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America dot Com Now on with the show.

0:28

It's always hard to see people we love

0:30

struggle to succeed, whether

0:35

they be adolessons having trouble with their grades.

0:38

What's wrong with you? Why don't

0:40

you like yourself? Sounds

0:42

stupid? Got I'm failing

0:44

shop twenty or thirty somethings trying

0:47

to excel in their careers. Thank

0:49

god, it's payday, Jules,

0:51

you're advanced on your salary by two months.

0:54

Or middle aged friends flailing after losing a

0:56

job. You're fired these guys

0:59

for all they can try. You're fired too.

1:01

Now, Okay, when

1:04

those moments come, when you see a loved

1:06

one struggling to succeed, what

1:09

can you do to help them find their way?

1:15

I'm Patrick Carelchi and I'm Adriana

1:17

Cortes. And this is Red Pilled America,

1:20

a storytelling show. This

1:22

is not another talk show covering the day's news.

1:25

We're all about telling stories. Stories.

1:28

Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.

1:30

The media mocks stories

1:33

about everyday Americans that the globalist

1:35

ignore. You can think of Red

1:37

Pilled America as audio documentaries,

1:39

and we promise only one thing, the

1:43

truth. Welcome

1:48

to Red Pilled America.

1:58

There's nothing more important on this earth than family.

2:01

So when you see someone dear to you struggling to find

2:03

themselves in naturally worry. Maybe

2:06

they're failing at school, or having troubles at

2:08

work, or perhaps they've lost their job

2:10

and are having problems locking in on a new one.

2:16

When those moments come, when someone

2:18

close to you is struggling to get by, how

2:20

can you help them succeed? Define

2:24

the answer. We're going to tell the story of a young

2:26

man whose parents were worried about his failing

2:29

grades until a family member came

2:31

along to help convince them to let

2:33

their son drop out of high school. Stephen

2:40

is not someone you would peg as a high school

2:42

dropout. And there's like sort of an artistic

2:45

science to music. That's Stephen.

2:47

That is sort of I would say, reflective of

2:50

esthetic realities that all humans perceive.

2:53

Something is either, let's say, consonant

2:55

or dissonant. After one conversation

2:58

with this guy, it's easy to see that he has an

3:00

intellectual approach to life.

3:02

His unorthodox journey to become a talented

3:04

music composer provides a lesson to all

3:06

of us that have kids or a loved one struggling

3:08

to find their way. Stephen comes

3:10

from smack dab in the middle of America.

3:15

I was born in Cape Gerardo, Missouri, which

3:17

is a small river town in southeast Missouri,

3:20

right on the Mississippi River. From

3:22

what I understand, they immigrated

3:24

from Germany. My genealogy

3:27

is a little hazy until about the

3:29

Civil War. What he does know for certain

3:31

is that his family eventually settled in Bolinger

3:34

County, Missouri, which is close to Cape Girarda

3:36

where I was born. They were farmers,

3:39

nineteenth century farmers, very very poor.

3:41

Life was very spartan at that time,

3:44

as one can imagine, they didn't have running

3:46

water, electricity, all the things that we enjoy today.

3:49

Of course, his great grandfather was born

3:51

in the early eighteen nineties. He always

3:54

showed growing up a penchant

3:56

for learning, had an excellent memory,

3:59

and he became upset with Abraham Lincoln.

4:01

And you got to remember, he had relatives

4:04

that he knew that fought in the Civil War for

4:06

the Union, by the way, and he

4:08

was fascinated with Lincoln. Lincoln,

4:10

of course, was a lawyer and one

4:13

of America's great orators, and

4:15

this passion for one of the

4:17

American heroes drove him into

4:19

wanting to learn about law

4:22

and become a lawyer himself. He was

4:24

the one to first go to college.

