Touring and Performing with Music's Largest Acts - Carlos Sosa - Music Production Podcast #361

Carlos Sosa is a musician, producer, composer, and music director. Sosa formed Grooveline Horns, a 1970s funk and R&B-influenced brass group. Carlos has toured and recorded with Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, Zac Brown Band, and Hanson. He now performs in the house band for the popular live podcast Kill Tony.

Carlos and I spoke in-depth about his music career where he records and tours with some of music's largest acts. He shared how his never-ending desire to learn had him remote-recording since 2004, meeting new people, and landing dream gig after dream gig. Carlos' energy and enthusiasm fuels this great conversation, loaded with insight and wisdom.

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Show Notes:

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:01.099)

All right, Carlos, great to see you again, man. I'm so happy we're finally doing this.

carlos sosa (00:04.27)

Hey, what's up? I know, it's been a long time coming. I'm excited you asked me to do it, man. I was just like, I saw, you know, you have your little clips that come out on social media and I'm just like, oh man, this is so cool. And then you're like, you wanna do it? I'm like, yeah, man, absolutely. So I'm excited. I'm a big Brian Funk fan.

Brian Funk (00:08.387)

Yeah, that's good we jumped in.

Brian Funk (00:20.087)

Hmm

Brian Funk (00:27.221)

I'm a big fan of yours. We met through the Berkeley class. I teach that. Was it the sampling class at that point? The Ableton sample? Or is it the kind of a...

carlos sosa (00:35.63)

No, I think it was the intro to Ableton or Ableton.

Brian Funk (00:44.479)

It was called Advanced Techniques or it was after the intro. Yeah. Right.

carlos sosa (00:48.014)

Or maybe, yeah, I took all of them. Okay, okay, yeah. I think Loudon was the first, Loudon was first, yeah. That was a funny time in my life because I had, I remember purchasing Ableton like five years prior and I installed it and I was like, cool, is this new DAW great? And I couldn't figure out how to press play.

Brian Funk (00:56.547)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:17.198)

like how to get anything happening. And I was like, man, I'm just gonna go back. I've been using Pro Tools since Sound Tools, you know?

And uh...

Brian Funk (01:25.299)

Well, I got mine early too. I got Pro Tools in like 2005. When I first got a laptop, I didn't know anything about anything. Just been recording the old way with mixers and like hardware recorders. But it did come with Live 4, I think. And it looked like a spreadsheet to me. I thought it was DJ software and I didn't really ever open it.

looked at it once, I was like, I'm not going to be using this. And moved on.

carlos sosa (01:56.398)

Yeah, and then I remember I remember I was touring with Kelly Clarkson and they're using the MD was using Ableton for playback. And then I was looking, I kept looking at what he was doing. It looks so colorful and cool. And like, what are you using? Because it didn't look like my Ableton.

Brian Funk (02:22.086)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (02:22.83)

But, and he's like, oh, Ableton, I was like, and then I just had this thing where I was like, this kind of anger that there's something there that I didn't know how to use, you know what I mean? So then, and then I heard people talking about production with Ableton, I was like, man, I've got to get this happening. So I looked at the Berklee online program and I was like, okay, all this, the electronic music certification, I gotta take all these things.

Brian Funk (02:36.407)

Right.

carlos sosa (02:51.726)

And first off, I'm gonna learn Ableton, you know? And it was great. It really changed a lot of things for me.

Brian Funk (02:59.339)

You're somebody I think of a lot when I say this to my class because, you know, people come in the class, I always encourage everyone, you know, interact with each other. You never know who's in this class. Might be a future collaborator, somebody that you'll really connect with. And you know, when you came in the class and started talking about what you've done, playing with Kelly Clarkson, I think you were...

carlos sosa (03:14.606)

Right.

Brian Funk (03:21.767)

We're already playing Jason Mraz, some of the songwriting. I was kind of like, why am I in, why aren't I in your class? But I always think of you as like a good example to people. This is a networking thing too, and it's a way to make friends. And it's so important to have people that are like-minded like you, that are into the same thing. Cause in a lot of people's lives, they're not around like studio cats all the time.

musicians that they can share their problems or questions with or just bounce ideas off.

carlos sosa (03:58.478)

So true, man. I've made some really great friends from my classes at Berkeley that I still keep in contact with, whether it's professional or not, you know. And I've done a lot. I've worked in London a lot. There's a couple of producers I work with and one of my... It's funny because I was at the studio with this guy, Fraser T. Smith, monster producer, right? Did a lot of...

Brian Funk (04:11.018)

Mm.

carlos sosa (04:27.726)

Used to play guitar for this guy, Craig David, this R&B guy that I was a big fan of back in the day. But now he's like a super producer, yeah. He does like, wrote a lot of the Adele stuff, just tons of stuff. So we started working together and I'm in the studio and I said something about a Berkeley class and he looked at me, he's like, are you taking Berkeley classes? I was like, yeah, he goes, me too. Like really? We found out that we were both addicted to Berkeley classes, you know? And he was taking

piano, intro to piano. And it was, I mean, he, I think Jimmy Kachulas, the songwriting professor, he was saying, we got really close too. And when I was taking the songwriting classes from Jimmy, and he said, yeah, Frazier's in my classes. I actually had him come down and speak at Berkeley. And he was like, you guys, exactly what you were saying, this guy's a super producer, you know? Got...

Grammys, multiple, multiple number one hits all over the world. And he still take, you know, he would take any class just to learn, you know. So.

Brian Funk (05:35.28)

Don't you think that has something to do with his success that mentality right never stop learning

carlos sosa (05:38.958)

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. And I know when people are shocked when I tell them I still take classes, you know, I'm like, why not? Like, this is what I do, and I wanna learn as much as I can, and sometimes, you know, I'm not the best at something that I wanna be better at, and I tell people all the time, like, the songwriting classes changed my life. That was something that I really wanted to do. And I had two of the, like,

I mean, Rod Temperton was one of my songwriting mentors before he passed, you know, we got really close. This guy changed the world, you know? And yeah, you know, and he, you know, he would tell me things that I didn't really, didn't really understand at the time. But then after I started taking classes and really like, I didn't want to be defeated by this songwriting thing. I thought it was like a gift people had that I couldn't do.

Brian Funk (06:19.287)

Yeah. Michael Jackson. Right.

carlos sosa (06:40.238)

And the songwriting classes, one in particular, the harmony class changed my life. And I tell people all the time, I'm like, man, what is it, 12 week class? Most classes are 12 weeks. I'm like, look, in 12 weeks, you will have so much knowledge. That is worth any amount of money.

Brian Funk (06:56.167)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (07:07.323)

Right.

carlos sosa (07:09.134)

And that's what happened with all of my Berkeley classes, man. It just, they, it's, you know, you, there's, there's, I find those classes are like comprised of people that, you know, some of them don't, you know, they're, they're just like any college, like they don't really care. They're not going to apply themselves or whatever, but there's people, there's a high percentage of people that are there to just kill it. And that's super inspiring, you know, where else are you going to get in the

Brian Funk (07:34.352)

Mm-hmm.

carlos sosa (07:38.062)

The guys like you that are teaching the classes that really have the knowledge. It's, it's, it's awesome. So, um, yeah, I digress.

Brian Funk (07:47.231)

I find it so inspiring on my end. Like you said, some of those people are there to kill it, and they do. Week after week, listening to their work. For me, it's the same assignments each semester, but it's always so different. It's never dry. It's never old. I sometimes feel like I'm walking away learning the most because I'm going through everyone's work. It's such a valuable experience on that end, too.

carlos sosa (08:14.254)

That's cool, man. I have a friend that I've worked with for a long time that started teaching a couple years ago, moved to Boston and teaching songwriting. And he had me come and I guess he had to do some video stuff with his classes. His name's Rodney Alejandro, brilliant, brilliant guy. And then I remember taking a songwriting class with Sarah Brindell.

And she said, would you like to, can you create something for like, for one of her classes? So it was like a video that she edited. So she shows all her classes now. And it was like, I think it was like horn arranging for pop songs or something like that, for a beginner songwriter. And I did that and it was, and then Rodney was like, man, you should come up with a class, man. Write a class for Berkeley, online. And then so we kind of.

Brian Funk (08:55.879)

Mm-hmm.

carlos sosa (09:12.91)

I was talking to my buddy Jeff Coffin, who's the sax player for Dave Matthews, and he does a lot of that education stuff for Belmont University and stuff in Nashville. He's like, man, I'll help you too, that sounds awesome. And then I'm like, man, I kinda don't wanna give away my secrets. Right? You know? But I don't know, man. It might be something I do in the future. I mean, I love it all, you know.

Brian Funk (09:29.107)

Oh yeah? That's funny.

Brian Funk (09:38.711)

You know, I think something I've kind of learned by giving away my secrets is, you know, it's like, it forces you kind of not to rely on them and to learn new secrets and keep growing really. And I'm sure, you know, whatever, all your skills, all your talents, all your background, all your experience, it's...

carlos sosa (09:54.702)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (10:06.087)

probably not going to be totally given away. It's not just what you're going to say and teach. I mean, there's also just the blood, sweat, and tears that go into that too. But sometimes identifying them and putting words to them and putting processes to them, I think helps me understand what I'm doing a lot better too.

carlos sosa (10:25.806)

Yeah, for sure. I, you know, when I really think about it, it's like, look, you can give anybody a method, but actually that person, you know, A, that's your method, which is, could possibly not be the only way or the best way. But for somebody to implement it creatively and effectively is another story as well.

Brian Funk (10:48.155)

Hmm. You know, interesting for me to hear, because I know you're very well educated. You have a lot of experience. You know your stuff. You know your chops. What were some of the valuable lessons you got about songwriting through your classes? Rod Temperton, like, what were some of the big takeaways for you?

carlos sosa (10:49.358)

So, yeah.

carlos sosa (11:11.758)

Well, um...

I... the thing that I... I kind of...

have honed without knowing in my entire career was melody. Like I have a pretty, that gave me like a superpower coming into songwriting, because that's what I do. That's what I've done in my professional career. Like when you think about horn arranging,

At least, I mean, I kind of self-taught myself. You know, I taught myself how to do this because I grew up listening to Earth, Wind and Fire and James Brown and Cameo and Ohio Players and Tower of Power, like all these horn bands. That's what I wanted to do. So I kind of figured out my own method to get that product, like to get, to figure that out. And for me, it is, you know.

