Once I met them, and I got a chance to to talk about that. I would get into there. You go back and listen to the lyrics as a disc jockey. You listen to the beat at that point. Women always listen to the lyrics, and I thought that was interesting. And how did I know that cause all these girls, when I finally get in getting go getting finally getting into kiss? FM. And I'm taking requests. I'm not on the air, but I'm taking requests and filling out what they wanna hear. The girls would always say this, oh, you sound so cute! What do you look like, and I never told them what I look like.

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:: 39:33

Brian Sebastian: I would always say, what do I sound like? Because I didn't sound black.

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:: 39:37

Brian Sebastian: and they would also. Oh, you sound like you have blond hair and blue eyes. So at that point you're not gonna ruin their fantasy. I'm not saying no. You really talking to a black guy. I know I'm not gonna say that. So that's when you learn to give the people what they want again.

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:: 39:53

Brian Sebastian: And for for this jockeys, if you remember. You never knew what they look like when you listen to them on the air. You're thinking that they're great looking guys. Well, and they would always say, Hey, we have a face for radio at that point, if you remember that slogan.

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:: 40:06

Jeremy Van Wert: So when you would see them, you're like, Oh, he doesn't look like how he sounds.

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:: 40:10

Brian Sebastian: and there was very, very few women there. So that was a rarity. And then so, as I'm in that first Job Merv Griffin, getting ready to get into kiss of him. I was working at Dunkin donuts. So I was working 3 jobs at 1 point. Actually.

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:: 40:25

Brian Sebastian: I was working at the Merv Griffin station from 12 to 6,

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:: 40:30

Brian Sebastian: and then, as soon as I left there, I would get the 70'clock, 7 to 11, or sometimes 7 to midnight

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:: 40:36

Brian Sebastian: dunkin donuts, and then sometimes I would work at Ups on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday loading and unloading trucks.

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Brian Sebastian: And that's how I made a lot of money to buy my real first car. This is getting into 1985 at that point.

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Brian Sebastian: And at that point, you know, once you get that first car, you achieve your goal. But that's when you learn. At that point I just remember the guy. Say, Oh, it's gonna be 2, $215 a month for your for your car payment, and I got a new card, Jimmy, with a Crs. X white car only 3 miles on it. Imagine that 3 miles. And I said, Wow, so at that point you're like thinking, oh, I can afford this. But you start to ease up because you achieve your goal.

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Brian Sebastian: That's when I learned that you can never ease up, because when you ease up, things start to catch up to you. At that point

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:: 41:27

Brian Sebastian: you're starting to get your credit cards, whether it's the Sears or Jp. Credit card at that point, all of a sudden you're spending because it's credit card. And I just remember my mom saying, remember, you gotta pay that off every month. I'm like, Yeah, I got money coming in, am I thinking, Yeah, I really don't have a lot of money, cause you don't wanna hear from your parents. You know what I mean.

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:: 41:47

Brian Sebastian: of course, and as and as I'm still traveling, cause I remember I'm still buying records. I'm still going to Drumcore shows, and there was a lot of them at that point. I didn't want to miss them. I went to everyone that I could physically get to.

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:: 42:00

Brian Sebastian: That's how I remember those days at that point.

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:: 42:03

Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And did you really feel like getting into kiss? Was the beginning in your big break?

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:: 42:11

Brian Sebastian: No, it wasn't that. It was definitely knowing the music that people were listening to. And now, because look where kiss is now, did I think I was gonna meet Jean Simmons or Paul Stanley, or anybody like that? No.

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:: 42:24

Brian Sebastian: no, you have. You're not thinking like that. You're just thinking, oh, getting into these things and and then going so going back to.

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:: 42:33

Brian Sebastian: you know, to East Lime High School, my first concert I got kidnapped on my birthday. My friends kidnapped me, and they say they thought this would be fun. So they kidnap me, you know. Hartford Civic Center was an hour and 15 min away from East line.

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:: 42:47

Brian Sebastian: With no traffic, you know, but ours. That's like a long way, you're thinking. But we these days is ours. Nothing. But then you're like that's long ways away, you know. They kidnap me and took me to my first concert. It's Ted Nugent.

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:: 43:01

Brian Sebastian: I'm like, who's this guy on a stage swinging with a loincloth with a rope? The great white buffalo and cat scratch fever

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:: 43:10

Brian Sebastian: which I still like to this day.

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:: 43:12

Brian Sebastian: and I was like, I'm looking around it sold out. It's like 20,000 people there, and I'm the only black guy there. So now I'm used to this. But you started to. You start to notice these things in a different way, because.

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:: 43:26

Brian Sebastian: no matter what some places you couldn't go to. If you. It's like, if you walk down a dark alley

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:: 43:32

Brian Sebastian: you still have to be careful. You're walking down a dark alley, no matter who you may be, you just know. Don't know who's there. Someone may jump you so for me, being in that you always had to be careful, because, remember, I'm always traveling by myself, and my friends treated me like I was white because I didn't act black. II didn't grow up that way.

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:: 43:49

Brian Sebastian: so I was always one of them, and everybody knew who I was in town, because when you got a town of 7,000 I heard at that point, and you only had 3 black families or 5 that my friend told me about not too long ago. There's really 5, Brian, not 3, I'm like I went by. My, what? My mom said.

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:: 44:05

Brian Sebastian: you know, you know, when you are that person of color, how many other people of color there are in that tab, you know.

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:: 44:11

Brian Sebastian: So when you're learning these things, you have to still be careful, because at that point you had the Kuplex plan. You had the American Nazis and they didn't like you, and they didn't like anybody who was Jewish. So those things stick out and you learn a lot of things when you went on tour, going back to Drumcore. So these things as you're traveling around as I'm doing these things, these things are always in the back of your mind. You still have to always be careful.

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:: 44:34

Brian Sebastian: But you're still going for your goals. Now, I'm not thinking ever of my my skin color, because that's that's not how I ever thought about it. It's just like I'm going to get that great job that I know I can get, that I will be the best at because of that drum core mentality.

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:: 44:48

Jeremy Van Wert: Right? Right? And you you keep pushing. You keep going forward. What? What are things like towards the late eighties and early nineties.

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:: 44:57

Brian Sebastian: Well, it was August of 1986, and at that point I think I think finals are in Wisconsin and Madison. and I just remember going back saying, This is this is my last tour on the East coast. In my mind

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:: 45:14

Brian Sebastian: I I'm not going to be at the radio station because I was at Murph. Different Wpl in New Britain, Connecticut. for 3 years at that point.

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:: 45:22

Brian Sebastian: And at that point, okay, it's time to move on. I'm not getting a raise when you get a 25 cent raise, and you're not making a lot. You can't survive off to that. And I just remember telling me, Brian, hey, Brian, you're in this market. You only move up by market to market, so I gotta get to a bigger market. How do I do that? Well, you gotta make a air check. Okay, how do you do it? Air check. Well, when I was overnight and Mercen, I started to make air checks, because on the hour

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:: 45:48

Brian Sebastian: I would say, Hey, this is Brian Sebastian. You listen to Wp. And the time is whatever. So I could take that little bit of that cause. I was actually on the air at that, and make something into that. And then I would. There was other things I could just think so. I had plenty of time to do that, because on the mute news feed and Saturday nights there wasn't really any news unless

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:: 46:08

Brian Sebastian: you know, something was happening in Europe, or something like that. No one, no one worked those hours from 10 Pm. To 6 am. In the morning, but I liked it because it gave me a time to actually put together a tape. If I hadn't worked that there's no way I could have made a tape.

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:: 46:24

Brian Sebastian: You couldn't make it during that. You don't make an air check when you're working at the station, because if you do, they know you're getting ready to leave, and they're going to get rid of you because there's other people wanting to come in.

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:: 46:34

Brian Sebastian: And so when you're seeing these things like that, you're like, Oh, this is how you do it! And then you just start to figure it out again, no one helping you to figure it out.

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:: 46:45

Jeremy Van Wert: And and you you're so you're still. You're still going here, and you're

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:: 46:50

Jeremy Van Wert: you know. Kind of going along with the army. Are you moved? Did you move to the West Coast.

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:: 46:55

Brian Sebastian: Not yet, but I knew at 19 August of 1986. After that drum course show I knew it was time to move. I knew it was time to leave Connecticut. Now that didn't give me a lot of time, because when I leave, it's January of 1987, it's January. So it's January 67. It's January eighteenth, 1987, that I'm on a plane

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:: 47:17

Brian Sebastian: at Bradley International Airport, and I think it's like.

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:: 47:21

Brian Sebastian: well, Bradley's in Hartford. But II left out of Rhode Island because I couldn't get out because it was a snowstorm, and I'm I'm fine. One way to California. All I know is I'm going to westward where Ucla was, because one of my friends who I drum with I call them Captain Cos cause his his dad was a captain at the Coastguard Academy is Dave Cos, and he's there, and so

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:: 47:43

Brian Sebastian: d can I stay with you for a week and then cause my goal was I was, gonna get to California one way I took a hundred $25 and change with me. I got rid of everything, and then I'm gonna work my way up to Walnut Creek. I wanted to be close to Vanguard, that's all. I knew. I didn't know anybody up there. Nothing. I didn't know where I was gonna go had never been there before.