4:26

He went then afterwards

4:29

to the University of Missouri for law

4:31

school, and then started a

4:33

family law firm in I think

4:35

it was the nineteen teens or right after World

4:38

War One, and from then on, pretty

4:40

much everybody in the family went

4:43

on to get a law degree of

4:45

some sort. My brother, who's younger

4:48

than me, was a lawyer there

4:50

before becoming the Missouri Governor's

4:52

chief legal counsel, and now

4:54

he's a circuit judge in the state

4:56

of Missouri. I mean, every single person. My dad

4:58

was a Bush appointee, my grandfather

5:01

was a Reagan appointee for the federal bench,

5:08

so almost through genetics alone, Stephen

5:10

was destined to enter the field of law, but

5:13

as a young and he didn't necessarily display

5:15

a loyally demeanor. My early childhood

5:18

was mischievous. You

5:20

know. I enjoyed doing things like blowing

5:23

up ant hills with M eighty's and that sort of

5:25

thing. I mean, this was playing with ninja

5:27

turtles. I mean, that's that's what I wanted to do as

5:29

a kid. But at a very young age

5:31

he was introduced to a musical instrument.

5:34

My dad tried to make me take piano

5:36

lessons. The governing philosophy,

5:40

I would say in the family for the

5:42

boomers and greatest

5:44

generation members was that

5:47

an individual should be well rounded, so

5:49

the study of music should absolutely

5:51

be included in that. By

5:58

choosing the piano, his father, you

6:00

have been trying to spare his ears and

6:02

his nerves. At the very least,

6:04

if you press a key, the sound is

6:07

the sound more or less with

6:10

other instruments, violin

6:12

I mean the beginning stages

6:14

of that. For parents, I mean, it's like a cat

6:16

dying in the house because they you got to keep

6:19

the thing, you know, in tune,

6:21

and it's real scratchy, and it sounds absolutely

6:23

awful. Same thing if they got to learn like

6:25

clarinet or whatever. My

6:29

dad is an amateur pianist, and

6:32

I always had music around, and

6:34

I was always, I guess interested

6:36

in it. I mean, what kid isn't affected by music, right?

6:39

I mean, something comes on and kids want to dance

6:41

around or they want to emulate it in some way.

6:49

So when he was in kindergarten, Stephen followed

6:51

his father's direction and took piano lessons.

6:54

I maybe had nine months

6:56

of suzuki or something like that, but

6:58

I was kicked out out of it. I

7:01

was not well behaved. I didn't want to do it.

7:03

I didn't like it, Honestly. I think

7:06

the main turnof was just normal kid stuff.

7:08

It's really hard to sit still and

7:11

practice hot cross buns

7:13

or peanut butter, jelly sandwich or whatever,

7:15

any of those Twinkle twinkle Little Star. It's

7:17

hard to just sit down and do that, even if it's

7:20

just for twenty minutes. Most kids

7:22

that I was running around with, and

7:24

I think most kids out there, they

7:26

want to go outside and they want to go do stuff. But

7:29

then around the end of his elementary school

7:31

years, something kicked in a

7:33

little masculine ego. I think it

7:35

was about twelve and I saw a

7:37

friend at one of my parents'

7:40

dinner parties or whatever. He was playing some cheesy

7:42

version of fan Of of of the Opera on the piano, and

7:45

I got jealous of the attention. From

7:48

that jealousy, I want to I can do that.

7:50

I can do that. Come on. And so by

7:53

that age, since I wanted to do

7:55

it, I took to the instrument extremely

7:58

quickly. By

8:01

the end of the first year, I was playing Fantasy impromptu

8:04

by Chopin. You can't be a slouch and handle

8:06

that piece proficiently. And

8:09

once I was doing that, I

8:11

guess because it was something I was good at with

8:13

little effort, I wanted to do

8:15

more of it and put more effort into

8:18

it. At the ripe old age of twelve,

8:20

Stephen had found his calling. I

8:22

would say that, you know, some artists want

8:24

to do it because they have to be self expressive.

8:27

I wouldn't say that being expressive

8:30

was the thing that forced

8:32

and compelled me into this life.

8:39

It's instead this

8:41

intellectual curiosity with

8:44

the for lack of a better term,

8:46

the science and like the quote art

8:49

of music that I find so fascinating,

8:52

and that I'm good at automatically.