It's, and then through experience, like is this something that the horns are prominent, or am I doing a pop record where I'm accompanying and making the song better? Regardless, it starts with a melody. So if there's, if I'm doing a chorus for a pop song, you know, there's the vocal, there's the vocal hook, which is the main thing. So if I'm doing a counter, I'm either gonna do a counter melody, or I'm gonna do some pads or something.

carlos sosa (12:49.326)

or, and, but regardless, I have to write a melody, a strong melody either way. And then I just voice it with other horns. So, and am I going to do a unison line? Am I going to do, am I going to harmonize these sections or whatever? So I've been doing that, you know, since college. And so I came into songwriting and I did take the melody class, but these were all things that were the, the melody class was,

already kind of ingrained in me. I was like, oh, well, yeah, I mean, that's what I do. So every lesson was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. That's a big thing. Yeah, and that was.

Brian Funk (13:22.357)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (13:28.771)

Right? Brass instruments too. They're monophonic, right? So they're all melody.

carlos sosa (13:34.83)

That's the thing, it's like you start with the melody and then that's the biggest thing in songwriting too or one of the biggest things is like the melody is the king. Like that's it. If you don't have a strong melody, you don't really have much, you know? And that was one of the things that Rob Timberton, that was his biggest thing. He had, one of his big things was

carlos sosa (14:02.926)

I started asking him about songwriting. He said, well, I'll tell you, I write everything, all the music first. I don't care about the lyrics. I don't, and this is his process. It's not that it works for everybody. But I've never changed, he's like, you know, he'll write the melody and the chords underneath. And then he said, I've never changed a note or a rhythm to fit in a lyric.

And he said, I let the music tell me what the words are going to be, which I didn't understand at the time because I wasn't a songwriter. I wasn't attempting to be a songwriter at the time. And then he said, one thing that is, I mean, again, this is his process and I'm not saying that this goes for everybody, but it floored me. And then I started listening to some of the stuff he wrote or whatever, and I got it. He said,

If your melody is good enough, nobody cares what you're saying.

And that was like a revelation to me because of course you wanna write a story, you wanna have a story in strong lyrics that means something, but you don't have to get so caught up in it that it's the most important thing. I mean, it's all important. You wanna write the best song that you can, but if you listen back to like Always and Forever by Heatwave, you know that song?

uh, it's a ballad.

Brian Funk (15:33.847)

Always and forever. I don't know, not ringing a bell.

carlos sosa (15:39.534)

If you heard it, you would know. Oh, 1974. That was Rod Timbertson's band. And they, long story of how they met and how they started, but they were, it was, he met a bunch of guys at a German Air Force base, and they were from Ohio, and they started this band, and they were playing covers, they started writing their own songs. And that, they put out a record, and it was just smashed.

Brian Funk (15:41.571)

What time period was that from?

Okay.

carlos sosa (16:09.486)

just took over the planet. And that's how he started working with Michael Jackson because he got, people started calling him, Quincy Jones called him, all this stuff because of that record. And Always and Forever was one of the first songs I heard when I was a kid that changed my life. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. And then if you listen to it, the melody is so strong and it's a love song.

But if you listen to the lyrics and then you know that Rod Temperton, that's his method, it's just a love song. So it's like, you have this beautiful melody and you could play it on a piano and it will almost make you cry because it's so beautiful. And you're just, okay, let's write some lyrics. You listen to the lyrics, it's not a story. It's a love song. Like your brain goes into a mode to where let's write romantic lyrics.

And that's what you do. You know, that's what you could tell in that song. That's what they did. And it's awesome. It makes sense to the listener, everybody. I feel like if the lyrics that you put on a song, it paints a picture in the listener's head, you know? It's their experience that they connect to. There's no way they're gonna get your experience. So anyway, I digress with all that stuff, but that was the melody.

Brian Funk (17:26.364)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (17:32.059)

Hmm.

carlos sosa (17:36.494)

thing for me was revelation.

Brian Funk (17:39.887)

Hmm. Well, I guess you're letting the music, you know, it's got a feeling already, right? It's got a mood and you just kind of listen to it and then take it from there. It makes a lot of sense. I think I do that a lot myself, actually. It always seems like if I go the other way, I'm trying to shoehorn things in there, squeeze it in. The things I like the best are the more organic kind of a lot of times if I'm

carlos sosa (17:51.694)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (18:08.667)

trying to come up with vocals, I'm just kind of blabbering until I find it.

carlos sosa (18:13.934)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then when you start writing, co-writing with people, and that's what everybody does. Everybody does it, you know? And you know, like, you have a melody, and then you start, you know, everybody just starts throwing like, phrases at this great melody, and like, what's the word that fits in there, or the phrase that fits in this melody? That's the hook, you know? And so,

Brian Funk (18:39.835)

Right.

carlos sosa (18:42.926)

If it's like a slow ballad, like you have a mood in your brain and your brain just kind of by association just kind of puts out these like sad or romantic lyrics, you know? It's fascinating to me. Anyway.

Brian Funk (18:57.284)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (19:02.263)

Yeah, and it is. You kind of just have to go for it and not worry too much about, you know, because you can always change it, right? But you need something to work with. And I know I always get stuck when I start trying to be clever or I start trying to, you know, like be intelligent. I'm trying to incorporate, but it always get back. It's in the way of feeling what's happening. You know, it's not I'm not thinking of that.

carlos sosa (19:29.838)

Yeah, sometimes you get lucky with that.

Brian Funk (19:32.543)

Yeah, yeah sometimes but I've...

carlos sosa (19:34.094)

I mean, it's... Yeah, it... I, uh...

Brian Funk (19:37.751)

I find the blabbering will often just get me the sounds I need, the syllables, where's the consonant, where's the vowel, where's the longer word. Then if you do it long enough, sometimes you just say something good.

carlos sosa (19:42.99)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (19:55.342)

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I remember I heard recently that Leonard Cohen had written, for Hallelujah, he had written something like 80 verses or something. And it took him like 10 years to get or even more than that. I don't know. But it took him, he had written that song, took him years, I think around 10 years to finish that song. That's what I heard.

Brian Funk (20:23.879)

It's interesting, because he's almost just narrating the music for a lot of it. You know, when he starts saying like the chords he's hitting, you know, the major lift.

carlos sosa (20:25.198)

So there's.

Yeah? Yeah.

carlos sosa (20:33.23)

Yeah. And then there's Jason Morazz who wrote his biggest hit in 10 minutes. You know, it's amazing, man.

Brian Funk (20:42.135)

Uh huh. Yeah, that's...

Brian Funk (20:46.659)

Yeah, sometimes like you're just there to receive it.

carlos sosa (20:50.478)

Yeah, I've been there actually too, a long time ago, but that's happened to me, which is really cool.

Brian Funk (20:57.084)

Hmm. It's not something I think you can wait out for. You gotta sometimes get to work. Once in a while the lightning bolt hits you, but... I haven't found a long enough piece of metal to hold in the air to make that happen reliably.

carlos sosa (21:01.262)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, just wait.

carlos sosa (21:07.854)

I appreciate it.

carlos sosa (21:12.718)

That's true. That's true. Yep.

Brian Funk (21:19.547)

So you've got a pretty sick sound pack on Splice, the Groovline Horns. Groovline is the name of your group, right? The three guys, you guys are a team. I love the video you have on the Splice channel too. I put links to that in the show notes, but you can tell you guys are having a lot of fun.

carlos sosa (21:23.214)

Oh yeah.

carlos sosa (21:27.854)

Yeah, Groovline horns, yeah.

carlos sosa (21:35.15)

Oh, thanks.

carlos sosa (21:41.326)

Yeah, it was fun. It was fun doing that. I loved it. It's funny because that was an, I don't know why I keep going back to Rod Temperton, but the way I met him was I was doing a concert with an artist in London and she was doing Heatwave. She was playing Always and Forever, that song I was singing you as a...

as an acoustic piece with a piano player and her singing the song. And like two songs before, like during the show, two songs before she goes, I have a great idea. You wanna play a solo on Always and Forever. And we're at Royal Albert Hall and like the Queen of England's there. And I'm just like, I don't even know what key it's in. You know, what key she's singing. I'm like, okay. You know?

So I played, you know, I played and went fine, but I'm at the bar at the after party and I order a drink and I feel a tap on my shoulder. And somebody, like I didn't turn around and somebody kind of speaks in my ear and says, I believe you owe me some royalties. And I turned around and I was like, for what? And he goes, you named your horn section after one of my songs, I'm Rod Temperton. And I was like.

Brian Funk (22:39.943)

Hehehehe

carlos sosa (23:08.398)

First off, I thought he was black. Because he wasn't. He was this English guy. And I just, my jaw dropped. And I did, when I was in college, I named my horn section after one of his songs.

Brian Funk (23:23.119)

Wow. So wait, that night you played for the Queen of England and Rod Devin?

carlos sosa (23:28.558)

She was in, yeah, well, yeah, he was, it was a record of covers that she, this woman was named Beverly Knight, and it's, she was like the Beyonce of the UK. She's an amazing singer. She was Prince's favorite female singer. And she had, she did an album, she's massive. Now she does a lot of acting. And she,

She had a record release and she did an album of covers of songs that influenced her in her life. And there was like a Jimi Raquai song and George Michael song, and then Heatwave, Rod Timberton. And she had invited all of the original artists to come to the show as well. That's why he was there.

Brian Funk (24:15.335)

Wow, so you said you didn't even know the key, but you said yes anyway. How different would things have turned out if you would have said no?

carlos sosa (24:24.59)

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think she had probably introduced us as, you know, at the end of the night as Groove Lionhorns or something like that. And that's why he had known that, what the name of the horn section was. But when things like that happen, you know, if you're in the throes of the year right there and somebody asks you to, like the person that hires you and writes your check and the massive artist asks you to do something.

I kind of can't say no. So if you fall flat, you fall flat. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just had to do it. I mean, I was petrified. There's probably one of the scariest moments of my life, but it went well. Trust me.

Brian Funk (24:55.682)

Uh huh, okay.

Yeah.

Brian Funk (25:12.403)

When you get out there, did you have fun or was it just terrifying?

carlos sosa (25:17.166)

I don't remember, I'm pretty sure I... Well, I have this thing too. It's like, I have a lot of terrifying moments like that. Like on tour, I play in front of a lot of people on a consistent basis. I don't really get nervous a lot, but sometimes I do. And it's like, you kind of just, you get in this state where you're just like, screw it. Like, it's, I have to like...

Like I have to make this happen. You know, it's like your body feels full of adrenaline and you're just like, I got this. Like you have to, you have to like, you have to put yourself in a completely different, like whatever insecurities you have, whatever anything is going on in your brain at the time, you have to completely like separate yourself from that. It's like a Zen moment and you just go out there and just, you know, it's like, I would say it's probably like a football team. Like I'm the man, I can do this. You know?

