J.R.: 0:00

Hello everyone, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, vampires and werewolves, koreaboos and otakus. Welcome back to another episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, jr Yonacruz. Today's guest is RJ Manalo. Rj is a musician, producer, freelance sound editor and recently a dance videographer. He's the director of Project A-Cool, a project created, but not limited to K-pop vocal and dance covers. He also works as a music minister for his local church, singing and playing piano for Sunday services, as well as the drummer for a 70s 80s cover band in Rancho Cucamonga. He, along with his rapper duo Ed1, first placed in KCON's Coverstar K vocal competition in 2019. In his free time he plays games such as Apex Legends or League of Legends with his friends and has a hobby of prop making and carpentry. He kind of dances also. So this was another fun episode with a fellow dancer, creative and Filipino.

J.R.: 0:53

Rj and I have known each other through the K-pop community, but as we get into this episode, he's deep into the creative world, making music, producing covers with his project group, a-cool, and we talk about his experience growing up Filipino-American, his journey to becoming an audio engineer and music producer and a bit about K-pop and video games, like one of our shared favorite games of all time Kingdom Hearts. Talking with RJ is always enjoyable because he's such a personable guy and easy to talk to, and I respect how, like many of my guests, he's figured out what he loves and pursues it wholeheartedly, and my hope is that you, the audience, can get inspired to pursue the things that you enjoy and learn from people like him. So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode with RJ Manolo. Hello everyone and welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Please welcome my guest, rj.

RJ: 1:48

Thanks for being here, appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for the invite.

J.R.: 1:50

I was really surprised that you invited me, because I was like, oh wow, but you're a friend of mine, yeah, and I respect you and I think you have good insights and we're like similar age range.

RJ: 1:57

I hope so yeah.

J.R.: 1:59

Yeah, and thanks for coming from Rancho. I know it's pretty far out, right yeah it's always a.

RJ: 2:03

It's always a journey coming out to Orange County or like Los Angeles, just trying to make my way over. But you know I appreciate the time I take to just come here. Yeah, no, I'm glad I got here. Same yeah.

J.R.: 2:12

I was going to say, because I didn't know until recently, until after I didn't know that Rancho Kokomo and then I'm finding out that there's restaurants there. I'm like oh yeah, that's definitely a Filipino place.

RJ: 2:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

J.R.: 2:30

I have this. I think I told you, but I have this standup comedy joke where it's you know how do you find Filipinos in your area? You just open up.

RJ: 2:41

Google Maps type inlly bee, there there's a jolly. It's right next to seafood city. There you go.

J.R.: 2:45

That's what you know for the filipino side it's a real thing, but I didn't realize so recently and I'm like, okay, it makes sense. Rg lives there, mickey lives there the prerequisites, exactly you know some of the other. Like candy, people live out in that area too so I was like, okay, that makes sense, all right.

J.R.: 3:00

So let's get into how I know you. I think we first met when you filmed Choreos' BTS Dynamite cover, right, yes. And I was like, oh, because usually we film, we have we internally film, like we have filmers internally for our Choreos, but I think this one was like during the pandemic, and so we were, and there wasn't a lot of people there yeah, like there. So I think someone reached out to you and was like like, oh, can you film our cover? And so you were one of the first people who were like an outside film for choreos. So that was rare, but then you're super chill.

J.R.: 3:27

And then, since then, I started dancing with you through Untitled, also like people like Travis, who was on the show as well like dance with them. And so we did a handful of 17 covers together, like, yeah, rock With you, super Crush, right. And then we also danced together for k factor in 2022 and let's see, yeah, I've also been to your place a couple times because you do a lot of your own recording audio stuff, like covers, with various other dancers as well. You've done some stuff with blessy as well, and so that's why I mean she knows this, but like I'll drive her there. She's like hey, are you free this next weekend to go to argy's place?

J.R.: 4:02

I'm like, yeah, sure so I'm her chauffeur and then she'll sing, and then I'll just be chilling there. But yeah I think that's pretty much like our relationship in a nutshell any clarifications or what are you up to?

RJ: 4:13

I totally forgot that that was when we met the dynamite cover. I just remember it was like bow or something who hit? Me up, and I was surprised too. I was like wait, I get to film a choreos cover.

RJ: 4:22

I know At the time they were kind of like a big yeah, exclusive kind of a big deal in the cover community, especially in Southern California. Dude, that was a really cool. I'm thankful for that opportunity. We met each other and obviously I met, like some of the other people in the choreos too, so that was pretty cool Apart from that? I don't think there's really any other clarifications really, especially with how we met right.

J.R.: 4:42

Yeah, exactly, and you fit the bill for one of my guests because you are Filipino. We both have two-letter names. Two-letter names yeah, I think my audience knows that 95% of my guests are dancers and or they fall into the category of Filipino.

RJ: 4:59

female content creator or some sort of gay dude, those are very like specific, exactly. But I look back at the roster I'm like yeah, that's 85% of my guests are those the only way you'll be invited to 1000.

J.R.: 5:11

Yeah, if you fit in all three categories and you're a dancer, you're probably going to be on the show.

RJ: 5:17

That's amazing.

J.R.: 5:18

Yeah, all right. So if nothing else, then we can go into the first topic. So else, then we can go into the first topic. So, as with all of my guests, we go into origin story, just to humanize you a little bit.

RJ: 5:30

Where did you grow up and what were your main influences during your childhood? So I was actually born on the East Coast. I was born in New Jersey. I didn't actually know that, yeah, I was. I lived there since I was like five and then, yeah, pretty much like an East Coast baby. Then I moved to Southern California when I was like five or six and I've been living in the rancho inland empire area ever since.

RJ: 5:47

I guess kind of like my influences, like I was pretty much like influenced by like family most of the time live did a lot of like weekend parties with filipinos, always like that, did a lot of weekend parties at my uncle's house, just hung out like in rancho all the time. And basically, especially like career-wise. I think my biggest influence is probably like my dad, because he's like his, most of his family's like musicians. I didn't pursue it like as a career. They mostly just do it as a hobby and I think I just decided to do that rather than everybody else because, oh, that's not a safe type of career to do. I'm just like I'm gonna prove you wrong.

RJ: 6:21

right, because when you're a fil're Filipino and you do anything like outside of, like nursing or whatever everyone's like, what do you want to do with your life? Right, I don't think so. Yeah.

J.R.: 6:29

Was it the same for you with the whole Filipino pressure of going into nursing or whatever?

RJ: 6:33

Yeah, because you have siblings I forgot, I do have siblings. Yeah, I have one older sister and then one older brother, so and my, yeah, like going back to the whole like pressure of like nursing, yeah, like a lot of my cousins were nurses right even now, like my mom, I'm already like pretty well into like my career as like an audio editor and like a sound engineer, and my mom's like are you sure you don't want to do nursing?

J.R.: 6:55

it's not too late it's not too late.

RJ: 6:57

I was like mom, okay, I'm already here, I already have pretty decent connections right now. I think. I think I'm pretty much figuring it out right now.

