Episode 11
S1:EP11 Derek Frank - How to Transcend Setbacks
Meet Derek Frank, a force in the music industry whose journey from small-town Illinois to the heart of Nashville has been both challenging and rewarding. As a dedicated musician turned Artist Relations Manager for KHS America, Derek's story reflects the grit and passion it takes to thrive in the music realm. His experience, including managing the Nashville School of Rock, offers a unique perspective on the industry's inner workings.
Navigating the highs and lows, Derek sheds light on the realities of the music business, emphasizing the fulfillment derived from pursuing one's passion. His diverse role involves artist relations for legacy brands like Hohner and emerging ones like Lanikai Ukuleles. Derek's commitment to artists and innovative digital marketing has significantly impacted the company's success.
Amidst the struggles, Derek acknowledges the unwavering support of his family, particularly his parents and wife, who played pivotal roles in his journey. Dive into Derek's compelling narrative, discovering the resilience required to thrive in the dynamic world of music.
Connect with Derek Frank:
- Website: thederekfrank.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/thederekfrank
- Facebook: facebook.com/thederekfrank
- Twitter: twitter.com/thederekfrank
- Youtube: youtube.com/c/thederekfrank
- SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/thederekfrank
Explore Derek's vibrant journey and gain insights into the music industry's intricacies on this episode of the Mindful Mutiny Podcast. 🎵 #MusicIndustry #ArtistRelations #PassionPursuit #PodcastInterview #DerekFrank
For more empowering content, visit Jeremy Van Wert's website. #HighAltitudeMindset
Transcript
WEBVTT
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to, you know, count this in. And then I'm going to read. Just got a traditional beginning to this.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: One of the things that I try to do is to not be too formal. But I really struggle with that. And so I I'm gonna read this in. I do want it to be, you know, conversational and everything like that. But
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::Jeremy Van Wert: we'll start from there. Sound good sounds great okay.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: All right, William, we will start from here. Thank you.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Alright.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Welcome to the mindful mutiny. Podcast I'm, Jeremy Van Wert therapist, CEO and high level coach at mindful Mutiny. We respectfully rebel against anything that stands between you and achieving your highest potential.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Today I have an awesome guest. The name of the game today. What you're going to get out of this is understanding what resilience is about in a life in a practical way, because Derek, frank and his life. It's been all about resilience. Make sure that you like and subscribe to this podcast and the platform that you're listening to because that really helps in making sure that we're getting the kind of exposure that we need to bring these wonderful messages of hope and people's lives
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::Jeremy Van Wert: to everybody's ears. So, Derek, Frank, thank you so much for joining mindful mutiny.
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::Derek Frank: Oh, thanks for having me and this is. This is an honor to be on here, and we have a mutual friend in Mark Bennett that you already had on the show. And anytime Mark says, Hey, you need to talk to this guy. I know I need to actually do it and listen. So I'm I'm really glad that he connected us. Yeah. And Mark's Mark's story was also pretty remarkable from a just like resilience and and gone and getting it sort of way.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Dirk. Frank's life has always been centred around music overcoming skepticism. UN,
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::Jeremy Van Wert: okay, William, I need to start this one again.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Derek. Frank's life has always been centered around music overcoming skepticism in a small town in Illinois to pursue his passion in the music industry.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: A music major at Eastern Illinois University. He gained. He gained retail insights by working at a local music store. His journey led him to Nashville, where he played a pivotal role in opening up the Nashville School of Rock, and later became the general manager.
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::formerly as an artist relations manager for Khs. America. Derek represented iconic musical brands like honour and Lanikai ukulele's
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::Jeremy Van Wert: building artists, rosters, and contributing to a legacy of renowned musicians
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::derek now does music branding, consulting, and opening, and is opening a nonprofit organization with the Oak Ridge foundation and best buy to help children explore music, robotics, technology and things that are really going to benefit them in their lives. And so I've invited Derek on here to tell his really unique story about
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::Jeremy Van Wert: how it is that he's become what he is and and where he is and what he's doing. So, Derek.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: can you talk about what it is that you're doing right now.
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::Derek Frank: Yeah. So after 11 years in Nashville, that city that I worked so hard to get to and to make it in and you know the the term make. It is such an interesting statement, because it's different for everybody. But after 11 years my wife and I decided.
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::Derek Frank: this isn't what we love anymore. And we didn't want to be in the town to the point that we hated it.
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::Derek Frank: And so our family's still back in the Midwest. They're on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River and the quad cities. And we're like, Okay, we've got a bunch of nieces and a nephew. And all of these people that were missing them grow up and missing all of this stuff.
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::Derek Frank: What if we move closer to home?
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::Derek Frank: And my only stipulation was. I need an airport that can get me to major cities because clients and different things that I do and so we were here a few weeks, and you know, doing my own business, doing my own thing whatever, just trying to get my bearings. You know the house is still in boxes.
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::Derek Frank: and my my second cousin works for Oakridge neighborhood, and she made a post on Facebook
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::Derek Frank: about
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::Derek Frank: them, getting this grant with best buy foundation to open up this team tech center in Des Moines.
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::Derek Frank: And it was like. Oh, okay.
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::Derek Frank: it has recording studio space drones, three-d printers, VR coding robotics. All of the stuff that I was into.
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::Derek Frank: and so I messaged her, and I was like, Hey.
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::Derek Frank: you know, what is this? And she told me about it. She's like I didn't think you'd be interested. And so I met with their team there, and.
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::Derek Frank: you know, kind of offered the the gig really quickly, and the great thing about it. So it's a free program for anybody 13 to 21 in the Des Moines area, and it still allows me to do my own business while being able to get back to the community.
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::Derek Frank: So you you actually get to see the kids and interact with them? Or are you? Are you doing the work yet. So is this very, very new. Oh, it's very new. So construction's almost done. We have our soft opening December first. That's giant fingers crossed. Still, I was just checking on the space today, and like the painters are way behind. And for me, my dad's a painting contractor, and I'm like.
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::Derek Frank: and I'm gonna take that brush out of your hand like II need you to get this done. My like, my timeline is just shrinking. Yeah. So we'll have our soft opening, and we'll do that for a few months, and then we'll decide when the grand opening is. Once we know that all the the bugs are ironed out.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Your so your your career that's led you to this place. You've been in music for a really long time, and
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::Jeremy Van Wert: you've you've worked with, you know, big artists throughout the United States. And you know, who have you worked with and what have you done with them?
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::Derek Frank: Yeah, so working with honour. And and I've worked with artists on on my own as well doing opening acts and as a tour musician. But really, when I really got to start working with artists, was school of Rock, and then, when I went to honor and
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::Derek Frank: artists like Steven Tyler and Bob Dylan, Chris Jansen. Basically, if a professional play to harmonica, there's a 95% chance that it was a owner.
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::Derek Frank: And so if you saw somebody playing a harmonica. They had to deal with me. I was their guy
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::Derek Frank: which was really interesting because
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::Derek Frank: I didn't really love the harmonica. I grew up on the Mississippi River in the in a place that was a Blues town, really, and everybody tried to play, and if I had to hear another bad train beat on a harmonic. You know, I was gonna vomit. So when this opportunity came up, I was like.
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::Derek Frank: I mean, this is a great gig. But
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::Derek Frank: oh, harmonicas, really! And then II as I learned more about it, and met the roster. I fell in love with it, and I still miss that gig every day.
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::Derek Frank: but it was one of those things where you grow and you gotta move on.
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::Derek Frank: Do do you know much about the history of the harmonica, because I do not. Yeah. So I believe it was originally created in China.
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::Derek Frank: And then, you know, throughout the years migrated, but really, where it became most famous is in Germany. That's where owners based out of owner is like the big dog. They're over 80% market share and all harmonicas. It's it's pretty impressive, and they're still handmade in Germany.
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::Derek Frank: in charsing gin Germany, in this little Biddy town in the middle of the Black Forest. I mean, there's nothing there, the only things there like the factory, the hotel for people that come to visit the factory, and like a grocery store, it's nothing else.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: III know nothing about the harmon harmonica. I know 100 more about the harmonica now.
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::Derek Frank: So yeah. And I actually invented a harmonica.
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::Derek Frank: Tell me more about so not being a harmonica player and having to be around the best harmonica players in the world, and always going to conventions and different trade shows like Nam.
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::Derek Frank: People want to hear the harmonica, and I'm like, Oh, so I took a couple of lessons with a guy named Ronnie shell. Estrani's a world class artist and and educator.
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::Derek Frank: And
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::Derek Frank: I did. Okay. But I'm like, man. I don't have the time to learn a whole new instrument. And it. It didn't make sense like the layout they're in. They're they're tuned diatonically. but the layout isn't what I would have thought I would have thought.
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::Derek Frank: Blow, draw, blow, draw, blow, draw, and that's not the case. It just kind of it switches and inverts. So I was like, I just wanna rip a blues solo. How do I play a blues like the the Pentatonic scale? He's like man that's kind of hard. You have to be able to bend, and you have to, you know, work around with your mouth. So it it takes like a year. If you really try hard. I'm like, Yeah, I have that kind of time.
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::Derek Frank: So I asked the guys that said, Hey, has anybody ever made a pentatonic tune harmonic? And they're like, you know, it's been brought up multiple times. But that's a stupid idea, like, okay. So I went to our tech.
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::Derek Frank: And I was like, Hey, make me this. And he's like that's that's really dumb. I'm like cool make it, anyway. And so he did. So the matter. About a week later I came in the office and I'm starting to play solos, and I was like, man. How much are you practicing? How many lessons have you taken? I'm like, oh, no, here's what I did.
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::Derek Frank: and that's when the light bulb just went off. So it's called the penta harp from honor, and you know it did really well on the launch. It's really more so designed for guitarists and people
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::Derek Frank: who don't want to have that theoretical knowledge of a normal diatonic harmonica. You can just play
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::Derek Frank: the pentatonic scale with the blue note, but then it was kind of cool as it evolved the whole campaign. When we launched it was guitarists love it. Harmonica players hated it
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::Derek Frank: because we knew they were going to hate it.
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::Derek Frank: Obviously, they're like, this isn't what we? And and then a group of heart players found that it could do all these different things that no other harmonica could do so. Is it the end all be all? No, we never! I didn't design it to be that I didn't know it had these other attributes.