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:: 48:04

Brian Sebastian: but some kind of way I was, gonna get there. Well, the universe fake. God had different stories. I never ended up going to Northern California. I stayed in Los Angeles, because at that point

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:: 48:15

Brian Sebastian: it's power 106, which is a new station in Los Angeles

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:: 48:18

Brian Sebastian: starting to be kiss FM. Ricky's in Los Angeles. Now, Los Angeles market number 2, and I'm like, Oh, I can get over there. They're playing some good music, and these these disc jockeys, I can tell mutual Morales. Well, mutual Morales, I know he's not white, and you know, Brenda Ross, I had no idea she was black until I walked in there. She food, even me. She was good.

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:: 48:42

Brian Sebastian: And then you had Jay Thomas in the morning power, Mal Patty, and then someone else, and Jay goes on to be on

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:: 48:49

Brian Sebastian: Cbs show with a bunch of people he was. He was good, really, really nice guy. So and then I got a chance to find my way over there and promotions and Pr, and that's how I get it through the back door, and I would always say, once you're in there, once you're in, you could start talking to people. Well.

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:: 49:08

Brian Sebastian: the the program director didn't take me seriously, because I didn't come in as a Dj. Came in as promotions through marketing. So we go out hand out flyers. I would drive the power 106 fan. And at that same time

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:: 49:20

Brian Sebastian: I start getting a job. Imagine this.

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:: 49:23

Brian Sebastian: I'm on the air taking phone calls like I was doing at Kissed family, Connecticut for my friend Brenda Ross.

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:: 49:30

Brian Sebastian: who ended up being very, very nice woman when I walked in there. I had no idea she was black. She didn't sound like this blew me away. I'm like, Wow, she's just like me. She fooled me. And I'm not used to being fool. And so as I'm taking information. This guy

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:: 49:45

Brian Sebastian: called his last name was Williams, and he calls him me from Tower Video. Now, this is starting the boom of video stores. Vhs get tapes at that point, people starting to get those their VCR machines starting to go into video stores. Now, tower video in Los Angeles, you got tower records across the street. You got tower classic, and you got tower Video. Well, Tower video is open from 10

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:: 50:11

Brian Sebastian: to to midnight. Everybody, every celebrity that you can think of would go to Tower Video to rent their stuff. That's why I started meeting celebrities. So he called me. And what's the chances of getting through a request line. You remember every calling request line trying to get. Did you ever get to the Dj.

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:: 50:30

Brian Sebastian: So imagine this Los Angeles market number 2, all the people calling on request lines. He gets through to me. Hey, Brian.

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:: 50:39

Brian Sebastian: I'm like, how did he know it was me? He goes. Are you on the air right now. I'm like, no, I'm not on the ear right now. I was like playing and off. No, I'm not in the ear right now, I'm just taking requests right now. How did you get through here? No one could get through on a request line.

247

:: 50:52

Brian Sebastian: He goes, hey, you fill out an application. That tower video, I want you come in. You want to work. I'm like, yeah.

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:: 50:57

Brian Sebastian: because I didn't know anything about the world of video.

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:: 51:01

Brian Sebastian: It's the world of video

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:: 51:03

Brian Sebastian: VCR rentals till this day that start me off learning about the world of entertainment. When I see Billy Idol way in broad his real name. I signed him up. This is a 1987 tower Video. This is only.

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:: 51:19

Brian Sebastian: you know, the end of February March of 1987, where I'm in Ucla. Remember, I didn't plan to stay in Los Angeles. I wanted to go to Walnut Creek at the Northern California. At that point. I'm in Los Angeles at that point.

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:: 51:30

Brian Sebastian: So I'm in Westwood taking the bus, cause I didn't have a car.

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:: 51:33

Brian Sebastian: So when people talk about being homeless and having a car. And I'm like, Yeah, at least you had a car. I didn't have a car. I was paying for an apartment, 2 bedroom with an attorney who I don't remember his name, but he was very nice.

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:: 51:46

Brian Sebastian: I just remember we're paying $600

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:: 51:51

Brian Sebastian: no, $700 each

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:: 51:53

Brian Sebastian: for that apartment. Now he's an attorney. He can afford it. But when I'm having 3 jobs and I'm not there, and I'm like, Oh, my God! You're paying just to stay at a place. Lay your head in the rent. That's what I literally was doing.

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:: 52:05

Brian Sebastian: But I was, you know, and then you find out that Los Angeles is still spread, so I'd be taking a bus, and it might take you 2 and a half hours to get from one place to another on Santa Monica Boulevard, or you know, or Sunset Boulevard, because you're going distances at that point. And then I'm noticing in Ucla that every college kid has got a Bmw. I'm like, how do they afford all these Bmws? Well, I didn't know that they all had money, and they've their family sent them there to go to school with a new car. I didn't know these things, and I'm like thinking.

258

:: 52:34

Brian Sebastian: man, II could have never afford. This is not how I went to college. So you you start to see things, and you start to experience what you're going through, and then still going at it. So I end up getting into power 106. And I'm working at

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:: 52:49

Brian Sebastian: at Tower Video. And then I'm working at 7, 11. So again, 3 jobs here. So at that point, I have that work ethic going in. And this is night. Early, 1987. So all I knew was that work mentality. And I go. Oh, by the time you get to June. I'm still there. I'm meeting Danny Devito and and Ron, Jeremy and Steven Segal, William Broadband, Jack, all these people

260

:: 53:13

Brian Sebastian: coming into there, and then, if you go to Tower records, where every rock and roller was going there, because only a block away is the whiskey.

261

:: 53:21

Brian Sebastian: What is it. The Roxy, the rainbow, all of that stuff where all the rockers are. So everybody from Gene Simmons, Vince, Neal, Tommy Lee, all, everybody from motley crews going in there. And don't you know this Gunson Rogers, roses, Axel and slash? They work the Tower video.

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:: 53:41

Brian Sebastian: They were managers and system managers only a year and a half prior to that. Think about that.

263

:: 53:47

Brian Sebastian: And this is when guns, n roses takes off.

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:: 53:50

Brian Sebastian: Yeah, 1987.

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:: 53:52

Brian Sebastian: So they were coming into the store all the time. So everybody who came in became friends in a different way. So all of a sudden, I'm starting to meet celebrities in the video side. I'm meeting the musical artists on the R. And B. Side because we're playing cameo. We're playing Jodi Watley, Jermaine Stewart. We're playing Prince Michael Jackson, and I'm meeting them in the stores. So all this point I'm in the Mecca stuff I'm like, oh, I don't need to go to.

266

:: 54:16

Brian Sebastian: I don't need to go to Northern California. Now, I like what I'm doing now.

267

:: 54:19

Brian Sebastian: It's interesting. And at that point you're seeing everybody with the cars jumping up and down going down. Sunset. Hollywood Boulevard. Everything is there. So you're getting, you know. It was like a shock, because I didn't know any about any of that stuff.

268

:: 54:33

Brian Sebastian: It's very interesting.

269

:: 54:34

Brian Sebastian: But at that point you start to become friends. Hey, hey, Brian, will you save this? Will you save me these new releases for me, and I'll come and pick him up, or have my assistant come and pick him up and think about this. Remember Ginger from Gilligan. Dia! She came in

270

:: 54:48

Brian Sebastian: Louise, whatever her name is not the nicest person. and and and the reason I find out why she wasn't so nice because she was typecast. Well, I didn't know what typecast was at that point.

271

:: 54:58

Brian Sebastian: She was typecast as Ginger, so she hated it. That's why she never went back for the reunion shows or anything like that. So she was miserable, and when she wasn't working as an actress she was selling real estate. So when she would come in. She wasn't the nicest woman, and I didn't get it until that point, and then also, adult performers were coming in. So you start to see people cause we were. We were renting out adult videos which I had never seen before.

272

:: 55:23

Brian Sebastian: And then, all of a sudden, who would have known a couple of years later I would be end up on the adult side. A lot of those friends on those tapes became my friends who knew.

273

:: 55:31

Brian Sebastian: It's very interesting. So I'm thrown into the mix of something that I could have never have foreseen coming. At the same time. I still love Drumcore. I'm like, oh, it's getting to June. Oh, they have a show here. How can I get down to Riverside? How can I get down to Anaheim? How do I get down there? Cause I didn't have a car.

274

:: 55:50

Brian Sebastian: so I forgot how I got down there, matter of fact, but I made my way down there to see the show, and I made my way back up there just to see my favorite course.

275

:: 55:58

Brian Sebastian: I'm like, this is fun. This is the reason why I moved to California, and then everything. You start to put everything together. 87 going on.

276

:: 56:08

Jeremy Van Wert: It really is. I'm just like envisioning what Tower records used to be, because

277

:: 56:16

Jeremy Van Wert: it was the place to go to. Just experience new music. Now it's so easy. You have it on your phone. You can try it out. But it was like buying an album was a commitment.

278

:: 56:27

Jeremy Van Wert: and you know it was a lot of money to buy an album, and sometimes you didn't quite know what was on the album, but you bought it because somebody recommended it or or something. But you're getting there. You're there, and you're meeting all of these extraordinary human beings, and you're making relationships with them. Are you going to parties where these people are? Are you getting to know them? Well, I wasn't going to parties because II was working 3 jobs.