J.R.: 7:03

Yeah, that's pretty much how that works. Yeah, what is your sister and brother do with my?

RJ: 7:07

you know I'm asking so my sister is, the is a boxing trainer in Santa Fe Springs. Yeah, she's a. She owns her own boxing gym in Santa Fe Springs. Do you know where a snow globe is that I have an idea. Yeah, her boxing was like right next. Oh, that's really funny. Yeah, so she does that and it's cool because she's actually she's very well known in the community, in the boxing community, because she's female and she's asian. So it's like really cool. Pr people try to like talk to her all the time.

J.R.: 7:33

It's like oh my god you're like the coolest yeah, you know, girl, I ever met.

RJ: 7:40

There are moments she's like oh yeah, I'm gonna meet manny cool. Yeah, it was really cool. And then my brother is a game art designer yeah, but he also works as a like warehouse stuff also, so he does like some of the game art stuff on the side where he works there's like warehouse tech.

J.R.: 7:52

I think, yeah, it's interesting.

RJ: 7:54

So you're, you and your siblings are very like quote-unquote atypical for them yeah, like comparatively to a lot of our cousins and stuff, we're like like black sheep, yeah, of the of our cousins. And I always find it funny whenever we're like hanging out at like parties and stuff, my cousins talk about like how hard of a day they had at like the hospital and they're like, hey, and they're like, oh, queer argy, what did you do at this week? And I was like, oh, I filmed a music video, right. Oh, I made a song with like my friends. Really funny, this sort of juxtaposition between me and like my cousins yeah, did you Tangent?

J.R.: 8:28

did you ever get into boxing or try it out?

RJ: 8:30

No, I think that was something that, like, that was really just my sister.

J.R.: 8:33

I mean I did like Pacquiao, right? No, that's the last thing. Like it's genetics, apparently Even I did boxing for a little bit.

RJ: 8:40

Maybe just for my sister, maybe my brother also did, maybe I don't know, if it like fits like my brother did karate when he was younger. I think the most that I've done with I guess is like body movement. I guess it's just dancing or anything. Yeah, I don't think I've ever done like fighting or whatever.

RJ: 8:52

Yeah, it's very shit like, you're a dancer and a singer musician, so you have a lot of the filipino check boxes already yeah, you're just obviously just not a nurse, but that's totally fine I think it's, I think about that stuff like like infinity stones, it's like to be filipino. Yeah, yeah, it's all. Yeah, I have only four of like the five like. Oh, I guess I'm never gonna achieve full powers right, I'm not a nurse.

J.R.: 9:12

Yeah, what else is there being astronaut?

RJ: 9:14

nurse. Yeah, nurse, I guess, sing, or no, yeah, nurse, singing, dancing, maybe, I guess, being good at cooking maybe yeah, or like working like at the post office. I think so yeah, it's a very filipino thing, or working at jollybee, working with jollybee, or at least having a relative.

J.R.: 9:29

That's work, that works there, like that yeah so I know one of the topics we wanted to get to was your just your experience growing up filipino-american in socal. I'm from the bay and so I'm a quote-unquote transplant since college. But yeah, for my own curiosity, what was it like growing up Filipino-American in Zalcal and what do you think are some of the nuances that people might not know?

RJ: 9:51

about. I think it really just stems down to, like, family. I don't think there really is an inherent difference between when you're from the Bay or from when you're down here. I think it really all just stems from knowing whether or not your family is willing to give you the culture back to you and I think my family in particular.

RJ: 10:10

When you're growing up as, like a Filipino American, it's a little bit more of an identity crisis. It's oh, you hear your aunts and uncles like speak like Tagalog like all the time, like around you and you want to know what they say. It's unfortunate for me that I've never learned how to speak Tagalog, because my parents never taught it to me, because they just never thought it was like like a good idea to teach me. There's no point, right. It's like you're in America, just speak English and you'll succeed. And then the years later, like now, my mom's like man, I should have taught you Tagalog, should I taught you Filipino?

RJ: 10:39

I was like I don't think that's my fault, but you know they thought of what was what was best for me and being being an american. But it was funny because I think I developed more of a sense of learning the culture on my own as I got older, especially when I meet, met up with a lot of like different friends from college who were in like filipino clubs and like doing a lot of performances and stuff. So I think that might be the difference between like certain people who want to experience being filipino, and I don't think there is a difference between norcal versus like socal, like filipino american culture, really it's really just what you make of it right, I know there's a lot of common denominators, which is what we find out in this age of social media.

J.R.: 11:17

Yeah, but where's your family or parents from in philippines? So my mom, I would know really but so my dad is from batangas and then my mom is from manila, but she's from pampangan, so she speaks.

RJ: 11:30

Oh, I see. Yeah, so they're very like, like even that is. Kapapang is like a whole other language too, and it's just like even my dad speaks like batangin yo right, which is like more like deep tagalog tagalog. Right now it's mostly like spanish along with tagalog, but my dad speaks speaks like pure Tagalog also, so you have like words that mean certain stuff that would otherwise mean differently in.

J.R.: 11:50

Spanish.

RJ: 11:52

But yeah, but basically. Yeah, that's pretty much where they're from, yeah.

J.R.: 11:55

Does your dad have coffee on rice? Is that a thing in your family? I've never asked him actually Really.

RJ: 11:59

I mean, he probably does, I just have never seen him do it, maybe.

J.R.: 12:02

Yeah, that was a big thing when blessing ever on TikTok a lot. And then I realized that her family obviously does that a lot. I didn't even know if my family did that. But then my mom was like, oh yeah, some people do, but not all. I never grew up seeing on rice coffee on rice.

RJ: 12:16

Yeah, I've never heard of that, really I feel like we've talked. I've seen a lot of Filipino recipes.

J.R.: 12:23

So just white rice on a plate and then like black coffee, hot you just pour it on and you eat it. What?

RJ: 12:28

Really yeah, that's it.

J.R.: 12:29

Ask my dad about it, look at our comment section in our TikToks.

RJ: 12:33

It's like there's a war. It's like people are like ew, that's gross. And people are like oh, I do that. My family does that. Okay, know champorado. Yeah, have you had like dillis, like fish, with champorado before? Yeah, it's like that. It's like a sweet savory kind of thing. That's the craziest thing I've heard. I've tried. I was like it's pretty good. I've never heard of coffee on rice or whatever.

J.R.: 12:52

Yeah, I always give blessy a hard time about that because I'm like ew that's gross. It's not really gross, but she gets so offended that I just keep going anyways.

RJ: 12:59

Filipino taste buds are just like titanium dude I, I don't know what it is man and even then, it's not even just a Filipino thing.

J.R.: 13:04

Apparently, other Asian, some Asian cultures also do coffee on rice, but that's just what we found out. Okay, so I guess maybe you touched upon this, but challenges, advantages that you feel like being Filipino American lent to your journey or your experience.