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::Derek Frank: But is it another tool to put in the repertoire? Of course. So that was our whole, our whole marketing with it. It wasn't trying to replace the the traditional diatonic harmonica. Just another tool
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::Derek Frank: you you created the gateway drug for harmonica. Oh, I hope not. I hope not
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::Jeremy Van Wert: that that's actually pretty great, because
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm seeing a whole lot more of
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::Jeremy Van Wert: instruments that are being created for the person who doesn't have the time to devote to becoming a master at it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And drums are. You're seeing a lot of that with drums, and you're seeing a lot of that with
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::Jeremy Van Wert: these kind, these kinds of instruments, like the one that you invented here. so that people can enjoy the feeling of making music, which is such a primal thing for us, even though they don't necessarily have 2Â HA day devoted to learning all the fundamentals. But maybe it inspires somebody to learn more.
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::Derek Frank: Yeah, and that was my goal. With it was the entry point of a harmonica. Seems like it's easy, because it's tuned to a key.
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::Derek Frank: And then you get people like getting like, oh, this isn't easy at all, and that's where this kind of eliminates that. So instead of
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::Derek Frank: while you're learning to play, you're also having to learn your ambisure and and all of these other techniques, and find the notes and be able to bend. Now you just play the notes.
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::Derek Frank: And and that was really the idea of be you said it. The gateway drug of harmonicas of okay. Now you got this. Now jump to a diatonic.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So that's
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::Jeremy Van Wert: that's awesome. That's awesome. Now
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::Jeremy Van Wert: take me back to the beginning of everything here, and you've lived and really incredible life up to this point, and a lot of it has
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::Derek Frank: had to do with you, making big decisions and taking risks and so forth. So talk to me about the young Derek, and what were you doing, and what was life like? Well, young Derek was all about music from an early age.
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::Derek Frank: When I was 4, right right around 4 or 5 years old. My dad with is a bass player. He toured and did all that, and then decided to settle down and start a family and started his construction business. And so
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::Derek Frank: one time he had a drummer that owed him money from a gig.
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::Derek Frank: and he's like, Well, I'm keep your drum set until you pay me back, and that drum set stayed in our basement for as long as I knew III knew that was the end of that story that usually is with the drummer. Right? You get it so so I would just go down there and kind of beat on it. But my dad realized like, Oh, he's actually like
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::Derek Frank: trying to put things together. He's not just hitting stuff.
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::Derek Frank: and my dad's not a drummer like he's not the guy that could help.
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::Derek Frank: But he saw that like I just kept trying. and then he would play different records, and I would listen to him and try to play along with it.
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::Derek Frank: And it it worked. And then they were like, Okay, let's try them. Let's put them in lessons.
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::Derek Frank: So I started doing drum lessons when I was 8 years old. and the Drum teacher I had was incredible. He went to the same high school as me, but he was in Coll, or just finishing college at Western Illinois University. He was all about marching.
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::Derek Frank: and so I didn't even know what that was. It was 8 years old, and so I go in there, and he's like making me do all this stuff in a book and work on my hands like this is boring. I already know how to play drum set.
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::Derek Frank: and he's like No, no!
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::Derek Frank: And because of his approach and his patience with me.
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::Derek Frank: it gave me this drive to keep learning drums.
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::Derek Frank: and that drive turned into like anywhere from 2 to 6Â HA day every day practicing because I loved it.
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::Derek Frank: and the better I got the more I played with my dad.
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::Derek Frank: and it got to the point where he'd be playing gigs, and they'd be like, oh, well, let your kid come and sit in. It'd be cute, you know. Get the audience attention for a few songs.
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::Derek Frank: and they're like, Oh, wait, kid can play, and then it was. I'll let him do the last set, you know. Then the drummers at the bar getting tanked, and then it was like,
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::Derek Frank: let him do the third set, and he would go get tanked, and then like, Oh, he's gotta finish the fourth set, because the drummer can't play.
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::Derek Frank: and it just became a thing. And then I started playing professionally because of that. So like around, like 1011 years old, I started getting some gigs professionally.
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::Derek Frank: They know that 10 year old can't be drinking on. Say, we better not be drinking, so it's like the only dependable drummer in town. I guess I don't know but it was. It was such a cool experience, and and because of that my parents never made me play.
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::Derek Frank: There was never a push to do it. I just wanted it, and I loved it, and I just
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::Derek Frank: everything I did was playing drums. It's all I ever wanted to do.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: What was the what was the first song you learned all the way through on a drum set.
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::Derek Frank: and you know, thinking back it have to be
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::Derek Frank: something from the beach, boys greatest hits, because I remember
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::Derek Frank: getting a CD player
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::Derek Frank: like we had like, we're like the first people in town that had a CD player cause my dad's cool, you know. He's a musician and stuff.
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::Derek Frank: and I remember sitting in the basement with my brother, who's 5 years older than me and my cousin, who's 3 years older than me. My cousin's also a drummer, a fantastic drummer.
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::Derek Frank: and and we're all like young. and we're trying to play along this record. I can't imagine the sounds that came out of that room
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::Derek Frank: like we had guitars and basses, and my brother had a saxophone. I'm sure it was wretched at best, but no one ever told us it was bad.
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::Derek Frank: so we just kept doing it, and so
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::Derek Frank: I still like, I can't listen to the beach, boys any of their greatest hits without thinking of sitting in that basement with my brother and my cousin. Then every now and then my dad would pop in.
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::Derek Frank: and how strong that memory was of like.
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::Derek Frank: Yeah, there's there's the good saying. If no one ever tells you that you can't. Do you know that you can't? Yeah, yeah.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: my, my very first concert was the Beach, boys.
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::Derek Frank: Oh, perfect! And so I worked with, I gotta work with Brian Wilson in my career, too. Yeah, I even did a cruise he was on look cruise with Kamo.
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::Derek Frank: And so that was right before the pandemic hit.
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::Derek Frank: Oh, what a wonderful experience. Yeah, yeah. So like sitting there watching him and and his band, like Blondie, was in his band still. And all of these. Yeah, like, I'm like walking around. And Blondie's just walking around. And I'm like.
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::Derek Frank: Can I? Can I buy you a drink? It's like, Oh, yeah, please do so
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::Derek Frank: like it was just so surreal and listening to them play these songs.
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::Derek Frank: and it just it transported me back like it makes the hair on my arms. Stand up just thinking about it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: You know it's it's it's good news. It's super simple.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And but but there's just there's something about it that is just so good and and so happy. Honestly, you know. Yeah.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Yup, you know. So you you're you're you're 10. You're already doing gigs. And what happens in the next few years.
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::Derek Frank: Well, and I and I should back up so when I was born had a couple of birth defects as well, so my fingers on my right hand were web together. And so everybody's watching the video. So my my thumb and my index finger and my pinky and my ring finger on my right hand were connected.
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::Derek Frank: and I don't have a knuckle on my pinky
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::Derek Frank: so, and then I had like a 6 toe on my right foot. Everybody's like, Oh, I bet you're a really good swimmer. I'm like, yeah. Nascar had a swing event. I could only swim to the right like. Put me in the far right lane, and my head just keeps hitting the wall or something. But so I had a I had surgery to correct that when I was 2 years old,
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::Derek Frank: And thank God for Shriners Hospital, and my grandpa was a Shriner. He was a mason, and that's how I got into Shriners. Everything is free. They take care of the families, and I've had to have several surgeries since then. Before I was 18, and Shriners did all of them at no cost to us. It was incredible they saved my life.
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::Derek Frank: but because of that, you know, learning to play was interesting, because
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::Derek Frank: my hand doesn't look the same when I'm playing. So if you see like, if I'm doing marching stuff, my right hand looks different. You can't tell what it is if you're like, what is he doing?
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::Derek Frank: So that's that's kind of an interesting thing. But I do have a perfect fulcrum, no matter what. I can't close my hand
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::Derek Frank: without having a perfect fulcrum. So kind of an interesting thing with drums. So it's like drums for the perfect fit I have to hold a drumstick. There's no, I can't hold it wrong.
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::Derek Frank: That's brilliant, that's brilliant. And and so you've never had any troubles walking, or or I have actually I have I had a knee and foot surgery when I was 14 from sports injuries and different things, and my legs became 2 and a half inches off, so my tips were out of the line, so they had to
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::Derek Frank: drill the growth plates out of my knee.
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::Derek Frank: and so I had my left knee and my right foot done. My right foot was the the bad foot originally, and my big toe is pretty big, and it started growing out to the left.
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::Derek Frank: It was like pushing through my shoes. so they had to cut a piece of the bone of the toe off, move it over, put 2 pins up and infuse one of the joints.
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::Derek Frank: And
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::Derek Frank: you know, and they did an amazing job. They had
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::Derek Frank: these specialists that timed out these surgeries to make sure my hips got in line with my knee, and made sure that my foot was good, and had this whole plan. And then that same day
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::Derek Frank: I get out of surgery, and my grandfather had been in intensive care for like a year.
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::Derek Frank: and they called back and told my brother. Hey, Derek's okay, you can tell grandpa he's fine. So he goes and said, Hey, Grandpa? Derek's out of his surgery. He's fine. and not much longer after that he passed away. So
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::Derek Frank: so it's like a really really weird times as a freshman in high school
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::Derek Frank: trying to figure out who I am. I just finished
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::Derek Frank: the State Championship marching?
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::Derek Frank: You know I was the only freshman on the drum line. It was incredible.
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::Derek Frank: And now I'm in a wheelchair. My grandpa died. I had to leave the hospital 3 weeks earlier than I was anticipating, so I didn't get my my rehab the way I was supposed to get
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::Derek Frank: so it didn't heal right.
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::Derek Frank: and the only thing I could do is just sit and practice on a practice pad. That's all I could do for 6 months.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So I mean, I
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::Derek Frank: there's a lot of pain that's involved in what you're talking about here.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Was there any point at which you kind of, struggled a little bit with feeling depressed or feeling sorry for yourself.
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::Derek Frank: Yeah, there's still
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::Derek Frank: it. Playing drums is very therapeutic for me, but it's also a lot of trauma involved.
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::Derek Frank: So even before that when I was in fifth grade. my parents have built like their dream home. and we moved into this house. My dad had the basement
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::Derek Frank: built around a studio, basically. So you could go in from the garage
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::Derek Frank: into the basement, and no one would even know that they were there so like if I had friends that wanted to come over at 2 in the morning and jam
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::Derek Frank: it they could, and my parents were cool with that. As long as you know, we weren't doing anything we're supposed to.
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::Derek Frank: And
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::Derek Frank: so this dream house happens. We're there.
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::Derek Frank: and I move away from the town that I was in. I was still in the same school district, but all my friends were in this town, and so it was a little bit further away, and then the day before my birthday in fifth grade found out my mom had colon cancer
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::Derek Frank: and pretty aggressive colon cancer,
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::Derek Frank: and so
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::Derek Frank: on my birthday we had to go to the doctor and kind of figure all this out. So all of this happened. She has surgery. She's fine now, by the way, she's been in remission for
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::Derek Frank: like over 20 years. Oh, so wonderful! Yeah. But
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::Derek Frank: my mom is a fighter, and she is stubborn as can be like. II always said she's too stubborn to die, so there is no way that was gonna happen. But she didn't miss work. She was doing chemo and radiation, lost all her hair was sick all the time, and my brother was at that point where he was almost out of high school, almost going in the military. So he was working all the time my dad was working more, so that, you know we made sure we had enough money, and that Mom didn't have to struggle.
