Josh Scott (JHS Pedals): From a Broken Guitar Pedal to a Global Brand

A wide-ranging, honest conversation about creativity, faith, business, and why “safe” art often feels hollow. In this episode, we sit down with Josh Scott of JHS Pedals to explore lament in storytelling, empathy in leadership, brand-building from obscurity, and how integrity shapes everything from guitar pedals to nonprofit studios.

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https://www.instagram.com/joshuaheathscott

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Josh Scott has built one of the most recognizable pedal companies in the world, but his story didn’t start in factories or feature articles. It started in rural Alabama, in a shed with a hole in the floor, obsession-level curiosity, late-night circuit textbooks, and a stubborn refusal to fake what wasn’t real.

In this episode, Justin sits down with Josh to talk about the long road from burnout and near-miss record deals to church planting, entrepreneurship, and global scale. They unpack why process matters more than product, how pricing communicates value, what perception does to brand trust, and how serving a niche well can grow into a company shipping over 150,000 units a year.

If you’re a creative, founder, or curious skeptic, this episode will stretch how you think about art, calling, and building something that lasts. Subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a push toward honest work, and leave a review with one idea you’ll act on this week.

ABOUT JUSTIN RIZZO

Justin Rizzo is a worship leader, songwriter, and filmmaker based in the Midwest, USA. He is passionate about authentic worship and creativity, focused on bringing glory to Jesus and surrendering our lives to Him. Justin also dedicates himself to raising up and coaching worship leaders and creatives of all types, nurturing their growth and success. In addition, he owns Firelight Creative, a production company that has produced multiple award-winning musicals and films, and hosts gatherings for creatives both online and in person. Justin travels extensively to lead worship and speak at events worldwide.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Problem With “Safe” Christian Art
• 5:15 Meeting Josh And Early JHS Origins
• 10:30 Retail Experiments And Hi‑Fi Records
• 15:45 Choosing Focus And Selling With Empathy
• 21:00 Childhood, Work Ethic, And Music As Escape
• 26:15 Scholarships, Bands, And Dropping College
• 31:30 The Spiritual Shock And Church Planting
• 36:45 Burnout, Pedal Fix, And JHS Is Born
• 42:00 Critiquing Church Culture And Perception
• 47:15 Secular vs Sacred And Living Integrated
• 52:30 Daily Faith Without Performance
• 57:45 Learning Obsession And Community
• 1:03:00 eBay Hustle, First Pedal, And Brand
• 1:08:15 Scaling, Process Over Product, Revenue
• 1:13:30 Advice To Young Creatives
• 1:18:45 Writing, Substack, And Art House 808
• 1:24:00 Famous Friends, Humanity, And Craft
• 1:29:15 Book Pre‑Sale And How To Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Christian art is and has been, by definition, pretty horrible because it's too safe. It's like Sesame Street for Christian. It's too happy. Human experience is miserable at times. Where are the songs? Where's the struggling and the suffering? My mom and dad, the very poor families, grow up in homes with dirt floors, sharecropping, moved 56 times, family of nine.

SPEAKER_03: 0:22

I don't want him to be the first thing on my list, and then I go do a film and then I go do this and I do this. No, I want him to be all in all, have supremacy in all things. And you go to a bar to play a game, it just takes away some objecular sacred ideas.

SPEAKER_01: 0:35

I was sitting on my floor, God sideswipe. If you are real, reveal something to me, and the light fixture loads up.

SPEAKER_03: 0:45

The Christian profess to love Jesus just want to beliate how the chosen series isn't biblical because they're adding things to it that most Christian churches you walk into tear maybe one Bible verse, out of context, horrible exegesis for like 15 seconds, and then they'll tell five stories around it for the next 23 minutes. That's a story pastor told nothing to do with the Bible.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07

You have to have people around you who don't say yes. That's outside church or Christianity as well. If you're a pastor and everyone's on your payroll, there's a path of resistance to getting a no. You're probably doomed.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode. I'm so excited about who is sitting in this room right now with me. Um he's been a good friend for a long time and a guy who's massively inspired me in many areas of my life. Um, and it is the great, the famous Joshua Heath Scott from JHS Petals. He is in the building. Uh, dude, thanks so much for uh for agreeing to do this. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46

Your introductions are always a bit much.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49

Well, at the legacy conference last year when you were speaking, no, I think it was the first year I gave one, and then I had to update your YouTube numbers because they were like 90 million the first year, then they jumped or like several more million. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You know, just I love introductions. Love introductions.

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

No, I I love it. Yeah, it's good to be here. This was the morning I got to sleep in a little, so like I'm straight out of bed. So you're getting me like I haven't even eaten breakfast.

SPEAKER_03: 2:14

Does that mean you're ready to go? Yeah, I'm like, this is awesome. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

This is prime, like my brain is very calm.

SPEAKER_03: 2:21

Good.

SPEAKER_01: 2:22

No one's bothered me yet.

SPEAKER_03: 2:24

Yet. You haven't seen my list of questions here, so hopefully, uh I've I've signed up for this though.

SPEAKER_01: 2:29

This is gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_03: 2:30

Hopefully, we'll still be friends by the time this is over. No, but seriously, um, so you and I met I think in like 2009, 2010.

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

So 50, 60 years ago. That's what it feels like.

SPEAKER_03: 2:42

Long time ago. Yeah. And uh we met through your wife Alice and I working on a uh a production because she has a deep history in like film and theater. Yep. Yeah, I think you guys just moved to Kansas City, and I remember meeting her um at an art art place here in town, and I was like, this woman knows what she's doing. Do you want to do this project together? And so her and I have done a lot the last uh 15, 16 years, multiple live productions, a couple of films in there, and she's just incredible, and so we still have an amazing working relationship, and hopefully there's more in the future. Um, but you specifically, uh, that's my shout out to Alice.

SPEAKER_01: 3:22

Alice is the better half, yes, for sure. Yeah, and you've you've you've been a huge part of our life, yeah, because of that relationship. I think I snuck in later. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03: 3:32

But I I remember you um, you know, early on. When well when did JHS start?

SPEAKER_01: 3:38

2007.

SPEAKER_03: 3:39

2007. So it was like two or three years old, and it started in your garage, is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 3:43

It started in a spare bedroom and moved through variations of sheds. Okay. And then uh we moved here in 2009 into Kansas City, and that was like a little basement shop at my first employees, and then real shortly after, we had a Main Street kind of spot on Maine in Grandview.

SPEAKER_03: 4:05

Hey guys, sorry to interrupt. We'll get you back to the episode here in just one minute. I'm hosting a conference here in Kansas City for three days this March 2026 for creatives and entrepreneurs. It's called Creative Legacy. This is the fourth year that I'm hosting this event. It's gonna be an incredible, incredible time. Uh, you can get all the information at the QR code on your screen if you're watching this, or go to creativelegacy.org. It is March 19th through 21st, 2026, here in Kansas City. Would love to see you there. So that opened up at what year?

SPEAKER_01: 4:36

I want to say 2010 late. It's something like that. I'm real bad with dates, but yeah. There's a documentary on it that I have to go watch my own. I have to go watch my own videos to re it's just like dates are horrible.

SPEAKER_02: 4:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 4:51

I think it was 2010. Yeah. Alice was like, you need to move out of the basement. Like, you know, my my few employees were like coming to the garage at 6 30 a.m. Wow. We had one bathroom in the whole house. So you know how that goes. Yes. You got some bros working for you, and you go to use your bathroom in the hallway.

SPEAKER_03: 5:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:13

She was very merciful.

SPEAKER_03: 5:15

So um, was that your guitar store you opened?

SPEAKER_01: 5:19

Yeah, I mean, JH JHS was at that point a full-on committed, I'm doing this, I'm making a run for it, and it was working. And then in classic fashion, oh, let's open a music store as well, because there's room up front. So I took on two things. That store did really well, but JHS has always been a growth curve or a step up, you know, gradual steps. And there was this the decision of as much as I love retail, which I do, uh, it ain't worth it. It's like I need to be a dad. And I was like work, I was like managing a guitar shop on the weekends after running JHS all week. So I let that go.

SPEAKER_03: 5:57

So yeah, JHS, then what was the name of that store?

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Was it JHS Music?

SPEAKER_03: 6:01

Just Music. And then tell me about the third business you started at that time, Hi-Fi Records.

SPEAKER_01: 6:06

Yeah, so the way that building worked, it's a Main Street building, and here in Grandview, where we're at, and where I live, and where our art center is, it's like a low Mayberry, midwest, Midwest downtown, very small.

SPEAKER_03: 6:18

Midwest Mayberry.

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

Yeah. So you walk into the front door, glass windows, you know, retail door, that was JHS music. In the back was like a big concrete storage room. We were building the pedals back there. So JHS pedals in the back, JHS music in the front. When I shut the store down, I moved pedals to the front. It was much more spacious, clean, and just better. And in the back, I committed, I was doing a lot of recordings still at the time, and me and a friend, we basically opened Hi-Fi records, and we were tracking uh I like tracking records fully live, like 60s, 70s style. And so I made a space for artists and bands, and I had a community of musicians, and we would track records, produce people's songwriters' records. Yeah. Um, that lasted a good while, and then I again JHS, you know, like go where the energy is, always go where the money is if you're trying to survive.

SPEAKER_05: 7:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 7:17

So I let that go and I kind of let that assimilate into JTL. I like I kind of all the you know, here, take this gear, hold on to it. If anything was in motion, they took it over.

SPEAKER_03: 7:27

Yep. Which JTL is a another company here. It's another studio. Yeah, yeah. Like sectors have a control rooms is pretty well established here in Gravy as well. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:36

What I was doing is was really niche. Like I, you know, it was a it was an old school room. I built it like a 60s recording studio, and you come in and the records are live, minimal overdubbing.

SPEAKER_05: 7:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 7:49

Um, yeah, so to sustain that as and again, I love that. I love everything. That's my problem. We can get into that later. You can find my therapist. But it's like it's just chipping away, you know. So yeah, JHS at that point, that's a pivotal point. That was okay, fully commit. I'm probably at 10 and 10, 12 employees, and decisions are being made. You know, I have to grow up at that point. I can't do everything.

SPEAKER_03: 8:12

Yeah. Yeah. Was that like painful?

SPEAKER_01: 8:15

Was that like easy? Uh, it wasn't painful. I I it's just making a decision uh making a decision and moving on, and uh knowing it's gonna, you know, if you focus on anything, it's gonna go better. So you know, yeah, like it's practic it's practical and simple. If you put all your energy into one thing, you'll have a better experience with the one thing.

SPEAKER_03: 8:39

So but did you ever have like um man, I I've dreamed of owning a music store my whole life. I've dreamt of owning a recording student my whole life, and I have those things, and now I'm shutting them down to you had no, it was just a decision.

SPEAKER_01: 8:53

No, I I love, I mean, guitar music store retail means a lot to me. I I was mentored by a guy, I managed a small guitar shop in Alabama uh when I was around 1920. It was really life-changing, and I I learned that I liked that. I loved I loved selling things to people like with empathy, helping people. You know, we think of selling as like a car salesman, but like I love uh a customer having a need or not knowing the answer and being the answer, and then them leaving with an answer, and that that feeling of like selling something and it's beautiful for the the customer side.

SPEAKER_03: 9:35

You said selling with empathy?

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 9:37

Like that.