RJ: 13:21

I think me being Filipino it did introduce me to singing. Or your experience, I think me being Filipino it did introduce me to singing Like I was a. I joined the Filipino choir because of my parents, obviously at my church, and then that kind of moved into me becoming like a musician at my church. So that is one of the advantages you just learn how to like operate with people socially and like in a group setting and like some sort of because I think being Filipino, filipino is like mostly about community. They're very welcoming and inviting. So when you're around those types of people a lot, you tend to try to give off that same energy to a lot of people who probably aren't filipino or maybe they are filipino, but otherwise I don't think I don't think there was any real challenges apart from the comparative nature of you being like oh, why aren't you this, why aren't?

J.R.: 14:02

you a nas astronaut? Yeah. Why aren't you this? Why aren't you a NASA astronaut? Yeah. Why aren't you a nurse? Yeah. Why aren't you a nurse in space that does? Yeah, that's pretty much.

RJ: 14:08

I don't think there's anything more to that actually.

J.R.: 14:10

So, like last weekend or the weekend before, I went to the East Coast to visit my mom's family and it was like one of the first times that all of my aunts and uncles on my mom's side and some, and it brought me back because I realized that my whole family, it seems like they're all extroverts and they're all loud, oh yeah, and then I'm just like just quiet in the corner, which I've always been.

J.R.: 14:31

But it just was a not a culture shock, but it was kind of like a punch in the face. Wow, actually my family is like this yeah, I'm kind of like the odd one out, because I'll just listen and then I'll throw in a joke and then people will laugh and I just go back to listening.

RJ: 14:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

J.R.: 14:43

Because when there's too many extroverts, I just start to become more introverted, but when there's too many introverts, I'll become extroverted. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think it's funny you mentioned the community thing too, because my family is also like that, like they're also like mixed Filipino American, my grandma communal and even though it's like there's differences, but it's still very family yeah, same with my dad's side too yeah, okay.

J.R.: 15:06

So the last question on this. You already went into career aspirations and trajectory, but I know you just mentioned how you got into singing, but how did you get into dance? I got into dance your genetics.

RJ: 15:17

Well, maybe when I I got into dance, because when I moved back to public high school in, I think like my junior year of high school, I hung out with a lot of Asian people. Right, High school is sectioned off because all the Mexican kids are like one place People self-segregate yeah people self-segregate because they just want to feel comfortable.

RJ: 15:34

It was like all the Asians were in one place. So I hung out with all the Asian people and they I was like dang, that sounds cool, I want to go. And I went and I was like dang, I want to learn how to six step, I want to learn how to baby freeze. And it wasn't, honestly, most a lot of people go into it as like a phase, but I really looked into it. I was like maybe this could be a cool recreational thing, because I don't really do anything active besides, maybe just play basketball or something. So I decided to just go. Then, from there it went from oh, like learning how to b-boy, to oh, can you perform with us on stage at this like event? I'm like sure. And then that's when I got into more hip-hop, choreo stuff. And then I think after that I went more into k-pop. Stuff is blowing up. I knew about k-pop from like a while but I never bothered to do like this was during high school college yeah, I think in high school that's when I started how to dance dancing.

RJ: 16:24

But then when I started doing more performance, stuff was like after high school basically, and that's pretty much how I started dancing. I just wanted to be a cool b-boy Filipino kid in high school, basically.

J.R.: 16:34

So how about K-pop, since you just mentioned that?

RJ: 16:37

I got into dancing for K-pop because my friend from CSUF or Cal State, fullerton, she, was saying like, oh, we need somebody to, we need one more person for our dance competition at Anime Expo. And I was like, yeah, sure I can join. And then because that person who invited me, she was part of this cultural event Filipino dance cultural event that we did she was like, yeah, we need more person. I know you like k-pop, do you want to just do this? I'm like sure, I guess. And I joined. And then that's when I met everybody else in the community basically and I met ed hd nico, basically like a lot of the other people who were like in that and at the time, that was like the only way you can really meet like dancers and stuff but yeah, that's pretty much how I submitted

J.R.: 17:15

myself in the k-pop community yeah, what's what got you into k-pop first off? Was there specific artists or how did you come across?

RJ: 17:23

it. I think, like most people, it was like taeyang big bang and like g, so like 2008 to 2009 basically, yeah, like I'm pretty old fan, like when I remember when and I'm a sister right like my boy, like when those, like when snsd came out with g, I was like man, who are these?

RJ: 17:38

really pretty girls and colorful colored jeans, yeah like this song is so addicting, and then everybody wanted to be taehyung. I remember in high school everybody had the fedora like on the side of their head and everything it was either you wanted to be taehyung or you want to be neo. It was like one of the two, right? Yeah, that's pretty much how I got into it it's like fedora.

J.R.: 17:54

Who do you like taehyung?

RJ: 17:55

yeah, he's like I love gd or something.

J.R.: 17:57

Yeah, exactly okay, so now I guess we're going into singing. I wanted to ask you about the story of how you got first place in a K-pop vocal cover competition.

RJ: 18:09

Yeah, so me, along with my our friend, ed, right Like I've. I met Ed like a while back and we did competitions together like K-Factor, what have you, and we saw that KCON was actually having a vocal cover competition. And normally when you think of cover competitions in like at KCON or like any like K-pop sponsor, like event, you think they're mostly like dancing right, that's the norm. When we found out that they were having a vocal cover one, I just messaged Ed. I was like, hey, man, you want to do this thing? And he's like sure, we'll do it. And like I'm very thankful to Ed for being like always down to do stuff like that. So we, we do the thing. And then I think it was like based on like voting. So we kind of pr'd ourselves a lot. We're like, hey, vote for us, whatever.

RJ: 18:48

And then we made a music video for it and just to show people, hey, we mean business, we're not just like singing in our room or whatever. I know no discredit to people who do that, but we wanted to show people that there's more to just there's a little bit more effort being done by people who also like singing in k-pop. And then we got up on stage and we just killed. We just did our best. We killed. It had fun see all of our friends like in the audience.

RJ: 19:11

I was like man. I feel like a k-pop star man. It was cool. The lights are shining in your face. I'm like whatever. And there really wasn't a lot of. I don't think there really was like a lot of prep work to it, because I've been singing with ed for so long already. We know each other's like niches in terms of performing. So it's like I think when you do something for a while, for so long, with somebody else, you just bounce off of each other in a very organic way, and I think that's what put us over the edge to get first place yeah, it's like more natural, you're in the flow yeah, and there is also a lot of prep work to be done, right, because you do a performance and then one one like previous performance, something goes wrong, and then you think about, okay, how do we make this better for the next one?

RJ: 19:50

So you prep and you're like, okay, we, maybe we need a countdown in the beginning so we don't mess up the timing, right, that's all. Maybe we shouldn't run around so much, we'll get tired more easily. So, really, things like that, the previous performances that we've had, especially when doing like other competitions or like other events and stuff, I think that is more of the more of what helped us get over the edge for coverstar k at kcon.

J.R.: 20:13

Yeah, okay, a few questions to follow up to that. What year was this? So it's 2019, 2019. And then, what songs did you guys sing?

RJ: 20:22

so we only only did yeah by Winner, yeah, and then I think around that time I think Winner was there for a kick on, so I think it helped a little bit.