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::Derek Frank: and I was at home with my mom all the time, and I didn't even realize that this was so much of a thing until a couple of years ago, when my
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::Derek Frank: my wife was joking around with my mom. It was like.
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::Derek Frank: he is such a mama's boy, and he's like, Oh, yeah, he is. And he's like, no, he's really a mama's boy. and she was like, I think there's like, you need to understand, like what he went through.
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::Derek Frank: And she started talking about this. I'm like, I didn't remember this. She would come home after chemone radiation
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::Derek Frank: and sit on the couch and basically pass out.
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::Derek Frank: and I would sit next to her, make sure she was still breathing and sit there with my practice pad and just practice.
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::Derek Frank: And I didn't even remember this like, talk about a suppressed memory until she brought this up. Came like, Yeah, I did. That's like every single day.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah. And so
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::Derek Frank: for me, practicing while it does have a little bit of that trauma. the more I practiced
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::Derek Frank: the more I got through that trauma. And so now it's almost like this subconscious thing of if I'm having a really hard time.
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::Derek Frank: Practicing is hard to get to. but once I do it. it gets me through it better.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Now, as you're talking about this, it almost sounds like that daily thing for you as a child was a vigil. It was the only control that you had over a very scary situation, and drumming became hand in hand with standing vigil and loving your mother.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And so the the thing that you could do. The service that you could offer is simply to be there for her, and to be there not only for her, but for you in knowing that you shared
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::Jeremy Van Wert: these this this time with her, and so
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::Jeremy Van Wert: practicing had to become at that point more than simply learning to play and and getting better. It had to become a coping strategy. For
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::Derek Frank: about the most existential thing that a child can deal with, not knowing what was going to happen to your mother. Yeah. And the more I've reflected on it and been through therapy and and talked about this with people.
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::Derek Frank: The more I realized the better I got at drumming because of this bad situation. the more positive
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::Derek Frank: energy and the more positive reinforcement I got from my peers and from the public because they're like Derek is so good, he is so good at playing.
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::Derek Frank: It's almost like
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::Derek Frank: I wasn't the kid whose mom had cancer. It was the kid who was really good at drums at a young age.
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::Derek Frank: and it was like, Oh, Derek's the music, Guy, Derek's the music guy, every everything from singing to any musical or or show that we had. Derek's the guy.
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::Derek Frank: And so like that negative energy of my mom being sick and people feeling sorry for you was gone
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::Derek Frank: because I
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::Derek Frank: I just it was it wasn't anything. I tried to do. It just kind of happened because of it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So you're you're it's it sounds like the way that you've coped with sorrow in your life is by diving deeper and deeper into your interests, into music, into using that as the thing that grounds you.
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::Derek Frank: Yeah, definitely.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: yeah. Yeah. So you're
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::Jeremy Van Wert: you're in high school. You've gone through this.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: This difficult situation where your mother I'm assuming in high school is in remission, and she's healing up, and you are going in to get these surgeries that are altering your body in major ways. I imagine that there's back pain involved in some of this because your your hips aren't aligned and and everything like that. And you're going through school also, trying to figure yourself out.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And and so I mean, what were the what were the hard parts in high school for you dealing with all of this?
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::Derek Frank: A lot of it was kind of like finding my place and
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::Derek Frank: being this person of like. Oh, why does he have all these surgeries and stuff? He looks normal. like the word normal is such a weird thing, too, and and kind of navigating that like, I don't want a pity party.
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::Derek Frank: and I can do everything that anyone else does, and but also like, I didn't want to be the one that got parts because of this, like, Oh, he's getting this because his mom sick, or he's getting this because he had surgery or he's
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::Derek Frank: I didn't want any of that, so I worked harder than everybody else, so they had no reason to ever say that.
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::Derek Frank: or if they did, it could easily be proven wrong. Well, Derek's in the band room 4Â HA day.
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::Derek Frank: Derek's in the choir room 2Â HA day.
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::Derek Frank: Derek's at dance rehearsal 2Â HA day like you couldn't say
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::Derek Frank: that I got this stuff because of some other outside source.
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::Derek Frank: but because of that drive
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::Derek Frank: I think it. It pushed me so far into adulthood. And that mentality of that's how I have to do everything that it burnt me out as an adult.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Hmm!
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And
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::Derek Frank: I guess I guess we'll kind of get to the burnout part of this. But you're you're coming out of high school. Didn't did you know what you wanted to do with your life as you're coming out of high school play drums
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::Derek Frank: or music? I started playing guitar when I was 16, because, you know, tearing down my drums at night. It was hard to talk to all the girls, so I was like guitar player takes 5Â min. I can do that. So told my dad I'm like, Hey.
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::Derek Frank: would you buy me guitar? And he's like. If you can learn to play a whole song on your own.
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::Derek Frank: I'll buy you a guitar. Okay? So I worked on it like a month or something
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::Derek Frank: I'm like, Hey, Dad, cause we had an acoustic. I don't want to play acoustic. I want an electric.
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::Derek Frank: and I was like, Hey, Dad, check it out. I start playing. He's like.
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::Derek Frank: you know, the lyrics you gonna sing like. Well, no. You just told me to learn how to play guitar again. Play and sing. He's like.
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::Derek Frank: Oh, Buddy, I'm gonna tell you right now you're not good enough at guitar to get a gig as a guitarist, so you better learn to sing.
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::Derek Frank: It's like, Oh, so I went back for a couple more weeks and learned how to do it, and he made good and bought me my first guitar, and I still have that guitar. It's still my number one. He didn't buy me, and he bought a nice guitar, and so it's still my number one. It's my baby.
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::Derek Frank: And yeah, it's it's been a part of it's been at every show I've ever played in my life.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: That is awesome.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So so your your drive to play the guitar started with girls.
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::Derek Frank: Oh, totally and and just wanting that much more attention like I needed that II crave that attention. I love being the center of attention. Some people look at that as a
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::Derek Frank: as a bad thing of like oh, you're narcissistic, whatever. And I'm like
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::Derek Frank: all through school people are like you need to be proud of who you are unless you're someone like me that's loud and has to be the center. Oh, well be who you are. But you need to tone it down a little except for that. Yeah, yeah, except for that guy. So but I just didn't care. It's like, Okay, people are gonna hate it. People are gonna love it. That's why I said I, I'm love or hated never ignored ever.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Well, the so you're in high school, and I want to be a musician is usually a more difficult
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::Jeremy Van Wert: thing to jump out into. Then I'm filling out an application to go to a college. I'm going to be in a university. And so
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::Jeremy Van Wert: you are on this musicians. Track.
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::Derek Frank: What do you do after high school. Where do? How do you follow that? Well, everybody pushed me into college, and I say everybody, not my family, I mean they they wanted me to, because my parents didn't go to college.
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::Derek Frank: They? But but they didn't push me into it. Was everybody at my high school
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::Derek Frank: like, you're not gonna be anything unless you have this degree to fall back on the fallback on. It didn't make sense to me fall back on just it didn't compute in my mind. And so I was like, well, like, I've what do you mean? Fall back? I'm not gonna fail, like, if I fail, do it again until I get it right?
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::Derek Frank: So. But I did love to teach. I loved working with kids and teaching. And
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::Derek Frank: I was like, Okay.
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::Derek Frank: I could look into that. And so at first I looked at Mcnally Smith, which then was Music Tech, which now is closed up in Minneapolis to do more of like a recording thing. But I knew like, there's not that many recording studios in the world. And there's a lot of guys going through this program.
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::Derek Frank: So I was like, thank God, I made a good decision there.
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::Derek Frank: But then one of my mentors, Professor Johnny Lee Lane, was down at Eastern Illinois University, and Prof.
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::Derek Frank: You know he had the United States percussion camp at Eiu. I used to go to that as a kid had all the best drummers there. I mean, it was an amazing and so I talked to Prof. And he he was like man. You need to come to Eiu. So I made that decision. But as I made that decision, he left.
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::Derek Frank: and when, after like 30 years and left, there was some some things going on with the administration, and it should have been a giant red flag for me. But II pushed on. I wasn't even ready to do that, really, but I did it, and
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::Derek Frank: it was on scholarship and
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::Derek Frank: got there, and it was just it was a disaster. It was all a disaster.
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::Derek Frank: and and as as this is kind of like unfolding. This seemed like the safe thing. This seemed like the the the road to the future. And it's a total mess. Yeah. Yeah. And and I you know I didn't get along with the new professor. I didn't really get along with the people in the program very well. Didn't like me. I auditioned on snare drum and drum set for my scholarship, and in 4 years I didn't touch a snare drum or a drum set.
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::Derek Frank: And yeah, and it was very much like, Well, you need to learn how to play mallets and blah. I'm like, I wanna be a commercial drummer like, Yeah, I need to learn how to play. I can play mallets, but like.
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::Derek Frank: I don't want to spend 6Â HA day learning this. Well, that's what you have to do to get through this program. I'm like. that's not what we talked about.
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::Derek Frank: Well, proff's not here anymore. Okay, well, I get it
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::Derek Frank: like, well, Prof. Would have made you do this. I'm like, yeah. Well, Prof. Would have respected me, too.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So so how far into it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: when you know you're noticing red flags for yourself. How far into it are you making this the decision?
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, this can't work out. This is not for me. This is not
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::Derek Frank: within 3 weeks, but I still did it. I still finished the program. It was so bad that my parents came down for homecoming and saw me march on field and stuff, and they were so proud, and they knew it was. They knew it was bad.
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::Derek Frank: bad enough that they wanted to pull me out.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Hmm!
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::Derek Frank: And they could see it in my body language, and and I never said anything was wrong. but they could just tell.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: yeah. And you, but how long was this program?
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::Derek Frank: I mean really to be to be considered a percussion major. 2 and a half years, 2 and a half years. You're in an environment that was completely
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::Jeremy Van Wert: counter to where it is that you really wanted to go in life.
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::Derek Frank: Yes, and then you figure I still had to be around them the rest of so basically 4 years.
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::Derek Frank: So even though I wasn't doing the percussion stuff once I finished what I had to do, I was still around them for my education classes and methods, classes, and
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::Derek Frank: and also
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::Derek Frank: Eiu had torn down their whole Arts department. All the buildings got torn down because they were going to get new ones, and then the funding got messed up because Illinois politics and
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::Derek Frank: they they were supposed to open the buildings. My sophomore year. They didn't open until the day after I graduated.