8:58

But this new passion calls a problem.

9:01

Just as he became obsessed with tinkering with an

9:03

instrument, his grades began to

9:05

take a nose dive. My mom's a stockbroker,

9:08

for example, talk about dollars

9:10

and cents. You know, portfolio is in

9:12

the red or the black. I mean these are very clear,

9:15

black and white things

9:17

for a stockbroker. I mean it's your

9:19

grade is either a good grade or is a bad

9:21

grade. And if you want to get into college, you must

9:23

have good grades. But I hated school.

9:26

I didn't want to do it. I despised it.

9:28

I didn't like the teachers. This, of

9:30

course, created a big issue. Stephen's

9:33

family was made up of lawyers and judges.

9:35

Careers have a proven track record of success

9:37

and security. The path of music did

9:39

not have that reputation, not even

9:42

close, and that worried his parents.

9:44

The profession of music overall

9:47

was something that was I

9:49

guess you could say it was seen as something that is

9:51

so incredibly difficult to become successful

9:54

in that you can still

9:56

do great things with your life and

9:58

make something of yourself without

10:01

having to suffer through the difficulties

10:03

of being an artist. Struggling

10:05

financially, which all artists at some point

10:08

will unless they grow up really wealthy

10:10

or whatever. And so I

10:12

would say that while it wasn't

10:14

outright discouraged, there

10:17

were constantly conversations

10:20

to have a backup plan. So

10:23

I was scolded for not having very good grades,

10:25

for example, because if the music

10:27

thing doesn't work out, I have to be able to go do something

10:29

with my life. For me, though

10:32

there was only one option. Music

10:37

was going to be the only thing I was going to do with

10:39

my life professionally, and

10:43

I didn't care if I never made any money at

10:45

it. And so I had

10:47

to make an appeal to somebody I knew

10:49

who had a similar

10:51

life path, and that was my

10:53

cousin rush. I know that

10:56

I am so good at this that I make it look easy.

11:00

Many of you sitting at home think that you could do

11:02

this too. You can't. Stephen

11:05

turned to his cousin Rush Limbaugh.

11:09

By his own family standards, at the

11:11

time that Stephen Limbaugh was born, Rush

11:13

Limbaugh looked like a slacker. The

11:15

famed radio entertainer took a different

11:17

path than the rest of the family. I've

11:19

been a broadcast veteran for started

11:22

in nineteen sixty seven, My father owt a radio

11:24

station KPED Gerada, Missouri, little town about a hundred miles

11:27

south of Saint Louis, and I worked there for

11:29

four years through high school. He

11:37

didn't graduate from college. I think he had like

11:39

a total of sixteen total credit hours

11:41

or something like that before he quit and

11:43

then went to Pittsburgh. I got an offer from ABC

11:46

in Pittsburgh, and I went. I quit college after one

11:48

year to take it. Rush became a radio

11:50

DJ, a job that wasn't pulling in

11:52

a lawyer salary. I mean he was making

11:55

nothing, maybe eighteen thousand

11:57

dollars a year or something like that in Pittsburgh

11:59

to do weather and

12:02

a couple of shock jock radio prank

12:04

type things in the morning. But

12:07

I mean that was I mean, that's scratching

12:10

by even in the even in the seventies. I mean,

12:12

you're not moving to the burbs,

12:14

you don't have a nice car. It's

12:17

not the best life.

12:20

But for him, it's what he wanted to do. He just

12:22

wanted to be on the radio. In

12:29

nineteen seventy five, the Pittsburgh

12:32

station Rush worked out, was sold, and the new

12:34

owners fired all of the DJs. L

12:36

Rushbo was out of a job, so

12:41

he picked up and moved Kansas

12:46

City in seventy five. I was at a radio

12:48

station there for three to four years and got

12:50

tired of it. I was tired of being in DJ. I

12:52

was tired of not being taken seriously. I was

12:54

tired of being considered a dope, smoking pothead

12:57

who knew nothing other than Donnie Osmond records.