J.R.: 20:31

It wasn't like a you have to do one of these songs from one of the artists, yeah, yeah, whatever, but you guys did.

RJ: 20:36

We did anyway. Yeah, and I think Ed and I really work well when, when we do YG style songs, crowd pleasers like a lot of yelling, a lot of rapping, yeah something like that.

J.R.: 20:45

That makes sense. Okay, and then so, if I'm getting this correct, was it like a two-phase sort of competition? Yeah, so submit a video and then live performance.

RJ: 20:53

Yeah, so there was the voting phase, which was the first round, and then the second round was pretty much the finals. Perform, yeah to perform. And it was funny because I remember one of the this might be a little bit of a tangent, but one of the people that was supposed to be in it we had a group chat. It was like, oh wow, I can't meet. Wait to meet you guys, so we can all hang out. And then, like later on they found out that one of the girls was like like 17 years old. She wasn't like an adult, so she wasn't allowed yeah, eligible to perform.

RJ: 21:18

So it's like she made this group chat and so really disappointed. I like, what do we do? I felt so bad, but yeah, no, she's cool, though she forever hates.

J.R.: 21:26

Everstore K-Brand. Because of that You're so close, almost got in. Yeah, that's crazy. So it was the same song you performed that you recorded.

RJ: 21:32

Yeah, yeah. So the same song we made a music for. We performed it at the competition. Do you remember who judged? I don't, I actually. I remember, yeah, it was like a panel.

RJ: 21:42

I think there was like a couple of KCON like representatives. There was this one like producer guy named like Kairos or something. He like gave us his card and we were just like, oh yeah, here you go. And then I tried calling him and he like never answered. I was like, okay, so that's like the reality of the situation. Right, and so you can perform at KCON, you can do great, but sometimes you're probably not going to make it anyway. I bet he did it as a courtesy, just to give us something. I'm not bad-mouthing him or anything, but that's just what it is. I remember we did win two tickets to go to the actual concert. I wasn't planning on going to the concert. He gave us the tickets and they were like oh yeah, here you go. And I remember going to the concert and they were just like to go downstairs. And we're like downstairs, what do you mean? Oh, we're gonna be in the pit. No, way dude.

RJ: 22:23

Yeah, it was actually really cool that's cool.

J.R.: 22:25

Yeah, it's a good perk you won right. Was that the only prize?

RJ: 22:27

it was just like tickets and stuff yeah, just like tickets, I think shirt, like a couple shirts and stuff, yeah, some swag and then like a, I guess like a little placard saying, hey, you won cover circuit. That's pretty much it that's dope.

J.R.: 22:40

Okay, so I guess a little bit of a pivot. But what draws you to your current career? Passion, audio and sound.

RJ: 22:49

I just like producing in general, I think even past audio. I just like making stuff. When I was younger I think it was in high school that was kind of when I discovered audio editing and just writing music and stuff. And at the time it was on accident actually, I was actually making videos. I was just making fun little teleportation videos and really fun like VFX stuff, and then I noticed like on the bottom there was like a audio track and then you can record audio to it. So I was like, oh, let me check this out really quick. And then I just recorded my voice. I'm like, can I do it in another?

J.R.: 23:20

lane.

RJ: 23:21

So I started recording myself to myself and then it turned into this sort of fascination of what can I add to this to make it like even more. And then that was actually around the time I started becoming like a musician, right, and I started learning like different instruments. So I had my drum set set up, put a microphone like next to my drum kit, played like random something random, and put it next to my guitar amp and I played something along with the drums, put bass to it, but singing, and then by the end of it I was just like man, I just make a song, and one of those moments is what it feels like like an epiphany. I had an epiphany. I was like man, this is the coolest thing ever.

RJ: 23:53

I want to do this for the rest of my life and that's why I disappointed my mom. Right, it's like you don't want to be, you don't want to be a nurse or whatever. What do you mean? You want to do audio and I think more. I think before I was so used to like working on my own, like more recently. I love working with people. I love working with any artists, any singer who has this drive to just make something, and I feel like having like-minded people, just who love to sing and who love to create, is just what draws me even more to just making music and just like editing sound.

J.R.: 24:26

And even not even just like editing music, but even like doing it for for video right, doing it for films and stuff that's pretty much where I stand on that, yeah so I don't really have any insight into the industry of sound and audio engineering and things like that, but I want to ask, in your experience, what is that trajectory like, what are some challenges, what are some things that people should know about getting into it? And then maybe, what are the potential career avenues? How do you approach a career in audio and, like, what are the different avenues you can take, what are some challenges, etc.

RJ: 24:59

For what I know is that a lot of the people who get into audio and who get into like get into audio and who get into like just anything with sound editing.

RJ: 25:11

I think a lot of the people that I've met have all been musicians, right and I think most of the people that kind of fall into, like editing and stuff, were people who not necessarily failed at being a musician, but more so like they found out that that wasn't feasible as like a career I see.

RJ: 25:26

So they just moved into the next best thing, where they can still do the things that they love, but in a more safer expectation of a career. One of the things I will say is, if you want to be, if you do want to be like an audio editor, I guess, be open to a lot of criticism and a lot of editing, because you're going to, you're going to meet like a lot of people who are basically like, oh, like I hate how this sounds, can we redo it? And you have to just be open to that and I think I think also just being having good social skills, because you're gonna meet a lot of, you're gonna talk to a lot of people, right? Even if you think, oh, yeah, I want to be an engineer, I just want to be in the studio, I just want to edit, edit, no, you're going to be talking to a lot of people, no matter what you think it makes sense?

J.R.: 26:08

Yeah, so what are some common or types of careers or types of jobs that people aspire to have in this industry? And I guess, how do you get there?

RJ: 26:19

So one of the ways is one of them is like being a sound editor for post-production. That's like kind of what I'm doing right now. You can be a bedroom producer. You can be a bedroom producer. You can have your setup like in your room, like on a laptop or whatever. You can make music that way. You can probably show it to the world on YouTube or whatever. It's not like necessarily a way to start that career, but it is a way to show yourself and promote yourself.

RJ: 26:38

Other things that you can do there's a live sound also, where you can do sound for venues. You can be a audio tech for a podcast, just like this guy, right, right, sorry, things like that. Other things that you can do I think it's pretty much like the bulk of it, because there's like a lot of things like in between that they're pretty much like umbrella stuff. Say, live sound, you can be the guy at the mixing board or you can be a roadie like. You could set up cables, you can tear down equipment. You can also be a coordinator for the event.

RJ: 27:04

I think it's more like concert stuff, but that also works in the same realm For producing music. You can be the producer, you can be the songwriter, you can be the audio engineer, you could be the engineering tech. There's a lot of things that you can go into and it's actually very widespread as a career path really, because I think most of the time when people get there are specifics right. When you like graduate from a certain field, like you have the title oh yeah, music, industry, professional, whatever but you can the things that they teach you in school, for those things that like in like college, you can apply those to like a plethora of things. I think that's great. I think that's why it is hard to get into. But I will say that there is still like a large margin of error that if you do mess up at your, there's a lot of stuff out there.