So yeah, it's an interesting mental game you have to play with yourself.

Brian Funk (26:16.364)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (26:26.703)

You know, I've never gotten to play for, I didn't get to play for the Queen of England or Rod Temperton, but I know what you mean a little bit. And it's almost like that feeling when you drive home and you don't remember how you got home, you know, cause you're not really thinking about it. You're just kind of, you go into the, I don't know, the practice or the, you know, all those rehearsals, they just kind of come through.

carlos sosa (26:31.726)

I'm sorry.

Brian Funk (26:56.287)

and you just almost have to get out of the way and let it happen.

carlos sosa (27:01.23)

Yeah, you're definitely on, you know, you're on autopilot at that point, you know, practicing so much and big pop shows and shows like that. Like, by the time you hit the stage, you've got, you have to have everything up here on autopilot. But it's funny what you said about driving home and not remembering. This past summer was one of the first tours that I'd done since the pandemic and it was with Jason Mraz.

and I have a moment in the show where, you know, there's probably a 11 piece, 12 piece band, and there's a moment in the show that I kind of created, and it's just the whole band would stop, and I would play by myself for a minute, maybe five minutes, whatever, however, I had to, and then the drummer would come in, and it would be me and the drummer, and the drummer,

He's new to Jason, but he's been a friend of mine for like 15 years and he's a monster. So then we would start playing together and it was this moment. And then the rest of the band would come in and join us and the song would go on. But I took that as like, I mean, I played in cover bands for a really long time and I...

carlos sosa (28:29.198)

you expect and especially being on a tour like that on a like you play the same thing every night you know and it's almost scripted it's like it's not literally scripted but it's there's no there's not a lot of like say you go to a Taylor Swift concert there is no improvising going on on that stage you know what i mean and for for us for a lot of musicians that's kind of where we get our

carlos sosa (28:59.278)

We kind of like connect with the universe that way and connect with musicians and you have fun that way. And Jason's super cool that he's like, man, everybody do whatever you want as long as it's awesome and we can rock. And I'm like, yeah. So I created that moment and it started, it was a big hit. Like the fans loved it. The crowds were going crazy. And I had to...

Brian Funk (29:14.692)

Mm-hmm.

carlos sosa (29:29.134)

do different, like I had to really put myself in this spot to where I didn't want it to be the same every night. Because I would do something, the drummer would hook up with me and we'd do this thing and it would be amazing. Like when I'd, I would go walk on the riser with him and I'd put my, like I'd, he's already playing and then he would watch my feet. And every time I hit a step, he would hit his kick drum. And in the middle of this beat, like, what a bad-ass drummer, you know?

Brian Funk (29:54.503)

Cool.

Brian Funk (29:58.597)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (29:58.766)

And we would have so much fun and then people would be like, oh my God, you were like melting everybody's face. And I'm like, like, that was so great. And I remember consistently, I would black out. Like, I don't know what I did. And they would say, well, you gotta hear the recording. I'm like, I don't wanna listen to the recording. Because if I listen to the recording, I'm gonna wanna do the same thing the next night. And so every night I was trying to outdo myself and have a different cool moment.

with the same, with me and the drummer and the bass player or whatever. Some nights it didn't happen, you know, but I would say about 70% it happened, you know. So anyway, I would completely lose, I couldn't tell you what I, I just played for 10 minutes straight and I couldn't tell you what I did. You know, so, yeah.

Brian Funk (30:38.799)

Hmm. That's fun. Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:50.799)

You just got in there. Yeah. What a cool dynamic though, when to go away from that. I'm sure the audience picks up on that. Like, oh, this is something we're getting tonight. This is for us.

carlos sosa (31:01.454)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think big shows like that, I mean, it's all about moments, I think. For the crowd, of course they wanna hear the songs that they came to hear, but also to put on a great show, it's about moments. We used to do this thing where we would have a spot that the horn, like the special thing that I wrote that the horn's just like a horn feature, and

Brian Funk (31:04.663)

It's a, it's, yeah.

carlos sosa (31:31.438)

I would, we would pop up in the audience, different venues. Like we'd pick before, like during soundcheck, okay, we're going to pop up over there. And then so that the lighting guy would know where we're going to be. But then when the venue's packed with people, all of a sudden spotlight comes in the middle of the crowd and then everybody's freaking out. Cause like the horn players are like jamming right next to them and they loved it. And that's the thing. It's like, they're going to go home remembering that. You know, of course they heard their songs, but

Brian Funk (31:58.583)

Yeah, right.

carlos sosa (32:01.006)

That was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so I loved doing stuff like that.

Brian Funk (32:02.699)

Uh huh, surprise, yeah, we didn't know we were getting that.

Brian Funk (32:09.007)

Yeah, that's great. I mean, because I guess you do run the risk of bringing the same package. And I would imagine for you guys, it's a really invigorating moment. It's that part of the show that makes it stand out from the one we did last night and the one we're gonna do tomorrow.

carlos sosa (32:31.054)

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, because you can easily get caught into the, in a rut of like flipping a burger, the same burger every night, you know, doing the same thing. And after you do it, I mean, when, when I'm yours came out, it was, uh, we were on tour for two years straight, like all over the world. And so it's really easy to get caught up in doing the same show every night. And I don't think musicians want to do that. And I don't,

Brian Funk (32:40.804)

Uh huh.

carlos sosa (33:00.846)

You know, the crowd doesn't know any different, really. Cause you know, but I try to be inspired every night and try to put on the best show you can. And if you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, it could get kind of monotonous. So try to change it up and look, do different things and look forward to something new.

Brian Funk (33:03.228)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (33:21.667)

Right. You guys running an Ableton type session, something like that, with those shows?

carlos sosa (33:27.566)

Uh, Jason? No, I don't think any of the bands this year I'm doing Zach Brown and Kenny Chesney, which is like a massive stadium tour and uh, Jason. And I don't think, I don't think we've run tracks for anything. Actually, I think there's a point when Jason ran tracks, but now, uh,

It's just like a sample pad of like little sonic things that we need, but no, no tracks. And then with Zach, we haven't really, I haven't really started rehearsals this year with any of them. I start next month. Um, so I I'm not sure, but, um, the bands that I tend to play with, obviously, because there's a horn section involved. Are not it's, you know, it doesn't, they're, they're more like musician bands rather than.

Brian Funk (34:25.091)

Right. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of the point, is that you've got these killers on stage. Let them play. Yeah.

carlos sosa (34:26.062)

You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

carlos sosa (34:34.766)

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I don't run into that a lot. I think Kelly was a little different because she had a lot of electronic elements in her music and, um, there was a lot of stuff synced to video, stuff like that. So, um, it wasn't all the time, but in her records were so massively produced and string sections and stuff like that, that they wanted to deliver the recordings.

the quality of the show would be like the exact recordings to the audience, you know, which is awesome too. Because, you know, with a live show, when you listen to the record so much, cause you're studying and you even, you know, whatever artist it is, um, it's cool to like have all those things in the performance, you know, in your, in your ears, you know, have all the little, um, you know, the, the electronic.

drops and stuff like that, you know. It's cool.

Brian Funk (35:39.191)

Right. Yeah, the stuff that kind of raises the emotional impact and brings things together.

carlos sosa (35:48.014)

Yeah, and then I've done a, we did a couple of shows with like the LA Philharmonic and, and that's a whole different trip. That's super cool. So we're going to do a couple of those with Jason here pretty, this summer as well.

Brian Funk (36:05.635)

Okay, nice. So that's a much bigger band then.

carlos sosa (36:07.214)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's cool when you get to do those. I think last year we did we did. It was in New York.

I don't know what it's called. We did a...

carlos sosa (36:23.31)

We did a symphony show in New York. It was in Queens, I think. The venue, I forgot the name of it. Forest Hills, yeah, yeah, yeah, Forest Hills. And then this year we're doing Red Rocks with the Denver Symphony, so that's gonna be great.

Brian Funk (36:29.805)

Forest Hills, I think you were saying, right? Yeah. Right.

Brian Funk (36:38.871)

I always wanted to see a show there. It seems like such a cool venue.

carlos sosa (36:41.198)

Yeah, it is super cool. It's, for a horn player, it's rough though, because we have oxygen tanks on the side of the stage, because it's, yeah. The altitude, yeah, it sucks.

Brian Funk (36:52.119)

Oh wow, yeah, the altitude. Oh yeah. Yeah, you gotta breathe, that's right. Wow. Yeah, you don't think about that as a guitar player. Yeah, right.

carlos sosa (36:58.638)

Yeah, exactly.

carlos sosa (37:04.334)

Yeah, you got it easy, man. But Red Rocks is cool because it's, every time I, I mean, I've played there probably about six or seven times, but the audience is like right there in front of you. It's so cool. The way the kind of amphitheater is set up, it looks like there's just a wall of people in front of you instead of like a stadium where it's so spread out.

Brian Funk (37:20.047)

Mm.

Brian Funk (37:28.846)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (37:32.823)

Right. Right, I guess that can sometimes too much distance, you know, separates that energy a little bit.

carlos sosa (37:42.83)

I tell people all the time, they're like, what is it like playing in front of 30,000 people at a stadium or something like that? Like with Zach, I mean, we played Fenway Park three nights in a row sold out, which is 30,000 a night, you know, it's crazy. And sometimes I'm like, honestly, it's harder to play in front of 50 people.

Brian Funk (37:54.5)

Yeah, sick.

carlos sosa (38:04.27)

because it's like when you play, you can see everybody's eyes looking at you and you're in a room of 50 people, you know? And when you're on a stage that big, I think like after like, I don't know, 5,000 people or 8,000, like it's just a sea of people. So you might as, and then you have your in-ears in. So it's kind of like you're not playing in front of anybody.

Brian Funk (38:13.414)

Right.

Brian Funk (38:31.984)

Mm.

carlos sosa (38:32.878)

You know, but at least that's what I tell myself. So that's how I get through it.

Brian Funk (38:40.857)

I guess if you think about it too hard, you start to realize the scale of what's going on that can get to you. But that's the type of stuff you gotta let go when you get up there.

carlos sosa (38:46.798)

Yeah, exactly.

carlos sosa (38:52.398)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (38:54.671)

But, you know, personally for me, seeing a show, I love the smaller, in-your-face kind of thing. Even if it doesn't sound as good, just the, you know, that the energy is closer and more personal. And like you said, you might make eye contact with them and they're doing it for you. You're like a good percentage of why they're there.

carlos sosa (39:09.518)

Absolutely, men.

carlos sosa (39:22.062)

Yeah, I mean, there's a, I still play, I have a residency here in Austin, and I've got a killin' band, and we play every Tuesday night at a small club, and it's awesome. And I kinda, you know, Prince used to do that. He used to, you know, go play a stadium, and then he'd show up at a club with his band, and they would play till six in the morning. Because it's that energy exchange with people that, you know.

that you really get in a smaller setting, which is, that's kind of why we do what we do.