279

:: 56:55

Jeremy Van Wert: I was. I was I was an intern

280

:: 56:58

Brian Sebastian: at Power 106, even though so some people thought I was on the air. I wasn't. I was in the marketing department, so promotions. So we were doing

281

:: 57:06

Brian Sebastian: powerhouse parties, so we would do a powerhouse party at at Capitol records on the outside. We would do it at

282

:: 57:15

Brian Sebastian: at the palace. They call it the Palace. Now they call it like bar one something stupid. But this is where Sammy Davis, Jr. Frank Sinatra, the Beatles Rolling Stones would perform. It's still there. So we had a powerhouse party there. So we would have like cameo and

283

:: 57:29

Brian Sebastian: you're talking about a different type of music starting, coming. It's not house music. It's it's the music that I still play today, Stevie B. Alby. Sure

284

:: 57:40

Brian Sebastian: it's early, but voice demand. And those people are starting to come in like 2. 3 years later the boy bands the black boy bands, and then you get into the white at that point. But at that point think of this. This is when Sean Penn was dating Madonna at that point

285

:: 57:58

Brian Sebastian: 19. I mean, I just remember 1991. At that point I'm skipping ahead a little bit and going back is I end up on the wave. Remember easy listening music. This is the way the wave debuted it started in San Francisco. First I forgot what it was called up there. II don't think it was coast up there, but it was something easy made. It was way down in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles got credit, even though it started up north, and then it spread cross country

286

:: 58:21

Brian Sebastian: well from power 106. They pay me $15 an hour not to talk.

287

:: 58:27

Brian Sebastian: So. They had disc jockeys who were unhappy, making a lot of money because they weren't able to talk. I was happy to take the money and not talk.

288

:: 58:34

Brian Sebastian: We were just running a board. I was happy with that because you weren't supposed to be at 2 radio stations ever. Now, remember, I've always been at 2 radio stations. Remember, Griffin news radio 14, which they didn't count as a radio station, because it was all news and sports and then kiss FM. Well, now, I'm at power one on 6 when I'm at easy listing, which is only down the street. However.

289

:: 58:57

Brian Sebastian: you're not talking so. They didn't know I was that both I was looking for any way to still get in.

290

:: 59:03

Brian Sebastian: That was the whole thing. So if I can get in, always going through the back door, over the through the chimney underneath the fence, to do the roof through the wall. Kinda get in to to get to what I need to do if that makes sense. And at that point

291

:: 59:15

Brian Sebastian: I get that job doing that, and then house music starts to come in.

292

:: 59:20

Brian Sebastian: I hated it, and and it was the same time I just remember law east of Anita comes in Madonna, and I'm like, Oh, I see the music changing. So at that point for 4 years.

293

:: 59:32

Brian Sebastian: I don't listen to music because I had been listening to music since earlier on, and I didn't like the way it was going, but I didn't know there was different types of house now that I know my friend who started Chicago house music. Now, who would have seen that one coming.

294

:: 59:45

Brian Sebastian: and then they had European house mixes. It's almost like when Punk came in. People didn't understand him, and people were walking around with spiky hair and stuff like that.

295

:: 59:53

Brian Sebastian: And I gotta go back to Connecticut on this. So this is 1984, when I hear rock lobster by the, and I see people with the spiky hair coming in, and all of a sudden they're all jumping up and down. I'm like, I like this song. But what are they doing. I didn't. I didn't know cause you didn't see it.

296

:: 00:12

Brian Sebastian: It's almost like if you were white and you went into a disk. Yeah, Disco tech. And you're listening to that straight beat Diski and your rock and roll, and you're not used to it. What is this? This is not for me. It's almost like the bob. See your song, old time, rock and Roll. Don't take me to a disco. It's like that.

297

:: 00:28

Brian Sebastian: So III got it. And then so you're starting to meet everybody at that point because everybody's wearing black. Everybody is thin. Everybody's got the torn jeans, but they got a lot of money. They're riding around all these cars. They got all these hot grills. And you're seeing all these adult performers. You're seeing all these celebrities that's not normal. But they all met at Tower Video.

298

:: 00:48

Brian Sebastian: all of them. It was very interesting. So when you had a prince coming, he had Michael Jackson coming in disguise with the beard and everything like that. People just left them alone. We all knew it was Michael, but he loved coming in because nobody bothered him. He wanted to watch movies, too. He would come in with the little kid.

299

:: 01:06

Brian Sebastian: I forgot the little kid's name, and then the little white kid Lion White, remember him who died of of Aids him.

300

:: 01:12

Brian Sebastian: he would come in with all of them at 1 point. This is very interesting. So when you're starting to meet all these people you're like

301

:: 01:19

Brian Sebastian: weren't supposed to ask them for anything. They talk to you. You give them what they want. When they owed money, you make a deal with them because they they were always touring or making a movie. They couldn't get it in unless their system came in and dropped in the tape at that point, and then you have access to the credit cards, too. So you're signing them up and credit cards. They just wanted to get in and out to the tapes that they wanted, and then they became friends with you at that one. So that's when I started making friends with celebrities, and I thought that was cool, because who would have known at that point

302

:: 01:47

Brian Sebastian: you've got a chance to actually meet and be around Michael Jackson, everybody

303

:: 01:54

Brian Sebastian: and and I was driving a power 106 man. So I would drive the van whether I supposed to have it on 9, and I would park it right in front of Tower, right in front of Tower Video. Right there. They had a little drive in thing, and they had a ticketmaster there, so everybody would come up and buy all their tickets, too.

304

:: 02:11

Brian Sebastian: Everything was there.

305

:: 02:14

Jeremy Van Wert: It's the hub. It was the hub of everything. And so what what makes you kind of evolve to the next stage in your career. What what pushes you to the next space?

306

:: 02:25

Brian Sebastian: It's home. Video. home video, when I leave Tower Video and I start working for extravaganza video in 1 91. I leave Power 106 at that point, and I'm leaving the way because

307

:: 02:39

Brian Sebastian: you know, the way was making changes. They had easy listening music called the wave, that's what they call it. That was the tagline, and then they will say, the time is beep. Whatever clock computer it was never a human voice. It was computerized. And that's the only data on on, on the top of every hour. That was it.

308

:: 02:56

Brian Sebastian: And you're seeing things change. You're seeing the new music come in. You're seeing, you know, things starting to come in at that point. and then I'm starting to see the movies. At that point. I'm starting to break away from music into movies at that point, because

309

:: 03:12

Brian Sebastian: in Tower Video you could play everything. You could play adult films after midnight, because we might be there until, like 1 30 at night, just cleaning up, putting everything in, putting the new releases out for the next, or, you know, every Wednesday or Friday when they were coming out, because people they would go really, really quickly.

310

:: 03:27

Brian Sebastian: However, when you start to go. Blockbuster is not here yet. So when you start to go into you had music pluses, you had the warehouses you had videotech videos and a couple of other things. So they were all in competition. So the busiest place was in Brentwood, westward.

311

:: 03:43

Brian Sebastian: At that point I'm still living in westward, still going back and forth. It might take me an hour and a half on bus, or sometimes, too, based on traffic to get there. And I'm reading U.S.A. today. So I'm reading all the things I'm starting to see. Movies come out and westward. There's 16 theaters. I don't have a TV. Nor was I there to watch TV. So I'm not watching all the TV shows until later on, years later. It's almost a decade later.

312

:: 04:07

Brian Sebastian: I'm catching up on all stuff when they're coming on. Vhs tapes. At that point I knew I better watch everything

313

:: 04:15

Brian Sebastian: on tapes, because people would say, What's this movie like? Oh, it's pretty good we would have. We would watch it in the store. But watching in a store and watching at home aren't the same thing. There's a lot of distractions and stuff like that. And as I'm thinking back about that, oh, you get good at watching stuff running your register.

314

:: 04:31

Brian Sebastian: checking people out because you might have to wait for people to come check out stuff in the middle. You're watching the latest movie there because they're gonna ask you, how's this moving? Well, you got it. We had a whole list of people things to watch peace sort. One person would pick this one person might pick a music video cause at that point. Remember, music videos are hot at that point. So we're watching the latest music videos. Hey, can you play my music video? If one of the rockers came in, and they wanted to see it, cause we might get it before they get it. And that was kinda cool.

315

:: 04:59

Brian Sebastian: So at that point, you're watching movies. And I'm like, Oh, there's so many movies coming out. How are you supposed to watch all this stuff

316

:: 05:05

Brian Sebastian: and a lot of them? They were rock and rollers. They weren't really interested in movies. They were more interested in music and only one or 2 people. His name was Mike Williams. Matter of fact, now I think about it, the guy that hired me for Tower Video.

317

:: 05:17

Brian Sebastian: He was a movie watcher. He would take a bunch of movies home and actually watch them. But he was a good manager. And he let us do our thing because Tower video tower records in Cloud Tower classical music were making a lot of money.

318

:: 05:29

Brian Sebastian: and it was just perfect at that point. It was just a time that if you weren't there you'll never really know what it was really like, because I just remember Danny Devito coming in and buying $1,500 a laser this. Remember them? He was shooting Batman at that point.

319

:: 05:43

Brian Sebastian: And I just remember, Danny, how do you watch all of this stuff? This is before we were gonna be friends years later, who knew who knew about interviews. I didn't know about any of that stuff. He goes. Why, that it takes them like 4 h to do my makeup in the tears. So as I'm watching it like this, the mirrors behind me so I can see it in the reflection as I'm watching it this way I go. That's pretty cool. Why, they're doing your makeup. Because, yeah, that's the only time I can watch something.

320

:: 06:08

Brian Sebastian: Who knew? I never forgot that years later we're talking.

321

:: 06:14

Brian Sebastian: maybe

322

:: 06:15

Brian Sebastian: 15 years later, who knew I'd be interviewing Danny the beat when we become friends, and I would know as publicist who knew.