13:00

So in the late seventies, one of the most

13:02

successful radio broadcasters of all

13:04

time took a detour. I went

13:06

to work for the Kansas City Royals for five years in sales

13:08

and marketing and I and that was the best thing I

13:10

ever did, because I met

13:12

people I would have never met. I saw the real world

13:15

function. You cannot you cannot

13:17

possibly imagine what life's really like if

13:19

you do it from behind a camera, if you do it from behind the microphone,

13:22

and you never get out amongst the real world.

13:24

I never learned any business. You don't learn any business

13:26

as talent. So after

13:28

those five years I grew tired of it. Wasn't an ego

13:31

satisfaction type thing. He left the

13:33

sales job and never looked back,

13:35

and I went into spoken word format radio.

13:37

At that point. Kansas City was the home of Rush

13:39

Limbaugh's first radio talk show.

13:42

Then a year later he moved it to Sacramento

13:44

again Steven. But even then he

13:47

was making you know, forty grand a

13:49

year. I guess in the mid eighties, you know that's

13:51

not a bad salary. I mean, you're middle class

13:53

at that point, right, Rush wasn't making

13:55

much, but he was constantly working on and

13:57

honing his craft. He always wanted to be

14:00

better and be bigger. I mean he loved

14:02

a guy like Paul Harvey. For example, Hello

14:04

Americans, I'm Paul Harvey, and

14:07

this is the testing time. He

14:12

looked at those people and saw,

14:14

that's where I want to be. Unlike many

14:16

of the talk radio personalities of today,

14:19

Rush Limbaugh was working towards becoming

14:21

a true entertainer. He wanted

14:23

to put on a show in the Hollywood

14:25

sense of the word. I believe people turn

14:27

on radio to be entertained, to be entertained, to be entertained,

14:30

and no matter what, they're turning it on for what

14:32

kind of programming it has to entertain him. In nineteen

14:34

eighty eight, the Rush Limbaugh Show was

14:36

nationally syndicated. After

14:39

twenty one years of sweat, frustration,

14:41

and low wages. Rush Limbaugh

14:43

became an overnight success. Most

14:45

of his life he was kind of

14:47

broke, to be honest, but it

14:50

didn't matter because he was doing what he wanted to

14:52

do and he literally

14:54

made it and transformed everything. But

14:58

getting there, it was a very circuitous out

15:00

and it took a very very long time. At

15:02

around the time Stephen Limbaugh discovered music

15:04

was his passion, he began to notice the

15:07

success of his cousin and he was drawn

15:09

to him at family gatherings. He then sort

15:11

of comes in as like a I

15:13

don't know, like a godfather type, one

15:15

of these types that I would say that, you

15:18

know, kids won't listen to their dad, but they'll

15:20

like listen to their favorite uncle. Kind of thing. You

15:22

would come in for Thanksgiving or Christmas or something

15:25

like that. I was always

15:27

trying to ensconce myself at

15:29

the adult table. I

15:34

didn't want to sit at the card table, and with all

15:36

the kids, I wanted to sit and I wanted to hear what the adults

15:39

were talking about. I would listen to anything

15:41

Rush would say because

15:43

I saw what his passion was

15:45

and how far it took him. Despite even

15:48

what I knew whenever I was young how

15:50

difficult it was for that guy to actually

15:52

make it, and from then,

15:55

whenever I could had a chance to listen to him,

15:57

I would so, especially by the time I was driving,

16:00

he was on you know, noon to three Eastern, and

16:03

that's you know, that's during the lunch hour

16:05

we had, like in our high school, we had off campus

16:07

lunch, and so I just flip him on. I try

16:09

to stay in the car as long as possible

16:12

before I had to go to class next, just

16:14

to listen to as much as I could, and figured,

16:17

this is a career or a person to emulate because

16:19

it's so unorthodox compared to everybody else.