Brian Funk (39:57.867)

Yeah, you see videos like that pop up on social media once in a while. Gigantic Stadium Acts will show up at a little bar. I saw one with like Green Day playing in the subway station. Yeah. So cool. And especially like a band like that where that's kind of what they came out of playing in like sweaty halls for a bunch of kids as kids themselves.

carlos sosa (40:11.086)

Oh, I saw that with Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, that was great. Yeah.

carlos sosa (40:26.574)

Yeah, I saw that. I think I don't know why it's been popping up on social media a lot, but I saw like a high school performance of theirs and I was like, they were incredible in high school. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (40:34.987)

Yeah, I've seen that too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they can play. They're pretty serious. That energy is, you know, that's just so fun.

carlos sosa (40:48.654)

Yeah, for sure. We were talking about the sample pack.

Brian Funk (40:54.16)

Mm-hmm.

carlos sosa (40:54.926)

I remember, I mean, I guess before, like right when I was in college, you remember acid?

Brian Funk (41:05.063)

like the music, the thing that made the Joker, the thing from the 60s.

carlos sosa (41:06.926)

No, acid was like a it was a it was like a the thing that they melted people with in Breaking Bad. No, acid was like a program like a program. I mean, you know, I'm talking about was like this. Yeah, software that you yeah, I remember. Yeah, I got it. I think, you know, just to

Brian Funk (41:19.453)

That's stuff in the rain.

Brian Funk (41:24.971)

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Software. Yeah. I never used it, but I...

carlos sosa (41:37.07)

mess around with it and I used it for a while. I mean, I don't remember, I didn't know what I was doing. It was just like, you know, you'd have this library of loops and you pull in this thing and then you like play, you know? And that's when I was like, man, one day I want to do a sample pack. Like I would love to do an acid sample pack, you know? And I had just started recording horns and doing my thing and getting into like, I was in college and I started, you know, recording period.

Brian Funk (41:38.971)

Sony, right?

carlos sosa (42:07.31)

And then I remember getting more into Pro Tools and then buying like, I don't even know, like native instruments had come out or was it East West had sampled, like they're the first like orchestral sample packs or something like that. And, uh, I was always into it and I think I reached out and then there's like companies that started coming out with, um, like different companies that would come out with sample packs. And I remember, I was talking to somebody the other day in the studio about we were using superior drummer.

And they were talking about, you remember BFD, you know, that, that sample pack, the drum pack, you know, dying laughing. And I remember hitting up a, a, a company and I forgot who it was about doing a sample pack. And they just, of course, completely turned me down. And then I thought about it through the years about how would you do a horn sample pack, because after, you know, taking sample, like learning how to sample and stuff, and then how samples are made and then, you know,

Brian Funk (42:39.803)

There. Yeah.

carlos sosa (43:06.574)

how many samples for velocities are going to be on one piano note? Like, how would I do that for a horn section? And, um, then my buddy, my buddy owns this company called Jam Card. And then he started putting out sample packs with splice. And then I don't know how he got on the topic. He was like, why don't you do a sample pack? I was like, really? That's been a dream of mine forever. Uh, and, uh,

So I did it, it was awesome. I finally got to do it. And I remember asking, we had a meeting with Splice and I asked about like, you know, do I have to record how many different like velocities do I have to record per note or whatever, you know, and they're like, man, that's way too much. No, you don't have to do any of that. You know, and I'm like, well, like if I record a phrase or a note and the further we get away from the root key, you know, then.

The degradation is, you know, it's going to degrade the sound or whatever. And they were like, no, like we're fine. You don't have to do any of that. There's just record your stuff. And for them at the time, they were saying a lot of their users were, um, we're making hip hop stuff that wanted the sound degradation.

So that was kind of like part of the deal, you know? So yeah, it took a long time, but not nearly as long as I thought it would take.

Brian Funk (44:39.515)

That's something I sometimes, depending on the project, enjoy. I like when it gets stretched and you play those high notes and they have all that kind of weird garbally stuff going on.

carlos sosa (44:48.43)

Yeah, that's what they were saying. That's what they're saying is like, a lot of our users love that. So you don't have to do all of that work because it's not necessary. So cool.

Brian Funk (44:58.971)

Hmm. So about that, if you don't mind getting into some of the kind of weeds with it, I mean, it's, you know, you've got a couple different brass instruments in there, right? This, I could see sax, tuba, looked like a bunch of other stuff going on. Ah.

Those are instruments, all of them really, there's so many tones that you can get out of them. So many different types of articulations, you know, is it going to be a smooth, is it going to be kind of like a burst, is it going to kind of break up a little bit? Are you doing more kind of like passages that people can work with, are you doing like these instruments people are going to play on their keyboards?

carlos sosa (45:28.046)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (45:47.022)

Well, what they what they wanted to do was make.

They wanted to make like kits. So it depends on what I would use. Like if I was gonna do, let's say like I have a couple of James Brown kind of vibe lines, you know, and I try to keep them with like three instruments, which would be the trombone, the trumpet and the sax, which is like typical for a horn section, like a popcorn section or anything like that. And

you know, usually, or you'd have, or in a lot of stuff I do, I have sax, trumpet and trombone, and I have a bari sax for the low end, you know? And so they wanted, so if I record a phrase, then you could have the entire, you know, like even with, with contacts, I love contacts, so some of the contact instruments, if you have like a percussion thing, like a percussion sample pack,

you can press this button and you have the ensemble, like all the percussion playing that loop. And then you have, then you go for this key range and you've got the tambourines playing here, the congas are playing, you hear that it's stemmed out, basically, you have the congas stem playing, timbali stem, cascada, all that stuff. So that's what they wanted to do with the horns. And...

So I did a lot of those. Like I would just do lines. So some of them would be like, I think I named them like.

carlos sosa (47:27.822)

like JB1 or for James Brown or something so that so the user could understand the kind of vibe they were going to get by the name of it. Yeah, I've tried to. I mean, you don't think about how like, you know, like you go through all these samples, especially keyboard sounds and you're like, like on Omnisphere or something and you're just like, there are all these names and you don't ever think about

Brian Funk (47:31.672)

Right.

Brian Funk (47:36.927)

Yeah, read between the lines a little.

carlos sosa (47:55.118)

why someone named it what they do, you know, until you make your own sample pack. You're just like, I gotta name it something, you know?

Brian Funk (47:59.407)

Yeah. Why is this preset called Floyd Stack? You know, for like guitar. Oh.

carlos sosa (48:05.134)

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that was basically it. And then what I tried to do was do different... So I would have a lot of phrases. And so that's like most of the sample pack. But then the other section that I don't know how many people have done yet was I would do like a quarter note.

a half note, a whole note, a fall, a like, like two sixteenth notes, like that, something like that. And then I would do those in unison with different chord qualities. Like, you know,

Brian Funk (48:46.999)

Hmm.

carlos sosa (49:00.238)

dominant seven chord here, whatever, like try to just do them, you know, all these different chord qualities, the most common that I could think of that I would use or a songwriter would use. And then I would do them in like, I think like fourths, like I would do a C dominant seven and I would do an F dominant seven and all of those things. So then somebody who's gonna like piece together a horn section or do a fall, because a lot of the hip hop stuff and pop stuff I do,

Um, when I do physical recordings, a lot of people want stabs. A lot of people want like for the chorus, they want like, uh, you know, like a fall, like, bow or something like that, you know? And so I, I tried to cover all those bases for somebody and they, and it might've turned out to be a too much information for somebody to choose from. But I tried to do my best to give the user like

a huge pallet of horn stuff that they could use.

Brian Funk (50:01.159)

Hmm. Yeah, because it can be pretty specific, obviously, right? If I've got a track, I kind of need it to do a certain thing in a certain amount of time and to have those options would be very helpful. And then I guess if I need to pitch them, it's not too far if you're going by fourths, right? So if I go down a step or two, it'll work.

carlos sosa (50:23.63)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (50:28.878)

Yeah, it's still kind of there. And then what's cool is like, what was really cool is having, hearing what people did with some of these things, you know? I got it, I had a friend that made this amazing song out of one of my lines and I was like, wow. And it was like, got picked up for commercial. I was like, that's great. I wish I got some of that sink money, but whatever. No, and I...

Brian Funk (50:30.319)

Especially, yeah.

Brian Funk (50:39.544)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (50:49.476)

Nice.

Brian Funk (50:54.097)

Well, you're kind of doing some writing really. You're writing riffs and lines and little motifs that could easily become central ideas in a track.

carlos sosa (50:58.926)

Oh yeah.

carlos sosa (51:05.55)

Yeah, they have. And that's, that's, yeah, of course. I mean, you know, the deal with splice is royalty free, you know, you're, you know, so I got to gave all that stuff up. Yeah, for sure. And some, yeah, sometimes with some of the if I, if I'm writing, if I'm doing horns for somebody's record, every now and then somebody will give me credit, which is cool. Because it's up, it's up to the artist, absolutely, you know, for sure. But if

Brian Funk (51:13.815)

Yeah, you gotta let go of that. Yeah, right.

carlos sosa (51:35.47)

If the melody is strong enough and it's really an integral part of the song, then they'll give me credit, which is awesome.

Brian Funk (51:44.835)

That's cool. I think that's the way it should be, honestly. I feel like if I'm writing with people, even if they're just in the room, you know, they didn't contribute any of the parts, it would have came out different if they weren't there.

carlos sosa (51:50.286)

I'm-

carlos sosa (51:58.158)

Right. It's true. But how many. But, you know, the thing is, is like, especially since remote recording, like how many records, how many. What's the percentage of people that are actually in the room together? A, you know, and then and then like.

the song, the original concept of the song, which is what the melody, the lyrics and the chord structure, like when the song ends up, like how much of the production influences the song, which a producer might put all these counter melodies on there that weren't there originally. But if it's a stronger song now, you know, it's, there's so many variables with, with that kind of stuff, which is interesting because on a side note, like I'm, I'm a member of the recording academy, right? So they just started

Brian Funk (52:36.721)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (52:47.374)

And I've been for a long time. So the Grammys, which, you know, Grammys does, does a ton of stuff and, and, and especially like making kind of like standards and influencing legislation for music, right, for musicians and songwriters and composers, whatever. So, um, there was a meeting, they just started this songwriting composing wing, which there was a, a meeting recently and, uh,

Brian Funk (52:50.791)

Mm-hmm.

carlos sosa (53:15.406)

One of the big things was standardization for stuff like I'm telling you. Like this, this, like for composers and songwriters, like how do we standardize? Like, like for producers and engineer wing, an engineer's wing, it's like, uh, file management, like how there's still not a standard yet, right? Um, but for songwriters and composers, just what we're, we're just talking about. Like.