SPEAKER_01: 9:38

Um you know, I I'm a big believer in you know, sell selling things and marketing uh can be a dirty word, especially nowadays. I mean, you can hit a button and have 37 AI advertisements that may or may not be garbage, some of them may be good, and it's this white noise. Everybody's selling stuff. But I think the phrase selling with infity, that thought is, well, Justin, what are you need right now? And it's probably not a guitar pedal, so I can't help you. But somebody out there has what you need, and if they could feel that and help you, that's life-changing, and you will go back to them. It's a value, it's not a product. You're you're selling a need, you know. And so with JHS, that's the goal with anything I'm trying to do is what do people actually need, and try to merge that with what I want to build. There's some Venn diagram lab overlap that really works. You know, what I want to build, what people need, make that thing. And um, it's not sleazy, it's you're genuinely helping people. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:41

Which a lot of people listening might be like, again, so if you don't even know what a guitar pedal is, right? It's a no one does, except my customers. I barely do. It's a box that when you step on the box and you're playing primarily electric guitar, it adds um effects to the guitar.

SPEAKER_01: 10:57

Yeah, exactly. It's it's um an electronic circuit that changes the sound of a of an of a guitar or anything. People use them on synthesizers and drums, even, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 11:09

And so the that concept of like, you know, people might be like health coaches or they're uh, you know, therapists or whatever, it's like, well, that's like that's how that's solving a need. But you're talking about the world today with 8 billion people and the amount of niches that there are, like, you know, what is it like? Yeah, um, you sell, is it 100,000 pedals a year on average?

SPEAKER_01: 11:31

We're we're probably gonna land around 150 at the end of this year. 150, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we've we did 137 this year last year.

SPEAKER_03: 11:38

And a lot of people might look at that and say, well, that's like a hobby, or that's like, but it's it's what you said, it is solving a felt need in people who are obsessed with this pedal, and then you release a new pedal. I mean, I follow you on Instagram, and it's like it goes crazy. Like they sell out in a in a second, or you do a collab with someone like John Mayer or Stoogie or whoever it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:58

It just like goes like Yeah, a need can be emotional. That I think the thing about selling with empathy, what I'm really just saying is it's not commercialism, it's not saying, hey, log on to Timu and buy a bunch of 99 cent shirts and throw them in the closet because I want to buy something to get a dopamine hit. It's like, well, sell people stuff with meaning. And that could be you're selling them your that they can own a product and belong with a crowd of people, you know. That's brand. Taylor Swift's a genius because she's made people belong with other people. It's more than her songs. She has really great songs and really bad songs. But her brand is amazing, you know, and I think that's like that's what I mean. It's what do people need? Sometimes they need a guitar pedal, and then sometimes they just want to feel like they fit in because I like guitar pedals that are colorful, or I like guitar pedals that are sold by a tall nerd guy in the Midwest. You know, like that's part of the that can be a need. And so, yeah, it's how I try to think of it.

SPEAKER_03: 13:04

I love that. So 150,000, 140,000 pedals a serial cell, yeah. Um, half a million subscribers on YouTube-ish, um, like tens of millions. Uh, I think last I looked, 140, 150 million views on YouTube for the JHS pedal show, which you guys should definitely check out. So you have all this stuff that you're doing now. Take me back to um like young Josh, five, six, seven-year-old Josh. Are you like in a home of your mom? So, because I hear all these stats.

SPEAKER_01: 13:33

I knew this would turn into therapy. Yeah, young Josh has lots of things. No, I I hear you. I'm joking.

SPEAKER_03: 13:38

But no, but I I would think you had like kick butt parents who were entrepreneurs who taught Josh how to make money. And like, was there any of that in your home?

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

No. No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03: 13:48

So you grew up where?

SPEAKER_01: 13:49

I grew up in rural northwest Alabama, right outside of Muscle Shoals. If you're a music history, you know, if you're a Rolling Stones or Dylan fan, you've heard Muscle Shoals, Leonard Skinner, Southern Rock. So I grew up there, very rural, one mile down a dirt road. My dad's hobby was horses, not neighbors, like no one around us. Um, I went to a school as a 1K county school, uh, and it was K through 12. My graduating class is about 40 people. So I my life experience was pretty small.

SPEAKER_03: 14:22

Siblings?

SPEAKER_01: 14:22

Uh one sibling 10 years older. So by the time I'm eight, he's out. Really seven. So I'm like the I have a sibling, but I was an only child structurally, or whatever a psychologist would say. Like I I have memory, you know, my brother's wonderful, but I kind of grew up alone. Well in my in the years where you start getting into stuff, I was fairly alone. Um so yeah, my mom and dad, very poor families. I mean, my dad grew up in homes with dirt floors, sharecropping. They moved 56 times, family of nine. Like in the service or why? No, just poor sharecropping. They'd move anywhere they could to crop, they pick cotton, all that stuff. My mom grew up in a split family, abusive father, tons of siblings, no money. So they quit school to live, and so they they have middle school educations, and they're amazing. My mom and dad are absolutely amazing. My dad is absolutely why I have been successful in in the sense of keep going, like work ethic. Absolutely him. But no education, no real um no expertise in hey son, you're starting this business. Let's lay out a portfolio that'll adjust uh with inflation. Like that's not gonna happen. Yeah. So everything I've stumbled into was by just pursuing and learning. And uh yeah, I I mean, I I essentially yeah, uh it's that simple.

SPEAKER_03: 15:52

Like I just report on my own. So you learned to work out there from him. Was that just by watching him, or did he like sit you down and say, hey, like, we're struggling, but I have to go do this and work three jobs, like yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

No, none of that was ever said. It was, hey, we we need to build a fence line for these horses. Hey, we're gonna do this every day and maintain this property. You're gonna do this with me. We're gonna, we're gonna sh we're gonna this, we're gonna do this continually. We're gonna have patterns, we're gonna have disciplines. Uh, I saw them working. I was aware that we didn't have a ton of money. I never had the cool lunch food at school, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 16:28

I never what's cool lunch food back then, yeah. Like fruit roll-ups or something, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 16:32

If you had that, you were dynasty, you know. So I was aware, you know, why why would my mom be working if we had a ton of money, right? You know, um, so yeah, it I was very aware. I was very uh it was visible that we were firmly lower middle class, but we never had we never went without and had a wonderful childhood.

SPEAKER_03: 16:55

And uh what were your like hobbies? Like sports cars, like setting around.

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

Like no. Uh I loved, I mean, in the 90s it was like NBA, dude. I was gonna be Larry Bird. You know, I love basketball. I I played varsity basketball in high school. I we had horses, you know. My dad's hobby was horses, so I did, you know, the work ethic. It wasn't a farm. It wasn't like I don't know if there are horse farms, I guess they're called ranches, but yeah, he would buy a horse and we would break a horse, we would train horses. Yeah, like he just loved that stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 17:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 17:29

So I grew up around that kind of like thing. And there's there's so many lessons. You could write a book about what you learn in those kind of atmospheres. You know, it's my dad did it because he loved it. That's a lesson. My dad took care of things well. That's a lesson. You know, you you go through and you do that as a kid, and my dad was my hero. So as simple as that might sound from the outside, when you're a kid, it's like dang, he's like he's good at these horses, you know. And so I think my motivation was ultimately as I got older, music. I discovered music around 14 to 15, and it was like it was so amazing. I I could look at a CD cover and open it and see a band's world. I could I could open a Pearl Gem record and then I would go, what is Seattle like? I would open an Oasis record and I would go like, what is England like? And where I'm from, there's this Bob Dylan lyric. He says, I was born here and I'll die here against my will. That's what it's like where I'm from.

SPEAKER_02: 18:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

And I always was like, I can't wait to leave here. I love this place, but I can't wait to see the world. My no one's ever seen the world in my family. Wow, wow. And so music showed me the entire world, literally. Like my favorite bands were like free vacations, and that's why I'd I obsessed over them.

SPEAKER_03: 18:54

And um that's why your favorite bands were like free vacations?

SPEAKER_01: 18:59

Yeah, like to a different place. Like you put it, put it, put music on, and I would memorize the engineers and where the studios were, and I would I would stare at these liner notes and I'd be like, Wow, they're from a different world. Wow. And they are like that's a cool thing about music. Wow. That's a little thing we've lost with streaming, and that's why I still love vinyl and stuff. You these people are making things somewhere in a community that you've never seen. Wow. It's also why I love community. I think the so that's that's like why there was a fire under me as a teenager to become a rock star and leave. That was, I mean, that's the gist. Like music's gonna get me out of here.

SPEAKER_03: 19:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

And it did, but it looks nothing like teenage Josh Thought.

SPEAKER_03: 19:45

So did your dad, so your NBA, you know, desire was My hoop dream. Hey son, you're sick. How old are you sick or how tall are you six?

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

Six, six, six, five and a half. Depends on the we'll go six, six. Depends on what coach measured me to intimidate the other team of the Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:00

Okay. So you're six six. Was your dad ever like, oh my son's, you know, tall, he can do the NBA? Or was he like, hey?

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 20:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 20:08

Used to watch. I remember watching like uh we'd always we had uh three TV channel, three or four channels on an antenna, and you had to turn the antenna.

SPEAKER_03: 20:17

Use foil on your antenna ever? Foil.

SPEAKER_01: 20:19

Foil. No, this is outside. So you go outside and turn it towards the city. So it'd be like to watch channel 19. If you're in the there's gonna be some Alabama people like, yeah, if you're if you want to see channel 19, you can point it towards Huntsville. You know, if you want to see this channel, you point it towards here. So we had those channels and basketball reigns supreme in the 90s. I mean, this was the dream team. But we'd watch my dad would always watch the finals. He wasn't a sports guy, but what do you else what else are you gonna watch when the finals are on? They take over prime time. So I have really fond memories of you know the the Magic Lakers finals and my dad liking certain players, and I'd be like, Why do you like them? He's like, I don't know, there's they're just fun, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 21:00

So you you never remember him saying yay or nay to your Nabaye career. But then when music became the thing, did he like hey, say yay or nay to like don't you're not gonna be a rock star, son?

SPEAKER_01: 21:11

Or I think when music came along, my parents probably saw something I didn't necessarily see, and they were they were really I mean, they would come see me in bars, they'd come see me at showcases, they would get really uncomfortable for me. They would go to places like uncomfortable meaning like the you know, they're simple people, like they don't go listen to live music. That's not a thing my parents do. So they would they would go and they really supported, they were amazing, and I think they probably yeah, I I don't know. I don't know. My my parents, I think a lot of their life was are you allowed to dream when you grow up like that? That's a reality. Like when you grow up that poor, my dad's dream is to to have a great family and pay the bills and have a simple life. He that's his his dream was to have horses. I mean, you have to there's a scale of dreams. There's there's Instagram boys with their Porsches and they can't get enough abs. And then there's like real people that are like, my dad grew up watching Westerns and like, I just want a horse, and he got that. Yeah, I mean we have to remember this, you know, the way people people's lives are very different, and uh, I think it's a simpler time for those types of people like my parents. And my dad got every dream he ever wanted, I think. And so when I added on to that, it's like this is cool, maybe, you know, maybe there's a life in music, you know. You hear the stories like Elvis buys his mom a Cadillac or something. I don't know what my parents thought, you know. They probably thought he might do this.

SPEAKER_03: 22:45

Have you bought your parents Cadillac yet? No. No, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 22:47

I bought him a RAV 4.

SPEAKER_03: 22:48

A RAV 4, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 22:50

It's very it's a lot more economical.