323

:: 06:22

Brian Sebastian: So at that point, all I know is that you better. You better be watching everything cause they're gonna ask you. You better give them a good movie because they wanna know what's good. They don't have time. No one wants to take. You had a bad day, especially a woman

324

:: 06:35

Brian Sebastian: who's had a bad day. She doesn't have a significant other, she broke up. Well, she might wanna one might want to watch some romantic movie. But it's gotta be good, hey? You know I'm not feeling too good. I had a bad day at work. She's 9 to 5 or recommend her something good. So I got good at recommending good movies to this day. I still do that same thing. But it came from being in the world of home. Video.

325

:: 06:57

Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah. you're you're you're meeting all these people. And how long do you work at Tower?

326

:: 07:06

Brian Sebastian: I was only there for year and 3 months. not long. and then I go to. you know I go to extravagance. Video. I'll I'll I'll never forget this. I was doing telemarketing also.

327

:: 07:21

Brian Sebastian: My friend Stan Davis, if you if you ever heard of Abbott Elementary, which is on, I think. Cbs. No Cbs or ABC. Now he plays janitor.

328

:: 07:30

Brian Sebastian: We became friends.

329

:: 07:32

Brian Sebastian: and right before I leave Ucla I was introduced to the world of Buddhism and forgot how I met Stan, but it was one of the things where it became. What have we been? Friends ever since 1980

330

:: 07:47

Brian Sebastian: 88?

331

:: 07:49

Brian Sebastian: Still, friends, till this day, but he's on a hit show now. So I watched him. He always wanted to be a comedian, so he would all. We would always go to the community comic clubs and see him. So how I met like he's the guy with the long black jackets, the screamer him I forgot what his name was. He passed away.

332

:: 08:09

Brian Sebastian: But he was always, he would say, like stuff like that.

333

:: 08:14

Brian Sebastian: Sam Kennison. Exactly. That's how I met Sam Kennison by hanging out whatever we would go to Malibu. Trancis was the place there, I mean. Meet him, Andrew Dice Clays coming up all these other people. That's how I met all the comedians through Stan Davis.

334

:: 08:28

Brian Sebastian: who's now on Abbott elementary through that, because at that point he wanted to be comedian. I had no idea that he wanted to be an actress, because a few years later I'm watching primary colors, and he's sitting next to John Travolta in a scene. I had no idea he goes, Brian, when you know at that point is called Nsa. No Shishio of America, and Nsa.

335

:: 08:51

Brian Sebastian: And so they would give you like a little badge? That's you know, said we were. What chapter? What district you're in? Well, we were in an all black district except for 2 white guys. One was Russian. When was my other friend? Friend?

336

:: 09:05

Brian Sebastian: rich tisnick. However, Herbie Cancock. Tina Turner, Patrick Duffy.

337

:: 09:11

Brian Sebastian: Sean Ashton. There were all in the same entertainment district as practicing Buddhist members. Imagine that I had access to these people. and I'm chanting with him on my knees.

338

:: 09:24

Brian Sebastian: and Patrick dumping is is giving me, you know. At that point Dallas is a hit. I never watch choke Dallas, but I knew he was

339

:: 09:32

Brian Sebastian: Bobby uns saw our brother, or whatever it was. You know I never saw the movie the the series, but I knew he was huge. But you know, when you're standing in the middle of the street for 45 min, you getting guidance on what you wanna do at that point being disc jockey and being at the home video store from Patrick Duffy, and it's just the 2 of us

340

:: 09:50

Brian Sebastian: you don't forget stuff like that. And then the next time you see him for an interview. It was a pack. It was a Dallas reunion.

341

:: 09:56

Brian Sebastian: and he comes in. I go. Hey, Patrick, he goes. Hey, Brian! And we sit and we hug, and people are wondering. Well, how do you know him? Well, how do you tell people you're practicing, chanting Namya hold, you know

342

:: 10:08

Brian Sebastian: you can't tell everybody because they think you're in a cult at that point. So at that point, I'm practicing Buddhism which I'm still practicing.

343

:: 10:15

Brian Sebastian: And at that point you're told. If you chant for something. You can get anything in the world that you want, because you're being in rhythm with universal law, which is

344

:: 10:24

Brian Sebastian: like sacred geometry, which is true, you know everything's in Japanese, but you know the you know shown, and we'll tell you you're chanting for these things. Everything can happen. And then we give you the literature, which is great.

345

:: 10:36

Brian Sebastian: and I had a choice. Either I was gonna chant Buddhism or I was gonna go into scientology. Well, scientology was gonna cost me like a thousand dollars. So

346

:: 10:47

Brian Sebastian: yeah, they wanted your money. Buddhism wasn't gonna cost me anything

347

:: 10:50

Brian Sebastian: they just wanted. We just want you to be happy except Oh, and then, you know, if you chat with something you I can get whatever I want. I go. Yeah. So I was specific. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be on the radio. I wanted to do voiceovers, because now it's coming into voice over voice overs and home video

348

:: 11:06

Brian Sebastian: at that point didn't know about movie screenings. I didn't know about interviewing celebrities. That's but that all starts to come in after I meet Stan. And I'm selling cellular phones what we all have today

349

:: 11:17

Brian Sebastian: unit in phones at that point it was wasn't at T. It was. It was all of those phones. I was good at selling on the phone for 4 h, and they paid us. I think it was like 8, 50 an hour for 4 h at work Monday to Friday.

350

:: 11:34

Brian Sebastian: and then so that was great, because guess what? All the rockers did that before they made it. They were all doing telecommunications

351

:: 11:42

Brian Sebastian: which was interesting. Who would have known because they couldn't work? They couldn't fit into the 9 to 5 world, or they work at a video store or a music store or something like that. That's what they all did. And you always wondered where where they gonna get a job with spiky hair telecommunications. That's what they all did, and we were good at it, cause it was only 4 h.

352

:: 12:03

Jeremy Van Wert: What was it that Buddhism did for you inside? I imagine that there was growth

353

:: 12:09

Jeremy Van Wert: for you, that it

354

:: 12:12

Jeremy Van Wert: created some richness for you in life. Wh, what was your growth like in this period?

355

:: 12:18

Brian Sebastian: Oh, once you start getting stuff and you start seeing. And you start reading stuff. And you start meeting people from Japan who went through Nagasaki or

356

:: 12:27

Brian Sebastian: things like that with it. Well, yeah in Hiroshima. What? What they went through. You start to see what got them through there. Cause II didn't have faith. I wasn't religious as growing up going back to East Line, I mean before Eastlime, in New London, Connecticut, and Waterford. I just remember my father dropping out at a Protestant church. I just remember running around church. No one taught me how to read the Bible

357

:: 12:50

Brian Sebastian: I just remember getting a Bible every May for 3 years straight, but no one said, Hey, open this chapter. No one did that. And I that was always confusing to me. But I did know this.

358

:: 13:02

Brian Sebastian: I did know when I was gonna move to California. Something spiritual was going to happen, and I didn't even know what that word was at that point. But I did know that I just didn't know what it was, and you couldn't have told me I was gonna be a practicing Buddhist. I didn't know that in that chapter would all of those people in there because guess who was be loved by everybody. No one had a bad woman word to say about her, Tina Turner, out of all people.

359

:: 13:26

Brian Sebastian: Think about that, I believe you know. So when you're practicing, when all these people and you're seeing the success that makes you want to go for it even more

360

:: 13:35

Brian Sebastian: because you're in rhythm with this scroll, the sacred scroll that's yours, and you're on your hands and knees, and you have your food, and you're having water, and you're you're writing down your goals, and it's almost like, if you write down your goals.

361

:: 13:48

Brian Sebastian: these things will happen as you start to cross off one off each list, which is what I do each day. Still, I still get up and write lists of things I have to do the night for now. Oh, okay, I call this first. And I email, this person. I do this. That's how I still get things done. But a lot of that is the toss up between brutalism and the world of German Bugle Court for me. They go together because you have to work in unison as stuff

362

:: 14:11

Brian Sebastian: when I had heard there's women. Their sole job is to make sure that when President Indicator would come to United States or travel anywhere around the world or meet when you know at that point, President Bush, that we he would have great weather, no matter where he went. Their sole job was to chant for sunshine, no matter what country or state he was in. Think about that.

363

:: 14:30

Brian Sebastian: And it was true. When you, putting your mind into chanting for something you wanna achieve, whether it's good weather or getting through nothing but green lights, which is what I had. Someone challenged me one day. I think I told you about.

364

:: 14:42

Brian Sebastian: It starts to work. You can't explain how it works, because it's a mystical law. You just know it works. But if you start to figure it out, and you start to think too much about it. And that's where people get turned around, cause you still have to be consistent. It's called faith practice and study.

365

:: 14:59

Jeremy Van Wert: When do you start doing the interviews

366

:: 15:04

Brian Sebastian: from home video from extravaganza Video in 1991, 92, I'm in Brentwood, California, which is down the street from

367

:: 15:12

Brian Sebastian: Westwood Ucla. Area, and I got so good at getting getting people in the entertainment where they would come and buy a bunch of tapes, and they would rent a bunch of tapes, and I didn't know what they were doing. I'm like, oh, you you know, you watching gonna watch all these things. No, we know we're gonna bring them back like $3 and 25 cent late fee. No, we need to do some research. And what we wanna do. We're writing a script.

368

:: 15:33

Brian Sebastian: Oh, have you seen these movies? I'm like, Yeah, I've seen them all. This one's good. This one's this one's good. Then I would tell them what it was all about. I go. Oh, you should use to start doing movie reviews, movie reviews. Well, how do you do that.

