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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
Wesley Luttrell (00:00.748)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast. Who are the invisible people of music today and what do they do to make music happen? Because behind every great artist, song, venue, festival and music service there's a tribe of people who will dedicate their lives to work that if done right will never appear to have happened. There are those in the spotlight and then there's everybody else.
Wesley Luttrell (00:29.976)
This is a short episode focused on a specific moment that came up during my latest podcast with legendary rock drummer, Sandy Gennaro. And it intersects between several things that I am very interested in, including scaling musical projects, identity as a direction, vision as the curator of that identity, and how when
the right conditions meet the right person, the growth that happens can be explosive and the person is completely ready to ride the wave. So this was something that I had already looked at, sort of conceptualized before sitting down with Sandy. And it was, I didn't realize exactly the context in which him becoming the drummer for Cyndi Lauper
at the beginning of her career, I didn't quite realize what that meant. You know, I was born in 1994. This happened 10 years earlier, so I missed it. And I've always listened to Cyndi Lauper. I've always heard her music, but I've never really looked into her project. I've never really seen what were the conditions like. You you hear girls just want to have fun at every wedding in my area. And time after time is a classic.
But I didn't really realize what was going on at that time. So as I looked into it, this was prior to even talking to Sandy, I realized that damn, he stepped on a rocket. know, Reid Hoffman said, starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and building your airplane on the way down. But in this case, Sandy stepped onto a rocket that was going to be built on the way up, fueled by a
a smash hit album. An album that released in October of 1983 would go on to have four top five singles. And that was the first time that a female artist had done that in music. The album would eventually go on to sell some seven million copies in the US and 16 million copies around the world. But this was really the first project, you
Wesley Luttrell (02:57.75)
Sandy talks about when he met Cindy Lauper, you you wouldn't know her from Adam. You wouldn't know her in a group of people because she wasn't the star that she was about to become. But like he said, one thing about her was that she was undeniable. A star quality if you're recording artist, right? Like you going for this, I don't care if I'm liked or disliked, I'm undeniable. What a great quality. Another thing that would help the explosion of the record was
This is early 80s MTV. They play the MTV ball. Girls just want to have fun music videos and heavy rotation on MTV. They play Johnny Carson show, Tye show. It's getting played on radio. This is all, they're hitting all angles, right? The system of the music industry, of the entertainment industry at that time is kicking in right after the record's released and then right before the tour hits. So Sandy has a famous story. It's called the Dave and the Doorway story.
And this is how Sandy meets Cindy's then manager, David Wolf. Sandy had already met Dave two years prior after a gig where Dave had asked Sandy for help getting a gig as a bass player. Well, Sandy went out of his way to listen to Dave's demo and to send it out. Just being, just in the spirit of service as Sandy would do. then a couple of years later, when Cindy's looking to form a band, Dave knows who he wants in the band.
and he urges Sandy to join the band. This is not necessarily going backwards, but think about if you've already had, in Sandy's shoes, you've already had a hit record with Into the Night, you've already been playing in big bands, you've already opened up for Queen, you've opened up for, you you've done a lot of great things up till now. You're gonna start it up with a baby band who has no track record, but he follows it. Okay, let's see where this goes.
And that tour starts out playing small clubs and venues to then within a matter of months, as Sandy put it, it accelerated to the point where we're playing big halls and then later in the year arenas, big festivals. The thing exploded. They even played five nights at the Ritz in New York. Five sold out nights because it was a smaller venue that could have played a bigger venue.
Wesley Luttrell (05:25.57)
But they stayed in that one for contractual obligations. The lines were wrapped around the door. And so the thing that I realized when talking to Sandy was that, you know, the chops are one thing. Being a great drummer was what got him in the place to be considered for the gig. You know, as Sandy said, you know, talent can get you a gig, but keeping a gig, that's a whole nother thing. That takes a whole nother skill set.
that has nothing to do with the drums. That skill set has to do with people. That skill set has to do with who you are as a human being, the soft skills, the intangible skills. Like Sandy said, are you gonna shower more than once a week? Are you okay? Are you a good roommate when you're traveling around in a tour bus? Are you showing up each night ready to do your job? Do you know your role? And when we think about the conditions,
When we think about the context that's being set, and then we think about who the person is, who Sandy is when he steps onto this rocket. Sandy is already nearly two decades into his career as a drummer, you know, a decade in as a professional drummer, but he's been gigging his ass off for years. He has been traveling all around New York City playing gigs. Now he's been traveling around the world playing gigs. He's been in studio sessions.
He's been around big people. knows how the business works at this time. And if you think about, it started way before that. It started with his commitment and his true burning desire as a kid, commit to this identity that I am going to be a drummer. I'm going to be the guy. I'm gonna play on big stages. I'm gonna be a big artist. That's who I want to be. Like many people,
of Sandy's generation and similar generations around that time. The Beatles really, the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show might as well have been the atomic bomb that blew up pop culture in music at least. Because that's where he first saw, that's a drummer, Ringo. That's what I'm looking at, that's what I wanna be. That's the coolest thing in the world to Sandy. And he commits that at such a young age that by the time this opportunity
Wesley Luttrell (07:50.99)
comes around in 1983, he is mentally prepared. He is ready for this gig. He's ready! So then as the rocket ship takes off and things are escalating quickly, you're around a star now. A couple months ago, no one knew her. Now she's a star, a global star. You gotta keep your cool. You gotta show up and play. You gotta be grounded.
night in and night out while chaos is ensuing around you. And that's something that I think is so important to highlight is that this guy, just like he highlighted Rodney Dangerfield, who was 40 years in the making, I think, when his comedy career took off, this was decades in the making for Sandy, that when he stepped onto this, he was ready to ride. He was ready to go all the way to the top. Wherever this rocket goes,
he knows his role, he's gonna help it go wherever he needs it to go. Whatever his role is required, he's ready and he's fit and he's gonna make it happen. And they're simple songs. That album is simple music. It's an artistic expression. It's colorful, it's bright, it's edgy. But it's not these complicated drum patterns and crazy things that would require some nuts playing and Sydney wanted it.