SPEAKER_03: 22:52

Absolutely. So um, are you doing cover songs in these bars? Or also side note, uh, we have to shout out these mugs.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

We have no idea what they say.

SPEAKER_03: 23:00

Don't know what they say. We're hoping it's not offensive. Hopefully not. Kai Tong 2033. I'm not sure what's happening there then, but I don't know. We're just if it's a bad thing, just know we have no idea. We're really sorry. They were just hanging around the studio. So you're doing cover songs, so you're writing your own songs.

SPEAKER_01: 23:17

Half and half. Half and half. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 23:19

So what are you writing about?

SPEAKER_01: 23:21

Um, that's a good question. Learn learning to write, copying heroes, um, like girls, anger, like horses. No, I never I never wrote about girls. I wasn't the like, hey, let's you know, pour some sugar on me kind of thing. That's not it was I mean, I cut my teeth on grunge and like melancholy, Brit Rock, Radiohead, The Bins, Oasis, What's the Story, Morning Glory, Pearl Jam Vitalogy, like I mean, philosophy, like the feeling of like things matter and feelings and I guess angst and stuff, you know. Um, I think I wrote one song about a girl, but you wouldn't have known it. It was about how I thought she was ruining her life, and I didn't know how to tell her. But that kind of stuff. It wasn't like, hey girl, you know, like she was running about your dad's horse for all they knew. Yeah, maybe maybe I was. It was like, gosh, this horse is just ruining its life out here. It could it could do so much more. I could have six fuck abs.

SPEAKER_03: 24:23

So, um, and then you graduate high school. Was that like immediately then you you hightailed out of town?

SPEAKER_01: 24:28

Or I was the first person in my family name history to graduate high school. Oh that's a big deal. And I've I've really thought about that lately. Like it feels like you graduated high school, but I mean, that's a different reframe. No one had graduated high school. Um that's crazy, man. Poverty, working, not wanting to. There's a you know, people could, people could have, but on my dad's side, that's that just wasn't in the game. I could have cared less. I had I I knew that school had minimal things for me. I did not enjoy school. I learned later in life, I'm a rabid learner, but I want to learn, I know what I need to learn, and school did not offer what I knew I needed. So when I graduated, I was immediately full music, full band, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 25:25

I was the same. I didn't have the the language to say why I hated school. And I gave my mom a lot of hell over that, unfortunately. Sorry, mom. Um I've said I'm sorry many times, but but now I love learning what I love to learn in my spheres. Exactly, and will eat things up, maybe not as much as you.

SPEAKER_01: 25:43

Yeah. I was at Josh's trace. You're a massive learner.

SPEAKER_03: 25:45

But I was at his house recently just to kind of show you how massive Josh is of a learner in your basement office, and you're showing me some books you're reading or whatever. And um it was probably like that thick, maybe a little exaggerating. It was pretty thick, all about remember what it was about?

SPEAKER_01: 25:59

Fonts, typefaces. It's this thick.

SPEAKER_03: 26:01

This thick, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

It's a typeface book. This is right or that, bro. Fonts, typefaces.

SPEAKER_03: 26:06

Typefaces, I'm sorry. They are fonts, but I call them fonts, my lowly typefaces, Justin. Get it right. Um, so I didn't have language for that either, but I I definitely I'm kind of the same. So you graduated high school. Were you like knowledgeable? Were you like proud of yourself? Like, yes, like I'm the first one.

SPEAKER_01: 26:24

No, no, I didn't think about that until probably 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_03: 26:29

Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_01: 26:30

I graduated high school and just exhelled with celebratory. I I I just wanted my life. I wanted all of my life to get to this thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:42

Okay, so then you go where? Did you pursue college or no?

SPEAKER_01: 26:45

I had a full rides music scholarship that I got on accident. Thinking, how much do we get into this?

SPEAKER_03: 26:52

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01: 26:55

I mean, we're here to talk. So in 11th grade, one afternoon, the teacher says, Tomorrow, we're going on a field trip to a local college where they're offering music scholarships to anyone who's interested. You'll here's the key. I didn't care. And then she goes, You'll get out of school all day on this trip. I borrowed my girlfriend's sister's acoustic guitar. Because I play, I was in the band at this point.

SPEAKER_02: 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:28

A band.

SPEAKER_02: 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:29

I had been messing around with like learning uh keep in mind, I'm a grunge kid, alternative rock, but I was starting to sense this uh love of like American folk and stuff. And so I tuned a guitar open, I was learning to play some slide, and I covered an Eric Clapton Unplugged song, which I didn't realize it was a Robert Johnson song from the 30s. They're like, there's a whole amazing thing there. I've done stuff on my channel about him, but I go in with the guitar, I just sit down and I'm like, it's walking blues. It's like woke up this morning, feel around for my shoes, woke up, it's got those little walking blues, doo-doo doo, that kind of thing. And it was just like a folk, traditional folk song. I win a full ride scholarship. Off of that. Yeah. They gave me a paper. I handed it to my mom, forgot I had it. Wow. Could care less. Wow. And so after school, I thought, well, I'm out of, I graduated. This is like a year and I guess, you know, whatever the time spent. Let's just say it's like a year and a half. Maybe it wasn't two years. It's close though. Um, I graduate. Well, when you graduate, you people go to college. I was like, my mom, I think, said, you know, you have the scholarship. She showed me the paper. And all I thought, again, I don't want to go to school, but free dorm, not at home, kind of like in this other town, very close to home. Yeah. Okay, wow. So I just go move into a dorm and did horrible there for like a semester. So I did go to college, but I was in a band. I was playing gigs and practicing rehearsing every night, writing songs, working on records.

SPEAKER_03: 29:08

So you weren't interested in like graduating college or even pursuing that? No, not at all. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 29:13

Zero interest.

SPEAKER_03: 29:14

So you dropped out of for six months?

SPEAKER_01: 29:15

I just left after like a semester. I did like the psychology class because I thought it was fascinating. I attended that every time.

SPEAKER_03: 29:22

That explains why you're such a deep person. That one class you took.

SPEAKER_01: 29:24

One class, Freud. That old Freud. That old Freud. I did some lab. I dabbled around, and then I did have to take music classes. So they threw me in a jazz band that I freaking hated. I was learning to sight read. I mean, I could proficiently play like Hendrix, or I'm not saying I actually don't know how good. I know it was good enough that people were hiring, you know, as a decent guitar player, obviously. But I was still a kid, so I probably sucked. But in hindsight, I'm proficiently covering very hard guitar songs. And this jazz teacher's like, all right, sight read. Mary Had a Little Lamb. And I'm like, thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, bing. What are the notes, Josh? I don't care what the notes are. So I went through this entire thing. And then in the jazz band, you have to play. I got so sick of trying to learn to read the music. Well, I just listened to the records and learned them by ear. And I would stare at the music and act like I was reading it. And so I like scammed that whole class. Wow. That's my college experience. It's not really worth talking about, but I guess it shines some light on. I just school just drove me nuts.

SPEAKER_03: 30:40

Yeah, and that's that's as someone who doesn't proficiently read music as well myself, you know, composing, doing musicals, writing songs, you know, in the Christian space, whatever. That's that's super inspiring. Like I tell people regularly, you know, when they're asking about music, I was like, I don't really read music well at all. It takes me forever. They're like, What? Because I just it's like learning a language. So I couldn't commit myself to learn that language. It was later in life, whatever. And so I just like went into what what do I feel in this moment and yeah, replicating other people or whatever and learning on the go. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So okay, so you leave college and go to start your music career.

SPEAKER_01: 31:17

Yeah.

unknown: 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:18

I mean, I was already, I just basically college for me was I went and lived in a dorm because that was cool. You're supposed to move out.

SPEAKER_05: 31:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 31:27

And um, I was doing the same thing I was doing. I was at a band. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 31:31

I mean that's so you left college and then that band.

SPEAKER_01: 31:34

Yeah, college just faded out. It was like, this sucks.

SPEAKER_03: 31:36

So you're touring? I'm not gonna do this. You have to live at home?

SPEAKER_01: 31:39

Yeah, we're playing all over the south. You know, touring is a heavy word, but in those days, I mean, live music mattered a lot, and probably you know, so we had a band, we were writing songs, we had tracked a record, we had interest from labels, we you know, I was doing the thing. Um, this is an era when yeah, I mean, this was the end of the 90s. Rock music was still a an industry of like it's pre-streaming, you know, it's pre it's a very different world.

SPEAKER_03: 32:10

Napster world, eh?

SPEAKER_01: 32:11

It was, yeah, it was an abster world. So yeah, the goal, you know, trying to go for it, and then yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:19

And then did anything transpire from that?

SPEAKER_01: 32:21

We got really we got really close. We had a lot of interesting stuff happened, and then I mean, out of nowhere, basically like being hit by a bus, I have this crazy spirit, a crazy spiritual encounter and quit everything.

SPEAKER_03: 32:38

Can you give us what is that?

SPEAKER_01: 32:40

Yeah, I I I there's there was a girl who was in that community college, and I became friends with her, and she took me to this little like youth group service situation, and I like the only way I've ever been able to explain it is I had no interest, like I wasn't running from any kind of spirituality, or you you would say in the South, running from the Lord or like running from God. Um and it was just like I just never saw him anywhere. I never, I never everything felt fake to me. Everything felt um you go to church and you do this and you believe this because your dad believes this because the pastor told your dad this. That doesn't make sense to me. Like, right on I at a young age, I never quite I was like, uh it's okay to call this a tradition, but you're putting some big labels on this, you know. And so I had this really wild and spiritual encounter, like a really like a like the meme where the school bus sideswipes the car pulling out the exit. And as good as things were, and on the up and up as they were, that being a rock star didn't matter anymore. And so there was this big pause in my life, and so I kind of found myself in this community of people, and I met my wife there. So there's these years of like we can call it like being in ministry or whatever you want to call that. There's all kinds of things about it. It was like I ran into this community, I really encountered God, and it was an overwhelming experience. It paused my entire life at that young age, 20 years old. Wow, and then that's where I met my wife. We crossed paths, and and you know, you cross paths everywhere you go. I cross paths with her, yeah, and then found myself a year or so out from my wife and I get engaged, we get married, and then immediately through her family, her dad was actually a pastor, and there's a long there's like a lineage of ministry in her home. Um, we ended up kind of through a connection she had, we went and helped plant a church in Jackson, Mississippi. So this is 2003. So that's you know, I graduate 2000. So by 2003, I'm in Mississippi with a new, with my wife, newlywed. Wow, and we're kind of uh we're it's a very small startup church, but we're down there and we're doing that. And so that's in that situation, that's the transition, you know. It's like that's high school to that is less than four years.