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::Derek Frank: So I had all of my classes in the original gym built in the 18 hundreds was horrible, like.
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::Derek Frank: yeah, just the whole thing was just awful.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So for 2, for for 4 years, actually. you did this because it felt like the thing that you were supposed to do.
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::Derek Frank: Yeah, I felt like
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::Derek Frank: I started this. I had to finish it.
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::Derek Frank: Everybody was super stubborn then. Well, yeah, but also like it was just ingrained and indoctrined in me that if I don't get this education degree I'm never gonna make it, or I'll
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::Derek Frank: you know, won't have a job
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::Derek Frank: in in hindsight. How do you feel about that? I should have never gone to college?
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::Derek Frank: I am not the person that needed to go to college. I should have moved to Nashville or La.
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::Derek Frank: and just started networking and playing and taking the money
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::Derek Frank: that I spent to go to college
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::Derek Frank: and invested in myself
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::Derek Frank: and even my parents like, but you have that degree that got you some of these jobs I'm like. No, it didn't.
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::Derek Frank: It might look like, oh, he's got a degree. Let's call him.
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::Derek Frank: But my experience and resilience is, what did that? So
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::Derek Frank: you know, in in college II was in a fraternity because well, these guys hate me might as well find somebody that likes me, even if I have to pay him to like me whatever I needed friends. And so I met this guy in my German class, and he was like, Hey, come over to my house tonight. I think the cardinals were in the World series, or something. We're quick pizza and stuff like, okay. So I get there. I'm like, it was a frat house like Nope, I'm out.
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::Derek Frank: And then I went. I was like, Wow! Free pizza, whatever I'm in college.
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::Derek Frank: And then I met the guys and they were all really cool. And so so that was good. That made everybody in the percussion department hate me even more.
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::Derek Frank: And then, as I got older, II needed to work. I didn't want my parents to have to spend, you know, all their money on me and in college, so started working the music store where I taught lessons. I worked retail, and I even Djed weddings for them, and and that was great. And then I also worked at a bar as a as a bartender and a bar manager. So I had 3 jobs doing at the same time, plus going to school.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So what you're saying is, you had a real problem with drive. Yeah, yeah, a real problem. So 4 years is a long time to really endure that sort of thing, especially when you kind of look back and you'd see that it wasn't necessarily a
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::Jeremy Van Wert: overall, helpful thing for you. So where do you go after college?
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::Derek Frank: So
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::Derek Frank: I graduated and didn't even look back in the rearview mirror at at Easter, and I just got out and went back home, and
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::Derek Frank: a couple like the last
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::Derek Frank: last few summers I was in college. I did go home a little bit, because, there was a music museum that opened in Davenport, Iowa, which is right across the river from my hometown and my Dad's best friend. Who's, you know, known me since I was a baby. They've been friends since they were 4
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::Derek Frank: he had been a
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::Derek Frank: a big part of opening this music museum.
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::Derek Frank: and he wanted me to be a part of it. So he gave me a job, and they had a coffee shop. So I worked in the coffee shop one summer, and the next summer I helped with like maintenance and different things, and just kinda move my way up. And then, as I graduated college, they're like, Hey.
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::Derek Frank: we want you to run our
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::Derek Frank: conservatory. So basically, they had lesson program and different things like that. So I ran all that, but they're a nonprofit. I made no money like
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::Derek Frank: less than no money, but I loved it, it was so great it was really awesome. But it got to the point where I was. You know, at my parents house, living at my parents house, and my dad was like, hey.
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::Derek Frank: you
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::Derek Frank: You could either keep that job and continue living in our basement, or
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::Derek Frank: you could go to work for me, making prevailing wage, which is like 35, $36 an hour and work construction, which was the whole reason I went to college was so I never had to work construction. But I was like, Wow, I love my parents, and but I'd really like to get out of here. And that's what I did.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Well, good for you. you know, and and
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::you know there's this trope that.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: and it's prevailed for so long. This trope young people are still getting told this.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: If you don't go to college, you're not going to be set up for success, and
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I know so many people who have just suffered through college. It wasn't something they were studying things that didn't seem to at the time
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::Jeremy Van Wert: have any relevance to where it is that they wanted to go. But you're you're often too young to be able to make the assertion. This doesn't fit with what I want in my life, and so you keep going, and you keep going, because it's what everybody's always told you
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::Jeremy Van Wert: that you need to do. And then most young people graduate, they've got these unbelievable student loans that stick with them for such a long period of time.
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::and they go out into a world and kind of start
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::Jeremy Van Wert: honestly for 5 years behind other people who have been out there building relationships and getting into a trade and everything like that. And so then you've gone to school. You've gotten a bachelors degree. You've got your whatever degree. And you make more money doing construction and handiwork and electrician work and plumbing and everything like that. And so
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::Jeremy Van Wert: I'm I'm not really surprised. That's where things went for you. I mean, it's it's wonderful work, it. It's also odd that there's still this kind of
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::Derek Frank: weird notion. But that is the only thing that creates a happy and fulfilling and prosperous life is if you go to a university and give them a lot of money. Yeah. And I'm an advocate for
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::Derek Frank: getting away from that like they were so happy to take my money and and let me sign on the dotted line. But then, when I'm in college borderline, suicidal and suffering massive depression. No one's there.
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::Derek Frank: no one was there to help me. I'm telling people they're like, Oh, well, you know.
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::Derek Frank: get out and play at the Rec. And stuff like that like.
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::Derek Frank: all of it was just. It just didn't work for me.
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::Derek Frank: and I did well in college like I got got good grades. But it just wasn't for me. It wasn't what I wanted, and II realize, like when when a school has more recruiters. Then they have counselors.
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::Derek Frank: There's a problem which is every school
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::Derek Frank: cause. Once you're there, you're there, they've got your money and not all schools. Bet like I don't. I don't want to have a doctor that hasn't been to school like, you know something. Some things are important, but like
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::Derek Frank: for me to be a musician. What a waste! What a waste of my time!
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::Jeremy Van Wert: So what in school made you so depressed that you contemplated your existence?
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::Derek Frank: A lot of it was that that part with
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::Derek Frank: with the whole music program and what I my path, and I was always the best, and always had it figured out, and then it was just collapsing.
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::Derek Frank: And then I had a a very toxic girlfriend in college as well that I was going to transfer to Fi U in Miami and went down there for Spring break, and he like rolled out the red carpet. It was amazing. It was so good. My dad was like. If you don't go here I will. This is beautiful.
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::Derek Frank: And she asked me to stay, and of course I didn't work out so all of that
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::Derek Frank: compiled, but really, like I was. I was pretty low, but I had some really great friends that picked me up, and
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::Derek Frank: and I can never thank them enough for that.
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::Derek Frank: And because of that, that resiliency is what
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::Derek Frank: made it so like, I'll get down. Everybody gets down. but I always know like I can get out of it.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, yeah.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: that's that's that's pretty brilliant. You you you then kind of I kind of cut you off after you were talking about like where you go after school and everything like that. So you're you're working construction. Where do you go from? There? Well, I was playing in a band
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::Derek Frank: and the first band I was in the time that my wife, the lead singer, and her were best friends, and that didn't really work out. Ii just needed more attention, I guess. So I started my, my.
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::Derek Frank: so I left that band or was kicked out. Whatever one, or it depends on who you talked to. I was kicked out. I was kicked out
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::Derek Frank: but so my cousin, who is the drummer, is amazing drummer
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::Derek Frank: he calls me. He's like, Hey.
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::Derek Frank: I'm moving back to the quad cities. II wanna be closer to the family and all this stuff, and for my our lives growing up. He had moved away when we were younger. So we're in like grade school when he moved away, and they were like 3Â h away.
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::Derek Frank: and so I only got to see my cousin like my favorite cousin twice a year.
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::Derek Frank: So when he's moving back, the first thing I say is dude, we're starting a band.
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::Derek Frank: I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know like, neither is it? But we knew we were starting a band. and we did, and
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::Derek Frank: it did really well, and it was my outlet where it was like I loved construction because I was making great money, and when I left work I was off work, and if I had a gig my dad's a giggy musician, so he'd let me go.
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::Derek Frank: It was pretty awesome situation like be like, oh, I bet that sucked like I mean, it wasn't fun painting and doing Drywall, but the same token, I was working with my dad and my brother because my brother worked for my dad.
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::Derek Frank: It was like, this is a family thing, and some days my brother and I'd have fist fights at the job site, but most of the time it was good. Yes, that's just the kind of brothers we are. We're we're best friends. Sometimes you gotta straighten stuff out, man, and he's a lot bigger than I am, so he can. He can, and I run my mouth so he can pound on me, and you look scrappy, though he looks like he'd be alright. Oh, yeah, I can take a punch. I can take a punch.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: And and so you're you're you're gigging in the evening time you're you're in a a different band, and honestly sounds in a way that it's. This is so interesting and listening. You talk about this. You talk about school, and the cadence of your voice goes down. The remembrance of that feels
329
::Jeremy Van Wert: really really heavy and difficult for you. You talk about construction work. You talk about working with your hands, you talk about real relationships with people you care about, and this fulfilling thing on the side where you're playing music. And it's it's, it's. It's a really important thing for you in this kind of environment. It's it's interesting that those 2 things are so starkly different emotionally in the in the
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::Derek Frank: handprint that they had in your life. Yeah, of course, and it doesn't go unnoticed by me, either, like
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::Derek Frank: I'm I'm very well aware at this point that that part of my life was really tough, but I wouldn't trade it.
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::Derek Frank: I'd change it, but I wouldn't trade it but also as I got into the band and and had this happening where
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::Derek Frank: my cousin and I just him and I did drum camp, we did the United States percussion camp together. We just have this weird
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::Derek Frank: sixth sense kind of thing where we know what each other's thinking. And you can see it. I've got a video of where, when I move, after I moved to Nashville, I was touring and had a drum. You know, couple of different drummers. I've I went through drummers pretty quickly, because I'm a drummer
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::Derek Frank: and had this guy, and he was fine, and whatever. So we get to the point in the night, it's sold out show in my hometown. It's huge crowd like 700 people.
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::Derek Frank: and I'm like, all right, I'm going to bring my cousin up on stage, and my dad was playing bass because my bass player couldn't make it for the show, so
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::Derek Frank: it's like the whole gang's back together, and the guy playing guitar. lived in Nashville, but was went to my high school. He was a lot older than I was, but so it's like this huge family reunion.
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::Derek Frank: I haven't played with my cousin in 3 years, and he gets on the drum set, and it was like magic.
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::Derek Frank: He didn't know the songs we were playing. He just played.