What's the standard to give credit? Some people are like, who's in the room. Some people are, you know, it's who is it up to? Well, anyway, there was this huge process of trying to standardize, like have committees and standardize, like make standards for these things that we're talking about, who gets credit, what, like make an industry standard. It got abandoned because it was so complicated and it, and people spent a lot of time and

Brian Funk (54:05.815)

Yeah, there's so many.

carlos sosa (54:10.702)

it's almost impossible to create a standard for that. Like they can't make a white paper on it.

Brian Funk (54:20.767)

Yeah, well, everything is made so weirdly these days, right? Like, it's not like the old days where you had these like specific roles that these people played and people came in and did their job. You know, now, how are...

carlos sosa (54:36.174)

You know, like one thing that comes to mind, sorry, is like the intro, this was used as an example for a long time for like hearings, for like mechanical royalties. The opening, the guitar riff from My Girl, the opening. Everybody in the world knows that opening, right? Right. The person who played that.

Brian Funk (54:55.324)

Mm.

Brian Funk (54:58.399)

You know that in like three notes, yeah. Named that tune.

carlos sosa (55:06.478)

got paid like 50 bucks for that session and died like destitute, right? So.

carlos sosa (55:17.71)

There's no standard for that, but that's exactly what you're saying. That is such a huge part of that song, and nobody's ever going to disagree with that. But it probably wasn't the actual... It could have easily not have been the song when it started. Whoever wrote that song, we could look, but I'm just saying some of that stuff happens in...

Brian Funk (55:30.16)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (55:47.086)

in production, you know, and people don't get credit, which sucks, but then there's a lot of stuff that happens that doesn't need to be credited. So who makes that decision? You know.

Brian Funk (55:49.127)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (55:53.386)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (56:01.035)

Right. I can understand why they abandoned that. It's trying to account for infinite possibilities. There's just no way to know. But that's such a great point. That song is a perfect example. That riff is an iconic riff. To think that it was, I guess, a studio musician kind of laid it down.

carlos sosa (56:04.174)

For sure.

carlos sosa (56:11.022)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (56:30.799)

people hear that, you don't even need to get to that opening vocal line, which is only a couple seconds later to know, like, oh, here comes my girl, you know, like that, that's such a good riff, simple and beautiful.

carlos sosa (56:44.654)

And that's the ultimate example, but how many things happen in the studio that the musicians make, you know, especially back in the day, like that, if you saw the making of Asia, that Steely Dan documentary. Did you ever see that? Oh, my, Chuck Rainey was the bass player, legendary New York bass player, he lives in Texas now.

Brian Funk (57:02.891)

Okay, I haven't seen it. No.

carlos sosa (57:13.198)

You know, in that documentary, it was like Donald Fagan hated slap bass at the time. And Chuck was like the number one studio musician. He's in the studio and it's like, what, you know, nobody slap a bass around him. It was like the ultimate, like he hated it. And, uh, and then it was like, I forgot what song it was. I think it was peg and then he's playing the stuff and then he turned around so they couldn't see him.

So he couldn't see what he was doing. And they took it, they had a take and they freaked out. They're like, oh my God, that was amazing. But he was like doing this like hybrid slap thing and it fit the song amazing. But he couldn't see that he was slapping, but he heard what he let, you know? But that was his, you know, he came up with that. You know, even as he was instructed not to, you know?

Brian Funk (57:52.966)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (58:02.311)

Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. He made the decision to go for it. That's crazy. You do a ton of remote recording. And you've been doing it a really long time, right? I mean, pretty much, I think it's that you said since 2004, right?

carlos sosa (58:09.518)

You did that.

carlos sosa (58:19.918)

Yeah, man, it's...

carlos sosa (58:25.902)

Yeah, I...

Brian Funk (58:27.491)

So first, let me just ask you, like, 2004, I might even still have, like, I don't think I have MySpace yet. You know, it might be still going on America Online for all I know. But what did it look like back then?

carlos sosa (58:47.054)

It was definitely dial-up, man. I remember, cause I had gone to recording school and I was my senior year intern, or junior and senior year, I interned at a recording studio in Austin. And the owner didn't, he didn't, he wanted to get rid of the studio. He wanted to sell it cause he was just, he wanted to get out of the studio business. He had a Pro Tools rig. And he had, there was like a Tascam tape machine, like,

You know, I guess digital audio, you know, had been out for a little bit. Pro tools have been out for a little bit. Um, and so I, I, I bought, I got some investors together and I bought the recording studio and I only owned, owned it for a couple of years and learned so much, but the Austin was getting super popular. It was, it was right downtown. It was too expensive to like pay the rent. I was doing like engineering sessions for free just to

and repairing gear constantly, you know, just to pay the bills. And so I had gotten rid of it, but I took the Pro Tools rig home. And people started asking me to do sessions and stuff like, Oh, you know, uh, can you record horns? And I was like, yeah. So I started recording horns in my bedroom with my Pro Tools rig. And I remember, I remember doing this, like, I don't know how.

Brian Funk (59:48.752)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:00:11.854)

I got sessions from like South America and stuff like that. And there's people in New York or whatever. But, uh, at that time I was just like, I recorded everything to. I would first, it was like CDs. I would make tons of, uh, you'd have to burn like 10 CDs to put all your sessions on. You know, even, you know, I don't even know how many, how many, um, what the storage capability was of a, of a CD rom back in the day.

But, and then you got, yeah, it wasn't a lot, but I remember mailing people stacks of CDs.

Brian Funk (01:00:43.988)

Not a lot.

Brian Funk (01:00:49.437)

60 or 70 minutes of music so whatever that is in like waves I guess

carlos sosa (01:00:54.798)

Yeah. And this, yeah. So, um, our sound designer two files, that was what this, you know, that was the proprietary pro tools, right? The pro tools files. And, uh, yeah, I would just, and then it was dial up. So you'd like, I'd have to tell my roommates to like, nobody pick up the phone or disconnect every phone and it would take, you know, I had to run for like two days.

Brian Funk (01:01:02.541)

Okay, right.

carlos sosa (01:01:22.222)

If I was, if I was mailing the sessions, that's one thing, but I remember doing remote sessions, sending files, sessions online, and I was using AOL instant messenger as the file transfer. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:01:35.363)

Really? I didn't know you could do that. Crazy. It probably made almost as much sense to just mail it, right? Physical...

carlos sosa (01:01:39.374)

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was doing.

carlos sosa (01:01:45.998)

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it would take it would sometimes it would take two days to transfer a file. But I mean, this is back in Napster, too. I remember that. But you know, mail would take a week. So if somebody needed a session, quick, you know, especially international, they're not going to get it in time. You know, so that's what it looked like back then. As far as my process, like what I was doing, I was doing the same thing. But technology wise, it was totally

Brian Funk (01:02:03.835)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:02:15.95)

And then the faster things got, the better.

Brian Funk (01:02:19.371)

It must have been right at the beginning of anybody doing any of that kind of stuff. Do you remember the group, the Postal Service? I was the guy from Death Cab for Cutie and someone else. I don't know the whole story, but I think the idea was that it was all remote. They record things, send it back and forth, and I believe it was through the Postal Service, which is why they called it that. So.

carlos sosa (01:02:27.214)

I don't.

carlos sosa (01:02:45.902)

Oh, I think I've heard something about that.

Brian Funk (01:02:48.663)

It was kind of like almost the gimmick of the group that they were doing this thing remote. I think it was early 2000s that came out.

carlos sosa (01:02:53.39)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:03:00.718)

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I wasn't, it's crazy for me to think that I was one of the first people doing that. You know, like you're never gonna assume that you're that smart. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So I, I'm never gonna, I would never assume that I was like super smart, but I was in college and I was like trying to kick ass and do.

Brian Funk (01:03:16.772)

It was 2003, that record came out. So yeah, you're right there. Nice job.

carlos sosa (01:03:30.926)

as much as I can and I kind of, I remember I was not a Mac user back then too. So I had to, I built a PC to run Pro Tools and there was only like this specific motherboard and specific chip set to use. And you had to build your own PC. You had to have a custom PC to run Pro Tools. And then I started building computers for other people and selling them to them.

to you for that specific purpose. And that kind of supported me for a little while. And then I switched to Mac a certain point in, and it was so much better, but yeah, it was crazy. And now it's like, you know, I remember having such resistance from people about like, I don't know, you say you can record at home, I don't, I don't.

just like.

carlos sosa (01:04:35.79)

And even to this day, I mean it is it is possible Yeah, now everybody can record for home and send it and share files, but there's not a lot of people that can do it well You know

carlos sosa (01:04:52.43)

So yeah, I don't know. It's interesting to think about those times. And it's super cool that we can do technology that's gotten us so far. And have you used the, do you use Pro Tools?

Brian Funk (01:05:01.731)

Yeah, amazing.

No, I started on Pro Tools. I didn't know anything about computer recording besides Pro Tools. So I got my mBucks 2, I think it was. And yeah, I made music kind of in spite of Pro Tools, like against Pro Tools. That's how I always felt. I loved it, but I didn't really understand it so well.

carlos sosa (01:05:12.27)

Mm.

Yeah, I remember those, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:05:33.455)

I didn't understand computers, to be honest with you. At that point, the first time I ever had a computer of my own was, I think, 2005 when I got a Mac. But yeah, I kind of got away from it.

carlos sosa (01:05:43.982)

Yeah, see, I mean, now they have this. The Pro Tools now, the collaboration thing, which is really cool. The cloud collaboration thing. It's it's pretty neat. It's it's not exact. It's not exactly real time, but it's pretty damn close. I mean, but I was like when I was a little kid, man, I was a I was a computer nerd. I mean, before. You know, I you couldn't take classes when I was a kid, but I was like five years old.

Brian Funk (01:05:54.782)

I hadn't heard about that.

carlos sosa (01:06:14.094)

you know, freaking out on Commodore 64, like 64K memory. And so, uh, yeah, I always loved computers. And I remember the, the, the college I went to, I was the last class I went to, I got my degree in audio engineering and it was like one of the first universities that had a bachelor's degree, you know, and they had spent, they had, there was a song, it was called a Sonic solution system.