SPEAKER_03: 35:31

So can you color in spiritual experience? Because that's a that's quite a pivot. Yeah, to drop it all. What what is that spiritual experience? Like God spoke to you, or you like yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:41

I had some, you know, this is I had some crazy experiences. I first of all, I think there's different experiences, like so like one of my heroes is C.S. Lewis. His experience is a fun one. He says, one day I just got off the the he's like on a train car, I think. And I was just a believer. I believed that Jesus and Christ were real. I believed in God. He was a staunch atheist. So he has this moment where like his intellect just kind of eventually he just he said there's not like this great moment. I just one day I you know I step on the street, okay, I'm in. So there's that thing. Mine was a complete overwhelming feeling of running into something I couldn't explain, like the way it felt emotionally, mentally. Like it was as if I don't know how to explain it. It's very hard to explain. It's it's I was doing what I was doing, and I, and you know me, I am I am obsessive, like I was always that way. None of it mattered, and I suddenly felt paused, literally supernaturally paused. Like none of that matters. Set still. I remember like not knowing what was happening to me. You know, it's it's hard because you want to have an answer that's like, well, this thing happened or whatever. You had a church, or where are you at? It was it was like a youth group. Okay, okay. You know, it was like kind of this. But no one's speaking, no one's like no, it was like this little country church thing in North Alabama, and it was just some kids were meeting, and I went to this youth group, and it it was just like all the sudden, you know, as a believer, you have these Damascus experiences you hear about, you know, Paul and he struck down, and it had that feeling, but it wasn't aggressive, it was just hey, dude, this is you now. That's what it felt like. Wow. And I did have some crazy experiences. I not knowing anything, I remember grabbing like a Bible, and then I remember opening up and discovering that the gospels were the same story. Like I didn't know it was different angles of the same story. Yeah, and I'm just like immersed in it, and I'm like, God, what you know, what is happening? Like, what are these feelings? And I have this, I have some pretty, pretty weird experiences. I'll share one of them. I was sitting on my floor, and I have no idea. Again, it it was a mysterious feeling, it was a hard to explain thing emotionally, but I it was like God sideswiped me, and that is all that mattered was figuring what was going on. It was all that mattered to me was what's going on with me. What is this feeling? What have I ran into here? And I'm sitting in the floor and even praying, like it was like, hey God, like if you're real, etc. Like, I don't know what's going on, the stuff I'm feeling, these things that are happening. Um I'm like setting in my floor, and I'm literally like, if if you are real, like reveal something to me, and the light fixture explodes over my head. Stuff like that. That happened. Yeah. All over me. Glass? Yeah. I had various experiences in that realm of like, yeah, I know what they sound like, and I know how that feels to certain people, but yeah. So you say God, if you're real or yeah, and it was like something, you know, the room feels different.

SPEAKER_03: 39:36

With Scott strapped and Take Take Me Higher playing that type.

SPEAKER_01: 39:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 39:40

Six feet from the edge.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

Yeah, these and dreams and driving down the road and having questions and seeing, you know, bumper stickers or billboard and like answers everywhere, and just feeling like I am being Jason born here. Like, you know, overwhelmingly so. Wow. And so that leads to church planting. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't. It was, it was, it was, hey, I'll I will entertain any. I've always that I think that's where this started is I'll entertain anything. And this is like this door. I'm married now. Life is different. Yeah, like, man, I want to help people, you know, and so cool. These the this couple starting this church, there's a bit of like maybe they could like mentor like with things I didn't learn growing up. And yeah, and we go do that within a few years, that becomes a pretty classic Western Christianity situation of burnout, commercialized church, everything that is not in the scripture, you know, the classic like let's run everybody in the ground and make sure we have an offering for Jesus. And being honest with that, it just led to massive burnout. And through the burnout, I accidentally fixed a guitar pedal I had and I got obsessed, and JHS in some ways started with me realizing this is not for me. And I I hate is a strong word. I highly dislike this world. I've been I'm thankful for so much of it. I'm actually thankful for the mentors. Like I have a made, I'm thankful for a lot of it, but this is not for me. I'm further from God than I've ever been on staff at this church. I am broken. I'm being used. And the obsession of learning and this thing where I fixed my own guitar pedal, not rocket science, what I did at the time was it. But I just got obsessed and I started building pedals, and it became like looking back, it's like God handed me that, and my misery in what I was doing in that church actually led to JHS. It it God made me. I'm not, we don't know. I became miserable, which led me to what I do now.

SPEAKER_03: 42:13

Yeah. I had someone comment on one of my videos recently. I just want to ask a question on this because he basically kindly but sternly rebuked another podcast I'd done and said, This is the most far-fetched thing. If if you're um whatever you're doing, you know, if you're a barista, if you're a CEO, but especially if you're at a church, you know, talking to a worship leader or whatever, or a pastor, it's like, I don't understand a world in which you can get burnt out doing that. If you're burnt out, it means you're not connected to Jesus, you're not connected to the Holy Spirit. And he had all these like just, and he wasn't a ministry guy. So just like, I could unpack that. We could both unpack that at length. But just for people who are like, what do you mean you got burnt out at a church, like doing stuff for Jesus? Gives us like a sentence or two on that.

SPEAKER_01: 43:00

Yeah, I burn out in a church environment like hundreds of other people I personally know. Yeah, because you're not doing stuff for Jesus, you're doing stuff for a program that a person is doing to grow their business of running a church. That doesn't mean there's not great things in there.

SPEAKER_04: 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 43:19

My own story is a weird little youth group offshoot from a little church.

SPEAKER_05: 43:24

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01: 43:25

But at the end of the day, Jesus is very different than what a Sunday church usually looks like. And I love the community of church. Like scripture's clear, like that's a beautiful thing. There's a lot of feelings about what it should look like, how it's getting in the age we live in, how westernized it is. But essentially, a church is a business, you have to run it that way. And how you run it that way, you kind of have a fork in the road. Does the church matter more than the people in the church? And so anyone who says you can't burn out there has obviously not actually been involved, or maybe they're Anglican or something. I don't know. Maybe that's different.

SPEAKER_03: 44:16

Yeah. Uh yeah, I don't think so. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:19

I might become Anglican at this. I mean, you know, I didn't mean that as a stab. I'm like, I all I know is this like kind of call it like free-range Western non-denomination, non-denominational like non-denominationals. Impossible meat. Yeah, like that's what I know. Yeah. And I think there's a lack of structure, there's a lack of accountability. There's like if you have celebrity pastors, you have defeated the gospel with some kind of weird humanistic, you've commercialized something. That's a hot take that I just I like this point in my age, at my age and all that I've seen.

SPEAKER_03: 44:57

Yeah. So I I agree, and again, I have many stories that will definitely agree with what you're saying. So a follow-up question on that. How does how does one I'll play devil's advocate advocate for a second? Um, this is not on my questions at all, so I'm bunny trailing here. How does one you have a teaching gift from the word and you start in a home? Like I've I know many pastors who are like this. They start in a home church in their garage or whatever, and then more people come, and it gets to a point where it's like, man, this is too big, we have to get a building. And then five years later, they're in, you know, a massive 5,000 seat auditorium. Would you say that where did the flaw happen in the the guy who started with a great intention? Maybe he never even wanted it to like grow, like, and just somewhere along the way he gets skewed. Like, what what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_01: 45:51

I don't know. I think I would have had a take earlier in life. I had takes. I've said I just don't think I know. I I I can tell you stuff that I think. Yeah, I'm not sure how it should work. Yeah, it's not not the way it works, though. There's nothing in scripture and church history and human psychology and health that anything that looks like this Western superhero thing works, like that can't be it. Yeah, so I'm not sure what it is, and that's why I joke about like I think there is something to the structures of Anglican and Orthodox that really I've always been drawn to liturgy, the slowness of it. It's probably some from the trauma I've been through in the non-denominational sector and being used and abused, and the chaos and the straight out insane hip hypocrisy I've seen.

SPEAKER_02: 46:49

Yep, 100%.

SPEAKER_01: 46:49

I think that's why I'm drawn to some of that structure. And you know, I think, and on the same end, I there are people in those spheres I highly respect. But it's hard because you know, there's a a local person here that I thought was legit and turns out uh far from that, yeah, yeah, as devastating. Yeah, um and this is happening every day.

SPEAKER_02: 47:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 47:11

I don't know what that answer is. I don't have a hot take, I don't it's not yeah, yeah, it's not my lane anymore. I I used to try to make it my lane, it's not my lane. I somebody else needs to fix that.

SPEAKER_03: 47:24

Yeah, I I don't know. God, in some way, shape, or form, and maybe he is. I don't I also don't have like some great, you know, deep theological or psychological take to say, well, if we just did this, then you could be a mega pastor and not end up being a narcissist.

SPEAKER_01: 47:40

I think in one sentence, you have to have people around you who don't say yes. Yeah. And that's outside church or Christianity as well. I see it everywhere. I see it with rock stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see it with famous people I work with. You you if you're paying a person's paycheck, there's an issue of conflict of interest. Yeah. So if you're a pastor and everyone's on your payroll, there's a path of resistance to getting a no, yeah, you're probably doomed. Yeah. And so bobblehead syndrome. Bobblehead syndrome, like that's a rest. That is this is not highly intelligent thought here. This is like if you back up on a sheet of paper and go, what will make someone a narcissist? Even the purest of person, everyone says yes for years, and sick you look successful and you have money all of a sudden, and you're writing paychecks. This is like narcissism 101. Like this is the recipe, I think you know. So that's it, it doesn't have to be this should apply. I've like I said, I've seen it. You can walk out of the church, same thing. You know, I see it with with artists who get really famous and whatever, and it's just like it's a recipe for disaster. I think that's problem number one. Yeah, and I don't have I have answers for that, but so does everybody else. I mean it's logical. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_03: 49:08

Yeah. So I was thinking yester just yesterday about this this idea, this kind of a little bunny trail. Um perception is everything about your business, your church, your life. What's true is is secondary. Yeah, it's like, well, um, this person thinks this, this, this, this about me because I'm connected to this. But that's not true. I'm not do that, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that. Yeah, it's like, cool, I believe you, but and this is again in business and ministry, whatever, like perception is king. Like Apple, like we perceive things about the company called Apple, about phones and software updates and everything else. If they just said, no, we're we make uh cars, that's what that's what we do. It's like, well, my perception is you you make great phones, so it's like um applying that to, in a sense, of like um, I think sometimes the the stuff around these mega ministries gives a perception that is very like damning, and it's like, but that's not true, but that's not true. Understood, but the things you're doing give the perception of this. Yeah. So do you see how this whole section of people are thinking this about you? Yeah, it applies to businesses as well.

SPEAKER_01: 50:22

Like, yeah, I think we could say, is there a universal truth of all humanity and life and spiritual and all that? That's one subject. But then there's like, is there a truth about what perception people have of you? If you're associated with stuff, etc. Like right now, there's a tension, you know, for the first time in my life, like I have never made anything I do about Christianity. I I highly I follow Jesus, who is the Christ, who I believe to be the Christ, the savior of the world, and that is my path to Christianity. I have never been, hey, I I prescribe to I'm this denomination. I believe like that's this is not how I came in. That's not what changed my life. Yeah. So, like, but the struggle is I've never made that a deal, but every once in a while I'll do a talk at like a creative thing like yours, and it leans onto the faith-based thing, or or I'll say something every once in a while, like, because I'm going insane. You know, when our I I made a post on Instagram, like, for the love of God, quit saying Trump is our Jesus. It's like, that is absurd. And all I did was just post scriptures. Yeah. And I was like, every one of these, he's the opposite. Deal with that. And but then what I'm getting at is anyone who finds out I'm Christian, there is a truth that they will have that that they've seen and they have to assimilate and synthesize for themselves. Oh, Josh is a weird Christian. I bet he's MAGA. I bet he Oh, he lives in Kansas City. I bet he's part of that cult. Yep, yep. And so, yeah, like there isn't, everyone has their truth and their truth. And I think what's important is we just have to set an example of like, you gotta be able to change how you feel about something when you learn new information and always be learning. But unfortunately, most of the world doesn't operate like that. They they make a decision about you pretty quickly. Yep. Yeah, and my whole career's been interesting. I've done one magazine article for Worship Leader magazine way back in the day, and there was a couple people that like drugged me through the mud on that and then assimilated or synthesized this story that JHS was owned by a church and like all this crazy stuff. Just from like, yeah, all I did was an article. I've never, it's never I actually have this huge issue with like saying your business is Christian. I think that's insane to me, that's insane. Yeah, and then like there's a barbecue sauce I love. It has a little Jesus fish on it. It drives me insane. It's like, why is this necessary?