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::Derek Frank: and he knows like he knows my feel and what I'm doing stops. He can just he feels it.
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::Derek Frank: And.
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::Derek Frank: man you. You can't replace that feeling.
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::Derek Frank: I don't care how great of a drummer somebody is that feel. and that anticipation of what I'm going to do.
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::Derek Frank: There's no better place in the world for me than sitting on a stage
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::Derek Frank: with my dad and my cousin. and having this rhythm section that is so tight
346
::Derek Frank: that somebody could throw a beer bottle at my face, and I know the show won't collapse.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: Brilliant, brilliant.
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::Jeremy Van Wert: you know. And so so you're you're
349
::Jeremy Van Wert: now now. You're experiencing kind of like adult human success. A as a musician you're you're that's a pretty strong crowd that you've got there, you know. I've I've been
350
::Jeremy Van Wert: to gigs just recently with with pretty known bands in small venues like that. And and the energy is really high.
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::Derek Frank: you know. And and so so where are you going from there. What what happens now? Well, so you know that that kind of mix 2 stories in in 2 timelines. But so I'm I'm back in my hometown, you know my wife and I get married. I'm playing gigs and working construction all this stuff, and
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::Derek Frank: we're we're both, you know. We're young and we don't have any money or anything like they're very little money. And it was to the point where it's like, Are you gonna settle down, start a family and buy a house and have that life that everybody else had.
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::Derek Frank: Everybody, all my friends grew up. Have this life. My dad did this gave up music to have the family and I was really comfortable with that.
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::Derek Frank: II always said I wasn't. But subconsciously I really was. I liked being that big fish in the small pond. I liked everybody in town knowing me I liked when there was an opening gig. My band got it.
355
::Derek Frank: but my wife knew
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::Derek Frank: that wasn't Gonna be enough for me.
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::Derek Frank: And so she said, we need to move to Nashville. Let's let's go. We love it there.
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::Derek Frank: And
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::Derek Frank: I was like, Oh.
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::Derek Frank: yeah, okay, that'll never actually happen. And
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::Derek Frank: at the time
362
::Derek Frank: I actually went to work for a company called Feral Gas, the Propane Company, like propane propane accessories. Because they had this management track. And they, you know, they paid really well, too, and my dad's like couple of his his jobs that we had were slowing down. So I didn't, you know, was like, Hey, I'm gonna pivot and do this.
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::Derek Frank: And when I took the job it was like, Hey, I saw you have a location in Nashville like, would you ever transfer me? Yeah, if you put in like a year, a year and a half or so you can put in for a transfer. I was there 3 months, and they're like, Hey.
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::Derek Frank: this location needs somebody. Well, the location I was at was like like top 5 in the company. The one I went to was bought like with the second worst.
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::Derek Frank: and so my wife gets a job immediately before we move.
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::Derek Frank: So you know, day one moving to Nashville, our families move us down there. We've got no money. We're broke as shit.
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::Derek Frank: and we both start our jobs and that first day, and I walk in and like my suit.
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::Derek Frank: Cause I'm like, you know, I'm in the management track. And guys like, oh, you look awful! Not. I haven't met any of these people in person, only on the phone. He's like, Oh, you look awful nice. Begin in a truck like, Oh, am I doing right along today like, no, you're driving?
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::Derek Frank: Oh, why'd somebody not show up like? No, you're a driver like no.
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::Derek Frank: I'm supposed to be the new manager. No, you're not. You're driver
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::Derek Frank: that turned. Oh, boy!
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::Derek Frank: Oh, my! And that's where resiliency comes in again, because this place was unsafe. It was really that Southern good old boy thing, and it was not good.
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::Derek Frank: But you know, like as bad as that situation was. I just knew like that was the stepping stone to do something in Nashville. It got me to Nashville.
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::Derek Frank: and that's where I needed to be, because I had to network with people. I had to get those connections, and it came to a head
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::Derek Frank: where I was driving this truck, so my my truck had broken down. It been broken down for 14 weeks, and I'll never forget 14 weeks, because horrible, because they yeah like a head gasket whenever. And so they put me in a penske, moving truck with forklift cylinders, 300 forklift cylinders that's 73 pounds. Cylinders filled with gas that expands 300 times its size.
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::Derek Frank: which is completely legal. You cannot carry it in there. But they made no, it's not. But they made. They forced me to do this because I said, I'm I was gonna red tag my truck like, I'm not doing that.
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::Derek Frank: They made me because Tennessee is a right to work state like great. You can leave. So I did it and
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::Derek Frank: feared for my life every day like genuinely feared for my life that I was gonna blow up
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::Derek Frank: And so I'm just like I'm gonna die doing this job.
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::Derek Frank: You know. What can I do to get out of this really quick? I was like, Oh, well, I teach lessons. I love teaching music lessons. Let's get back into that. Let's make a little bit of a nest egg. Save up some money. Then I can pivot to another job.
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::Derek Frank: So I find school of rock.
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::Derek Frank: and I contact him. And I was like, Hey, you need teachers.
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::Derek Frank: Send me your resume. So I send my resume. and she writes back immediately.
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::Derek Frank: I'm opening another school in in Nashville. I need a general manager like, Oh, what? What?
385
::Derek Frank: What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I interviewed. She offered me the job on the spot.
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::Derek Frank: I called the next day. I put in my notice, and the the
387
::Derek Frank: regional manager didn't know I put my notice in that morning. He calls like, Hey
388
::Derek Frank: there'd also been some wage disputes where they lied to me that said I was making more than the other drivers, and I was actually making less like, Oh, this silly Yankee. So yeah, he, yeah, he calls me. And he's like, Hey, man. I went to bat for you, and I got you that extra money.
389
::Derek Frank: I was like, you know what?
390
::Derek Frank: I just put my 2 weeks notice in a few hours ago, but because of that I quit. So I walked in through my keys, and I was done. I quit right there.
391
::Derek Frank: and it felt once in a while, when you just get to walk out on it that it was great. It was great. It was so good. And then I gotta, you know, and then opening the School of Rock, it was. It was incredible. It was a dream job for me.
392
::Jeremy Van Wert: God.
393
::Jeremy Van Wert: IIII love that story, because, like, there, you are, driving around this like gaseous bomb. It it totally was. And I'm like, I'm going to the airport and stuff like I'm driving to the airport delivering this stuff like
394
::Derek Frank: there was one day there was like the Air National Guard was right there, and like 3 helicopters, go up above me and like this, is it?
395
::Derek Frank: They know I'm here.
396
::Derek Frank: Yeah, cause you have to get Tsa
397
::Derek Frank: pre-checked like you have. Do you have? There's some background checks when you're doing Hazmat
398
::Jeremy Van Wert: God?
399
::Derek Frank: So so yeah, some of those, some of those quitting stories are just fabulous. You know what? One time I actually put a boombox on top of my cubicle and played, take this job and shove it on the last day on the job so that was a fun one. That is a nice one. I always wanted to like start doing my emails like when I knew I was gonna quit. If like regrettably yours, or unfortunately, Derek, things like that like, if anyone notices.
400
::Jeremy Van Wert: So you're going into the School of Rock, and you're you're
401
::Jeremy Van Wert: now getting full time into doing music which has been such a powerful thing in your life. It's almost like you did construction. And this other job with the propane.
402
::Jeremy Van Wert: as you're trying to figure out, how do I live within my values and the goals, the things that are really
403
::Jeremy Van Wert: what make my heart happy in in all of this? And so now now you're going into school of rock. What what happens there?
404
::Derek Frank: Oh, man! So getting to open this and like, just run with it and build it from the ground up
405
::Derek Frank: was incredible. And then, as we start getting students and like. you know, all my core values are here. It's like the education. It's music. It's working with kids.
406
::Derek Frank: But then, like all of the parents, or a vast majority of the parents, I mean, school of Rock's expensive, especially in Nashville. So they're all like managers and agents and label people and
407
::Derek Frank: famous people's kids. And oh, wow! And sports like athletes, kids, all of this stuff.
408
::Derek Frank: So I'm sitting in the middle of this, and it's like, Oh, that guy's got a hundred Grammys, and that guy's got this artist, and that guy has a a super bowl ring on, and
409
::Derek Frank: it was just amazing, but I still like I never put myself in my music
410
::Derek Frank: in front of them.
411
::Derek Frank: If they wanted to ask. I would obviously share it, because at the time I was also working on an album. and was starting to play downtown a little bit, and and and gig in Nashville, but
412
::Derek Frank: I didn't want to exploit my job and my trust because I was there when I was there. I was there for the kids.
413
::Derek Frank: And and because of that, I think that gave me even more trust with people.
414
::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah. yeah. Now.
415
::Derek Frank: how long were you there at the School of Rock. I was there for 3 years.
416
::Jeremy Van Wert: Okay, alright. The only reason I left was
417
::Derek Frank: the pay was not great.
418
::Derek Frank: School of rock. Is that a nonprofit. No, they're not. They are for yeah, they're a for profit. So school of rock started as the Paul Green School of Rock in Philadelphia. And that's where the movie is loosely based off of, I was this guy that had this program is crazy yells. But it worked.
419
::Derek Frank: And now it's like a franchise thing. So there are some corporate schools. But, man there, I think there's like
420
::Derek Frank: 350 schools in multiple countries around the world. And we had.
421
::Derek Frank: like the top program in the country, we won the the national Battle of the Bands for School of Rock. They had it at summerfest in Milwaukee every year, and we won 2 years in a row.
422
::Derek Frank: Yeah, that's fantastic, that's fantastic. Where do you go from? There? What do you? What are you doing now, because now you're doing things that make your heart happy. Yeah. But it was also like, now I need to make my my wife happy and our our our wallet happy. Not even that she didn't care about what I did or money. But you know it was like, Okay.
423
::Derek Frank: but also I put my album out.
424
::Derek Frank: and it was starting to get some, you know, little attention or whatever, and I was starting to get these opportunities to gig more and to go out on the road, which is my dream to to do that. And so
425
::Derek Frank: the opportunity really just kind of arose that I could play full time.
426
::Derek Frank: and I talked to the owner. I was like, Hey, I really hate to do this, but I also think, like you need somebody. I was getting kind of burnout.
427
::Derek Frank: you know, with the pay. And and there's a lot of stress. You you go through a lot with those kids like you're there with them like you're when they're going through stuff. You're going through stuff with them. You're their therapy.