369

:: 15:45

Brian Sebastian: Oh, you gotta! You gotta! You gotta get in touch with the Mpa. Well, they didn't tell you that you can't go to the Mpa. The Mpa. Was like going to see the Wizard of Oz. You're not allowed to go in because they're the rating system

370

:: 15:58

Brian Sebastian: for certain reasons, as you once you get into it. They're the ones that rate all the movies till this day. Sort of like how the games have a rating system. Or, you know, gore put from the rappers, and they way put a rating system on the albums at that point.

371

:: 16:14

Brian Sebastian: Well, who's job? Was the rating where you once was to know who it was, so you had to write a letter you had to get, I was told, when I call them the Wizard of Oz.

372

:: 16:23

Brian Sebastian: They go. Well, well, Mr. Sebastian, you have to get 5 directors and 5 producers, and she named off those names of Steven Spielberg and and and Francis Copeler. I'm like, how are I gonna get them? I don't know them. They don't know me to write me a letter to be accredited to watch movies.

373

:: 16:43

Brian Sebastian: What they didn't say is

374

:: 16:44

Brian Sebastian: public access, because everybody's got a Vhs machine, which is on Channel 3, which is public access at that point.

375

:: 16:51

Brian Sebastian: So in westward in Santa Monica down the street where I'm when I was doing that. Oh, I'll just do a movie review show. And so how do I do this. Oh, you gotta find someone, Cisco and Ebert is big at this point, hey? Thumbs up, thumbs down. I'm like, Well, I can't do that, because they already got that, and they're on Channel 7, which is Disney. As you start to figure these things out. So this one guy on the adult side comes in

376

:: 17:18

Brian Sebastian: his name was Freddie Freddie Dimon.

377

:: 17:21

Brian Sebastian: And he goes, you don't have any adult tapes in here. I'm like, yeah, I don't know how to order them from people. Well, I'm in a couple of these, and this is my girlfriend. She's in a bunch of them. You should order these tapes. Oh, if you get a watching movies. Oh, you should get into contact with William Margo. I'm like Bill Margo. He goes. Yeah, either. He likes her. He doesn't like. It's very opinionated. But he, he reviews mainstream movies. And this is what I hear the word mainstream movies.

378

:: 17:45

Brian Sebastian: Yeah, at that point you have mainstream movies and adult films. And at that point I'm like, Oh, so I've gotta order adult films. Now, okay, so I've gotta find a salesperson. So people can rent them. Because across the street. We have Odyssey video, which is huge on adult videos and independent films.

379

:: 18:02

Brian Sebastian: They made their living off an adult videos where I, even I, would go over and rent those adult videos to see who I could see who. Hey, how do you get this 10, here's so. And so he's a salesperson. Oh, yeah. And then I would call them cause you could call him at that point.

380

:: 18:16

Brian Sebastian: Think of Reed Hastings from Netflix today. That's where he came from. That's why Netflix started out the way they are. That's why they're still good at what they are, except they're in debt. But the thing is.

381

:: 18:28

Brian Sebastian: he was in the world of home video, you know, image imitating, you know, image entertainment at that point, which was, they would have all of these

382

:: 18:38

Brian Sebastian: independent films that they would produce and make and do things like that. If you think of dirty dancing, dirty dancing was done on independent filmmaking budget at that point they had to reach out to do that. It is it was called Vestro

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:: 18:53

Brian Sebastian: restaurant. Did

384

:: 18:55

Brian Sebastian: independent tapes for the home video market. You get into home video, you start to meet these people every summer you had, which was called Vsda video software dealers. This association

385

:: 19:06

Brian Sebastian: or video software dealers of America. Yeah. Video, yeah, it was that. And what happened? They would bring out the stars. They would bring out the rock and rollers in Vegas for 2 and a half, 3 days they would bring out the rest of they would bring out Jane Fonder, Chathy Smith, Denise, Austin, Tammy, the web from the world of the fitness. Remember the fitness craze. This is where it starts.

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:: 19:27

Brian Sebastian: They would bring out the martial artists. This is where I met Scarlett, Johansper, Jo Joe Hansen for the Natalie Portman, which, when everyone was in the host, whisper the Robert Redford, and then so I'm starting to interview them. I met Willie Nelson there for Tate he had, and I have these old things, Chris Talker, when he was first starting out I met there.

387

:: 19:47

Brian Sebastian: So at this point I'm like, I'm meeting these celebrities. I saw some of them at Tower Video.

388

:: 19:52

Brian Sebastian: Oh, now I get a chance. Oh, if you're big enough you can have them on the show because they're in movies. Oh, how do you do that? What you gotta get on the list going back to the Mpa. Once you're accredited from that you get on the list. The studio start to reach out, the publishers start to reach out. Hey, we got a movie coming out. Do you wanna talk to them? Sure. Come over to

389

:: 20:14

Brian Sebastian: You know the hotel on sunset. That's where I met Jackie Joanna Crowsley at that point. She's an out. She's an Olympian winner.

390

:: 20:22

Brian Sebastian: I got a chance to do cause she put out a home videotape on her running track and exercising. I got a chance to do one on one with her. I brought over a little camera and everything like this. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I got a chance to meet her one on one, and then she was, oh, where's this gonna go? You don't. You didn't know it's gonna be on my show. What kind of show? Oh, it's a public access. So once they heard that to go oh.

391

:: 20:48

Brian Sebastian: but you know the fact that I guess I was so passionate and I was. I had so much energy from practicing Buddhism and from the world of Drum Core, that they loved the passion. If that made sense. I was just happy, just like I still am to this day to interview people, because that's where it started. And at that point you start to end up on lists.

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:: 21:06

Brian Sebastian: and then the studios and publicist start to call you, and then you start to do a lot of the interviews where the 4 Seasons and Beverly Hills. Once you start going there, you know you made it cause that's where almost all the interviews are done in Los Angeles.

393

:: 21:20

Brian Sebastian: and that's how that started out.

394

:: 21:24

Jeremy Van Wert: Can I ask you just to hang tight for a second because I had a ton of coffee right before this interview. Run to the restroom here I'll be back in like 90 s. Is that cool?

395

:: 21:48

Brian Sebastian: Is this?

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:: 23:01

Jeremy Van Wert: Hmm.

397

:: 23:04

Jeremy Van Wert: dear God, thank you.

398

:: 23:06

Jeremy Van Wert: You know this is the first time I get a chance to tell the whole story.

399

:: 23:11

Jeremy Van Wert: What's that?

400

:: 23:13

Brian Sebastian: This is the first time that I get a chance to tell the whole story of everything.

401

:: 23:16

Jeremy Van Wert: Oh, it's it's You're very detailed. You know, and you know I I'm I'm loving how it's beginning to evolve here into

402

:: 23:30

Jeremy Van Wert: you meeting people and moving into this whole new world? Because you

403

:: 23:36

Jeremy Van Wert: actually.

404

:: 23:39

Jeremy Van Wert: yeah. William, let let's get back into it here.

405

:: 23:44

Jeremy Van Wert: 5,

406

:: 23:46

Jeremy Van Wert: 4, 3.

407

:: 23:48

Jeremy Van Wert: So I'm loving how this story is evolving here, and you're getting into

408

:: 23:55

Jeremy Van Wert: interviewing higher and higher profile people. And it's like, in what sounds like the late nineties. You hacked the system. And yeah, and and the the Motion Picture Association has put up various different types of gatekeeping

409

:: 24:13

Brian Sebastian: so that they can keep the industry small and exclusive. And you go look, I'm just gonna jump on public access. I know a bunch of people. I'm gonna start interviewing people and saying what I think, and you get into exactly how it started. Exactly. You don't know any better.

410

:: 24:31

Jeremy Van Wert: Right? And so what? What's the reaction like? You start doing this practically from a garage here. And and you start getting onto public access. And what happens from there?

411

:: 24:43

Brian Sebastian: Well, here's the thing. Public access was a real cool studio it was. It was almost like going into like a half of a major studio. It was like a quarter of the size, but it was. He was huge and it was nice. They actually have people you could pay. Man, what will be paying?

412

:: 24:59

Brian Sebastian: I think we were paying $50 each show. So yeah, $50 50 or $75 each show each week. So I was doing one or 2 shows a week. So I was doing 1, 2,

413

:: 25:10

Brian Sebastian: 2, 3. I was doing either 2 or 4 shows. Then they're half an hour shells.

414

:: 25:15

Brian Sebastian: Yes, I was doing 4 shows 4, half an hour shows at $50 to pop.

415

:: 25:20

Brian Sebastian: So that's $100 right there. So I can't be buying albums. I'm definitely not going out, and when I do go out, if I'm on power one or 6, or I'm still associated with people who know me, I'm getting into a club for free, because they know me and not not coming by myself. I'm bringing

416

:: 25:38

Brian Sebastian: 1015 people with me. Now, remember, this is the 1012 a pop you're supposed to pay at this point.

417

:: 25:45

Brian Sebastian: No, they're coming in with me.

418

:: 25:47

Brian Sebastian: because they're my friends. So I got into that habit of always bringing my friends into the things cause they didn't understand what the hell I was doing.

419

:: 25:57

Brian Sebastian: most of them. If you're lucky they've never been in a radio station.

420

:: 26:00

Brian Sebastian: even if you won, you want you. You go in to go pick your tickets up, and but you never went into the station itself.