SPEAKER_03: 53:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:02

So I'm the opposite of what I've and this is a very small crowd. You know, you'll have those people that just want to hate on something. It's like, man, I've never pushed this stuff. Yeah. The fact that I'm talking about it to you is extreme. Like, this is a 0.5 percentile conversation for me, but I'm comfortable with it. I'm not gonna lie about who I am. And I I love talking about it in the sense of the creative path and me as a human, but this isn't my sales pitch. Yeah, totally. And someone can disagree with me, and that's okay. They can still like my product. Yeah, because I probably disagree with lots of my customers, but I'm still gonna serve them really well. 100%. That's what we need in life, that's what we need in humanity.

SPEAKER_03: 53:41

Yeah, and on that line is that the this the fish thing on the barbecue sauce, uh, speaking with like the you know, upper guys at Chick-fil-A. Yeah, they they are overtly clear in their beliefs.

SPEAKER_01: 53:51

Yeah, Midi Chris Tomlin playing in the restaurant.

SPEAKER_03: 53:53

Yeah, exactly. But you're not gonna find in the back of their, at least to my knowledge, the back of their fry box, you know, a fish or a Bible verse. But the motto there is um Matthew 5, I think it is, that they would uh, what is it, um, let your light shine before all men, that they may glorify your father in heaven through warm crinkle cut waffle fries. They want to bring an amazing product, an experience through very unhealthy waffle fries. If I might had, you know, yeah, two people.

SPEAKER_01: 54:23

I love people that think Chick-fil-A is like healthy.

SPEAKER_03: 54:26

No, it's it's really not, dude.

SPEAKER_01: 54:28

Like, yeah, it is it's an important discussion. I this could be a four-hour podcast on this subject because I hate the Christians who boycott things. I hate the other side of it where it's like we're overtly Christian. That's just not in the gospel. That's just not how God designed. Like, we're not it's just so frustrating. And I if I get on a rabbit shell of that, it'll be useless. But yeah, like I love the Martin Luther, the reformer, says, you know, the Christian shoemaker doesn't, you know, don't put little crosses on your shoes. Make really great shoes and glorify God that way.

SPEAKER_05: 55:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:15

That's I just the Christian business is hilarious saying that. Christian marketplace is my least favorite thing I've ever heard. I think it's an absurd doctrine.

SPEAKER_03: 55:27

Christian marketplace.

SPEAKER_01: 55:28

The being a in the Christian marketplace.

SPEAKER_03: 55:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:32

The marketplace Christianity is the phrase. I think it is heresy's a heavy word. You talked about it. It is a damaging, ridiculous, unscriptural ideology.

SPEAKER_03: 55:45

I I full fledge agree with you.

SPEAKER_01: 55:47

Marketplace Christianity. What the crap is that? Show me any example of it. We could talk for a long time about this. Even the name of it is like, come on. Like Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 55:58

I should put that on the on the screen, Mark of History Christianity. So my a pet peeve of mine, and I'm doing a podcast on this as well, whole whole podcast on this, is um in the arts entertainment space. So I'm doing you know, musicals and films and everything. And I always, whenever I'm like preaching or sharing, I say this statement very tongue-in-cheek, but I I go after it because it annoys the crap out of me. I say, it's like uh Christian shows, like uh famous Christian TV shows like The Chosen or famous movies, whatever. But there's a guy named Dallas Jenkins in the Christian space, he does a show called The Chosen, and it's about the life of Jesus. And I tell people, um, on Dallas Jenkins Instagram, don't you hate those like horrible like witches and Satanists who like comment on there how horrible it is? And they're like, Yeah, we we hate that. I'm sure that happens, right? I was like, it may, but mostly what I'm talking about is the Christians who profess to love Jesus, who just want a bellyache about how the chosen series isn't biblical because they're adding things to it. And it annoys the heck out of me. And I bring it around to this. I say, and most of your churches, maybe not the Anglicans, because they have a script and they do their deal, whatever. But I said, most Christian churches you walk into, at least here in America, in my experience, is a guy, maybe he knows the Bible and he cares about it. I'm not making all pastors out to, you know, to be this, but they share maybe one Bible verse, out of context, horrible exegesis, for like 15 seconds. And then they'll tell five stories around it for the next 23 minutes. One of them is about their daughter who got a bloody nose at the volleyball game because she's just in JV, but she had to play varsity that week, and this big varsity girl who's really tall to spike the ball and she had a bloody nose. And he's loosely applying this to this out-of-context Bible verse, and you're in the church, like, oh my god, this is so good. You don't go home thinking about that out of context Bible verse, you go home thinking about the guy's poor daughter had a bloody nose. Yeah, that's a story. Topical preaching, yeah. Your pastor told nothing to do with the Bible. It you lose and yet you're demonizing. So, off your point, if Christians, and I I is one, like you is one, I get it. Yeah, but we can be some of the most um stupid, conniving, the the whole boycott, even the reason why um Hollywood, I believe, I mean, Hollywood is not just like entertainment, it's worldview formation in in many ways.

SPEAKER_00: 58:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 58:06

And Christians, for decades, as I've studied it, they've boycotted like it's like come out of Babylon, come out of the harlot for decades, and then here we find ourselves. Christian art sucks for the most part.

SPEAKER_01: 58:18

Christian art is pretty bad.

SPEAKER_03: 58:19

Because for years we were like, well, at least we're not doing demon things. When in actuality, you should have been creating quality art, staying in the space.

SPEAKER_01: 58:29

So I just it's not only that, it's it's yeah, the boycotting is ridiculous. That's a whole other subject. Just bec I it's so hard to not jump onto it. But it's it's about Christian art is Christian art is and has been, by definition, pretty horrible because it's too safe. It doesn't talk about pain, it doesn't talk about anything in real life. It's like it's it's like Sesame Street for Christian. It's too happy. The human experience is miserable at times. Go read the Psalms.

SPEAKER_02: 59:06

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01: 59:07

Where are the Psalms? Yeah, where are where's the struggling and the suffering? The whole point of Christianity is that you need a Christ, a savior. If your world is all promise verses and K love, you don't need anybody because you're positive and encouraging. Yep, like it's like so the entire Christian experience art is diving into the depths of your experience with absolute honesty and bringing something to life to relate in a community. Hey, look at my painting about suffering, death, or beauty, yeah, or this amazing flower, or this love of my life, my wife, whatever it is, we have condensed it down to we only show angels. Yeah, we only talk about promises. And this is insane. Yeah, this is where Tolkien at Lord of the Rings he He had a lot of hate. He's a Christian. He gets a lot of hate about these orcs and all these images. And he's like, you can't have good without bad. And there's this polarizing, unbalanced, it is West, and it's again, it's just Western Christianity. We have created over the last hundred years an American Christianity that has spread across the earth that is all blessing and no pain and trial.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:28

And that defeats the point of Christianity.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:31

Most psalms are lamenting Psalms.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:34

They're miserable, but they're beautiful.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:36

They're beautiful, but they're not. I feel like the to dog on worship culture, which I'm also a part of, and you have been as different seasons. Like every song is the verse might be a little sad. I was dead, I was in a pit, whatever. But then by verse two, you're rising. By the bridge, you're really rising. Chorus, life is good. Like, so worship songs are in three and a half minutes. Oh, we need to we need to encourage the people on Sunday. We can't have one songs. When it's like life is lived now, not theologically. I understand theology is black and white, the main and plane of theology. Sure. But like life is lived in the gray. Yes. Why can't our song, even worship songs, like David did, leave people in the gray? Of like, go pray this out because life sucks right now. Your person just died of cancer. You just lost a child. Like I heard a preacher named John Piper say the statement. He said he was addressing his worship team and he said, Don't be all chipper on Sunday morning. He says, because you don't you know that uh her husband just left her? Don't you know that her son just died of cancer, and you're gonna come in and be all smiley and chipper? It's like, you know, be and he quotes Paul. He says, Let's write songs and lead people in a way that's sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:51

Yes, and it comes from a basic, I mean, some of it again, and it's it's my soapbox, it's just the way America has taught Scripture and interpreted it. Prosperity gospel is one of the nastiest things ever. If you live in a world where God, you know, if you live in a world where you're taught that becoming a Christian, this is why the term is so invaluable today. The term Christian almost has no value because what the crap is it, first of all. But the point is, if you are a Christian, Christianity promises joy all the time. Christianity is gonna fix all your problems, Christianity is going to take all your pain away. We've been taught that. Like, that's insane. Yeah. That and so if you're living under that belief that Christianity is a, I don't know, it's a an episode of family ties or something, or like, what's the Urkel show where everything works out? Family Matters. Yeah, it's like that's not Christianity. Like Christianity is living on this earth, trying to live as Christ, serve people, love people well through the midst of pain and sorrow and suffering, but somehow we flipped it around. And so if you're living that way, you're gonna write songs like that. You're gonna ignore bad. You're gonna look at Tolkien and go, I don't want the orcs in my songs. I just want to talk about hobbits. You know, it's like that's not a good story. Imagine Lord of the Rings with only hobbits. That sucks. That's what we've done to Christian art. Yeah, it's just we've taken all tension and reality out of it. So when you write a song, they all sound the same. Bless me. I'm so blessed. It's like, this is horrible.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:38

Oh no, that's my it's just it's a very obvious path of why we're here. We have ignored reality. And most Christian doctrine in the US, which has been taught all over the world through missions, is just a bunch of prosperity nonsense. Yes, it's heresy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:54

You mentioned you hinted this earlier. Um Marketplace Christianity. Yeah, favorite term. Favorite term. I want a shirt. We should get you a it's the worst term. So where is the um we've talked about this before, and you've spoken even at some of my conferences about this Christian versus secular art, businesses, whatever, and you've you've talked about how you don't agree with even that dichotomy, the phrasing there. Like, why why would you say that there's not really a difference, if you will?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:27

Yeah, I think secular secular is a thing. It is a word, it makes sense. It's a usable word, even to me, I think. I don't use it a lot because I think I have trauma from how it I've seen it used. There's let's divide Christianity and spirituality from real life. That's what it's saying. Let's divide them. Let's hold each in one hand. Holy Christ-like is over here, and worldly secular is over here. Keep your kids away from this. I just I can't find I can't find how that works. Uh Jesus in his ultimate He's Jesus, okay. Like, he's the main guy. He's over here walking around.

unknown: 1:05:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:20

First problem.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:20

Yeah, yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:21

I mean, let's just stay there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:23

Until you can tell me how that worked, you have no right to do this. Like, he's over here, y'all. Like, he's not like I don't there's a lot more we can get into, but like deal with that first. Like, be really honest with yourself. If you're so frightened that if you walk over here, you're gonna be swept away and go to hell or whatever that look, that's whole other doctrine. Yes, yep, yeah. You might not actually believe this. At the core. At the core, like it's it's it's you actually just believe what your dad and mom told you, and your pastor Billy, who ran the food kitchen or whatever. You know, it's like you probably have no faith. Yeah, you have a tradition. And so if you you've seen people go over here and man, he just started drinking again and his laughs in the toilet. It's like, well, yeah, he's part of a country club. He that's not faith. That's not something deeply changing, and that's not something you're committing your ethic and your soul and your life to. This Christ. You have to take Christianity from Christ, not Christians. That's like a really key point people keep missing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:36