428
::Derek Frank: And it was just a lot, and it kinda had run its course, and rather than leave on bad terms, II still wanted to be a part of it, but I knew I had the opportunity to play. So that's what I did. So I started playing full time. And
429
::Derek Frank: you know, scary, it was like, Oh, am I gonna make enough money? There's it's that feast or famine like there's months where we had more money we'd ever had. There's months we had no money we ever had, so, thank God, my my wife always had like consistent job of like this is how much I make. I was like, that's weird to me because my dad owns his own business, and
430
::Derek Frank: my mom had one of those jobs, but as no fun
431
::Derek Frank: I like it didn't bother me not like I could be broke. I was broke in college and would just like go to the local tractor supply store and walk around because they had free popcorn. I loved it. People like that's so depressing like. Now, I was the happiest I'd ever been in that stores like, I love. This popcorn is really good.
432
::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, the the employees are like, Gosh! He really likes those lawn mowers he gets in here every Saturday. Yeah, not always buy like something like
433
::Derek Frank: II couldn't tell you how many like they had this really good like hand cream for guys that are working out in the fields. Their hands get cracked in. It fixes well, at the time I was doing a lot of hand drumming, so my hands were beat up pretty bad, so like
434
::Derek Frank: I couldn't imagine what they thought when I come in like every week. I'm buying a whole new like Puck of hand cream, like, guys walk around eating popcorn, buying hand cream like, here he comes like there's there's probably stories. I'll let your kids take lessons with him. That's weird.
435
::Jeremy Van Wert: That's the popcorn hand cream guy.
436
::Jeremy Van Wert: So where did you go? Where did you tour
437
::Derek Frank: all over really, what was kind of my niche that did the best was doing? Casinos?
438
::Derek Frank: You know those those 4 5 night stays that no one cares that you're there.
439
::Derek Frank: and you make your amazing money. And then during the day you're bored out of your mind.
440
::Derek Frank: and and I don't drink when I play.
441
::Derek Frank: and so like, and casinos and hotels require that you don't drink while you're playing
442
::Derek Frank: but
443
::Derek Frank: a lot of the guys in the band do. And so like they hated that part. But you know you're sitting there in a hotel room in
444
::Derek Frank: Bismarck, North Dakota, in the middle of the wintertime, because most of the people in Nashville wanted to go south because it's warm in the wintertime. Well.
445
::Derek Frank: gigs are only paying like 100 bucks. A man to go south
446
::Derek Frank: like. No, thanks. I'll go up north and make 3 grand a night.
447
::Derek Frank: So that's really what we what we did and what I did. And it worked out really well, but the same kind of thing. So II do.
448
::Derek Frank: I do some longer runs for casinos, but then I'd also do like long weekends like leave on Thursday. Play Thursday night, maybe, or do an acoustics at Thursday night, and then do
449
::Derek Frank: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or just Friday, Saturday, and then come back and then play on Broadway or somewhere in Nashville during the week.
450
::Derek Frank: and I mean I'd be playing on Broadway and doing triples where I'd be doing 3 shifts of 4Â h sets
451
::Derek Frank: no breaks, and you get done. You pack your stuff up and walk to the next venue and go again.
452
::Derek Frank: The the one thing I did have is that I was doing it for myself as a front man and as a drummer. So if my voice got really tired, I'd play drums.
453
::Derek Frank: which was good but it, though it didn't always work out that way where people in Nashville didn't really know I was a drummer. They knew I was a front man, and like I get calls all the time. Hey, I need a guitarist tonight. Come down like you know, like. I'm a piss, poor guitarist, right like no, do not heard you play. You're great like.
454
::Derek Frank: have you? Really? Have you really like I I'm really great at faking it like I can play the parts
455
::Derek Frank: which I guess in Nashville. It's kind of rare, too. People wanna kind of wank a little too much where I'm like, I'm just gonna stay right in the box. That's all I know.
456
::Derek Frank: So yeah, so it was. It was just one of those things where I was just gigging a lot.
457
::Jeremy Van Wert: So okay, so getting a little bit personal here.
458
::Jeremy Van Wert: it sounds like your ticket to being a part of the music scene. Is your willingness to work hard, your willingness to say yes. because at least to that point you were not a virtuoso. You were not the
459
::Jeremy Van Wert: The the the guy who was kind of like the guitar, god or whatnot. You were the guy who was always willing to be there to show up, to work well with people and to to learn quickly and adapt
460
::Derek Frank: yeah, and into a fault as well.
461
::Derek Frank: I was always. I never said no, and it really got to a point where I'd have people where I would do anything for them like if it meant moving your bedroom
462
::Derek Frank: down the street, or whatever I would do it, and then, when I needed somebody oh, I'm busy. Sorry man can't do it, or whatever. But
463
::Derek Frank: it it was kind of hard, because they weren't like the same way my friends from back home were they weren't drop everything to to do something for you. It was a lot of like, Oh, you can help me out. Thank you.
464
::Derek Frank: They were cool. but it wasn't like it wasn't like a friendship that I wanted.
465
::Derek Frank: so the more I put in, the less I got back.
466
::Derek Frank: and it it started to wear on me quite a bit right.
467
::Jeremy Van Wert: right. And it it absolutely will. And and
468
::Jeremy Van Wert: you know. Is there a certain point where you kind of had a breaking point with that, or or kind of learn the the
469
::Derek Frank: learn to be different, or how? Yeah. I had a week where playing in Nashville and I had this like
470
::Derek Frank: weekly gig on Sunday nights at this place. and
471
::Derek Frank: it was like $30. Base pay for 4Â h was nothing. But I made
472
::Derek Frank: really great money on tips, because it was always during like football or hockey games. and it was just acoustic. Just me
473
::Derek Frank: and I you know II played. It was great. I never had any complaints. People loved it. They always tipped me. Well, so that's how I judge if I did. Well, and then the guy that was the booking guy called me one day, and he's like, Hey, man this isn't me saying this, but the manager he's like he. He says, you talk too much in between songs. He wants you to just
474
::Derek Frank: play more. I'm like, Yeah, I interact with the crowd. That's how I make my money. He's like, no, I know he's like, this is what they want. I'm like, okay. So I go back
475
::Derek Frank: and I do it his way. And my tips were like a fourth of what they normally were.
476
::Derek Frank: Because, no, you know, you're not interacting. There's no reason. And what he's not understanding is people are leaving faster. They're not staying as long. They're not drinking as much. So he's losing money, he doesn't even realize it. So then the next week, I'm like, you know. Let's screw this. I'm going to do my show again.
477
::Derek Frank: and he fires me so I'm
478
::Derek Frank: and I find out he doesn't, that he made the booking guy fire me, which is fine, like I didn't really care, but I was on the road, and we were driving to Iowa City.
479
::Derek Frank: We had a show in Iowa City.
480
::Derek Frank: and I get the call from this guy, and he's like, Hey, man.
481
::Derek Frank: they don't want you anymore for this gig. I'm like cool.
482
::Derek Frank: I really hated that gig, anyway. Not a problem. And.
483
::Derek Frank: like, you know, I had upper other opportunities wasn't a big deal. But I was like
484
::Derek Frank: going to this Casino in Iowa City. I didn't want to be in the Casino, and the next gig we had. I didn't really wanna play at that venue cause. I hated that venue.
485
::Derek Frank: and I was like this is not
486
::Derek Frank: sustainable.
487
::Derek Frank: I can't live like this forever making good money.
488
::Derek Frank: but like the shelf life of a front man that is, you know, is in my thirties mid thirties, you know, like.
489
::Derek Frank: Oh, yeah, no. I think like it gets time to figure out another path.
490
::Derek Frank: That's when I had some. I knew some people that worked at khs.
491
::Derek Frank: and I was like, well, that's a cool place. They make maypex, drums and stuff. I didn't really know all their brands, but I knew they made makepex. I thought that was cool. and so I had applied, for they had a sales inside, sales gig opened up.
492
::Derek Frank: and I applied for it
493
::Derek Frank: and interviewed, and the interview was the weirdest thing ever there. Hr lady was just so weird. Oh, my gosh.
494
::Derek Frank: I could tell you stories just about her. She was interesting.
495
::Derek Frank: So they offered me the job, and I was like, Can I think about it for a week like, Yeah, please let us know soon. So I call my wife, and like, Hey, they offered me the job. She's like great. This is what you wanted. And I'm like, Yeah, but worked my whole life to go on the road.
496
::Derek Frank: It's like, Okay, here's the deal. She's like, you're burn out. You're you're not happy with it.
497
::Derek Frank: It's not what you want. It's not going where you want it to go. Do it for 6 months. and if you hate it, go back on the road roads, not go anywhere. And I was there, and I loved it.
498
::Derek Frank: I loved the company. I loved the people I loved being back in music now. I didn't love doing inside sales, but
499
::Derek Frank: it wasn't really sales.
500
::It was more so
501
::Derek Frank: inside territory management. We had an outside sales rep for everybody that was inside. Sales had an outside sales rep, and they were the ones doing the sales. I was basically entering orders and making sure their customers. The music stores were happy.
502
::Derek Frank: It was great. I loved it.
503
::Jeremy Van Wert: Great, great! And it sounds like your wife is actually a pretty
504
::Jeremy Van Wert: insightful. And she's been behind you on a lot of these decisions. She's I it it. It sounds like she's been kind of the
505
::Derek Frank: voice of encouragement behind you in a lot of these things, she is, and I kinda take it for for granted, sometimes because she's not the cheerleader type. She's not the one that's gonna be out there waving my banner, but she's always the one that knows what's best for me.
506
::Derek Frank: not what's best for her. She always. She always puts me first.
507
::Derek Frank: and I forget that, like, you know, because, my God, everybody, you know, pad me on the back, and sometimes I like that, and that's just not her style, but that same thing where it's like. If this is what you want to do. We're gonna make this work.
508
::Jeremy Van Wert: And where did you go? So you're you're with Khs for a while. And
509
::Derek Frank: what led you to the next thing. Yeah. So I was there
510
::Derek Frank: just about a year. And I mean, I knew I wanted to move up in the company, and I? They had artists, relations, jobs like didn't work with artists, and and I had been working with artists
511
::Derek Frank: doing different things, school of rock. And then myself as an artist. So I was getting networked out there pretty well.
512
::Derek Frank: But I was like man. That'd be great to be that guy.
513
::Derek Frank: and I had endorsement deals on my own. So I'm like, I loved those guys. I wanted to be that guy for somebody. So I was like, but no one's going to quit that job. That's a job you have to die to lose. Kind of thing.
514
::Derek Frank: And
515
::Derek Frank: sure enough, like one of the guys quit, he wanted to move back closer to his family. So I'm like, Okay.
516
::Derek Frank: I'm applying. And I got it.
517
::Derek Frank: And it was. It was. It was a another like dream job. It was perfect for me as we're like. I gotta be corporate and have that steady paycheck. But I gotta be creative and work with artists and and use that artist mindset to work on the marketing side and and help these people out. And I kinda do some cool stuff with it, too.