She urged him to keep it simple and he did his job. You know, and this is where we bring it down to the lessons or the things behind it. What's going on underneath all of this. And I think I was 23, 24. I had a song that I had produced and written and it was, was an artist project of mine. It went viral on Spotify's global charts, hit number eight in the world on Spotify's global charts.
The thing is I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to ride the wave. I didn't even know what the hell was going on. I thought it was a fluke. I thought there's no way this is possible. What do I even do next? I wasn't ready to follow it up. I wasn't ready to go for it. And I've learned over the years that this thing happens, right? An artist will have a reel go viral. They have no way to back it up. You have a song pop off. You have nothing to do. To be able for something to hit and then you jump in behind and ride the wave into some sort of scalable
Wesley Luttrell (10:17.976)
project or scalable moment. This is a different beast. And so I learned so much from Sandy in this moment, in this story about the true lesson of of knowing who you are and what you want. And for Sandy, luckily he knew it at a, he was he was blessed to find this at a very young age. For some of us it won't happen until years later, later on in life. Maybe for some people it won't even happen until you're in your 60s, 70s, like
I don't know with Colonel Sanders, I just know that KFC didn't pop off till Colonel Sanders was older. I don't know when he got the vision for it. I guess I should read that story. the lesson being, the lesson being the, without getting too law of attraction-y, law of success, Napoleon Hill-y, it's saying committing to an identity, committing to a path, it might take years of grinding in and out of clubs, small gigs.
hard nights, hard moments, hard times even where things look really grim and you still are committed and you reinvent yourself over and over. But you know where you want to go, who you want to be. You see it. Sometimes you might fall off the path, you recommit. It finds a new iteration of who you are, a new version of you in this thing. But you don't stop. You don't stop because you have no idea when your Dave in the doorway is going to pop up
when someone's gonna offer you an opportunity and if you are ready, if you have been ready and you have been working towards this, you step onto it, the rocket takes off and you're ready to ride with it, you're ready to scale with the moment, with the unfolding of something that is advancing very quickly. And it's funny, at this point in someone's career when this moment's occurring, it's no longer a question of how do I grow.
It's a question of how do I stay myself while this thing grows around me, while growth is occurring. It's no longer I'm choosing this, I'm choosing this, I'm choosing this to now, all right, it's chosen me. It's happening, we're on. I love when these worlds meet. It's a true testimony to a person who made a commitment in their mind and in their heart. As a kid going to the mall with a pin,
Wesley Luttrell (12:42.742)
Sandy was ready to sign autographs, even though no one wanted his autograph yet. He's got a sick autograph, by the way. It's like, no wonder. I he had that thing worked out. But he was ready. He was ready emotionally. He was ready personally. He was ready as a human being to ride this wave. He had the soft skills to back it up. Whereas so many people have these moments, and as a person, they don't even recognize like I did when I was him. I didn't even recognize what's going on. But when you are ready,
then you're ready for something to move faster than you can control. That's the real works of a moment of scale. It's not adding more, it's staying intact while the thing is exploding around you. And what a beautiful example that Sandy portrayed. And what a beautiful experience that Sandy got to live early in his life to ride a rocket from obscurity into mainstream stardom.
So no matter where you're at in your journey, no matter all the moments when no one's watching, you know, I have this graphic on my laptop. It's a big mountain. I saw it on Derrick Wells' Instagram one time, the guitar player, the famous session player from Nashville, Derrick Wells, he is a big mountain with a slice at the very top, the peak of the mountain. And let's just call this a big pile of work. Underneath that slice, 90%.
It's the work that no one sees. It's the repetitions on your instrument. It's another song that you're writing by yourself in your room. It's another email that you're sending that doesn't get opened. It's another trip you make to meet somebody that no one sees. It's another book you read. It's another podcast you listen to. It's another conversation you have. It's another time that you show up committed to who you are and what you want.
because you never know when your moment's about to hit.
Wesley Luttrell (14:53.164)
Hey, thank you for listening to the show this week. Visit everybodyelsepodcast.com to learn more about this show, including a list of past guests and previous episodes. You can find me on Instagram at Wes Luttrell, where I post my own work, including activities related to this show. And you can also find the show on Instagram at everybody else podcast. This show is self-produced and hosted by me, Wes Luttrell, with artwork by Ethan Douglas and music by Jim Neuer.
I'm grateful that you spent a little time this week listening to our podcast and learning more about the invisible people out dedicating their lives to making music happen. I'll back again soon.
Wesley Luttrell (15:40.398)
Everybody else is a production of the Midwest Music.