16:34

By his junior year in high school, with his grades

16:37

in the basement, Stephen decided he

16:39

wanted to take a drastic step. He

16:42

wanted to drop out of school and focus

16:44

entirely on music. That his family,

16:47

with their long history of high education, weren't

16:49

too happy. Stephen had to

16:51

figure out a way to convince them, so

16:54

he turned to his cousin for help, and

16:56

what Rush Limbaugh told them was the

16:58

kind of wisdom ever ever. Parents should embrace

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Welcome back. By his junior

18:18

year in high school. With his grades in the basement,

18:21

Stephen decided he wanted to take a drastic

18:24

step. He wanted to drop out of school

18:26

and focus entirely on music. But

18:28

his family, with their long history of high education,

18:31

wasn't too happy. Stephen

18:33

had to figure out a way to convince them,

18:35

so he turned to his cousin for help, and

18:38

what Rush Limbaugh told them was the kind

18:40

of wisdom every parent should embrace.

18:44

Stephen hated school and his grades reflected

18:46

it. His parents were justifiably

18:49

concerned, and Stephen recalls their words,

18:51

Hey, you know you have a D minus

18:54

in history. I know you know history.

18:56

Why are you doing this to yourself? I

18:58

mean, this is kind of what boys do if they don't

19:00

have their attention held with something

19:03

that they're actually interested in. And

19:06

that was the main point of contention, was that

19:08

because I wasn't well behaved in class, because my grades

19:10

were slipping, Steven's idea was to enter

19:12

a music conservatory, which is a fancy

19:15

word for a music school. But the problem

19:17

was he was at a geographic disadvantage. Remember

19:20

we're in Cape Gerarda, Missouri. There's not a

19:22

youth symphony there. The nearest city

19:24

where he could get proper training was Saint Louis,

19:26

and you can't travel up to Saint Louis,

19:28

which is two hours away. If you're in high school

19:31

five days a week, you can't do it. The

19:33

only way he could swing it is if he dropped

19:35

out of high school. It was a major

19:37

step seeing his cousin take

19:39

such an unorthodox path to success.

19:42

Sixteen year old Stephen reached out to Rush for

19:44

help, convincing his parents,

19:47

but Rush didn't sign on immediately. He

19:52

probed the young man first to figure out his

19:54

intentions. In talking with me,

19:56

he was able to identify that I'm actually serious

19:58

about it. I don't want to do art because I don't want to

20:00

do school. I want to do art because I want to do art. Most

20:05

of the time, the artists

20:07

are doing it for the wrong reasons, I will

20:09

say, especially at that age, it's

20:11

because they want to be in the drug scene.

20:14

Very often that there's a lot of that.

20:17

Or it's because they

20:19

are just doing it because they want to be a rocker

20:21

and pickup chicks or whatever it is.

20:24

I always wanted to be the best I could at

20:26

music. I didn't want to do it for all the superficial

20:29

reasons. Once Rush understood

20:31

that Steven's intentions were pure, he went

20:33

to Stephen's dad to give his advice. I

20:35

mean, Russia essentially told him, He's like, look, he's

20:37

going to do this whether you like it or not. So

20:40

the best thing you can do is support him and trust

20:42

me. If he's got the passion for this, he's

20:44

not just going to be some drug

20:46

addict artist that's going to live in a loft

20:49

and be a loser his whole life. Once

20:51

this piece of wisdom was imparted, tension

20:54

in the house was lifted. Stevens's

20:56

parents agreed that their son could focus

20:58

on music full time. Now Stephen

21:00

had to deliver, He had to make his

21:03

way in music. So

21:12

I got a ged, which was I

21:14

could have passed whenever I was in fifth grade. I

21:16

mean, this was the dumbest test I've ever taken

21:18

in my life. And passed the

21:20

ged, and then it was

21:22

a matter of preparing

21:25

for auditions at music conservatories.

21:28

Now that takes a serious,

21:30

serious amount of effort. So he secured a

21:32

tutor in Saint Louis, and so dropping

21:35

out of high school allowed me to take the car

21:37

up twice a week for private lessons with one

21:39

of the Saint Louis Symphony members. Now, the competition

21:42

for piano is and was extremely

21:44

high, and spots and music programs

21:46

are limited, so

21:50

Stephen decided to switch focuses to a

21:52

different instrument. The original goal

21:55

was to play trumpet in a symphony orchestra.