J.R.: 27:54

I guess my question is any advice on an advice for people who may want to get into audio. Oh yeah, how would you advise them?

RJ: 28:15

to get started I would say, if you have any a practice like, really just practice on your own. If you have a like an audio production, like any like audio editor, just like. Practice working with like clips or like tracks or whatever, and just see how certain sounds react to each other, because you're going to be doing a lot of that later on. Familiarize yourself with what you're working with and that's common amongst like, a lot of musicians. Right, you hone your craft, you look into it and you try to be the best at how like at a certain program as much as you can, and that by the time you work on like actual, like industry level stuff, it's gonna be a cakewalk. Yeah, that's how I thought about it too, like I, when I used before I worked with a lot of like industry like stuff, like pro tools, like final cut and all that stuff I was already cutting in like a very bare bones program, and that practice that I've had for a long time helped me get over the edge of being being where I am now.

J.R.: 29:16

Yeah, All right. Last question on this is if you could go back to just graduating high school or your career trajectory is there anything you would redo or do differently? I would take like graduating after high school. Like you just graduated high school, you knew that you want to pursue this career.

RJ: 29:36

Is there anything that you would?

J.R.: 29:37

redo or do differently?

RJ: 29:38

I would take a lot more connections more seriously, because I think when I, after high school, I was still in this funk of am I good enough to do this, am I good enough to edit for anybody, and I had a lot of like self-doubt after high school because I really like when I was doing it after high school, I was really much more doing it as like a hobby and I did things on like my own time and whatever. But there was a lot of career opportunities that I was presented with that I did not take seriously because I didn't think I was good enough for them and I think if I had I said yes to a lot of those opportunities, I think I'd be in a much better place than I am right now in terms of my own career as, like, an audio editor and like whatever.

J.R.: 30:19

Just because just taking more opportunities. Yeah, I see. Okay, let's shift now. So I want to ask you about A-Cool. So how did you start it, what's the story behind it and what is the name? What is A-Cool?

RJ: 30:32

we were at this k-pop club and the k-pop club had, like other groups of friends who made fun little teams and stuff. Originally we weren't called a cool. We were actually called not seven like a long time ago and because we were doing a, we're a bunch of seven dudes just doing a got seven song. That's why it's cheesy, right. So we did that and then fast forward later we also did. We recorded the song. We recorded a song by godson, we did got7 fly and we did the dance to it. So I started off this whole thing of doing singing and dancing for k-pop covers. We didn't really take it seriously. Fast forward a little bit. My other friend who was also part of the club. He wanted to participate in that, but I didn't want to ruin the not seven like name. So I was like, oh, let's make a free brand into like a cool, right and a cool. The name is actually based off of the blockberry creative group, luna, which is l o o n a, and it's basically a the first the way. How? It's a pretty long explanation I think I'll tell you after the podcast, yeah, but it's pretty much. It's pretty much referenced off of that and I basically started that again. Oh, I started that in 2016.

RJ: 31:48

So basically, it was like a thing where I wanted people to come together to do collaborative singing projects, because there's not a lot of teams like that say, for who's that? Like Aurora, for example? There's not a lot of teams that do that and I wanted to be. I wanted to do more things like that with my friends who also knew how to sing and stuff.

RJ: 32:09

And it was also like thinking about it now after restarting it, because from the time when I started A-Cool, I joined Untitled and I had to put A-Cool on a bit of a break. And when I left Untitled, I decided, no, let me revive A-Cool to do more stuff. And then so, when A-Cool kind of came up or when I brought A-Cool back up again, I thought of it as a really cool opportunity for me to hone my craft as, like, a producer and audio engineer and also to give opportunity to people who don't have the setup to record. To take, for example, like blessy right when she comes over and you come over too, and like other people that I invite to do this project.

RJ: 32:39

I want people to be able to have fun doing a cover without it being like weird or like, oh, we have to do this right or trying to be too try hard and, like what I said when I was saying earlier, it's like working with people is a lot more easier for me because it allows me to hone my skills as, like, an audio engineer. I think that right now that's like the like where a cool is going.

J.R.: 32:57

Yeah I like that. It's kind of like a triple win, because you get to hone your craft, you get to build this community, socialize and whatnot, but also give them, give them a space to explore this avenue that they probably don't have.

RJ: 33:11

Yeah, and there's a funny joke I think I told you. It's like whenever people come over to record, they're like, oh, how long does it take for us to record? I was like, oh, maybe two hours, but it'd be 30 minutes of recording and an hour 30 of just talking. Yeah, no, it's exactly Establishing rapport.

J.R.: 33:24

Yeah, no, it's exactly establishing like rapport yeah, no, that's always the fun part where it's like the couple of times we came over, and maybe 15, 20 minutes and blessy is like pretty fast, right, yeah, and so then it's just 30 minutes of just talking. Yeah, minutes of recording, which is fun I like that yeah, so just for due diligence. Yeah, tldr, do you have the story of what does a cool mean?

RJ: 33:46

so a cool yeah. So what I said earlier, it's supposed it's based off of the blogberry creative group, luna, and luna means, uh, italia, sonia, which means girl of the month. I think I'm like butchering that angle like super hard right now. Yeah basically how it works is with luna's name. It's the first letter, first letter of every syllable of that phrase. Oh, okay.

J.R.: 34:08

Yeah, so if you look at how like I'm off of that sort of yeah.

RJ: 34:10

Yeah, so the way how we did it for Aeco, it would be 이 추위에 선연, which is boy of the week. So it was like because we always, when we were doing it, we released like teasers every week, right, so it's all boy of the week, right. And then because boy and girl have the same first syllable for that for the name, for sonyo versus sonyon. It just worked out in that way to be able to have it especially be like a co-ed group. But that's pretty much like the idea yeah, wait, hold on.

J.R.: 34:45

But a cool a k o o l yeah, so I don't know if I'm able to write it. I could show you.

RJ: 34:50

Oh, I see, I see, I'm like trying to do my head. I know I can read hangul, but I'm like you know the, you know the, ja, like the this one. Yeah, yeah, if you turn it, that makes it a k oh so, like actually what it looks, like what it looks like. So like the c it the s yeah, so that's the a oh, yeah, and then yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll show you later, you'll get it okay, I?

J.R.: 35:09

get what you're saying now. So for those of you who don't read korean or whatever so like the symbols, the letter the characters characters and you're saying you just changed, like you physically changed the rotate the orientation orientation, and then that made equal.

RJ: 35:24

Yeah because that's what they. That's also what they did for l also. I see, now it clicks All right.

J.R.: 35:29

Cool. Thank you for that Now, because I'm sure the audience will be like wait, did he just pass over that?

RJ: 35:33

Like what is this?

J.R.: 35:33

teaser. What does that mean? Okay, cool, so let's go into. We talked about K-pop.

RJ: 35:53

I want to ask you Kingdom Hearts also like playing Genshin Impact, you know like a lot of like fantasy style, like stuff. Apex Legends, like Shooter Valorant I guess I stopped playing it, but there's also like another one. I think I really like games that are just have great like music really.