So this secular thing doesn't exist. Yeah, like don't go murder. Is murdering secular? I've never heard that said, but it's like obviously don't go, you know, our point as Christians is to try to live as Christ and love people well and serve the, you know, serve humanity and be humble and all that. So that goes without saying, like, yeah, don't go murder, don't go steal, you know. Yeah, be a good husband, be a good father. But the point is, like, people are so freaked out over here. They're like, that is stay away. Yeah, the irony is isn't all this for them anyway? It's just like this big ironic mess.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:18

Totally.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:18

And so you end up with these families. I can't tell you the stuff I've experienced over the last few years. Like, there's a family, uh, there's there's a couple young people, my wife and I have tried to help. Who basically come out of a family closest thing I've ever seen to like a Netflix cult, where they were told as children that you need to be careful out in the yard. You could be kidnapped, and like this, they're gonna steal you. Like you're you're you're perfect and you're beauty, like, like what good is that? You're gonna stay in the house all day? That's literally what happened, and they're they're traumatized, they're in therapy. And yeah, so this is like wild. And this is where we land with these insane doctrines. All it takes is a decade, another decade, another decade. Hey, let's print it in a Bible and the margins. Hey, let's like make it in a teaching note that everybody copies. And eventually you have marketplace Christianity, you have a secular world and a Christian world. Yeah, then you have people boycotting Starbucks, which is insane, or whatever they feel like I don't know what the hottest boycott is today.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:24

Yeah, that was a couple years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:25

All of that is insane. Like it it doesn't, it does nothing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:31

It's embarrassing. It it is, and I I feel what you're saying. And part of my um recovery, if you will, you know, full-time ministry thing for like 15 years, and uh now still doing a lot of Christian work worship stuff, whatever, but really focusing on films and productions in my production company is the reality of um I used to say this prayer, like, um, you know, God, be be like my everything, be like my one thing. And and it's well-meaning and you know, whatever, just Bible verses, but yeah, what it created in me, even as a teenager in my youth group, was I had a list of 10 things: school, chores, play with friends, whatever. And the first thing was always have my little discipleship book for my youth pastor gave me and fill in the margins and have my time with Jesus before school. And it it it uh it did several things negative. There was a lot of good in that as well, probably kept me from some things, but if I didn't have that time, I felt like crap. Thought the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:27

You compartmentalize.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:28

I compartmentalized it. So where now I and I say this, I'm like, I don't want him to be like the first thing on my list, and then I go do a film, and then I go do this, and I do this. It's like, no, I want him to be like all in all. Yeah. So when Jesus is in all in all, have supremacy in all things, in Josh Scott's life, in Justin Rizzo's life, well, what does that look like? When you go to um a bar to play a gig, when you go to you know, uh employees, you have whatever, it's not like it just it just takes away some of that like secular sacred idea.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:58

So here's the wild idea. What if you actually believe what you believe? Like you admit that you do or don't. Either one's fine. Let's say you're a Christian, and maybe you're a maybe you're a cultural Christian. This is a real thing. It's where you grew up in the culture of Christianity and you say, Yeah, I'm a Christian. I think this is most Christians. But then what if you are really, you had an experience, you deeply believe this. There's those are different things. Call them what they are. And if you're over here, that's okay. Call it for what it is. Maybe you don't want to be a Christian, call it for what it is. And what if we started getting really honest? And then here's the crazy thing if you're over here in this camp and you actually believe the miracle of a savior who was born, lived, died, and rose again, it's a crazy thing to believe. I'm here, I'm stating it on tape right here. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, it feels like a fairy tale. Yeah, but I believe it happened for various reasons. So I live towards that. I try to raise my family, my kids. Don't raise your family. I try to raise my kids and lead my family as a husband and father in that way. If I really do believe that, what if you just live? What if you just follow your passions, whatever they are? What if you quit thinking about secular and you exist in the world among even the term the world, that phrase is like abused. Yeah. Just live on earth, yeah. Do your business, live your life, be kind to people, love people, listen to the person who says Jesus is stupid. Sit and have conversations. Yeah, totally. Listen, like, just exist. Just live your life and be good to people. Do not try to force it, do not try to prove points, but make an honest call. If you can't do that, if you're fixated on this secular or whatever thing, you really probably should examine all of it. You should look back and be like, did Jesus actually do that? Because he didn't. And if we're supposed to be Christians, that means in the example of Christ, then you probably should figure out how Christ actually lived, not how your pastor tells you to live, or how some marketplace Christianity book told you to run your business. Yeah. So I that's the wild idea. Can we just do that? Like, what if you just, Justin, what if you just decide to live?

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:23

Yeah. So I love this. So for someone who's listening, and maybe you're blowing up their world right now, like, oh my gosh, that feels right to me. Answer this question then. What does that look like? Give me a day in the life of Josh. You have a successful business, wife, children, hobbies. Do you have like time with Jesus? Like, do you read your Bible?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:43

Like some like daily ritual or liturgy or something?

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:46

If someone's listening to this and they're like, well, that that rings true. I don't want to be the way you just said.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:51

Yeah, I personally say, I personally don't have some like daily pattern or schedule. Um, I wake up every day like I woke up this morning like I have every day. I really believe that there is a God. I believe that Jesus is who he said he was for various reasons. I believe, I believe in all of that. I don't know or understand every piece of it, but I I continue to be a student of wanting to understand the scriptures, believing in their validity. I believe there are problems that I don't understand or questions I can't quite answer, but it doesn't do away with what I do believe. So I wake up a strong believer. Like I can say every day, I I've had my doubts, I've questioned things back and forth. I always come back around. And what that looks like for me is yeah, there's these constant intersections with washing the dishes or in the car or in a meeting about to have a hard situation with an employee, or in a creative process stuck, or wanting to know if the right creative process is there, and having a conversation and saying, you know, God, be with me in this moment, or lead me in this moment. You know, uh studying scripture. I I love, you know, people see me and go guitar historian, nerd. I'm equally a nerd about scripture. I've spent thousands of hours reading scripture and I love the history of the church. I love all that's so fascinating to me. To me, it is that's my life in the same way that if I love movies, if you love movies, you don't wake up and like have some kind of liturgy tradition of like I must watch a 10-minute movie. Like I did, like I don't have the I get it. I get that, yeah, devotionals and you should have rhythms and patterns. I just also think a lot of that is just some people started teaching you should wake up at 5 a.m. and pray or something and be more holy. I I don't, I don't know. That's never been for me. Yeah, I'm not hating on it. I just I just don't think there's a recipe. Yeah, I think my goal is to make decisions and lean on how Jesus told me to walk in this life through my decisions in my life and to be humble, to love people well. I mean, my roadmap is the Sermon on the Mount. I just want to do that. It's really if you had to delete the whole text of the Bible, hand me the Sermon on the Mount. I can go the rest of my life with only that. I think I could. Yeah, it's that simple. It's like be humble, be kind, you know, seek for peace. Um be yeah, I just I just look at all that and I go, it's that simple, and I just try to live that. Yeah, and in everything I do, there's no exceptions. Um, I just want that to be in everything I do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:49

I love that. Yeah, I love that. That's amazing, and it's hard. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's harder than boycotting Starbucks.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:00

And at times, I mean I see the the tools, and you know, even with like raising my kids who are younger than yours, but like raising my kids in um, because there's a lot to be said outside of spirituality for a disciplined life in physical health, in your mental health, whatever. So it's not just like read your Bible, kids. It's like I want my kids to understand how to love people, how to run and work out and be healthy, eat healthy, whatever. But you know, my wife and I talk a lot about that of we don't want it to be this um religion placed on them, but we want them to have a genuine love for it. So, how do we not, you know, if we were maybe pushed a little too hard into like religion of it, just do it, you know, whatever. Do your Bible study. Um, we we wrestle with that. I don't have some great conclusions to offer, um but I'm in the wrestle and I'm not gonna stop the wrestle.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:51

And um but yeah, yeah, here's what I do know my wife and I make decisions in front of our kids with answers that come from what I'm talking about. This person did us wrong. Well, we'll say, and they'll hear us talk, and they'll hear us eventually land through we're so pissed off. They suck. What's their problem? What's going on with them? Yeah, that's tough. All the way around, how can we help them? And they'll see us give to people who are bad to us, they'll see us serve, they'll see us take the lowest road. That's a mouth. That's it. Like, what good is the teenage Bible with images and the youth group if you don't see that? Like, what good is that? Yeah, what good is the Chris Tomlin song? It's it's like it's not, it's it's it's fine. But like we're we try to do that and we suck at it probably 90% of the time, but we have these huge wins where I walk away as a parent and Alice walks away as a parent, and we go, despite how I feel, despite what they deserve, despite whatever it is, we chose the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, and our kids saw that, and for the rest of their life, they're gonna remember that their parents did the weird thing. Like to that, like that's all I like if that's all I ever win, I've done that a few times.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:35

So have you ever prayed um weird questions?

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:38

Strike them down. David did.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:40

Well, it's difficult. No, but have you ever prayed, Lord, give my child a light above head exploding experience that they will I haven't. Because that was such a pivotal moment in your life.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:52

Yeah, I I don't know why that happened. Yeah, it sounds crazy, and I had I had crazy dreams. I heard stuff, I I heard things, like I had all these experiences, but I I don't know why that is, and I I don't I don't think that's the Christian experience.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:10

No, definitely not. Just to make that clear.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:13

I have an idea. And again, I don't sit around like talking about this. Like it's not even it's not even why I'm a Christian. Yeah. It's it's this I don't know. I don't know why that is. I think that's what it took to get my intellect to shut up a few times. Love that. Yeah, because following an invisible God isn't exactly logical. It doesn't mean it doesn't make sense, it doesn't mean it's not real. Yeah, it's just not, I'm a very logical person. So I think different people need different things. So for my kids, I just pray that they try to see Jesus, not social media, not Donald Trump, not a Pastor. You know, I'm I'm not hating on anything. I'm just saying, like, gosh, there's so many flavors of this. And I just want them to see the basis. I want them to take Christianity from Christ, not from Christians. And that even means me. As much as I'm saying, I want to show them these moments and I have, and we're trying to do a good job, they have to. I don't want them to just follow some tradition. You know, I'd rather my son come to me and go, I don't believe in God. This is insane, but here's my path with reason than to say I'm a Christian because you are dad. I'd rather have that. Because God's not scared of that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:37

Yeah. I think they asking questions is awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:41

I think we, I think a lot of everyone listening should doubt God a little more. It'd probably be good for them. Yeah. There's my advice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:49

That's a soundbite we'll start the episode with.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:51

Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah. Because you're probably living some tradition. Not bad, but you should check it at the door. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:59

I love that. Um, so kind of pivoting the story, you you said it earlier, then we we went off there for a while. Um, you fixed a guitar pedal that you owned, and you're like, oh, this is kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:11

Yeah, I just got real obsessed with it. Super obsessed with it, yeah. Taught myself how to read circuits and how transistors worked, and um yeah, grabbed some like college textbooks and was like reading them at night in the bed, just like super nerd. But yeah, I I just got real interested in and saw that I was good at it, like I had a brain for that and kind of leaned into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:37

And then and then when did at what point did you like think in your s in your brain this could be a business?