421

:: 26:06

Brian Sebastian: You weren't able to go into a lot of the private events unless you would invite it in as that winner. So you weren't able to see what went on behind the scenes. But I would come and show you what went on behind the scenes you weren't able to come into. You know I would. I would invite people, and I didn't care if you, an adult performer, or whatever cause. Here's what I did know.

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:: 26:23

Brian Sebastian: You love listening to music. You love watching movies, even if you wanted to read a book. And I wasn't into art then yet, like the beautiful paintings that you have. But I knew all of this stuff was gonna come sooner or later. So the more things you started to touch, the more you started to develop it. You never left one for the other. You just graduated on. So it's almost like they graduated from Drumcore.

423

:: 26:44

Brian Sebastian: You got. It wasn't my fault that you had the age out of 22.

424

:: 26:48

Brian Sebastian: Who? Why couldn't they let you march into your 24, who knows, you know. But it's one of those things you just went on to the next thing like you went out from high school to college. So for me it was just a gradual build up, and as you saw things changing well, when the music started to change, I didn't like house music come in. I didn't like that sort of like how most rock and rollers didn't like Disco.

425

:: 27:10

Brian Sebastian: however.

426

:: 27:11

Brian Sebastian: Kiss made a disco album sell, didn't they? I was made to love you. I was made to love you, and that became a hit who knew just like Beth, the drummer, Peter Chris, saying, Beth, who knew that was on the B side that that was gonna be a hit. So you'd never really know what's gonna hit. Give it out there, give it to the audience and let them decide

427

:: 27:33

Jeremy Van Wert: who who was your first big name?

428

:: 27:40

Brian Sebastian: Well, it'll come back to me and can oh, in Connecticut it was Pete this. Remember the the fifth beetle?

429

:: 27:48

Brian Sebastian: Yes, him

430

:: 27:49

Brian Sebastian: he was at that point. He was. He hadn't gotten the royalties yet, but he had. I think, he had just written the book because we had him on the air. So I was on the I was talking to him. Why was on hold?

431

:: 28:02

Brian Sebastian: And I can't say I was a Beatles fan there, because, you know, everybody's playing a bunch of beatles, and on every Sunday morning in Connecticut. Why, I was working at Cumberland farms, which was like a 7 11.

432

:: 28:12

Brian Sebastian: I would listen to all the classics of the 50 sixties and early seventies music and I got a chance to listen to all of them not knowing I was gonna meet a lot of them eventually. So over the phone, it's P. Best

433

:: 28:24

Brian Sebastian: in person.

434

:: 28:26

Brian Sebastian: It's a Charles Bronson. First, because he came into a 7 11. He was wearing sunglasses, and guess what he's buying. He's buying the National Enquirer.

435

:: 28:36

Brian Sebastian: He's buying the National inquiry and 2 other of the gossip magazines, and everybody is just. I knew it was him, but I didn't wanna bother him. And then it's the only guy autograph I ever asked for, only cause everybody else was asking for his autograph. It's like 7 people, and he signed them. I said that'd be stupid if I didn't ask. Once I said, Mr. Bronson. We signed it was on a little piece of paper of a paper bag paper like this, and I go. Okay, I got that. But what am I gonna do with it?

436

:: 29:02

Brian Sebastian: And so I never asked for an autograph again at that point, and I could understand why.

437

:: 29:07

Brian Sebastian: So it was him. But the first person of interview I actually did. I think it was

438

:: 29:14

Brian Sebastian: It's either Tammy Lee Webb or Jackie Joiner Kersley.

439

:: 29:19

Brian Sebastian: She was the first in in in any of you that I did. But here's a here's the first one who really came to mind Tammy Lee Webb. You'll know her from Bundesa steals. She actually flew on her husband's private plane from San Diego to Los Angeles and came to the studio.

440

:: 29:35

Brian Sebastian: This is in 90 94, April of 90, 94 we just connected, we connected.

441

:: 29:41

Brian Sebastian: Now think about this. She sold 50 million tapes of Vhs tapes, 50 million of them.

442

:: 29:49

Brian Sebastian: It's terrible at marketing, but a wonderful person. So you got bunch of steel abs deals all these exercise stuff exercise tapes taken off in the early nineties.

443

:: 29:59

Brian Sebastian: Her. She actually comes in, and we do 2 half an hour

444

:: 30:04

exercise of her showing me how to exercise.

445

:: 30:08

Brian Sebastian: I she wasn't paid, or anything. She I don't know what what I did to convince her. I forgot how I reached her. I reached her some kind of way, and she flew. But when she told me, and I'm and I and I get into I'm like, Who's that blond chick? Who's that? And those jeans like that? Because I've never seen her on regular clothes, and she turns around and it's her I'm like, Oh, my God, she's gorgeous!

446

:: 30:28

Brian Sebastian: And I didn't know she was married. I didn't know any of this stuff. All I knew is that I had to get her on a show, and I got her on the show, so she's the first person of of a big name to come on a show in the world of exercise which we are still in.

447

:: 30:41

Brian Sebastian: and we reconnected in 2020, and I got I'm going to have her on next year. I'm going to have her on our one of our live shows because of who she is and what she did

448

:: 30:50

Brian Sebastian: now. She's terrible at marketing. She's older now, but it's one of those things where, if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have had the motivation to go and ask for people because she actually came. Think about that! From San Diego, California to Los Angeles. She flew on a private plane to come to be on my public access show.

449

:: 31:07

Jeremy Van Wert: That's awesome.

450

:: 31:09

Jeremy Van Wert: That's awesome. And through the early 2 thousands you're continuing to do this on on public access. Is that where? What your medium was at the

451

:: 31:19

Brian Sebastian: I didn't have an outlet, and I wasn't that writer. I'm still not that writer. I always knew I was gonna be. If I could put anything on TV and radio someplace, I would. So at this point, you know, I'm starting to meet some of the, you know, they call them junketiers.

452

:: 31:34

Brian Sebastian: They're all on the junket list for doing movies, TV shows. At that point, Tcas, there's called the Television Critics Association.

453

:: 31:44

Brian Sebastian: It's new and new and returning

454

:: 31:47

Brian Sebastian: TV shows, reality shows. And at that point, I'm like, Wow, I have access to all these people. And after a while either the publicist is gonna like you because of you or your outlet. So at this point you have Warner Brothers, you have Vivian. Vivian, my mayor, she was at Warner Brothers for like 23 years. So if she didn't like you, you weren't gonna get it. You weren't gonna be invited to any Warner brothers movies. And at that point they're putting 23 out of year.

455

:: 32:10

Brian Sebastian: So you're talking about the lethal weapon stuff you're talking about at that point, Columbia Tristar paramount.

456

:: 32:19

Brian Sebastian: Who's the other one that you have? I've got that I'm I'm missing out on. But at that point all of these big budget movies are coming out. So at that point, remember the people I met at Tower Video. Well, these people are in these major movies. Now I'm starting to have access to them. If you're big enough

457

:: 32:36

Brian Sebastian: on the outlook now, I was never syndicated.

458

:: 32:38

Brian Sebastian: I was never syndicated, and I was always

459

:: 32:42

Brian Sebastian: that smallest person in there. So tenacity in the Drumcore world again, going back into the drum core world, and from the Buddhist world, putting them together. All they had was the faith. And that worth that bit from Dci

460

:: 32:54

Brian Sebastian: saying, I'm gonna get this person some kind of way. It's not gonna be the conventional way, and I'm gonna be at their 4 seasons, or the Hilton or the Hyatt sitting down at the radio round tables and eventually doing one on one TV interviews to get that person, and that's what I eventually did, and all I could do was outlast them from the Jump core days being in those hot days, the hot sun and the corn fields out there, this discipline they would wear themselves out where I was, the fresh person.

461

:: 33:21

Brian Sebastian: and and I loved what I was doing, and I was watching the movies where they might not be watching the movies so outlasting them and watching the movies are the 2 things that I knew I was I could beat anybody on still to this day.

462

:: 33:33

Jeremy Van Wert: Well, you and I met somewhere around 2,008, 9 or 10 somewhere around there, and I had written a small autobiographical book about Drummer, bugle core and my time in it, and everything like that you and I meet. And you have this access to various different people. And you're telling me about what you're doing and so forth. And we maintained a friendship through those years. And that's when you're starting to get bigger and bigger.

463

:: 34:03

Brian Sebastian: Yeah, I'm still not having the access that I want. But I'm happy where I am, because everything is starting to come this way

464

:: 34:11

Brian Sebastian: and at that point, as you're in Los Angeles. Well, everything is expensive, not as expensive as Hawaii at that point. Now they're like, equally. But it's one of those things where you're still in. You're in the grind, you know, you're getting, you know, you've gotten through the dotcom era, because the dotcom era money was being thrown in Southern California and obviously in Silicon Valley.

465

:: 34:32

Brian Sebastian: But at that point where did they all want to go, for whatever reason they needed to go to Los Angeles, because that was the Mecca for entertainment, and they just knew if they can get a celebrity to endorse some kind of way, or whatever they would have somebody, whether it was investors, whether it was that spokesperson.

466

:: 34:46

Brian Sebastian: So I just remember

467

:: 34:48

Brian Sebastian: when I was helping. It was called Nsa.