J.R.: 36:05

Oh, there you go yeah.

RJ: 36:06

So I played a lot of rock band and like guitar hero back in the day. So I was like I was stuck on that when I was that checks out. Yeah, I was like playing. I actually it was funny because that was actually like rock band was actually one of the reasons why I got into drumming, because I was like wow, I can actually move my hands, so this predated when you actually started learning yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, should I got into that a little bit.

J.R.: 36:25

so maybe, maybe Rock Band was a main influence for you, I guess.

RJ: 36:28

so yeah, that makes sense Now that I think about it. Yeah, now that we mentioned it, yeah, rock Band, I think, was like one of those games that was like I was trying to be like on the leaderboard like every time Like oh, I got to get perfect score. Yeah, I was pretty, I was a sweat at Rock Band. Those games mentioned, like kingdom hearts a little bit. I guess we'll like dive into that later. Yeah, basically like a lot of games that like involve like a lot of music. I love games like that yeah, okay.

J.R.: 36:52

So then now kingdom hearts. Why kingdom hearts? What's so special about that game?

RJ: 36:56

yeah. So kingdom hearts for me is like the storytelling is great, the gameplay is great, the it's something about the game, especially the music, right. I think kingdom hearts was also one of those really big influences for me, like just writing music, because I, when I was learning piano when I was like younger, I was like man, I don't want to be playing like all this classical stuff. It's boring, right. And then when I heard a lot of kingdom hearts music, I was like I want to learn how to play that. It's kind of like how people learn how to play like river flows and you or like wedding dress, right. It's kind of the same thing for me, like I wanted to just learn how to play these songs and I also wanted to write music like that.

RJ: 37:31

I think Yoko Shimomura, the composer of Kingdom Hearts, I think was and probably is one of my biggest influences and I never get bored playing the game. I think like I can play the game like 10 times over. I can never get bored of it because the music really just draws you in and I think even like a lot of the sound design, like Keyblade, like sound effects and like a lot of the, a lot of the like sound effects from other weapons and stuff. It's almost like a masterclass. It feels really good to like play in it. I don't like. I can probably go on and on about it, but I don't want to don't want to like.

J.R.: 38:08

Yeah, we like to hear about it, I mean so I'm also love kingdom hearts. I was like a big staple for me in high school yeah, one of the main franchises that I played a lot and I do a lot of solo like one player games. But another thing too is a lot of our friends and people who are really into gaming, like final fantasy and so kingdom hearts is like.

J.R.: 38:22

If you don't know what kingdom hearts is, it's like a fusion of that final fantasy genre vibe with disney, yeah, and so it combined these two crazy things and then it worked really well. And now it's this huge thing cultural, I don't know, cultural shift in the video game world yeah and I think to the point this could also be a main influence, because it seemed like it really like made an impact on you growing up yeah, I think it's funny because I remember we stumbled upon it on accident.

RJ: 38:47

My older brother just brought the game home, the first one, and he was like, oh, this looks cool, right, we just bought it and he's always see donald duck and like goofy and mickey randomly. What is this like disney game? It's like anime looking and we play it and it's like the coolest thing ever. Yeah, friend, and I think the overarching message of friendship, friendship, being like there for your, like everybody, and being the greater good and like a lot of stuff. I think this is really cool, very anime for sure, but it just feels good, especially when put into a disney context and especially because the you get all these like ips of little mermaid, like lion king, being put into this new interpretation of it and you're like wow, and especially in an anime sense, right, wow, this is really cool.

J.R.: 39:25

Like you, because you can watch the classics, right, and those they're good because they're the classics, but to see them reimagined, yeah, and explore deeply exactly different contexts, yeah, but basically yeah, I like that a lot too, because kingdom hearts is what brought me more into disney, meaning like learning about the worlds, yeah, the backstories behind it, because they're really faithful to the spirit of all the worlds that they bring you in and they touch almost everything in disney classics right, but they also bring in the world of final fantasy, yeah, all those characters, and that's how I also got more into the lore of final fantasy, but they just did it so well in the storytelling, the gameplay, yeah, and then, just like this, the saga that has been playing, playing out over time. There's still some games that I have not played through, and so I'm just like it's on my list to just watch the playthroughs or watch, like, the cut scenes, just to get it.

RJ: 40:11

I will tell you like certain games you don't have to play right, no like yeah, you, I would encourage you to watch the playthroughs, but you don't have to play them if you really don't want to, because I've tried and I'm just like I'm just gonna watch it youtube, yeah, no that's why there were some of those games where I was like I know this is going to be tedious.

J.R.: 40:26

There's a lot of grinding or, like some of the handheld games, I don't really have the capacity or the platform to do this, but if I just watch the playthrough I can get the value of it and like the experience. But yeah, it is such a deep, immersive world. I highly recommend it. Anything else on Kingdom Hearts or video games? Not really, no, just a huge recommendation.

RJ: 40:46

Yeah, like you know, parts of you like disney, like I see all you disney adults. If you like anime and you like disney kingdom hearts is for you.

J.R.: 40:52

Anime, disney, video games it's like the best, like intersection of all of it yeah, one of my dream cosplays since I was younger I think I know where this is coming from was like an organization. 13 yeah and so I eventually got it.

RJ: 41:05

I eventually got it, so now that's one of my staples wait you actually had 13 other people that no, no, okay, so not with other people, but just the outfit itself oh, okay right like the hooded black like leather yeah I don't have keyblades, but just having the cosplay was like I'm like dude.

J.R.: 41:19

Let me just put me in as organization 13, just walk around exactly.

RJ: 41:23

Obviously you're gonna be like oh, let's just grab like 14 or like 13 of my other friends and just show up with black coats and just readily walk.

J.R.: 41:30

That would be fun if I found, like X many other nerds to do it and all the different weapons, that they have too. Oh yeah, but even then you could just do the black coats. No, yeah, you could just do the black coats.

RJ: 41:46

I think it'd be just another level. I'm sure people have done it. I'm like, oh, the silver white one with the black one, oh, so good.

J.R.: 41:53

Yeah, that was like my dream cosplay. So it'll happen one day. One day. Okay, anything else on topic of games, kingdom Hearts or K-pop before I move on.

RJ: 42:04

Not really. No, I don't think we have.

J.R.: 42:05

It was a little nice, little yeah yeah, just a little nostalgia. I've not played game parts in a while wait, what's your favorite?

RJ: 42:11

have you played all three of them like uh?

J.R.: 42:13

so I didn't play the third one I played the first two and then the third one came out what 10 something years ago, something like?

RJ: 42:18

that. No, I think it was like five years ago. Five years ago, okay, whatever, whatever.

J.R.: 42:21

I just never got to it because I've been on a video game hiatus since then okay, but it's obviously top of my list, like when I when I get back into video games like I do, like a six month stint, back into it just to get back onto the drug and, like I did, some first person shooters like the call of duties and the assassin's creed and god of war and I'm supposed to get back into to catch up on gta, but kingdom hearts is on there and also final fantasy, whatever the most recent ones are but those for anyone knows, those are like a grind.