Brian Funk (01:06:18.903)

Yeah, that's cool.

carlos sosa (01:06:43.214)

And that was a two track mastering, uh, kind of DAW was like its own computer. And that was like the first thing that I learned to use. And it was, I remember it was such a big deal because it can, that I think the university spent 30 grand on this computer for the program and it was a two gig hard drive and it was massive. Yeah.

And then Pro Tools, so I learned digital editing on that software. And then Pro Tools came out, it was like a multi-track digital editor. I remember thinking that it was a lot like Microsoft Word for some reason, like just the copy paste stuff on the two track editor made a lot of sense to me. So then you just had to learn more keystrokes as time went on and things got better, you know?

Brian Funk (01:07:37.851)

Mm-hmm.

carlos sosa (01:07:41.07)

Yeah. So I had, uh, I started in college as a performance major and I just, I did it for a year. And then I just, I kind of had this revelation that I didn't need a piece of paper to tell me I could play an instrument. And, uh, then the sound, this recording program came up and they just started it. And they said, uh, you had to be on scholarship to get in and you had to have high SAT scores.

Brian Funk (01:07:55.501)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:08:10.926)

They only accepted like 10 people a year. I was like, well, I'm not going to do this performance thing. And I've recorded music in a recording studio before, so I'm going to try this. And I got accepted and I went through it and that's kind of what I do now, you know? And I remember in, in recording school, uh, Willie Nelson's longtime engineer was our one of, was our, like, um, he was kind of the studio guy. Like he ran the studio.

And he said, you know, if you want to be a studio engineer, you want to be a producer, you want to be a studio musician, I'm just going to tell you right now, it's going to be a hard life. So you might as well, you know, throw away these dreams of having a family or doing this or doing that, you know, and you got to pick one, you can't do all of them. And I remember thinking, I don't know if I can pick one. I'm cool with letting everything else go.

But I love recording so much and I love playing live so much. I don't wanna pick one. I wanna do both. I wanna do all of it, you know? And thankfully, I still do both. Thankfully.

Brian Funk (01:09:28.271)

Yeah, so you're really kind of like, you've been on the edge of what's been going on. You know, kind of riding the wave of the changing industry really. So you said you were working at, you bought the studio, working at that for a while. Then it goes mobile from there, or out of your bedroom.

carlos sosa (01:09:46.765)

I did.

carlos sosa (01:09:52.27)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:09:55.983)

Which is awesome, you know, like now that people forget like now like you can do all this stuff on your phone You can do quite a lot, but At that time that was new that was exciting and there was a lot of people saying that can't be done What happens with you next, you know backtracking a little bit I'm kind of curious Because I just think it's so awesome how you've pulled this all together You know, you're doing all the things you love really you're

playing crazy tours, you know, some of the biggest acts there are and the biggest places that you can play in front of queens and music royalty.

carlos sosa (01:10:35.502)

Man, you know, I, I, it was an interesting time. I mean, you're, you know, I was a kid and literally, like I started, I loved horn sections and music with horn sections when I was growing up. And I wanted to do that. And I met the guys that I played with, they were, they were going to the University of North Texas, like bad-ass horn players. And I was still in high school when we met. And by chance, the trumpet player ended up.

stranded in San Marcos, Texas, where I was going to school, when I was going to college, his band played there and they left him and he became my roommate. And he was a bad-ass trumpet player from the University of North Texas, which is top music school in the world, probably second to Berkeley, you know? And he ended up like, by chance being stranded, living with me and I remember sitting out in front of

one night after some show we had played together. And I said, I've got it. We're sitting outside looking at stars. I was like, we're gonna start a horn section. We're gonna play on everybody's record. Cause the only like thing that I had in my mind prior at that time, and this is like, I don't know what was popular back then, maybe the end of grunge or I don't even know what was going on, but horn sections were definitely not in style, right? So.

But Tower of Power was like all over it. Like, you know, you would see Huey Lewis and you'd see these videos with this badass horn section. And I was like, we're gonna put a horn section together and we're gonna tour with all the biggest artists in the world and record on everybody's records. Because also back in the day when you had CDs, you remember, I'm sure you did this. Like every record that you love, you would study those liner notes and know everybody that's playing on that record.

Brian Funk (01:12:28.068)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:12:28.366)

That was a huge thing, you know? And yeah. And man, people ask me all the time, like how did you get this and how do you get that? And man, I didn't know anybody in the music industry, nobody. I didn't know how I was gonna do it. All I knew was like my intent was to do that. And somehow, I mean, there's a process of like what I, but we were kids, we didn't know what we were doing. And we started.

Brian Funk (01:12:30.495)

Yeah, that's my literature.

carlos sosa (01:12:57.486)

We started playing at this, like sitting in at this all black club and on sixth street in Austin. And we're literally the only non-black people there. And they, and they, those bands like taught us how to play really. And then we started playing with rock bands in Austin and doing all this stuff. And then I meet Jason Mraz and then I, you know, people are fans of bands that I play in and they're pop stars or whatever, you know.

And that's kind of how that happened. And I, but I, I, there's a lot of times that I had opportunities to leave and not do that, not do the horn section thing.

And I had this crazy sense of loyalty to my guys and the idea. And they didn't know anything about recording. They were horn players. So I was the like, always, I was learning how to record horns at the time and experimenting, but it was just me doing it. It wasn't like they're pushing me to do this. And I remember the first massive tour,

I was gonna be on was the Eagles. And I was probably 23 years old. And manager's name was Harry Sant, no. Harry? Harry. I forgot, Sandler maybe? I don't even know. I, but he was calling me from LA. Horn sections, you know, we're, that's our first big gig. They're paying us an outrageous amount of money. We're kids.

We're like, yeah, we're doing this. And then he calls me, like, I don't know, two months before the tour's about to start, and he said, hey, we're gonna go a different direction with the horn section, and I was like, mortified. I was like, oh my God. He said, we're just gonna use a sax player. You're interested, I mean, you're the guy, so you're gonna take it, right? And I was like.

carlos sosa (01:15:05.23)

can't take it." He's like, what? Like, man, there, I think, there, I was probably 23, 24 years old, they're gonna pay me six grand a week, like back then, like, come on. And one of the biggest fans in the world. And I didn't, I turned it down. I probably cried that night, seriously. And I didn't tell anybody.

Brian Funk (01:15:09.287)

Hmm.

carlos sosa (01:15:34.03)

for like 10 years. I didn't tell my horn players. I didn't tell them because they would have, you know, my best friends, they would have, whatever, I didn't want them to feel guilty. I didn't want, you know. But that could have changed my entire life in a good way or a bad way, who knows? Yeah. But, you know, there's tons of stories that I have like that, but I'm perfectly happy with where I am in my career.

Brian Funk (01:15:36.292)

Really?

Brian Funk (01:15:46.605)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:15:52.323)

Yeah, who knows, right?

carlos sosa (01:16:02.638)

You know, I've made mistakes, big mistakes, and I've made really smart choices. And that's just the way it is. And I don't think, you always strive, I mean, you're probably the same way. We're artists, and it's like, we're always gonna try to do the best thing that we've ever done, because we're chasing this thing, whether it's a recording or a song or a feeling, whatever it is.

that we're never gonna get.

Brian Funk (01:16:34.435)

Yeah, it's always on the horizon.

carlos sosa (01:16:37.006)

Yeah, and that's our life. You know, I still, I, there's so many things that I still wanna do and so many songs that I wanna write, so many horn arrangements that I wanna do that are better than this. And you know, it's never gonna stop. And why, that's like a realization I made a long time ago. So I just, I have to be happy with where I'm at. And I do feel very, very, very lucky and very blessed that.

You know, I think being a musician and choosing that life, whether you're a whatever, a producer, an engineer, a studio musician, a performer, a writer, it's a hard life period. And so the chances of being successful, you're already, you're already screwed out the gate. You don't go to college and immediately you're going to get a job. Like you go to law school, you become a lawyer. That's pretty much the end of it. You know?

and you make tons of money, you have a comfortable life. There you go. For us, it's not like that, you know? And especially, I didn't choose an instrument that everybody needs. And I didn't, I'm not playing that instrument like traditionally, like, you know, everybody that goes to, you know, 90% of the saxophone players that graduate at Berkeley can play Jot Steps and a million keys, you know? That's not me. I'm this guy.

You know, so I'm really lucky that somehow I figured out my own kind of niche and it's, you know, it's working.

Brian Funk (01:18:18.659)

Yeah, I would have to imagine being a little different than that is its own strength. You're that guy for that kind of stuff.

carlos sosa (01:18:27.598)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:18:31.715)

You know, the paper thing is interesting. I get a ton of great students in my class. My class is such a small picture of any of this stuff at Berkeley, but every once in a while, you get somebody that, for all I know, they might just be turning in the same assignment that they've had for four years.

carlos sosa (01:18:32.078)

Crazy.

Brian Funk (01:18:59.227)

They might just be kind of saying they're doing what they're doing. And it's hard to tell. You can't always tell if they're using the techniques and all that. And it's like, what are you trying to do here? You know, like, it's like you said, this piece of paper isn't going to really do anything for you. Maybe, maybe people like look at you, you know, but, um, like it's not.

You do this and then my job is an English teacher. Like you can get a job as an English teacher, right? So, but you can't cheat your way through this. Like there's so much more this you got to be so hungry for.

Brian Funk (01:19:42.311)

You gotta be lucky, hungry, you gotta be able to stand out. This idea, okay, if you're cutting corners here, there's almost no sense in me stopping you because that's its own dead end, that kind of attitude, that kind of work ethic.

carlos sosa (01:19:57.678)

Exactly.

carlos sosa (01:20:06.766)

You know, it's like, I feel like I've met, I've been working, I met this guy recently that moved to Austin from Orlando. And I've been talking about him a lot because he's like 28 years old. And right after the pandemic, any of the shows that I was playing in town were kind of like bigger shows of artists around. And I remember seeing this guy always like, I would see him consistently on the side of the stage. And he's just like this.

tall black guy, very unique looking, and he was always just super excited. Like, I would come off stage, he'd be like, so thankful, like excited like a kid, like, oh my God, you're so like, thank you sir, and like super respectful. And I'm just like, that's awesome that you love what I'm doing, but you don't have to, you know, take it easy, it's fine, you know, it's not a big deal, you know, whatever. And then he consistently, he would do this, and I was like,

And then I find out, so there's a rumor in Austin about these two guys that moved, whatever, moved into town, they're just killing musicians, just monsters. And then I find out that this is that guy. And then he plays, he's like one of the best drummers in the world, he plays with this guy, Bob James, the amazing piano player, New York guy that did the theme song for Taxi way back.