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:43

Like I think it was fairly quickly in my brain. Admitting it out of my mouth to Alice was harder because it felt crazy. And then people thought I was crazy. I mean, people literally told me there's no way you can make a living doing this. Wow. I mean, I don't blame them. You you don't know what someone's capable of because you're not in them, you don't have their desire or passion, you don't you don't know what's driving them. You know, I get it. Like this is why I'm always careful with people. Like, don't ever tell somebody to not do something they're doing. That's you're probably gonna miss. Because you're not as smart as you think you are. To everyone else, I was a guy that played guitar, barely got out of high school. Yeah. That's what I was. So that was their truth, their perception of me. But I had I had a different perception of what I could do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:31

So really early on, you're like, I can make money doing this. Yeah. Didn't tell anybody.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:34

And I started making money doing it pretty even by accident, but yeah. Like friends bringing you the pedals or I local guitar shop, um, put some stuff on eBay just to see. Yeah, I was like, this is interesting. And then I had this moment in a pharmacy parking lot with Alice. We're like in transition, trying to figure out what to do. I'm miserable working at this church. She looks over and says, Can you really make a living doing this? And the answer to that is I actually don't know. But I said, Yeah, absolutely. You know, I I mean I said yes. That was like from that point on, I'm in. You know, it's like if you tell you tell your buddy you gotta lose 20 pounds to stay on you, that's what this moment was. It's like it really locked me in. I was already locked in. But yeah, can you really make a living doing this?

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:27

So then your marketing brain, your strategy brain, I know we talked about the strength finders a lot, you have very high strategies. I learned, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:34

I was naturally, you know, I had that experience running a guitar shop and selling things. I I learned I really like selling people's stuff. I hate salesmen. I hate all that. But I loved selling people's stuff. Um, I liked business, I liked the idea of like economics. Like I started to realize I like to understand like everything any human does is for some incentive. We don't do anything unless there's an incentive. You don't buy that hat unless there's some incentive for you. We don't drink this. There's always an incentive. I love the psychology of how people buy things and why they buy things. And I started learning that like that's interesting to me. And yeah, these petals, I think I could sell these. I have these fun ideas. Like the whole guitar industry is pretty blah. It's real serious, leather pants metal. And I was like, hey, this looks like a a banana that has a funny icon. I it was and I just thought that was awesome. It just like it had a different feeling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:36

But wait, why did you switch from because you were fixing guitar pedals? Why did you switch to I can make a guitar pedal?

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:41

Yeah, just it was just learning. It's the path of learning. It took me about a year to make my own through the through the path of learning how others were made, replicating them, modifying them, and then making my own. Just like anything else. If if you're gonna go learn Portuguese, you'll you'll have a little curve. And I eventually landed on making my first pedal about a year out.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:02

But that first year were you like going to every music store around and say, hey, I could fix pedals if someone brings them in?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:07

Or I started modifying pedals. So I would buy like the most popular pedals that were made. I'd learned how the circuits work, like what this capacitor does, what this resistor does, what this diode does.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:19

Do you have a job still at the church?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:21

Yeah, I was like kind of straddling, intense burnout hating my life, and then I would come home as a hobby. I was like, oh, this is fun. I don't want to die.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:29

I mean, yeah, it'd be like your startup cost was pedals saved me from church. You heard it here, folks. Yeah. Pedal saved me from church. But wait, so the startup cost would be you're going to buy what, a$200 pedal to analyze it and take it apart?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:41

Yeah, I mean, at the time, the particular things I would mod would be a little cheaper. It'd be like$50,$60 pedals. I'd buy them used on eBay too. Okay. And I'd fix them up and mod them, and I had a sticker, and it was like the famous pedal you've seen, but modded by this JHS thing. You know, it was my initial super creative.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:59

And did Alice have any thoughts on uh that being a horrible idea? Or did she loved the idea?

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:04

She, I remember walking out with my first ever modified pedal. Had a little sticker I printed with an Avery sticker print from Walmart, you know. And um, I called it JHS Mods. Horrible graphic. I just like whipped it up in words.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:21

But did she like JHS?

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:22

Was she like she never really made a count? She saw this, and rightfully so, is like, that's cute. I mean, I'm just being honest. Yeah, I don't blame her. Yeah, oh Josh is I'm I'm really always I'm into stuff, right? So it's like, oh, that's cool. Oh, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And then she she could tell textbooks at night, hours and hours of studying. Got me, where are you at? Then oh, I'm at Radio Shack on the floor setting here, looking at yeah. Wow. I'm like, what are you doing? Oh yeah, I burnt my hand soldering at 3 a.m. So it like had a different level, and she realized that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:58

Yeah, yeah. And then so you start like, what'd you sell your first pedal for in eBay?

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:03

Uh so I had made a living off of eBay for several years. I used to, before the internet was the internet we know of now, it you had an unfair advantage. Just like, you know, there's an era where social media people were really good in the beginning. Now everyone's good. Well, there was this era where if you had this pre-internet world where you could drive, if you're someone like me, I drove to pawn shops all over the South. I take entire days and tour through pawn shops. And I this is where I learned so much of my history knowledge about gear is I didn't have an iPhone. And I would have to memorize and learn, well, this Fender jazz base from 1968 is made in Japan. It's worth I would teach myself what's worth what. So I'd walk in and go, there wasn't 300 bucks for that. That's a$2,000 base. I made a killing on eBay doing this. This is how I like stayed afloat when we were first married. And I would flip things and all that. So I had a really solid foundation of running a small business on eBay as a as a young person. So I and my method was always start something at 99 cents, and that gets you tons. That's a that's your hook. Now we call that a hook in social media. Everybody else was listing their precious item for$400, and then you skip right by it. But if you list for 99 cents, you're hooked in, you're gonna watch it. So I made a killing on eBay with that strategy. You just have to believe it's gonna sell. So my first pedal, 99 cents, no one's ever heard of me. I think it sold for$275 to Japan, and my brain went, huh, okay, this is interesting. Wow. I knew Japan culture with guitar gear was a thing, but I shipped that pedal to Japan. I made a not counting my time because no one does in a startup business, you abuse yourself. It was like I made a$250 profit by putting a picture on the internet and putting 99 cents and letting people fight over it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:03

That was really interesting. That's not a business model, but that was interesting. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:08

And then like walk with you like the step of developing into like, hey, JHS is like a thing. We're going for it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:18

Yeah, it was um I need brand, I need to have an identity as a brand. I need to figure out how I'm gonna label these pedals. I started stamping them with rubber stamps. I I knew that uniformity mattered. My favorite things and brands, even subconsciously, I didn't understand it, but I knew that Nike things all had a swoosh. I knew that Apple had an Apple. I knew that there had to be, I couldn't make a bunch of different things. I had to make things that fit in a big thing. And so I started trying to build that. I built a horrible website on iWeb. Uh shout out if any of y'all ever used iWeb. It was Apple's website software. Interesting. It was like garage band for websites. I just built a horrible website and sold stuff, and that's where the business started. PayPal buttons, you know, embed. Yeah. Put that embed link in there. Uh this is a long time. Yes, 2007, 2008, yeah, yeah. And uh was selling more than I could do. Uh, some you know, brilliant business person told me, well, just raise your prices and you'll sell less things and make the same profit. So I raised all my prices and sold double. It just kept spiraling. And there is a point in there where it felt like a death march. I was working 18-hour days, I was not sleeping. For one year, I worked in a shed in a backyard with a hole in the floor. Wow. 18 hour days. To fill orders? Yeah, to do everything. I was I was drowning. Wow. I was my own worst enemy. Well, hey, I saw your pedal. Can you build me this old pedal that you've never heard of? But you're gonna look it up on Google in a minute and commit to this? Yeah, sure, I'll build it. So I was like, I anything I could sell, I was like, yep, I can do that. And then I would literally like hit sin and go, all right, I'm gonna learn that one. I mean, that was and that is that is business, you know. Wow, it's a little more some people are more psychotic with it, but uh that was how it started.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:12

So it's we're in our 19th year.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:15

When was your first like$100,000 year? Like how many years into business?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:19

I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:20

How your first million dollar year? You remember that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:23

I'm not sure what year it was. It would have been 2014, maybe 2015. 2014. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:30

So that's a seven-year-old business, six-year-old business that happened?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:35

It was before then, I guess. Um I don't really know. I've never thought of it like that. Okay. And I know I'm odd. I never I never had dollar goals. I never thought like that. Um, I do now. I have I that was a different me. The me then was how can I have employees take care of them, make really good stuff, and just keep having a paycheck so my daughter doesn't die. It was like that simple. Like it was literally, yeah. I I didn't have the um knowledge to be like, I should have a goal and I should blah blah, you know, business jargon, whatever, whatever, all the terms. Yeah, what's my ROI? Yeah, I think. That wasn't me. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:15

So how have you remained, because just hearing knowing you for 16 years and but hearing you talk in the last you know hour and a half, um incredible creative, incredible entrepreneur, um, but somewhere along those along your journey of JHS, you've had to also become an incredible businessman to set goals, ROI, all the things. Um, has that been like the least favorite part of your job? Or have you risen to the occasion of like, all right, I'm gonna have this business meeting and plan out 2027?

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:45

Yeah, I love learning, so I've loved all of it. There's been really hard moments, but I have never not enjoyed most everything I do because I love learning. I don't there's a lot of misery. I mean, it's hard. It's hard, but I've loved all the learning. And more than can I get to five million? Can I get to 10 million? Can I get to we did 12.5 last year? It's like, can I get to that? I never thought I'm always what can I learn? That's all what's the process? Like the product is get to 10 million. For me, though, what's the process? I'm excited about the process. I like learning. The pro I I say a lot, process is way better than product. Products come and go, trends come and go, editing styles come and go, content comes and goes, social media changes every freaking six months. But the thing that never changes is the human process of mastery. And if you commit to that over product development, you'll make great products forever. Let's just like, I think that's been me. That's been me. I didn't know that. I didn't like plan that. But I love the process, the curiosity. So all of it's fun.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:08

It's a hard question to answer in this setting, but to put you on the spot, someone's watching this and they're like, oh my gosh, like Josh has said, I love learning like 50 times in the last hour and a half. Sure. And that person would say, I don't, or I just feel like a bum creative or whatever, and I'm 25 or 18. And like, what's what's one thing outside of be a learner, which I guess you probably would be your answer. But what's one thing you would tell like an 18-year-old creative sitting here at the table? You couldn't mentor them, you couldn't be in their life outside of this like one statement. Like, what would you tell that person?