21:57

You know, I was really into that. So I was playing

22:00

trumpet taking lessons with the Saint

22:02

Louis Symphony assistant principle. I

22:04

was able to play in the youth Symphony up there, and

22:06

then I was able to get into the Interlock and

22:09

Arts Camp. That's a prestigious arts camp

22:11

in Michigan. They only accept a very few

22:13

trumpet players from the entire country each

22:15

year, and so that was the place

22:17

to where I could compare myself

22:19

to the other musicians that were

22:21

my age across the country who were

22:23

going to go to Juilliard, who were already

22:26

some of them were already accepted into Eastman

22:28

School of Music at that point. Juilliard

22:30

and Eastman are both very prestigious

22:32

music institutions. Now, many

22:34

of these kids had been studying music with the best

22:36

of the best since they were ten years old.

22:39

I mean, these are serious advantages. However,

22:41

whenever I got there, because I practiced so much

22:44

and I was obsessed with it, and I

22:46

had some talent, I was competitive

22:48

at least, so it wasn't like I got there

22:51

and I was freaked out. I was like, you know what, I don't

22:53

stand a chance. I saw it as an opportunity

22:55

not just to learn, but also to

22:58

compare myself to the others, so

23:00

I would know what it takes to get into one of these

23:02

conservatories. He matched up well with the

23:04

other students and have to be accepted into

23:06

a coveted conservatory position, and

23:12

then went to school in universit of Missouri

23:14

Kansas City Conservatory for three years.

23:17

What he was learning about music fascinated

23:19

him that there is an attribute to some musical

23:21

compositions that we all instinctively

23:24

recognize as beautiful. For lack of a better

23:26

time, there's like sort of an artistic science

23:28

to music that is sort of I would say,

23:30

reflective of esthetic

23:33

realities that all humans perceive or

23:35

we recognize as something something that's

23:37

ugly or something that we see is beautiful. I'm

23:40

fascinated by those dualities

23:44

because with music it is so so

23:46

abstract. I mean, we're talking about These

23:48

are a series of sound waves that hit your ears.

23:50

There's no visual it's only one sensory

23:52

perception. Unlike a

23:55

movie. With music, you get one sense

23:57

that gets to perceive the whole thing. And so it's

23:59

an dreamly abstract

24:01

and subjective art

24:04

form. But great musical

24:06

composition is music that

24:08

is resistant to a person's subjectivity

24:11

in subjective opinion. It's when so

24:13

many people can all point to a

24:15

work and say, you know what, that's great, that's

24:17

beautiful. He

24:24

was learning about the art of sound. But

24:27

then the reality of the symphony world

24:29

began to settle in. It was stuffy,

24:31

and it was suffering from an unexpected obstacle,

24:34

communism. And I also had noticed that there

24:36

had been a crisis of composition for the last

24:38

fifty years, essentially since nineteen

24:41

fifty nineteen sixty. You had half of

24:43

the world under communism at that point, and Russia

24:46

before World War One, had

24:48

dozens and dozens of top artists

24:50

in every art form, whether it's poets,

24:53

musicians, novelists. I

24:55

mean Stanislavsky, who's basically the Bible.

24:57

Whenever it comes to knowing how to act, every

25:00

single school of thought and acting comes from

25:02

this Russian guide that was born, you know, in the belly

25:05

poc Russia or whatever, Czarist Russia. And

25:07

then Communism hits and they go down to basically like

25:09

two composers Prokofievn's Trustkovich.