518
::Jeremy Van Wert: That's that's awesome to. And and so who were you working with in in this? What? What were the people?
519
::Derek Frank: So well? First, the brands owner.
520
::Derek Frank: harmonica is an accordion. Salonika ukulele's Hercules. Stand so like guitar number one guitar stand in the world. And mariachi string Latin string instruments so. But as far as artists again. That just that roster from honour is is crazy like I've got a voicemail saved on my phone from Steven Tyler like, oh, sweet things like that where he said like, Oh, you saved my life during the pandemic by sending me this care package and
521
::Derek Frank: and getting to work with like people like that, and kicks brooks and and all of these like really big people in Nashville.
522
::Derek Frank: was was amazing and getting to go to these shows, but there was also
523
::Derek Frank: a part of me that like resented it a little bit because I was
524
::Derek Frank: II was really good at helping people's career get bigger and helping them grow at the expense of my own.
525
::Derek Frank: Hmm! So I started. I started writing a book.
526
::Derek Frank: and it's called always the Bridesmaid, never the bride. And it's about how I've stood on all of these famous stages
527
::Derek Frank: the Ryman Granol Opry, of Madison Square Garden. I've been in all these places. Coachella, you name it. I've been there.
528
::Derek Frank: and I've never played them.
529
::Derek Frank: It's it's hard
530
::Derek Frank: to stand on the side of the stage at the Ryman and the granol opry over a hundred times
531
::Derek Frank: and never played it.
532
::Derek Frank: That close that close.
533
::Derek Frank: Yeah, like, yeah. But no one gets that view. I said. and no one wants that view once you have it.
534
::Jeremy Van Wert: Hmm. Is is that is, is that kind of a wound that you still kind of deal with?
535
::Derek Frank: Oh, totally.
536
::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, how's that book? Come along
537
::Derek Frank: you know it's a book.
538
::Jeremy Van Wert: Alright, I never wanted to write a book, and then, like I had some friends that encouraged me so like
539
::Derek Frank: I've got like half of it done.
540
::Jeremy Van Wert: If I really tried, I could get it done. Yeah, they are they they? The first
541
::Jeremy Van Wert: third of a book flows out of you. Second, third is a discipline. The last third is. God help me.
542
::Derek Frank: yeah, totally. Yeah. And and about that time that I started writing it to like is when I started my business and started doing my own thing.
543
::Jeremy Van Wert: which is what you're doing now.
544
::Derek Frank: It is So
545
::Derek Frank: II guess I had to preface that with another like hard lesson where I loved my job, you know, during the pandemic Mark and I had done some things that no one else was doing in the industry, and like it really took hold.
546
::Derek Frank: But
547
::Derek Frank: we were getting like less and less respect, and weren't getting any more money.
548
::Derek Frank: and and I had grown my brands from like almost no rosters to these really big rosters. Now a owner was built pretty much, but the other brands like I built them up like I had. I helped make the Julia Michael's signature ukulele, where she took that ukulele on on the voice and on song land, and didn't cost us a thing
549
::Derek Frank: like those are relationships that I help build.
550
::Derek Frank: And I wasn't getting anything back. I wasn't getting any more money. And then I was like, Okay, if you don't want to give me money, I need help. I need an assistant. We need people.
551
::Derek Frank: and they wouldn't do it. So it was just that point where I'm like, okay, they're never going to.
552
::Derek Frank: I love it here. But it. This isn't Gonna change, and I need to grow.
553
::Derek Frank: And so I got I found this company in in Nashville that
554
::Derek Frank: Offered me a job doing their marketing and paying me a ton of money.
555
::Derek Frank: So I took the job I left the gig I was at. I didn't really wanna leave. I didn't think I had a bad feeling. I have a bad feeling about this. You can tell all my Star Wars stuff.
556
::Derek Frank: It just didn't seem right, and I'm like I'm chasing the money
557
::Derek Frank: and it they were actually down in Franklin. So my drive every day with traffic was like an hour to an hour and a half each way. So I'm like 2 to 3Â h in the car a day. And
558
::Derek Frank: the first week I realized the owner is a tyrannical madman. He's a narcissist.
559
::Derek Frank: and I'm like
560
::Derek Frank: sitting here like Oh, my God! I just left the gig of a lifetime
561
::Derek Frank: for more money, for a place that like II instantly
562
::Derek Frank: felt sick to my stomach, and then the same week, we find out our dog has lung cancer, and so, like
563
::Derek Frank: trauma, trauma, trauma trauma
564
::Derek Frank: to the point where I couldn't get to work
565
::Derek Frank: without listening to
566
::Derek Frank: like a self help. You can do this today one day at a time thing every day on the way to work was the only way I got through it.
567
::Derek Frank: and so I'm doing it. I'm working my butt off. and but nothing's good enough.
568
::Derek Frank: Nothing's good, nothing for this guy, and I'm there 5 months or whatever.
569
::Derek Frank: And I'm like, Okay, you know, my wife and I are talking. I'm like, I'm miserable. I can't do this. I gotta find something else. But I wanna just jump into something else. I should call the old company. Take my job, get my job back or try to get back. They probably won't. What am I gonna do?
570
::Derek Frank: And then I start getting some of my own clients
571
::Derek Frank: like doing coaching and doing, just helping them with their marketing and digital marketing and content creation.
572
::Derek Frank: And she's like, Okay. can you get a couple more clients enough to like, get you at this dollar amount like I think I can.
573
::Derek Frank: So I do. And you know we go home for Christmas. I get you know we get a little Christmas bonus, I'm like, oh, everything's good, whatever.
574
::Derek Frank: Get back after the New Years. We're there the second day, getting back after the holidays. and they pull me into their conference room, and the 3 owners are there, and the 3 owners are never together. One of them flew down for this or whatever.
575
::Derek Frank: And he puts this piece of paper. And it's like a picture on my Facebook page of this Youtube video I made because II have my Youtube channel. And it was, I did a review on
576
::Derek Frank: this case. Companies case. Well.
577
::Derek Frank: they sell the competitor like they sold this this other company's case.
578
::Derek Frank: You can't do that. I'm like, let's say anything I can't do. I told you I had this Youtube channel, and I do these reviews. It has nothing to do with you
579
::Derek Frank: like this is, this is my sizing. I didn't do this on work. It's like, and you posted it during work hours like, no, I didn't. You're reading it wrong. He didn't even know like he's looking. He's like he saw Derek. Frank posted this 10Â h ago, and he's looking, and it's 9 15
580
::Derek Frank: which would have made it whatever time he didn't realize that it's a generalization on Facebook. It's not like exactly 10Â h ago.
581
::Derek Frank: and without even showing me proof.
582
::Derek Frank: He you're done! You're fired
583
::Derek Frank: like, thank God! Never in my life had I been fired, but also
584
::Derek Frank: the weight that instantly was lifted off of me
585
::Derek Frank: like, yeah, I was mad because the guy was an idiot.
586
::Derek Frank: But instantly I was like, Oh, my God!
587
::Derek Frank: Everything was gone. All the stress that I had, and you know my dog had just. We had to just put him down to all that.
588
::Derek Frank: It's all like gone. The anxiety I was such crippling anxiety. My lunch breaks twice a week. I was having to talk to a therapist during my lunch breaks. Yeah.
589
::Derek Frank: and I forget sitting in my car trying to hide that I'm on my laptop doing therapy.
590
::Derek Frank: It was that bad because I just couldn't hardly even function. And so I get this this other contract and I'm able to quit. I get fired.
591
::Derek Frank: But I got this contract. So it was fine.
592
::Derek Frank: It just set my timelab 2 2 months earlier. Yeah, okay. But then my business, like, Okay, well, I have all this time to dedicate to it. So it took off. It did great.
593
::Derek Frank: So thank you for firing me.
594
::Derek Frank: I really appreciate getting fired, because if it wasn't for them I wouldn't never been able to do it.
595
::Jeremy Van Wert: That wasn't a good fit from the very beginning, and you know I've I've been in those situations where you know you leave one employer. You go to the next one, and you go. Oh, my gosh! This was really the bad move.
596
::Jeremy Van Wert: The other door is now shut. I am trapped here sos, and you're trying to make the best. I actually had one situation where I had
597
::Jeremy Van Wert: 6 employees walk into my office and shut the door and say, you're not going to last 3 weeks here.
598
::Jeremy Van Wert: and and I'm going. What are you talking about? Well, I learned, you know, but you know these employees, these places become the culture that the leader makes it, and it can be suffocating and terrible, and it sounds like that's exactly what happened to you. Panic symptoms, difficulty, sleeping
599
::Derek Frank: hard time coping at work, always feeling like your chest is constricting like the whole thing, you know. Yeah, it was. It was horrible.
600
::Derek Frank: It felt like
601
::Derek Frank: almost being back in college again.
602
::Derek Frank: Yeah. But this time it was like, All right. I know I can get out of it. But the crippling anxiety and the the guilt I had
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::Derek Frank: from leaving that job that I loved for more money.
604
::Derek Frank: thinking it was. You know they said all the right things to get me there and then it was instantly out the window. And then I didn't see through it. Yeah.
605
::Derek Frank: for sure. And so, like.
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::Derek Frank: you know, I was mad at myself. I didn't see it. And then
607
::Derek Frank: that shame of like Oh, my gosh! You know! What if I quit, or what if I you know? But I never had shame about getting fired there because I was greatest thing that they did for me.
608
::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, yeah, III totally relate and a company that will say anything in a job interview just to get you to work there. And then you find out later that half of it was just nonsense. It was 100 nonsense. Yeah. Yeah. So you're getting out of this situation. You feel liberated. And
609
::Derek Frank: are you going into what you're doing now? Yeah. So that's that's where I start my business. Things are going great, and the more I'm in my business the more I'm like. I don't have to
610
::Derek Frank: be in Nashville, and I don't. Even my wife and I kicked the tires on moving
611
::Derek Frank: closer to home and family, and being closer she's got 3 nieces. Her 2 sisters have 3 girls and we were missing them growing up, and then my nephew is 21, and I was missing a lot of stuff with him. He's my buddy and so. And we we were like it was getting to the point where you're seeing. Oh, average Saturday, having a barbecue at the house, and we're not there.
612
::Derek Frank: We're never there, and it got it was getting hard
613
::Derek Frank: where I never thought that that would be me. I never thought that I'd want to leave Nashville. I mean my wife and I were just talking the other day. If you would have said 5 months ago that I would live in Des Moines, Iowa.
614
::Derek Frank: I would say, you're nuts.