And he's a monster songwriter, like monster. And we've been writing together, but this, and he's got this energy and like this, like he doesn't really care about playing. He wants to be in the studio, make creating, and he's writing all these great lyrics and these awesome melodies. And he's got this excitement. And I'm just, I tell everybody, I'm like, this dude is gonna take over the world. Like.

there's no option, like you could just tell. You know, so it's like, not only is he so hungry that he will move anywhere on the planet, he will talk to anybody, he's gonna, the way, the reason he got so good at everything is because he wanted it so bad. And you can tell, and he's, you know, so it's just like what you were saying, it's like, you have to want it, you have to want it, like, and be willing to sacrifice so many things.

Brian Funk (01:22:23.483)

Hmm.

carlos sosa (01:22:34.926)

It's not like, I think that's what sets people apart, I guess, you know? I mean, that's the only common denominator I can think of because if you second guess yourself, there's too many other people in front of you that want it but worse, you know?

Brian Funk (01:22:49.399)

Yeah. And that's a fun energy to be around, right? I mean, that's what we're dealing with really. Energy, right? We're creating energy with the sounds, the songs, the keys we're in, we're creating moods. You just can't be like dull and uninterested and unenthusiastic in that kind of situation.

carlos sosa (01:22:53.07)

Okay.

carlos sosa (01:22:59.662)

Yes.

carlos sosa (01:23:11.086)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:23:17.646)

Yeah, exactly. Anyway.

Brian Funk (01:23:20.623)

Yeah, you gotta be like fun to be around, fun to share that with.

carlos sosa (01:23:24.718)

Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a, yeah, it helps for sure. Being fun to be around definitely helps. There's a lot of people that aren't that fun to be around. That's still true.

Brian Funk (01:23:37.019)

But I guess if you're at that level, and other people are at that level too, that can very well be the difference. I always tell the story about when I got my job as a teacher. I came in, I'm like 25, I guess, out of college. No idea what I'm doing, you know? And I wanted to seem like I knew what I was doing, but I didn't, so I'd ask for help.

even though I felt a little bit embarrassed, but I needed it. By asking for help, I realized, one, it made people think I cared, which I did, and it also showed respect. Like if I said, Carlos, you've really got this figured out. Can you help me out with something? I got a question for you. It's like, oh, well, thank you. It feels good to be respected in that way that somebody wants to know your opinion and thinks that you can help them.

You know, someone says, can I get your advice? You're kind of always like, yeah, all right. You want to hear what I think? Cool.

carlos sosa (01:24:41.454)

Yeah, for sure. That's true, man. I was riding with James the other, like first time he came into my house, he looked at my, I've got these massive screens right in front of me. I can see, you can't see them, but for my studio rig is like the massive screens in front of me. And he looks and he's looking at my, he's looking at my horn panning because I'm playing a session that I had just done for some artist. And he's like, I'm just looking at your panning. He's like,

Yeah, I guess, yeah, I'm doing it right. And then he was like, that's how you do your background vocals too. Cause when I produce records, it's the same as like a background vocal section. You know, I treat them, I treat them the same. And I was like, yeah, he's like, cool, I'm doing it right. And then, you know, he, I've heard him say a lot. He's like, man, I'm just grateful I'm here, man. I'm always learning stuff from you. Like, that's awesome. That's so great. This kid's such a bad ass already, you know? And it's like,

Brian Funk (01:25:35.291)

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:25:40.526)

I don't, you know, what can, everything I learned, yeah, I went to school and did like all that stuff, but it's like, you can't, you know, you know what I'm saying. Like you, you got to create and learn on your own before you can't read it in a book. You can't do the exercises and just think that it's going to happen. You got to do it. You know?

Brian Funk (01:26:04.055)

Yeah, I've tried.

Brian Funk (01:26:08.236)

I've read manuals and watched tutorials and taking courses and thinking like just the knowledge will show up but yeah, unfortunately, you learn a lot more putting it into action.

carlos sosa (01:26:21.198)

Yeah

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:26:26.383)

It's a slippery slope because it feels like you're being productive. It feels like you're doing work, you know, when you're reading, when you're learning, when you're all that stuff. But it, there's nothing like getting to it.

carlos sosa (01:26:39.086)

I always think about the first time I learned how to do a, what is it, like a riser on a, doing, you know, probably taking your class or whatever. I was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. Cause I'd heard that with electronic music for so long. It was just, I was like, how does that happen?

Brian Funk (01:26:50.219)

I think there was a week on risers in anticipation.

Brian Funk (01:27:04.199)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:27:08.611)

I tell you what, I learned a lot from that myself because I'd start to realize like, oh yeah, oh that was a cool thing they did. That was a good one. I liked it. And then you start to understand like all these elements you can play around with. And I mean, really it's, it's contrast. That's almost everything with music really is like some sort of contrast between elements. So if you're trying to rise to a larger place, start real small. Start.

You give yourself room and there's a lot of ways you can do it.

carlos sosa (01:27:37.838)

It's so cool to be able to use those things. Of course, I learned that stuff from the Ableton class, but it pretty much just, of course, all of that stuff, it carries over to any...

any, I mean, I could do the same thing in Kontakt, any MIDI software and create those things. Yeah, and using them in records that I produce, it's really cool. It's like, of course you can go to Splice and download that thing or find it, but then when I'm in the studio, people are like, I'm like, oh yeah, well let me make this drop really quick where I get this huge bass drop before the downbeat of the...

Brian Funk (01:28:07.834)

It's a concept.

carlos sosa (01:28:29.902)

of a song before the dabbing of the chorus, you know, to have this effect. But he's, let me just program this real quick and then I do it and they're just like, how did you do that? Well, my friend Brian Funk is a teacher at Berkeley. I learned it from him. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:28:47.347)

That's cool. How cool is it too to have Jason Mraz come in and look at your session and say, oh, I'm doing it right. Just that kind of authority that he's implying you have on this. If I'm doing it the way Carlos is doing it, then I'm good.

carlos sosa (01:29:08.174)

Man, I can't tell you how humbled I am when things like that happen. The studio that I started working, when I lived in that house, in 2008 was when Mraz's, or 2009 when I'm Yours came out, and he was working with this producer in London. His name's Martin Terefe. And Jason asked me, it was in passing, I said, I can record horns for you anytime from my house. Like, this is where I kind of like,

trying to get the word out. And I just thought it was in one ear, not the other. And he called me from London one day and he was like, hey man, remember when you said you could record horns from your house? And I was like, yeah. Can I send you something? I'm in London right now, I'm working on a disco record. And I was like, yeah, send it to me. Like, yes, yes, you know? And Martin was, you know, he was a massive producer. I mean, that's when he was starting to get all his hits.

Brian Funk (01:29:56.548)

Hehehe.

carlos sosa (01:30:05.006)

Now he owns this whole studio complex. It's so brilliant over there. But I ended up doing like Backstreet Boys from like he would produce every record that he would do. He would send me stuff from London after Jason. And he was so shocked that what he, and Jason just recently said the story on social media too, and it's really funny. You got to see it. But he says, I met Carlos in Austin, Groove Line Horns, asked.

sent him a song and to see what he would do with it. And he sent it back to me in 24 hours. Like I was so excited. I called the dudes over to my house. I was like, let's kill this. And we murdered it. And I literally finished, like did everything in like four hours and send it to London immediately. And so he says, and I don't remember this, when I, that I knew I was so cocky about what I'd said that I knew was so killing.

that when they opened the email in London, my opening statement was, I guess I'm in your band now.

carlos sosa (01:31:16.174)

And he said, he laughs about it because he was like, he knew it was killing before he sent it to me. And we opened it and we were like, oh my God, it was amazing, you know? But I had done all these records with Martin after that. Not exactly sure what my point is with that, but I don't remember what we were talking about. Oh, just, oh, the thing was is when I had done probably like 20 massive records with Martin before I went to London and went physically to that studio.

And by the time I got there, I walked in, and this is a massive studio in London, right? All of the engineers and all the, they were like, yes sir, what kind of mics would you use? And whatever, and where do you want us? And I'm like, well, what are you talking about? They were asking me how I wanted to be recorded because my stuff was so good. Like their perception of my process was so awesome. And I was so humbled.

Brian Funk (01:32:14.582)

Nice.

carlos sosa (01:32:15.918)

Man, I recorded that in my bedroom, with like a 421 and a 414, and then I used the same 414 for the sax because I didn't have three mics. And they're just like, it's just such a humbling experience when stuff like that happens to me, man, because I just do the best I can and hope that it turns out great.

Brian Funk (01:32:19.548)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:32:44.315)

That's hysterical. So you're in this fancy studio and they're like, how can we make this like your bedroom?

carlos sosa (01:32:49.038)

Exactly. Exactly. Like every U-47 known to man and like all these great compressors and stuff. I was like, I didn't use any compressors. I've got like a Radio Shack 57, you know?

Brian Funk (01:33:04.939)

You got a twin mattress anywhere? Hehehe I'm gonna need that Hehehe

carlos sosa (01:33:07.278)

Exactly. We need some sheets we can hang on the wall. Your go-go's aren't really cutting it.

Brian Funk (01:33:16.079)

Hey, that's a testament though to your work. I mean, and it's a great takeaway, you know, like turning your best work to go that extra mile. You know, and the fact that you turned it in and the day too, that's big, you know. They don't want to be waiting for you and to keep the project moving.

carlos sosa (01:33:38.574)

Yeah, that kind of became my calling card kind of thing. Like I wanted everybody to, I wanted people to get the files back and it'd be like Christmas. Like they opened this file and they're like, oh my God, this is amazing. You know, that's, and I wanted it to happen quick. I wanted it to be like, and then when I met Frazier T. Smith, that guy I was talking about that still takes Berkeley classes, he was like,

He knew that I'd been working with Martin for a long time and he goes, so wait, I just send you an, like an MP3 and then you're going to send me back. A whole horn arrangement with just done finished edited. And I was like, yeah, that's bloody brilliant. He's like, that's amazing. Like he's like, I love that. So he started sending me tons of stuff and I guess the, the value still to this day. You know,

Brian Funk (01:34:27.771)

Heh. Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:34:37.87)

Unless you're like on what's that sound better or something and you know this person's work, it's hard to trust somebody to like, to give you a quality product, you know? But they don't have to hire an arranger. In the real world, you have to hire an arranger to arrange the parts. You have to hire the musicians to play the parts. You don't know if they play together or not. And you have to get the studio time. And then you have to spend the time doing it. So it's all this money.

Or you can send it to this one guy that's going to take care of it. All of it for you and it's killing, you know.