468

:: 34:55

Brian Sebastian: It was a water Company Water Filtration Company out of San Diego. As I'm in the home video thing. It was like extra income. Hey, Brian, we think you'd be good at this, because we see what you're doing here with videotapes and stuff like that. Now, I never wanted to do stuff like that today, you would almost see it like us, a beginning version of in the speaking world. And

469

:: 35:14

Brian Sebastian: before you're writing your book

470

:: 35:16

Brian Sebastian: well, you would go, and it was a pyramid scheme, but I knew that, but I didn't care. But it was about water filters. Filtration. I just remember if you better have water filtration on your sink and stuff. I had one that was in my shower, and I love that, and it was like you could set up for 2 35, and the more you sold you would get kickbacks from this, because, depending where you were in your upline, your downline. That's kinda how it was. So that taught me a little bit about marketing in a way.

471

:: 35:40

Brian Sebastian: And at the same time you're looking to see how videotapes are being marketed because studios were making a lot of money on their home video, which they don't have today. Now, now you have blockbuster. That's in. What did they want. They wanted the blockbuster on every corner who said the same thing. Starbucks, Starbucks on every corner.

472

:: 35:57

Brian Sebastian: They got that from Blockbuster. So Blockbuster is putting out buying up these stores, these mom and pops. And I said, If you don't have mom and pop stores, that's not good. And this is what I started to come in starting to think of the Underdog, because that company, their job is to buy up everything. And it's about stocks and investors. Why never wanna be in beholding to a stock or somebody who's an investor till this day.

473

:: 36:22

Brian Sebastian: And so, as these companies are coming and going, and I'm still there, I'm still moving up slowly but surely. Sometimes I'm wavering back and forth. But I'm still going up. These guys are like, either you're here or you're here.

474

:: 36:34

Brian Sebastian: And so, as I'm going up, they're coming up, coming down, and I'm still starting to coming up. I'm just saying steady as long as you're steady you're getting all of these things starting to come to you because you're not wavering, you're not faltering. You're still there. If that makes sense

475

:: 36:48

Jeremy Van Wert: right.

476

:: 36:49

Jeremy Van Wert: and movie reviews, and more what you're doing right now, when does that as a brand begin?

477

:: 37:00

Brian Sebastian: I think it starts in 1,996, because that's when I started doing junkets at that point.

478

:: 37:05

Brian Sebastian: and I didn't know the world. I didn't know any better now when you end up in the radio roundtables and the radio roundtables is a whole nother world.

479

:: 37:12

Brian Sebastian: There's there's a total of 23, but that's really

480

:: 37:16

Brian Sebastian: between 7 to 9 outlets. So you would have Ap. You would have. Jeannie was Holly Holly Hollywood, you would have access access, Hollywood would do. They would have their own room downstairs for like a half an hour. They might get Sylvester salon for, say, for ramble, ramble, or rocky 2 or 3 you're talking about

481

:: 37:34

Brian Sebastian: that kind of thing, and for the radio roundtable we might have anywhere from 20 min, always 20 min to Max, a half an hour where Russell Crowe talks and comes in. He's talking about gladiator. So think about this. It's quiet. It's just us we. This is where I learned to do interviews. You ask the question. Let them speak because you want the whole sound byte. And then once they're done, you jump in

482

:: 37:58

Brian Sebastian: in the print and at that. And you know, Internet's not in at this point in the print room, whether it's domestic and international, they would interject, oh, I know what you're talking about, and that the the the actor or actor should say, I can't think of this. And then all you're thinking about this. So that's what they mean by putting words in email in a radio round table words. We weren't putting words in email, because once you finish the sentence, we asked another question

483

:: 38:23

Brian Sebastian: so, and we did it that way so you could cut if you had to edit stuff, and at that point I have my little cassette player like this, and I always sat next to talent. I got there first. I was one of the last to leave. I wasn't always invited to everything the things that I was invited to. I wanted to get into, the ones that I wasn't invited to. Who can I meet? I want them to know who I am, and I tend to be the only person of color, except for me and Ron Grewington

484

:: 38:47

Brian Sebastian: and Ron Brewington till this day with were were friends because he had urban radio network, which is the number one urban radio know on the African American side, and he had ap Associated Press. He had the 2 biggest outlets, so everybody wanted to talk to him.

485

:: 39:03

Brian Sebastian: and he was a navy. Vet really, guy like that, he'd love anything motown. So he was always working on getting motown stars, the stars on the Walker fans and things like that. And he was, you know, Naacp image awards. So those things. So for me, I'm still fighting to get in, as the small know nothing. Guy, you know who's this guy who wants to get in to do these things? However, I knew about all the movies. So I wasn't watching TV, cause I didn't have a TV, but every movie was coming out. I made sure I saw it.

486

:: 39:30

Brian Sebastian: and so I was good at remembering all of these things. And once I got there. And you're sitting next to me. I'm gonna dominate that table because that's all I have at that point, if that makes sense

487

:: 39:41

Jeremy Van Wert: well, right right, and

488

:: 39:43

Jeremy Van Wert: for the last 10 years you have been just building and building and building, who are some of the big names that you have interviewed.

489

:: 39:51

Brian Sebastian: Everybody from George Clooney, Danny Devito, Gene Simmons from Kiss

490

:: 39:56

Brian Sebastian: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford, Coppola, you know, each time they had a movie I wanted to make sure that I interviewed them. If I couldn't get you for radio, I wanted to get you for TV. If I couldn't get you for TV, I wanted to make sure I got you for radio round table. So I would always ask for TV and radio.

491

:: 40:11

Brian Sebastian: because I still have public access. So I could use both, and then, I think, figured out, so how do I use the radio portion of stuff? Because I would have all this radio outlet stuff?

492

:: 40:21

Brian Sebastian: Well, right? We could just run the radio sound bite over as you're talking about this. Oh, okay, let's do this. He so you started to figure out how to do stuff this is before the dotcoms, and then after the dotcoms, I'm still playing with it, and that the public access started to kinda filter out because it only really lasted for 10 years. You're like, you gotta graduate up so you gotta get something else. And then, as I didn't have anything, I see, still gotta remain on that list, because once you get taken off that list you're not getting back on that list.

493

:: 40:48

Brian Sebastian: So I had to figure out where to put it. Oh, oh, Andy, this Andy Andy Cope at this point from Cnn. Cnn. Hey, Andy, I know you can't do this, but you know what there's a junket coming up.

494

:: 41:01

Brian Sebastian: Do you want me to cover this for you? And I'll just give you the footage. Hey? Yeah, Brian, you know we may or may not use it, but it's better to have it than not to have it. So. I developed a friendship with him, and then I also the figured out from him was Andy, you know. Do you have a real that you put together on Cnn stuff? Oh, yeah, they put that together for me. I'm like what you don't do it yourself. No, I have a team to do it, I'm like, so what happens if you leave there? You can't take this stuff with you. Can you guys know it's Cnn property I go. Oh.

495

:: 41:27

Brian Sebastian: I never want that to happen. So when you leave all those interviews you've done. They're the property of Cnn, yeah, unfortunately. Are you gonna make a real one day? Now, I don't need it.

496

:: 41:38

Brian Sebastian: Yeah. Well, he did need it, cause he never! He never popped up any place else after that, after Cnn. Till this day. I don't know what happened to him, but that taught me a great lesson so early days of content.

497

:: 41:50

Brian Sebastian: having your own content.

498

:: 41:52

Brian Sebastian: because if you did it for Big Outlet, he was right. They own that you're doing it for the outlet, so I never wanted to do it for the outlet. I always wanted to be for movie reviews, and more. Even when I covered from my friend Stephanie Frederick for BT. When she was there. Think of toy story. She helped promote toy story. Nobody wanted to do toy story. They're still doing toy stories

499

:: 42:13

Brian Sebastian: what! You didn't want to talk to Tom Hanks or anybody like that? Well, I did, but I wasn't big enough, but she did so remember, Brandi, when she broke in, I got a chance to do a half an hour interview for Brandi.

500

:: 42:26

Brian Sebastian: because I was covering for my friend, who was in Palm Springs at the Point. There's no way she could make it up to the 4 seasons in time. Oh, I'll just cover for you.

501

:: 42:34

Brian Sebastian: I still have that tape to this day, half an hour with Brandi, her first feature film that she did. I don't even remember what the film was. Half an hour at the 4 seasons. I treasure that I held onto that tape like it was gold. Cause that to me, says I accomplished something. When I had Russell Crowe and the radio around, we able table room

502

:: 42:52

Brian Sebastian: or or Robin Williams. Robin comes in. And he knew that we could not, because we need a clean sound by. So no coughing, no holding ice pictures of ice in there. We wanted to make sure that you ported into the glass ahead of time because we didn't wanna hear the sounds. And then a lot of celebrities like a John Goodman. At that point they would get nervous. They would see the microphones, and they would just like freeze. And there was one time

503

:: 43:15

Brian Sebastian: remember the big Lebowski, the borrower's John John Goodman had 4 movies coming out, and there was 4 of us. There's 4 microphones. And all of a sudden he just started sweating.

504

:: 43:26

Brian Sebastian: And I just remember I gotta get him to say something. How do you not talk about 4 movies in your John Goodman? Well, I knew he was from Louisiana. He liked jazz going back to the radio stuff.

505

:: 43:36

Brian Sebastian: Hey, John, what would you say about the friends your friends from Louisiana? And he went into this small little jazz, deep jazz voice, like he was on the air because he had the microphone, so he had to be in like a character, and it worked. And I said so. That's how you you get someone to stop not being so nervous.