615
::Derek Frank: and and it just happened that fast where we're kicking the tires like, oh, move me, we should move. Maybe we should move. What town would you wanna go to? And I was like, I don't wanna live in Illinois because their taxes are really high. And she's like, Okay, well, you love Wisconsin. I'm like, Yeah, love Madison and Milwaukee is way too cold. And she's like, Okay, so
616
::Derek Frank: what does that leave us? And I was like, what about Des Moines, Iowa? I love Des Moines. I used to love touring there. It's a great town. They got a lot of good beer and a lot of golf courses, everything I want in life like it's it's perfect. It's like you live in Des Moines, like, yeah, whatever. Not that it would ever happen.
617
::Derek Frank: Her brother-in-law works for an electricians company's like, Oh, hey!
618
::Derek Frank: We are hiring project managers, because we have all these new Microsoft data Center builds that are going on.
619
::Derek Frank: told my wife to apply. She did. Goes up there interviews, and they offered the job.
620
::Derek Frank: And so I'm I'm in Pittsburgh at the time with a client. and you know I'm having this great time. This is like one of my favorite clients. They're still one of my clients. I love them. I'm just having the time of my life with them
621
::Derek Frank: and my wife's back in Des Moines. She's having the time of her life with her family, and she said. They called and offered me the job already. I'm like, Wow, so we're really going to do this.
622
::Derek Frank: It's like, yeah. And I said, Did they give you a timeframe like couple of months like what she's like. 3 weeks.
623
::Derek Frank: 3 weeks. We've got to pack everything we've had that
624
::Derek Frank: weeks. Oh.
625
::Jeremy Van Wert: yeah, your your sound went out. You were talking about 3 weeks.
626
::Jeremy Van Wert: Nope.
627
::Derek Frank: got me. Yeah, okay, sorry about that. I bumped something. Yeah. So so she said, Okay, you've got 3 weeks to do this. And I'm like.
628
::Derek Frank: how are we gonna make this happen like, I just didn't understand what we're how we were gonna do it.
629
::Derek Frank: but we did it, and it was super stressful. It was a lot
630
::Derek Frank: but you know we packed up. Got everything put into you know the big Penske moving truck and put my car on a trailer behind the moving truck, packed up her. Pick up truck and left
631
::Jeremy Van Wert: brilliant brilliance, and you're sitting in this for those people who are not watching on Youtube. Right now Derek is sitting in this studio with a beautiful sonar drum set behind him, and he's got all of this equipment like synthesizers and and recording stuff that that's right next to him, and a good deal of Star Wars gear
632
::Jeremy Van Wert: and and so you're what explain exactly what it is that you're doing now.
633
::Derek Frank: Yeah. So my business is mostly consulting. Now, when I first started, I was doing a lot of deliverables where I make people's content form or help them with it. But I move past that where now I just kind of coach their teams on what to do.
634
::Derek Frank: because, you know, if I don't have to do deliverables, it's even better. And then, if they don't get the results they wants like, did your team implement what I told them to do? No, okay, well, let's try it again. So it's easier to keep your contracts. Which is great. But then, like I had mentioned, this opportunity, came about
635
::Derek Frank: with this this teen tech center.
636
::Derek Frank: And so I was like, this is everything I want like I love all my techie stuff. What people can't see on screen is my giant setup. I've got this desk that I made out of an old marimba frame. So it's all crank kite adjustable. I've got 50 inch touch screen in front of me that I built. I've got a 50 inch ultra wide, and then another 50 inch. And then all these racks full of gear. It's so cool.
637
::Derek Frank: and the pandemic was amazing and also bad for me, because I just like started tinkering and got into even more tech and streaming and video and
638
::Derek Frank: so when this opportunity came about to get back in a nonprofit
639
::Derek Frank: to make good money like that. What they offered me I was like, oh, it's more what I made at K, Chess, yeah. And they just came out of the gate offering. That's like they're like that was in the grant, like, okay? And
640
::Derek Frank: to get to work with music and underprivileged teens and tech and all. It was like
641
::Derek Frank: somebody was looking out for me.
642
::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah.
643
::Jeremy Van Wert: yeah, all all along like the the overall theme that I'm just kind of getting out of this entire thing.
644
::Jeremy Van Wert: There are things that fill your heart. There are things that extract from you, those things that extract from you our pointlessness. and
645
::Jeremy Van Wert: people who don't align with your values, and when you are truly
646
::Jeremy Van Wert: going in the direction that you're. you know, needing to go for your heart.
647
::Jeremy Van Wert: your heart is, your heart is full. You're really, really living, and you know your your hard work, and many, many, many years of getting yourself to the point where you're truly qualified to do what it is that you're doing right now that you are the perfect person for this job.
648
::Jeremy Van Wert: It it. It takes a long time to make it. It just doesn't happen when you start a Youtube channel and you start producing content. It really takes a long time to build that trust, build those audiences, build those relationships. And here you are. And you've got lots of artist relations. You've got all of these things that have driven you to being able to be exactly where it is that you are right now. And you you're you're truly in this wonderful place where you're
649
::Jeremy Van Wert: living, your whole
650
::Jeremy Van Wert: your whole passion, out of all the the the trials that you've had, and being born with these various physical maladies, and so forth, that you've you know you've you've put behind you. And now you're you're making it happen
651
::Jeremy Van Wert: with with what you really love.
652
::Derek Frank: Yeah. And and that's that's always been a thing, too, because, like with like with my hand, there's always been that that fear that I would lose
653
::Derek Frank: the ability to use my hand.
654
::Derek Frank: and in the last 3 years it's kind of become a thing where
655
::Derek Frank: I can only play drums for, like maybe
656
::Derek Frank: 45Â min to an hour without my whole hand and arm hurting so bad
657
::Derek Frank: I can't hardly use it, and so like
658
::Derek Frank: it was one of those things where I'm like this is going to affect me a lot.
659
::Derek Frank: Wh, because that's my safety zone. That's where I go. That's my healing. What do I do when I can't?
660
::Derek Frank: And then this opportunity pops up to start working with kids again, and to to start having another outlet like I was just
661
::Derek Frank: somebody was looking at whatever, whether it's God universe, whatever people believe it, it worked it. It aligned with me.
662
::Jeremy Van Wert: Yeah, you know, and sounds like it aligned with you because you just kept putting your forehead to the wall and pushing.
663
::Derek Frank: you know. Yeah, yeah, even at the wrong times, for sure, like there, there's a lot of times where I was not making the right decisions like, trust me, most of them were not the right decisions. But that's what makes you stronger. And what makes you learn
664
::Jeremy Van Wert: so so how old are you?
665
::Derek Frank: 38? All right. So you're 38 years old.
666
::Jeremy Van Wert: Let's talk to 18 year old. Derek, what do you tell him.
667
::Derek Frank: Hold on!
668
::Derek Frank: Hold on tight.
669
::Derek Frank: It's going to happen. It's going to happen fast, and it's going to happen not in a way you're going to want it to happen.
670
::Derek Frank: You're not going to like how it happens a lot of the times.
671
::Derek Frank: But
672
::Derek Frank: as my dad always says.
673
::Derek Frank: you fallen shit an come in smellin like roses all the time.
674
::Derek Frank: and
675
::Derek Frank: I don't know if it's just that I'm lucky, or that I've made that way. But
676
::Derek Frank: you know, tell 18 year old. Derek, like, Hey, man.
677
::Derek Frank: it's gonna be okay. And also you're not as cool as you think you are.
678
::Derek Frank: That's probably the biggest one like you think you're really cool? You're really not
679
::Derek Frank: really not.
680
::Jeremy Van Wert: No, I did. Yeah, we've we've all gone through that stage. And we see the Po. We see the pictures and our parents photo albums, and we go.
681
::Derek Frank: Oh, yeah, my brother loves posting my senior pictures with me with like my Oakley's on and my marching snare drum and my guitar and stuff. You're such a dork. Yeah.
682
::Derek Frank: yeah, the Oaklas were the thing, weren't they? Oh, yeah. yeah. Oh, yeah.
683
::Derek Frank: it's like, now I'm like all about Star Wars, you know. Got a Star Wars, sleeve tattoo, and my whole studio star wars like just embrace
684
::Derek Frank: you. And what makes you happy.
685
::Derek Frank: cause this wasn't anything new like this has always been a thing, but it's like, Oh, I was like, Oh, that'd be cool! Oh, my God, I'm married to a smoking hot wife that's way out of my league, and like
686
::Derek Frank: She thinks that it's cool that I'm a dork.
687
::Jeremy Van Wert: Fantastic. Sounds like a perfect fit. It really is so statement of intention. Where is it that you want to go in life from here?
688
::Derek Frank: Have no idea. And I think that's what I love.
689
::Derek Frank: Ii like a little bit of chaos.
690
::Derek Frank: I like a little bit of drama and uncertainty. I think
691
::Derek Frank: if everything was cushy and safe for me.
692
::Derek Frank: I I'd be a drug addict.
693
::Derek Frank: I honestly, I think I would be a drug addict if everything was safe and cushy for me
694
::Jeremy Van Wert: the. So you're you're you're praying for more chaos.
695
::Derek Frank: Yeah, it will refine you into a better you yeah, it doesn't always have to be bad chaos, like like I've gotten a a little bit of bad, but maybe not all the really hardships. But you know, I'd love to stick with this tech center for a while, and then maybe figure out
696
::Derek Frank: what that means. I would love to go into more like board work and consulting still
697
::Derek Frank: and travel more. Yeah, I love traveling. And
698
::Derek Frank: yeah. But right now this is this is where my heart's at, and I love it.
699
::Jeremy Van Wert: How do people get in touch with you.
700
::Derek Frank: They can go to the derrick, frank.com. That is a that has all my links and everything you could ever wanna see, and then some.
701
::Jeremy Van Wert: I want to thank you for being willing to come and be so open and share your life, because it's not always an easy thing to do. You know, being vulnerable and talking about your highs and talking about your lows, and so thank you so much for being willing to just go on the record and talk about what has made you into you.
702
::Derek Frank: Oh, thanks for just letting me riff, too, you know it's it's oftentimes where again?
703
::Derek Frank: Oh, you talk too much, you're too loud, you're too this. And and to have a platform where you just let me go
704
::Jeremy Van Wert: felt really good. I appreciate that a lot. Oh, good! Good! Well, you! There were so many Easter eggs in there that
705
::Jeremy Van Wert: I didn't know about that. We got to kinda discover. So thank you and to the listener, if you like this kind of content, please like, please subscribe, leave a review for my podcast either on Youtube or apple or spotify wherever it is that you're listening to this. It really helps out. Thank you so much for listening to mindful mutiny. Now go be something great.
706
::Derek Frank: Okay, I'm going to stop my rustling here, you know. It's wild, too.
707
::Derek Frank: I feel amazing.