25:12

And that's because they essentially

25:15

killed everybody else off. Cultural revolution

25:17

in China, I mean, you have

25:20

a crisis at this point. These countries

25:22

and these peoples who have a rich,

25:25

rich cultural traditions are essentially

25:27

smashed out. And then in the West you've got

25:30

the rise of postmodernism, which is a bunch

25:32

of noise music that tried to reject

25:34

everything that had to do with beauty

25:36

and truth. And

25:53

so I saw that there was

25:55

only a couple places to

25:57

where you could do music that

26:00

even in an elevated form, let's say

26:02

that also was sort of budding

26:05

in this new indigenous music that

26:07

was popping up, whether it was hip hop or even

26:09

rock, you know, the generation before there

26:12

was an opportunity there to still do

26:14

good stuff. There's like a system

26:16

of theory that basically was figured

26:18

out two hundred years prior about

26:21

how to organize music in an effective way

26:23

that could do something aesthetically nice

26:26

well. The moderns and then the postmoderns throw all this

26:28

stuff out. And I was like, look, if

26:30

I want to do the kind of music that I want to do and actually

26:32

be successful in it, I've got to go into one

26:34

or two routes, the rock band route or the film

26:37

route. Getting into the film scoring business

26:39

is really tough. So he moved to Los

26:41

Angeles and started a rock band. Now,

26:44

at the time, the music industry was in a weird

26:46

state. If

26:50

you ever wondered why the music from decades

26:52

ago is so much better than today's crap,

26:55

the late Frank Zeppa had an interesting theory.

27:00

One thing that did happen during the sixties

27:02

was some music of an unusual

27:04

or experimental nature did get recorded or

27:06

did get released. Now, look at who

27:08

the executives were in those companies at those

27:10

times. Not hip young guys.

27:13

These were cigar chomping old guys

27:15

who looked at the product that came and said, I

27:18

don't know who knows what it is, record

27:20

it, stick it out of it sells all right. Frank

27:23

argued that those executives were better than what

27:25

came after them. The young know nothings.

27:27

And you know how these young guys got in there. The

27:29

old guy with a cigar. One day, he goes, well,

27:32

I took a chance. It went out and we sold

27:34

a few million units. All right, I don't know, I don't

27:36

know what it is. Well, we got to do more of it.

27:38

I need some advice. Let's get a hippie in here.

27:41

So they hire a hippie bringing the guy with the

27:43

long hair. Now that I'm not going to trust him to do anything

27:45

except carry coffee and

27:47

bring the mail in it out. He starts in there

27:50

carry the coffee. Well, we can trust him. We brought

27:52

the coffee four times on time. Let's

27:54

give him a real job. Okay. It becomes

27:56

an A and R man from there, you

27:58

know, moving up and up and up. Next thing, you know, he's

28:01

got his feet on the desk and he's think, wow,

28:03

we can't take a chance on this because

28:05

it's just simply that's not what the kids

28:08

really want. And I know by the time Stephen

28:10

Limbaugh came to Los Angeles to start a rock

28:12

band, the finances of the music industry

28:14

were in disarray. Digital downloads

28:16

collapse the market, and these former hippie

28:19

record label executives had an even smaller

28:21

appetite for risk. So instead

28:23

of experimenting to find the next Pink Floyd.

28:26

They turned to artists with big social media

28:28

followings as a kind of insurance policy

28:30

against failure. And then they go onto

28:33

MySpace and they look, oh

28:35

wow, this unknown artist has

28:37

seventy eight million plays. The problem

28:40

was that many of those artists were faking their

28:42

popularity. Now

28:50

in retrospect, we're all like, there's

28:52

no way that was real. But they thought it

28:55

was real. So they started signing

28:57

all these idiots. All of these

28:59

idiots, what hardly any of

29:01

them popped. That practice

29:03

made it hard for creative artists like Steven,

29:05

So he turned to Rush, and the radio legend

29:07

gave him some advice that could be adopted by

29:10

anyone looking to succeed, regardless

29:12

of their profession. Do you want

29:14

to hear Red Pilled America stories ad free?

29:16

Then become a backstage subscriber.

29:19

Just log onto Redpilled America dot

29:21

com and click join in the top menu. Join

29:24

today and help us save America one

29:26

story at a time. Welcome back

29:28

to Red Pilled America. So by the time

29:30

Stephen Limbaugh moved to Los Angeles, record

29:32

labels were signing musicians not on their

29:35

talent, but on whether they had a large

29:37

social media following That practice

29:39

made it hard for creative artists like Steven,

29:42

so he turned to Rush Limbaugh for some advice.

