Episode 019 with Kendall Johns of Dead Crown

Kendall Johns, the leadman of the band Dead Crown, is full of gratitude wisdom and work ethic. His honest and no-bullshit approach to life brings an instantly dope and down to earth comfort to our hangout at Junkyard Love. Kendall learns like many other mayhem types, through brute force. Here he speaks about throwing himself into the water and failing out loud. I ask how he churns up the soul with his writing process and he tells me about his controlled untethering to get there, and how he must bring out the werewolf to mine for lyrics in the caverns of his being with vodka sodas as bait. He tells me tons about the business side of running a touring metal band, we speak about his accidental viral meme and his better understanding of things now from it. He tells us the nuts and bolts he learns about his bandmates in an intimate and very-often van ride. Kendall shares the importance of conflict resolution skills and emotional intelligence when it comes to bandmates, and he gives them each their breakdown later in the episode. Touring since the age of 15 with former band 'We Rise The Tides' to now has been a constant hardworking hustle, and we bridge the gap from there to now with his life now with band Dead Crown. We talk about the differences in our crowds in my world vs. his - and we speak on difficulties surrounding selling tickets and handling the merch, paying out the band members, taking care of life back home, and handling that bread. We talk about the mindset in musicians' future thinking with 401k's and retirement and he shares how they feel about fans receiving their merch. We dive a bit into the "instantly famous" musicians and their mental health going forward, and how being any sort of famous in this society is unhealthy. We talk about Carol and her concerns with her grandson attending a metal show and we loop back into our personal origins story and how we first crossed paths. Kendall tells me about his own young hard-working entrepreneurship skills, where he got his beginnings and how he learned graphic design, clothing design, computers, video editing, crowd control and frontmanism. Fighting the Instagram algorithm, depression and how these platforms have input into our insecurities are touched on, and he opens up about dealing with mania and having 'dark weeks at a time', along with his personal view on depression/mental health medication. He shares his vulnerabilities behind not having consistency, and how he turns his pains into superpowers - for better or worse. He talks signing a record deal with the company he dreamt about signing with as a teen, we talk about how different you need to sometimes be at different venues, what to expect in different venues, the absolute beauty or non-beauty of venues, and what a wise teacher told him once: "The difference between a boy and a man is a man knows the right time and place for everything." We talk about their newest album release 'Crucify Me' with the songs twenty-four and comin up' feat rapper Jake Hill. Metalcore band Dead Crown is epic and member Kendall Johns is a total homie and great dude. Checkout their tunes for your more savage workout playlists. Stay healthy and work hard my podcasting friends.