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:39

You probably do like learning, you just haven't been patient enough with yourself to figure out how you need to learn. So, an example would be I hear I hate reading all the time. I don't think that's true. I think you need to figure out how you need to absorb reading, yeah. Audiobook versus real book. That's the simplest thing. Like learning has a reward, but it comes through patience. The problem right now for every young person, so especially Gen Z, etc., you're being taught instant gratification, you're being taught drive-thru world, short form reels, hooks, frame by frame by frame. Like every YouTube video is like watching a fireworks show. It's just like a tension, like you know. What you need to do is understand that is not a way to live life. You can't sustain a healthy life in that pace. Put some pause in your life, let yourself sit and struggle through a book a little bit. And you might be shocked. Page 25, you forget you were reading. That's how it happens. It's not, it's not, you don't wake up like Jane Austen or something, sipping a latte, going out in the foggy morning in your robe with your chihuahua in your lap. Oh, this book. And it's not how it happens. You have to figure out what's it look like for you. You know, the problem right now, I more and more people are saying, I don't like learning. And I just think it's not true. I think they're being forced into ways of learning. People, they're being told there's a truth. There is no truth to learn. There's there's no one way. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, for me, it's like I have found what works, you know, I've found methods that I like. Um, and you cannot underestimate what's happening to you in isolation. You're being more and more isolated by culture. And this is the passion of our art house here, like the nonprofit. When you like right now, we've, you know, we thought five people would show up at that at our first event. We had 55. We've been running events with 200 people. Like we've been shot. People are being put in isolation and told to make things or figure their life out, and that's nonsense. Like, we are communal people. Community is being replaced with this false community. I I mean, I have massive social media accounts, but they're not community, they serve a really good purpose, they're really wonderful, they're life-changing, but nothing replaces community. And hey, you should sit with this person and make things with them. We do a thing called open studio. You bring your art, you work, we have people painting in the room, you have people writing songs, and it's like that is unbelievable what starts happening to young people because they've never experienced that. What they've experienced is Roblox with a headset. That's not community. Community is you're watching a person do a paint brush, and you're like, God, I want to paint. That's so cool. You can hear it, right? You can smell it. You see someone writing, and they're like, hey, read these paragraphs. Does this feel good? And you don't even like writing, and then you're you're over there reading somebody's play. You're like, this is so cool.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:56

The community experience is really the learning experience, and I think that's being robbed from a lot of people. So the challenge is you're probably in the worst place you could be to try to learn if you say you don't like learning. You're probably, you know, you're really isolated. You're trying to be some dude on Instagram who has six backups and nine Ferraris. He's telling you how to learn, but you're not him.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:38:21

So you gotta like be patient, you gotta slow down, you gotta be yourself. And that might look a million different ways. You but yeah, you learning is a beautiful process, but it takes time, slowness, patience, and it's a return on investment. It's not an instant thing.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:38:40

And that is counter-cultural. That's my favorite part about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:44

I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:38:45

Yeah, I will being counter-cultural is important.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:48

So, what's the next like three to five years hold for you, do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 1:38:53

The in your life. Like, what does it look like?

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:56

Yeah, you Jazz continues. I know you wrote your you wrote and released your first book, Made on Earth for Rising Stars. Um, there's more books in your future.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39:05

Like, yeah, shameless plug for that. Made on Earth for Rising Stars. Made on Earth for Rising Stars. It is a think Ken Burns meets um, I don't know. It's it's like a it's it's a music history biography of a company, how they made things, who invented them, how they changed the world, all these unknown inventions, all these amazing stories. It's it's a book that the goal of writing is I'm gonna teach you about one of the most important companies in music history that you may have never heard of. You that you don't have to like guitar either, but you're gonna leave it going, I should make things, even if I'm never known, because making things changes the world. That's the point of the book. So that book uh it's published on Third Man Books, which is Jack White's publishing house, which is amazing. I mean, it's like uh kind of a surreal experience. So that's my year. This year is uh Book takes about a year. You spend about a year with it. Um, and I have another draft. Uh, I thought this book I just mentioned would be like the third one. It came first. That's just you know, roll with the punches. The book, uh, I will probably have another book out next year. It's drafted pretty well. Um, I'm just I want to write. I am I am currently writing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:22

I've you know you're substacking daily.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40:24

Daily, daily, it's crazy. The substack thing's been so fun. Like, I had mixed opinions on what to do there, but yeah, that's exploded. It's been really fun to see. It's crazy to write some essay about creativity and whatever, and have 6,000 people read it and sharing it all over the world. Yeah, it's a really interesting platform. Yeah, I think Substack is a little underrated right now. It's like exploding. A lot of people should jump on that. Hint-hint, Justin. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's cool. Yeah, but yeah, I'm doing that, just writing. Um, I'm stepping into more of a I am the owner founder and uh historian and a writer than I am a CEO of a company. Like I have a great team, they run the company well. I'm not removing myself from my company, but I'm I'm freeing myself of like some of the daily operations. This is 19 years in, you know. I I feel a shift in me of making things and writing, and then really the passion, passion I have is for writing, and it's for our local art community center. That's like exploding. It's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:37

We just acquired a second building, which is 808 Art House here in Grandview. Yeah, it's art house.

SPEAKER_01: 1:41:43

We acquired a second building on Main Street, so we now our classes are extending. We can run six parallel classes. Which which building did you buy? We took over the 714, the uh uh what was it called? You've worked in there. Uh Steeplechase building. Oh, okay, awesome. We took that. That'll be our main building. You got it. That's amazing. Yeah, we took that. We keep 808. Uh so the address, you know, arthouse 808, arthouse 714 will probably end up with four or five buildings. That's the plan. Wow. And then they're different art disciplines.

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:16

So if someone's not in Kansas City of Grandview, is there a way they can connect with you guys, like through donations or classes or arthouse808 right now.com.

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:25

That's arthouse808.com. Um Instagram? Yeah, Instagram and stuff like that. Yeah. You can yeah, we have, you know, everything, we're about a year old. Um you can go follow us on different platforms for sure. You gave away how many guitars last year? Yeah, our biggest program is guitar for kids, and it's been wild. We we are partnered with companies like Epiphone, Ernie Ball, these big guitar companies, and we're we're bringing free guitar lessons and some amount of like even music therapy thought to families who can't afford anything in the art space. And that's the point of the whole facility is this community is underserved, this community is ignored, this community has had a pretty tragic past with a parasitic organization. We've, you know, it's like there's a lot of families who can't afford art, and like art changed my life and my wife's, yours, everyone of everyone I know. We're putting it in front of people who can't afford it or have no access. And it's been amazing. And in one year to see literal life transformations for teenagers and people, um, it's been amazing. So we're just wanting, you know, I believe absolutely believe art can change a community from the inside out, it can change an economy, it can change everything about a town, and that's I think this community's only shot. I think it has one shot, and I think it's art. I love that. So we're pretty dedicated to that shot. Do as hard as it is, we're gonna stick with it. And it is a bit of a lonely road, so any support is much appreciated.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:03

Yeah, absolutely. Teach people how to love music and of course how to have daily quiet times, what Jesus says. And I'd be a marketplace Christian. Yes. Um, so who's the most famous person that you know?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:19

I don't know. I I don't know. Is there like a fame a meter? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:24

From your vantage point, who's like the most famous person you know?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:27

Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:32

Can you drop any names?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:34

I can tell you people I know. I just have no I have no excitement around fame, though. I think everyone's I know what you're saying. I get it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:42

I mean that's a different way. Have you ever met someone and be like, oh my god, I'm a huge fan.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:47

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:49

Who is that person?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:50

Well, that's a lot of people, but I don't feel I'm trying here people.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:54

I'm trying.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:56

Uh it's really fun to be friends with you know John Mayer or Jack White. Those two like Jack's amazing. Um a lot of times I meet people and regret meeting them. Because people can really suck. Yes, they can have a different, they can be a different person than what you see. Yeah, I've had the same thing. Then you have this how do you divide their art from their humanity? That can be really difficult. Jack White and John Mayer are fantastic friends. Um yeah, there's some oddballs like JJ Abrams, knowing him is funny. Yeah, you know, I actually met him. He came to me at a event I was at and was talking, I didn't know who he was. And someone had to come over and tell me that's JJ Abrams. I was like, I've heard that name. And they're like, my God, like lost Star Wars. Seriously. And then I it's been it's been fun to have a people like that in your life who who I don't know, it's just like an interesting thing to have this fan of yours.

SPEAKER_03: 1:45:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45:51

It's like having this mutual like to meet people who are famous and they're like they like what you do is a is a it's kind of a fun feeling, you know. I don't have stardom. I don't, I don't, I've very the people if I met, I would get nervous around. I think if like Malcolm Gladwell, Ken Burns, these uh these people are like, I might be slightly nervous because they're massive inspirations to me. Like more than any musician, some of these writers, some of these thinkers.

SPEAKER_03: 1:46:19

Didn't JJ correct me if the story is wrong, when he was filming Star Wars in London, wasn't he like geeking out trying to find your pedals?

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:27

Yeah, he started buying up JHS pedals. They were filming one of the Star Wars right outside of London, and he was going into these London guitar shops and had bought some stuff. And and that relationship's amazing, and all the friends like becoming kind of friends with Bad Robot, his production company, and spending time around that world. It's such a fun thing to see movies being made and like walk into editing rooms and like you just to see that world's been such a gift. Yeah, same with Jack, like to go and experience third man and see a guy that's absolutely human and normal and kind and has this like empire inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. But he's like, you know, he'll go buy you donuts at at the grocery store. He's like just so cool. Yeah. And John, John is, you know, John admittedly had this kind of life-altering moment where he realized he was a real jerk and he did a lot of he was just a real selfish person. He had this this moment in life, and then to meet him on the other side of it, like you hear stories, right? And it's probably true, and you'd say they're true, but he's an amazing person, he's very kind. Um, those are like three really great ones that I that I'm very thankful for. And it's not about their fame or like saying you know them, that has no value. It's being able to learn from people of that caliber of thought, action, creativity, and get a little glimpse of their humanity and how real they are. Yeah, that's what I love.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:00

I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48:01

Yeah, love that the name drop is worthless.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:05

Totally. I love it. Dude, you're inspiring to me personally. I really appreciate your time to do this podcast. Hopefully, people who watch this or listen to this are inspired. Um, but Josh's book, Made on Earth Rising Stars, is available.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48:18

Yeah, the pre-sell is really important. It the publication date will be in May.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48:23

Right now, it's a pre-sell. This book is a bit of a new genre. Like, that's a broad, that's a bold statement. It's a niche, it's it's in a genre, but it's a particularly interesting and a little odd of a book. It's it's it's a subject, it you want to say, oh, it's about guitar. It's about creativity using the narrative of this guitar invention stuff. So what's really matters for me, and if anyone's watching, is supporting this pre-sale, it tells publishers and distributors that people really care about this type of story. Yeah, like making things changes the world. Yeah. So this is on pre-sale. You can put a link or whatever in this uh third third man books, and it really matters. It's a it's a beautiful book. It's about a six-year project. It's it was grueling and miserable and beautiful at the same time. And me and a couple collaborators pulled it off and I'm really excited about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:15

So it's not Amazon at third man books, is where they would. Right now, the pre-sell is third.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:19

And then it'll go full publication everywhere. Yeah, the pre-sell kind of yeah, it it it's uh it's a first-time author. Yeah. I mean, it's a first-time kind of weird niche in a niche book. Yeah, and yeah, so it's pre-selling, and that kind of lines up how many books are ordered in the initial run for the distributor. Yeah, so it's a big deal. Like any support on that is hugely appreciated by me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:42

So I'm gonna go buy the book. You guys go buy the book. Um, follow Josh on socials, 808 Art House is an incredible uh organization here in Grandview, Kansas City. Follow that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:52

Yeah, my personal Instagram is the thing I'm I'm really only active on. It's Josh at Joshua Heath Scott. Heath is like my middle initial the candy bar Heath. Yep. And you'll see if you follow me on there, you'll see reposts of Art House eventually, and you can kind of discover the whole world. JHS is at JHS.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50:10

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:11

We'll put that in the show notes as well. Dude, thanks for your time, man. Appreciate it. Great to be here. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50:15

Marketplace Christianity.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:17

Let it live on.