29:44

Once I got to Los Angeles, I was constantly

29:46

able to bounce things off

29:48

of him, and I did learn a couple lessons through

29:51

him before I made the mistakes

29:54

that so many artists will fall into,

29:57

and one of them was don't

29:59

try to market yourself into success.

30:02

You need to be good first. There

30:04

are a couple times where I flirted with that, where

30:06

I really did try. I was like, Okay,

30:09

well, everybody's cheating their MySpace plays.

30:11

I'm going to as well, and so it

30:13

looks like you're succeeding.

30:16

You were not succeeding. You need to get better.

30:18

You need to practice more, you need to go back

30:20

to fundamentals. You need to write three

30:23

hundred horrible choruses until

30:25

you get a hit. Rush was really, really, really

30:27

insistent on making sure that

30:30

I take care of being good first.

30:32

He said, don't worry about all

30:34

this marketing junk. Don't

30:37

worry about just trying to be famous.

30:39

That's the wrong reasons. So, with the rock scene

30:42

falling victim to the social media scam,

30:44

Stephen turned to the last avenue of music where

30:46

creativity had a home film scoring,

30:49

and that's where he's found himself flourishing.

30:52

He's become a real force in the music scoring

30:54

business. He's composed music for Dinesh

30:56

to suze his films from Mike Cernovich's

30:58

Hoaxed and many other things films, and

31:00

it all may not have happened if it weren't for Rush

31:02

Limbaugh's timely advice, which

31:11

leads us back to the question how do you help

31:14

loved ones succeed? The

31:19

answer is you help them find something

31:21

that they're good at and are willing to do whatever

31:24

that is for free. Radio

31:26

is widely thought to be near the bottom of

31:28

the entertainment industry totem pole, but

31:31

Rush Limbaugh had both a skill and

31:33

passion for it, and after years

31:35

of plugging away, he turned his talent

31:37

and passion into a fortune.

31:40

Stephen Limbaugh was flailing in high school,

31:42

but thanks to his cousin's intervention and the

31:44

wisdom of his parents, they helped him focus

31:46

on a passion for which he also had a natural

31:49

gift, and he's on his way to major

31:51

success. If you can combine

31:53

a skill with passion and persistence, it's

31:56

hard to go wrong, and that goes for any

31:58

field you name the industry, from

32:00

janitorial services to space exploration.

32:03

Someone is making a fortune in it and

32:05

you don't necessarily need to take the traditional

32:08

path to make it happen. Some of the most

32:10

successful people in the world don't even think you

32:12

need a higher education to reach your

32:14

dreams anymore, including Elon Musk.

32:17

You don't need college learn stuff. Okay,

32:20

you can learn anything you want for free.

32:23

It is not a question of learning. So

32:25

I think colleges are basically for fun

32:27

and to prove you can do your chores, but they're not for

32:29

learning. So if you or someone you know who is

32:31

struggling to find success, take

32:33

a step back and try to identify what

32:35

they're both good at and passionate about.

32:38

Then encourage them to put everything

32:40

they have into it and to never

32:42

stop until they reach the mountaintop. Nobody

32:45

just gives you anything American people. Rogan

32:47

He's lucky, no man, his full podcast

32:50

a week. He works out five days a week. He

32:52

writes, he didn't just become

32:54

the UFC announcement. Did you know that he

32:56

was a fan? He picked up the phones and he called Dana

32:59

White, and you offered to do it for free. How many

33:01

people willing to do that? Are you? Red

33:04

Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast.

33:06

It's produced by me Adriana Cortez

33:08

and Patrick Carrelci for Informed Ventures. Now,

33:11

our entire archive of episodes is only available

33:13

to our backstage subscribers. To subscribe,

33:16

visit Redpilled America dot com and

33:18

click support in the topmenu. Thanks for

33:20

listening.