J.R.: 42:50

So I'm just like, let me just get the first person shooters out of the way. Those are faster usually yeah story yeah, all right, so rapid fire, you ready sure cool. First one billboard question if you could put up a sign for millions of people to see metaphorically non-commercial, what would it say if?

RJ: 43:06

you have a voice, use it. And I mean that in the way of, if you like, if you want to perform, if you want to sing, go out and sing. If you have this song that you want to put out, put out that song. Or if you, if there's an issue in the it's bothering you, speak up. Things like that are like pretty important part of my life. Just talking about, oh I, I don't like it when things are just like basically, yeah, I like it.

J.R.: 43:31

What is one of the hardest challenges you've faced in your life and what did you learn from it?

RJ: 43:35

I think having that I had a bit of a depressive episode, like after high school, like when I started college and until now, because I had a lot of like self-doubt and in like my skill as like a audio engineer and just like working on music in general, because it was like you see all these people being like amazing and I think overcoming that was probably the biggest hurdle of my life and just understanding that maybe I am good at what I do and yeah, I think that was probably the biggest challenge, for sure what was like the takeaway or what did you learn from that?

J.R.: 44:06

because so you said you had this sort of doubt and then you overcame it. Did something help, a strategy, mindset or something that someone told you that helped?

RJ: 44:13

yeah. So there was a one of my classes. I had a acoustics class which was like studying like sound in like a space. I did a final project and he met. He emailed me. My professor emailed me. He was like hey, rj, can you call me back at this number? We gotta talk about your final project. And I was like oh my god, I'd like mess it up. I was like I'm gonna fail the class right. And that was already when my self-doubt was like at its highest right. And so he called me and he was and I called him and I was like professors, you want to talk to me? My, my final project. And he was like, yeah, amazing job. And I was like, oh my god, like weight was lifted off my shoulders. And then he told me he was like and I asked him like sir, wouldn't this have like suffice in an email or like a text?

RJ: 44:52

This could have been this meeting, could have been an email, yeah this could have been an email, and he told me he was like that's the thing I wanted to talk to you about. Why is it that this project that I'm getting, this amazing project, is coming from somebody who only has a B minus in my class? And then that made me think I'm like oh, it just shows that I am capable of making great content, I'm able of making great things. I just didn't have the drive to do it and I didn't have the validation to do it. Granted, you can. You don't have to have other people validate your work.

RJ: 45:22

But in this kind of field, and your friends and family can tell you all the time oh you're really good, but it doesn't really sell that much when you're being told something like that from an industry professional and I've had that happen to me multiple times or you have ears, or this is great. I love this. It's like OK, it makes me feel like maybe I am, maybe I do know what I'm doing, and I think that helped me really get over that challenge of self-doubt. For sure, and that's when tied back to equal Working with other people. Because I know people, I'm confident in my ability to now help other people and produce other people. In that regard, I like it.

J.R.: 45:55

Self-inflicted wound? Do you have a story about something that's gone wrong in your life and you can't blame anyone because it's your own fault?

RJ: 46:00

I think when, not that I. I think my laziness maybe I think that was the biggest thing. That's part of the whole like overcoming that challenge. My laziness is like a big thing for that Cause before I got complacent, even when I thought I was good, I really wasn't. There's always the next level.

J.R.: 46:18

There's always the next level.

RJ: 46:19

Yeah, after that I can't really. I don't think I've had enough introspection for me to really think about it too much, but I would say it was just me, my complacency and just my laziness really Makes sense.

J.R.: 46:34

Okay, if you could give your younger self advice, what would it be now?

RJ: 46:40

Any age. I have a funny one. Tell her you like her. Is there a story behind this? Would you like to tell it, or no? No, just saying that was when I was like like in high school, oh yeah, no, I think another, like a more serious note, like did you not tell her?

J.R.: 46:55

I never told her.

RJ: 46:55

Ah, yeah she got is the one that got away. Yeah, on a more serious note, yeah, take your education more seriously because, like when I was a kid, I was like man, school's lame, right, I just want to play video games all the time like no, no, no, no. Take it more seriously, you'll be in a much better place you are than now. Because the repercussions of not taking your education seriously you have to work harder in life, right, you know. Work hard now, have fun later.

J.R.: 47:18

The whole thing yeah, don't put it off for. Don't put it off for too long what, in the last few years, what, what new belief, behavior or habit has improved your life? No one is coming to save you.

RJ: 47:28

But you and I realized that in order for me to improve my own, or in order for me, I can't expect people to help me all the time. So I've just come to terms with becoming my own savior really. If I have an issue, I have to address it on my own. I can't rely on anybody to help me with it. It's fine to have an issue. I have to address it on my own. I can't rely on anybody to help me with it. It's fine to have like your own support group to help you with stuff, but at the end of the day, you have to be like your own savior really.

J.R.: 47:54

Yeah, like taking responsibility yeah how do you define success?

RJ: 48:00

it's more so defined by the connections that you make with people. If people believe in what you do is good, then I think you have a pretty successful life because you can be really good at what you want, what you do, like when you're alone or like whatever. But if people don't believe in what you do and if people don't see the value in what you do, then what you do means nothing really and that's yeah so it's so, it's like dependent on the outside feedback or it's dependent on like creating connections with people in order to how do I say this?

RJ: 48:39

Because before, when I would do music as like a hobby, I always did it by myself and I was not super happy doing it because I felt like I was just doing it, just to do it. When I started working with more people who were just as inclined to do that thing with me, I think that's where the kind of success kind of like rolls in, because it's more of a community based or like collaborative based thing.

J.R.: 48:53

Oh, I see. So it feels like and correct me if I'm wrong it's that next level of, okay, you can do something for yourself and it's fun and that's great.

RJ: 49:01

But when you get to that next level of you doing it in a community and you get that validation and there's more fulfillment there, yeah, you get that validation and there's more fulfillment there, yeah, because you're both winning in the very end, like, especially whoever you're with and wherever you're working with, Because you don't want to be selfish, because you have all this skill and whatever, and if you can't show that to the world and you can't share it, there's no point in even doing it.

J.R.: 49:18

I see. So it's like a gift is meant to be shared with the world. Yes, I like it. If you couldn't fail, what would you be trying or doing right now and subsequently, if you knew you would absolutely fail, what would you do anyway If I couldn't fail?

RJ: 49:31

If I couldn't fail, I would open up my own recording studio. If I couldn't fail, and if I had all the materials and all the finance for it if it was just given to me I would totally do that.

J.R.: 49:44

So open up a recording studio, and then what?

RJ: 49:47

Be a producer for artists Yeah're just like producer for artists. Or be produced for artists. Make, write music for people. Just create a space for even newer artists or even newer bands to kind of show up and just record music if they wanted to also be being a part of the music industry.

J.R.: 49:57

Yeah, oh, I see, yeah and then, if you knew you would absolutely fail, what would you do anyway if I would?

RJ: 50:01

absolutely fail. I'd probably be a nurse if you knew you would go into nursing, I would go into nursing.

