Music may be life, but life is more than just music, as lead Electronic Music Production instructor Taylin Simmonds makes clear in his new podcast ‘Just Talk About It’
Taylin Simmonds is a lead instructor on the Electronic Music Production program at CAT, as well as an alumnus (he graduated from CAT’s Electronic Music Production in 2014). Since then he has been an independent artist with record label ‘Blue Label Records’ in Kelowna (now based in Toronto) where he released 5-6 of his own tracks and co-produced 10-12 records with people like Toronto-based EMP artist Tony Sour. (There are a whole bunch of others as well, but Taylin can’t name them as he has signed super-secret non-disclosure agreements!)
“I started music really late – 16 years old. That’s when I instantly fell in love with electronic music. I was never interested in playing instruments, I was more into computers. But when the music industry combined with computers, that was it! explains Taylin. “I’ve now been working in the field for 6 years, plus the year I spent at CAT.” As well as being a CAT super-instructor, Taylin has recently been making (air)waves online with the new podcast ‘Just Talk About It’, which he co-hosts with lifelong friend Jared Waldroff, who is an entrepreneur.
“It’s a funny story – I didn’t even know I was going to co-host it. I thought I was invited on as a guest, but then saw myself listed as a co-host on the episode and its snowballed from there,” said Simmonds. “We invite guests in all different industries (yoga instructors, entrepreneurs, fitness experts) and talk about all sorts of things – current projects, the vulnerability you might feel about failures, personal development -like learning how to communicate with others, gaining confidence, that sort of thing.
The initial idea behind the podcast comes from a previous statistic that the average person in America had one friend that they could talk to about personal things. Today that statistic is zero. We thought it would be great to start a podcast where people could talk about the personal stuff, be vulnerable, and gain insights,” says Simmons. “We’re trying to lead by example. We talk about our fears and failures and hope that it encourages others to open up as well. The podcast has been running for about a month. We are just about to release Episode Three, and we already have filmed the next two after that. I’m not sure what our subscribership is – we are so fresh! Apple podcast app and Youtube are the main two places you can find us. Just search ‘Just Talk About It’ podcast.”
So what kinds of things can we expect to hear about when we tune in?
“We’ve talked about social anxiety on the show, and the trap you can get into with it. We want people to know that you can get over this issue, you just need to find the right people and resources. We’ve also talked about limiting beliefs or behaviors which hold us back – like trying to get in shape but we self-sabotage because we love junk food too much.
On one of the future podcasts we have talked to a yoga instructor about getting rid of the negative stories we hold about our past, and how if we can re-frame them, it could be that they were actually positive to our lives. An ongoing theme for the show is about purpose- how to find your purpose in life – being self- aware, discovering what is most meaningful to us in life, and then building a life around that.” As one would expect, given the nature of the podcast, Taylin and his partner aren’t looking for social media celebrities or big advertising dollars.
“We want to be consistent, and reach as many people as we can,” says Taylin. “Can we keep getting interesting people on to talk, and can we keep creating more awareness of the podcast and the issues? Success to us isn’t about reaching a lot of people, it’s about impacting people in a positive way.”