506

:: 43:52

Brian Sebastian: You gotta figure out when they come into the room. Are they gonna come in happy? Did they have a fight with a significant other, did, do they know they got a bad movie? They don't wanna talk about the bad movie. So we've had that happen, too. And we've there's been some bad movies where we knew it was bad in that a listed nobody knew it was bad. I know. You know the movie is bad. We know it's bad. Okay, let's just talk about something else. And once they said that we could talk about something else, and that was just great.

507

:: 44:17

Brian Sebastian: So you develop those great relationships at that point.

508

:: 44:20

Brian Sebastian: But how, however, still didn't have their phone number. And some of them, you know, emails just kind of starting at this point.

509

:: 44:29

Jeremy Van Wert: Well, now, where you're at is, you're actually you have these a-list friends that I'm sure provide you access to people as things come out. And what is it like? Now.

510

:: 44:44

Brian Sebastian: I think back to those early days

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:: 44:46

Brian Sebastian: when I was still working at the video store, a tower video extravagance to video. You know, when, when when this person

512

:: 44:55

Brian Sebastian: tried to try to give me a movie test over the phone

513

:: 44:58

Brian Sebastian: he talked to me about foreign movies and I didn't know I it's like it's it's like, if I mentioned a movie to you and that you haven't seen well, you can't tell me about it. That was part of a test.

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:: 45:09

Brian Sebastian: and I and I never forgot that I go. That's never gonna happen again. But I also wasn't fair, because not everybody sees the same movie. Not everybody remembers it. Some people fall asleep during the movie cause they're tired. So how are you? Gonna remember

515

:: 45:23

Brian Sebastian: now, if he had asked me about a movie like Rocky or toy story that I had seen while I could have told him. But I didn't know the movie yet. Seen it. So I said, That will never happen again. And then that's one reasons why I started watching everything. So when that video store I had watched every movie in that video store from classics to form. And I said I was always told to be a movie critic. You gotta watch everything which I knew is not true later on.

516

:: 45:47

Brian Sebastian: because Kevin Thomas, who was the B. Writer for the La Times, he didn't watch the A. Films. He watched everything but the A. Films. They had Kenneth Tur, and they had someone else watching all the A level list. List level movies and they would write about it. Kevin Thomas. I think it was like 2830 years. He would do all the B films, and he would write about all of those things, and he was a good writer, but a lot of times I'd be there with him and 2 other people. We would be in this big theater all by ourselves.

517

:: 46:14

Brian Sebastian: We would just sit wherever we wanted to sit. I was sat in the back and on the side. He's always sat in the front. He would fall asleep. How do I know he fell asleep, cause I would go up and hear him snoring. I could hear him snoring in the back, and he could go, hey, Brian, what did they just say? And I would say, this is what they said, Kevin. And I'm like, I can't wait to see what he's gonna write about.

518

:: 46:33

Brian Sebastian: That's that was fun seeing things like that.

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:: 46:38

Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah. sorry. I just want to. Pause. Pause here for a moment.

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:: 46:43

Jeremy Van Wert: Your stories are so

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:: 46:46

Jeremy Van Wert: so incredible. And

522

:: 46:49

Jeremy Van Wert: my my unfortunate thing here is that I'm kind of running up against the clock here. It! It feels like we're getting more into like where you're at right now.

523

:: 47:02

Jeremy Van Wert: Is there? Is there something that you really want to talk about from the last like 10 years, or something that that you don't want us to skip.

524

:: 47:13

No, you could do it this way. You could always do a part, too, if you wanted to.

525

:: 47:18

Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, that's true. That's true.

526

:: 47:20

Brian Sebastian: Cause I've had to do that with certain people, because it's hard to get everything in.

527

:: 47:26

Brian Sebastian: And like I said, you're the first to make me go back because of having 2 h to do that. No one's ever had that.

528

:: 47:34

Jeremy Van Wert: Well, I'm I'm

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:: 47:36

Jeremy Van Wert: I'm loving your stories, and when the future book comes out. What that's gonna be like.

530

:: 47:41

Jeremy Van Wert: Oh, yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna be awesome. And you know your II wasn't expecting the Buddhism part. And you know as you the what what's what's really cool is listening to you step by step by step by step build up into this

531

:: 47:59

Jeremy Van Wert: cause it all goes together. That's why.

532

:: 48:06

Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah. yeah.

533

:: 48:08

Jeremy Van Wert: You should do a part to whenever you feel like doing it. Let's do a part to

534

:: 48:15

Brian Sebastian: world of the adult entertainment and the lifestyle, because they're all connected on going back to cell phones. And it's still all connected on the movie side. because a lot of those celebrities ended up going out with adult entertainers.

535

:: 48:30

Brian Sebastian: Charlie Sheen, Gene. The list goes on Nick Nolty. The list goes on and on.

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:: 48:38

Jeremy Van Wert: Well,

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:: 48:39

Jeremy Van Wert: What I'm gonna do is we'll I kind of like, count back in. And I want to have you

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:: 48:47

Jeremy Van Wert: talk about what to? To to conclude this this recording?

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:: 48:54

Jeremy Van Wert: What are the lessons for you in your life up to that point? What are the big themes that

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:: 49:02

Jeremy Van Wert: that got you to be where you were at a certain point, starting to grow. Okay.

541

:: 49:09

Brian Sebastian: Yep. So so

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:: 49:11

Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.

543

:: 49:15

Jeremy Van Wert: So, Brian, up to this point, you are just starting to build. And you're just a guy with an idea, a guy who naturally can speak with people, a guy who goes if I'm not going to get in the door this way. Then I'm gonna walk in the back door, and I'm going to make it happen. So overall at this point as you're moving into working your way up in a scene

544

:: 49:39

Jeremy Van Wert: in Los Angeles and everything like that. What are the big takeaways for you in your slowly building success on a solid platform.

545

:: 49:49

Brian Sebastian: Well, the one thing I always say is, if if someone ever asked me what's the one word that's most important to you, I would say, being consistent.

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:: 49:57

Brian Sebastian: because as long as you're consistent, and for me, being consistent means, you know, tonight's live show will be show number 75 live in a row, you know. Season 4 episode one starts tonight for us. That's important to us, because

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:: 50:14

Brian Sebastian: it's not easy finding that outlet. It's not easy finding the right outlets. It's like finding the right influencer these days, not like in 2012, when every you know, when there was just a few influences. Now everybody thinks the right influence, or whether you have 12,000 followers, or whatever which is nonsense, or even if you had a million, and you fell down to 942,000,

548

:: 50:36

Brian Sebastian: you know, there's different ways to do stuff. Some people

549

:: 50:40

Brian Sebastian: more people have health problems. Now.

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:: 50:42

Brian Sebastian: I don't have that I don't get headaches. I don't drink coffee. I just get up and start doing stuff. I'm thankful I'm show gratitude. I know what it's like to be homeless, I notice. Like to see my other friends. I don't have allergies, you know. I'm not really black. I'm more Indian and white, you know. I'm not married. Don't have any kids.

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:: 51:01

Brian Sebastian: You know, I'm 63, you know. So I also know what's coming on the pipeline when it comes to climate. And with our dreamy and all this stuff. And I'm gonna let you know this will be a part to that to do in the future. I'm just letting, you know. So that's a good thing. But you know, coming through all of that stuff, I knew there was the the movie reviews more when I created it. In October of 1993. I always knew the more part was gonna be more important than the movie reviews. But I didn't know what that was cause. That's in the early nineties. How would you know

552

:: 51:31

Brian Sebastian: I didn't have anybody to tell me? And then, you know, when we have chance, because I know we're running out of time. We'll talk about my Sharman, who helped guide me on the things because she's we all have an influence.

553

:: 51:43

Brian Sebastian: She's the one that put me on that track and said, You're gonna end up doing this cause. I had no idea I didn't know I was gonna interview celebrities when I moved to California. Remember, I moved. I wanted to be closer to Santa Clara. I was gonna move the Nordic California. That didn't happen, did it? No, I stayed in Los Angeles. And what a whole different way! So imagine me doing what I'm doing and wanting to help that Drum court wanting to help those individuals that company

554

:: 52:10

Brian Sebastian: now they can't see what I'm doing. They have no idea what I'm doing, and it doesn't even make sense to them what I'm doing. You're doing what you're talking to. Who how do you do this? Where can we see it? Well, public access was just locally. It wasn't nationwide. It wasn't syndicated depended where you were. So remember Vhs tapes. I had to send Vhs tapes to those people. They could see the show.

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:: 52:34

Brian Sebastian: and the quality was good. It was only half an hour. I did the best that I could at that point, and that was what it was.

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:: 52:41

Jeremy Van Wert: Well, thank you so much for bringing your message and your ideas and your story. Here. We're going to do a part 2 where you talk more about, up to the point where you are right now.

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:: 52:56

I love your tenacity. I love your relationship making. I love your ability to see possibilities, even though gatekeepers originally kept the gates shut on outsiders, you made relationships. You were kind to people. You followed up with people, and you had a deeply seeded belief

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:: 53:16

that when you put your mind set truly into something, and you make it so that it's going to manifest in your life, which you know is is something that can be incredibly powerful in life. So, Brian, thank you so much for bringing your story here. We're gonna follow back up very soon and do a part, too. And I really enjoyed hearing your story here.

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:: 53:40

Brian Sebastian: Thank you for this cause. This is great. I like this

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:: 53:44

Jeremy Van Wert: well, thank you to everybody for listening. This is Jeremy Van Wert from mindfulmutene. Now go be something great.

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:: 53:54

Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, I'm going to stop my recording here.

562

:: 53:57

Jeremy Van Wert: Whew!

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