J.R.: 50:09

So I'm probably going to kill you because I'm absolutely going to fail.

RJ: 50:14

No, I mean, it's like in terms of if I knew I was going to fail like music, I would probably just go back to, I would probably go into nursing because I would be like the same, or I don't know if I'm misunderstanding. Oh, I see what you're saying so I like that answer.

J.R.: 50:25

The spirit of the question is like what would you do, or what would you continue doing that you enjoy so much that, even if you are a failure quote unquote you would still be doing it?

RJ: 50:34

oh, oh, then probably just still music, then okay yeah, or nursing, or nursing, I would still do.

J.R.: 50:41

Nursing, yeah, I'd still do nursing. What is something you've been pondering either frequently or deeply?

RJ: 50:47

or both. Am I still? Am I making my parents proud? Yeah, because, at the end of the day, you do all these things for yourself, right, and I think, like my parents, they support me and whatever I do, right, like my dad is my biggest supporter and then, but my mom, like my mom supports me, but she's like my harshest critic, right, I'm thankful.

RJ: 51:10

But I'm thankful for it too, because even when I'm like playing at church, right, my mom would like I would play really well and my mom would be like Anak, you should, you should have played this differently. I'm like, no, but, and it's that sort of thing where it's rather, am I not doing enough? And I always think about that too, because you it goes back to that filipino like comparison right, it's all your family, your cousins, are like off doing like amazing things and you're just sitting on your own like trying to make things work, trying to make it happen. But I think that's one of the things that has that's constantly on my mind, because I don't want I never want to disappoint my parents, because, probably because I'm asian, I also don't want to have them worry about me too much, and I think that's a yeah.

J.R.: 51:55

Have you ever asked them or do you know how they feel about you and all that? Oh, yeah, yeah they, they have.

RJ: 51:59

My mom especially. She has been very verbal about my career choice and it's like you can't like, just go back to nursing.

J.R.: 52:06

It always just goes back to nursing. So they are.

RJ: 52:08

They are proud of you but yeah, and to to degrees like they they've expressed, yeah, like you did a good job and stuff like that. But I even I even told my dad like I'm actually going to go back to school. I don't know, I should have probably mentioned that in the beginning. I'm actually going back to school and my dad was like yes, right, that one that one.

J.R.: 52:25

I love that right.

RJ: 52:26

No for what I'm gonna go back for music industry study, oh, okay. Okay, so I'm gonna actually be going to cal poly pomona, like sometime next year. That's the plan, like, I do have a degree in like audio editing and audio art, but then I wanted to expand my repertoire and just I guess, like at this point I I think I have enough know-how that it's just now. It's just a formality right, so you can.

J.R.: 52:45

You have the skills to do the thing, adding education to expand your knowledge repertoire, etc. Yeah, it can only help yeah, do you have a favorite hot take or something that you think most people won't agree with?

RJ: 52:57

favorite hot take. Well, this one's for k-pop, yes like k-pop, hot takes bts didn't pave the way. Sns paved the way, like social media paved the way for k-pop, for sure. And it's all because the reason why BTS became a big thing in the first place is because of social media, and if that didn't exist, would we even know about BTS?

J.R.: 53:17

Right, so it's like good timing.

RJ: 53:18

Good timing. They just came at the right time Because even before then, with Big Bang and everyone before that yeah, like EXO or like whoever, it's not like they weren't as talented, exactly.

J.R.: 53:26

Or actually more of a pioneer. But the social media, the timing of that.

RJ: 53:31

I think that's a good hot take.

J.R.: 53:32

Yeah, what is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made in either time? Money, energy, et cetera?

RJ: 53:39

I think finally buying Pro Tools for the first time. Pro Tools is like a digital audio workstation Basically. It's like industry standard, like a workstation to just create and just produce music. For a while I was sitting on this random audio editor that I was just using because it was free, but you don't want to spend too much money. But then, because of that audio editor and I tried to hone my skills in that audio editor, once I got into the industry standard Pro Tools thing I was like, oh my god, this is so easy now. It's a lot more fine-tuned and a lot more easier to use and I think a lot of my music has gotten a lot better because of that. A lot of my audio.

J.R.: 54:21

All right. Last one Favorite books, movies, videos, articles or any media that you share or recommend the most books, movies, videos, articles or any media that you share or recommend the most.

RJ: 54:31

One book that I would recommend would be called the content trap. It was actually a book that I read in college. It's by barat anand, I think. It basically talks about the sort of connections that you create with, like socially, or like career wise, or like product wise, right, and by connections I mean like like social connections, as if we're talking to each other. That's a social connection. Another connection you would have, let's say, if you're an audio engineer or you're like a producer or like a songwriter. But you have another thing you also are a videographer. I can produce your songs. Hey, like we're done with the song, you want to make a music video. I'm a videographer's like that, like creating sort of things in that way to expand your already given skillset.

J.R.: 55:12

Nice, I'll link that in the show notes. All right, that is it for rapid fire questions. We'll get into ending questions, so we always end with gratitude. Shout out to my mom, rj, what are you grateful for?

RJ: 55:23

I'm grateful for my parents, my family. They've always been supportive in what I do. Grateful to a lot of my friends who I talk a lot of tea and like all that stuff with basically Arty likes the tea. I love tea.

J.R.: 55:35

So does Blessy. Blessy loves the tea, so that's why, whenever we come over, she asks for tea. And then you give us tea and then she's like not that guy.

RJ: 55:44

I was like oh my bad, I think I misunderstood you oh yeah, I'm grateful to a lot of my friends who are supportive of the things I like to do, and especially even like people who like want to be part of ACOOL. Right, not like be a member, but just participate in the project. You know that's really cool. Contribute and everything, yeah, contribute and everything yeah, yeah, pretty much it yeah.

J.R.: 56:14

I don't think so no, you know, I just you take whatever you got go play kingdom hearts.

RJ: 56:19

There you go.

J.R.: 56:19

That's a good takeaway yeah, all right, rj. Where can people find you if they want to connect, see what you're up to or whatnot?

RJ: 56:26

so I am on instagram. I think jr will have like my kit on the description below jay manalo 13. Yes, and then I am also on youtube at rj manalo music and I also have for. I also have a page for a cool the world, so that's also another one that'll also be in the description below and that's pretty much.

J.R.: 56:44

It's pretty much it nice. Yeah, I'll link everything in the show notes. So so if you guys are interested in what RJ is up to, he is, like I said, I've been to his place a couple of times for the recording. He is a consummate professional, really fun to work with. A lot of our mutual friends work with you a lot and he puts out a lot of good work and, as you can tell, he's very. Any of that stuff definitely hit them up. I recommend them All. Right, that is it, rj.

J.R.: 57:07

Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your insights. I learned a lot, so hopefully the audiences too. For everyone else out there, be sure to like, subscribe, follow comments, leave RJ some love in the comments, et cetera. Let us know what you liked about this and if you want us to cover any more topics. Just a reminder for my final sign off. Thank you guys for being here, a reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and reminder that you can always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. Thanks for listening.