Brian Funk (01:35:13.659)

Right. Next day, Amazon Prime. All in one. That's sick, man. It certainly explains your success and why people want to work with you so much.

carlos sosa (01:35:16.558)

Exactly.

carlos sosa (01:35:21.902)

Yeah, man, so.

carlos sosa (01:35:29.774)

Oh, thanks, man. I mean, I try to do the same thing, like kind of take the same approach when we play with new bands live. Like someone wants to have there's a couple of amazing artists that want to book us for next year. And I'm just like, I try to do the same thing. Like we have a month till rehearsals with Zach Brown. And I'm just plowing through, like, like memorizing stuff. And like, we're getting together constantly, because by the time we get there, we don't want anybody to have to think twice about what we're doing.

You know, like we gotta be on top of our game. And at that level, you can't afford to be noticed.

You know what I mean? You can't, there is nothing, you have no problems, your life is perfect and you know every note of what's gonna happen and you're completely prepared. But they all, man, I'd already played with Zack before, so I'd already done most of the work. So now I just gotta remember what I did. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:36:22.703)

Do you have to write for that? In a range?

Brian Funk (01:36:35.803)

Yeah, cool.

carlos sosa (01:36:37.934)

So that's what I'm kind of doing right now. And so, I mean, I had done so much work and I was talking to some of the guys in the band like by the time when you can be as prepared as you want with Zach and there's a lot of artists like this, he's definitely special. But you can't ever be prepared enough because that guy's gonna throw a curve ball because he's gonna be like, oh yeah, well, let's do this. And why don't we just go like do some crazy like.

crazy things that nobody would ever do this guy will come up with and the band has to be right there with them and I remember like at rehearsals My bone player is getting so pissed because I was moving so fast because I was thinking With him he wants to make all these changes. So I'm like I'm the leader of my horn section So I'm with him and I'm writing all the stuff and then he's pissed off because I'm going so fast He can't keep up with me, but I'm trying to keep up with Zach. I don't have time to worry about him

You know what I mean? Because the artist wants their stuff to happen and the inspiration right there, and you have to be good enough to be able to give it to them. You know what I mean? So that's, I always, like, I guess that that's a common denominator between me doing my recording stuff and my arranging, and like, and then doing, and playing live is like, at that level, I have to be steps ahead and just deliver.

the best product world-class immediately that nobody can do. You know, like, I mean, there's definitely people, other people that can do it as well or better, but you just have to have that mindset that you have to, you're getting paid a lot of money, you're lucky to be here, and if you don't do it, if you don't deliver at a super high level, somebody else will.

Brian Funk (01:38:09.904)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:38:27.703)

Yeah. Stay on top of the game.

carlos sosa (01:38:28.43)

You know.

Brian Funk (01:38:35.211)

I love it, man. It's so good. These are just like.

carlos sosa (01:38:36.334)

I wish I could share audio with you man, man, that sucks.

Brian Funk (01:38:43.247)

What's a just great, almost like core takeaways, honestly, for like anything a person wants to do in life. You know, if you can come with that kind of seriously, like if you can come and bring those elements, you know, it's the I think it was Steve Martin, so good they can't ignore you. Just this is it. This is this is the way we do it. And we were function at this level so we can.

carlos sosa (01:38:55.118)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:39:12.091)

get the job done and see your vision through. That is like Christmas. It's like getting what you want for Christmas.

carlos sosa (01:39:15.31)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:39:20.206)

Man, I got a really good Steve Martin story for you real quick. We're playing Saturday Night Live, and Jason Mraz, a while back. Steve Martin is a guest as well. And he is promoting his bluegrass record.

Brian Funk (01:39:25.156)

Yeah, cool.

Brian Funk (01:39:33.327)

who you playing with?

Brian Funk (01:39:49.988)

Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:39:51.47)

and he's a killing banjo player, right? And so we're at soundcheck, we're exhausted and Lenny Pickett is the musical director. He's like the, I'm like his biggest fan. And he like, we're doing soundcheck and he's walking around looking at my saxophone. Like I wasn't playing at the time, but he was checking out the horns, walking around just like looking.

And then I put on my saxophone and he comes up and he shakes, he puts his hand out to shake my hand and he's like, I'm, let me pick it. I was like, oh man, I know exactly who you are. Like I'm, you're, he's my idol. But anyway, Steve Martin grabs his banjo, Jason's up there. I don't know if Jason knew that Steve Martin was there, but he walks up, we're all in position. He walks up to Jason and he's like, all happy. And he's like, grab his banjo. He goes.

Brian Funk (01:40:30.651)

Hehehe

carlos sosa (01:40:49.358)

Somebody said I was sitting in with you guys. And Jason's like shocked that Steve Martin walks up to him. Like he had no idea. And he's like a deer in headlights. And he's like, nobody told me anything. And Steve Martin is like, okay then. And turned around and left. And Jason was like mortified. He's like, wait, I didn't mean leave. Like I.

He was just like, it was just this, this. So Jason was, he was mortified for the next like five hours that he had just pissed off Steve Martin and lost his huge opportunity, you know? It was a funny moment. Eventually they, they straightened it out, but it was fun.

Brian Funk (01:41:19.591)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it doesn't happen every day. Ha ha ha.

Brian Funk (01:41:37.495)

And did he play with you guys?

Brian Funk (01:41:44.123)

Ah, you know, what are you doing in that situation? You turn around and Steve Martin's there and what? You know, what's going on?

carlos sosa (01:41:52.814)

Yeah, exactly. Man, I got stories for days, it's funny, but.

Brian Funk (01:41:57.403)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:42:00.751)

Well, it's been awesome catching up with you. I don't want to keep you all night. I have a feeling I very well could, but we should definitely direct people to check out your Splice pack on Groovline Horns, which I'm going to have links for, but I'm sure if you're using Splice, just type that in and it'll come right up.

carlos sosa (01:42:05.582)

No, all good man.

Brian Funk (01:42:26.584)

You're on so many records. Any recent ones you want to tout or...

carlos sosa (01:42:31.15)

Oh man, yeah, there's some recent ones. I just posted this yesterday. One of the coolest things I ever did, or I've ever done, which is, and I love it, is I'm on this song called Ratata, Ratata, I don't know how to say it, but it's a Skrillex track. Skrillex and Missy Elliott, so it's his latest record. And it's an amazing song, I love it. And then I figured out like,

Brian Funk (01:42:54.243)

Nice. I've never heard that.

carlos sosa (01:43:01.102)

I think one of her hits, like the hit, the song where she does the thing backwards, she says that phrase backwards. I don't know what song it is. You know what I'm talking about.

Brian Funk (01:43:13.331)

Yeah, I'll remember soon.

carlos sosa (01:43:15.086)

This song, this entire song that Skrillex did, and I played on, is created out of one of her lines in that song.

Brian Funk (01:43:27.416)

Oh, like a sample?

carlos sosa (01:43:28.622)

No, it's like a line of her song. She says this thing. And then he wrote this song because of that line. It's really cool. I didn't even know until I listened to him. So that's one of the things, I did that last year and it just came out. Yeah, they had me do a, like kind of, he had me redo a sample that he liked.

Brian Funk (01:43:38.378)

Oh cool.

Brian Funk (01:43:47.847)

Is that saxophone?

carlos sosa (01:43:58.062)

And it's cool. And then I got a children's record coming out in August of this year under my name, which will be the first thing, me and my partner, his name's Coy Bowles, B-O-W-L-E-S. He's the guitar player for Zac Brown. And it'll be under both our names. And I don't really have anything under my name as a writer, like or an artist.

Brian Funk (01:44:01.253)

Nice.

carlos sosa (01:44:27.95)

But that will be. So that'll come out in August. The last record that we did together is only under his name, but it's called Music for Tiny Humans on Spotify and Apple Music. And it's a great record.

Brian Funk (01:44:45.21)

What inspired that?

carlos sosa (01:44:48.366)

Koi is a, he was a published children's book writer already. Like he's written several children's books. And he's kind of in education and like, you know, he, he just loves it and being a part of it in, in, especially in the state of Georgia. And, um, we were playing, uh, I think it's soldier field. I don't know. Um, no, I don't know what the, the, um,

We're playing bass. We're touring baseball stadiums. Anyway, we're talking about writing music and he goes, Hey, one day he came to me on my bus. He said, Hey, man, you want to write a children's song? And I was like, cool, whatever, let's do it. So we went into the locker room and brought my my Pro Tools rig. And we recorded our first song that we wrote together. In a locker room of a baseball stadium. And then

The writing process was so cool with us. We just, I went to his house. He's got an amazing recording studio. And we just started writing and writing and writing and writing. And we had great chemistry together. And he's got a good, like there's a...

Brian Funk (01:45:57.999)

started writing and writing and writing.

carlos sosa (01:46:10.606)

There's an animated series for Apple that we're pitching. I mean, he is, but based on our music and the books that he's written. So that might come to fruition. I mean, children's music's awesome for me because you get to, you can really do anything you want in songwriting, but with children's music, there's no limits at all. You can do so many fun things that you couldn't really do in pop, you know?

Brian Funk (01:46:38.759)

Hmm. That's really cool. I had a little experience in something similar. Um, my friend and I, he's a special education teacher and musician. And we did songs for, really intended for like people, young kids with autism called social story songs. And the idea is social stories teach them how to behave in contexts. So like, um,

carlos sosa (01:46:56.75)

Wow.

Brian Funk (01:47:07.539)

It might be like a story about going to the restaurant, what to expect, you know, you know things like that So we made these songs To teach things use your inside voice was one And It was such a fun experience in and the thing came together so fast It was the first thing I'd ever done where I didn't think as like an artist, you know again like this being too clever being

carlos sosa (01:47:10.222)

Right. Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:47:18.99)

That's cool.

Brian Funk (01:47:37.419)

you know, expressing myself. Like all that was done was just have fun. We need catchy songs and we need to have a point to them. And it was such a blast. And it was a huge turning point for me in songwriting and just writing music in general, that to take the things you'd learned in the craft and apply it to this kind of mission.

carlos sosa (01:48:02.286)

Man, I tell you, I learned so much too, man. It made things, it kind of opened my mind to like, I mean, it's not like somebody with a guitar, like playing acoustic and singing like John Denver songs. It's like produced well and like we have, but the things like, the first record we hired like,

all of like a choir and all these bad-ass musicians and string sections and whatever. And then this new record, we decided to like do it all by ourselves. Like we're gonna play everything, we're gonna sing everything, we're gonna program everything, you know, whatever, we're gonna do it all by ourselves. And I wouldn't have been able to do that if I didn't take classes like yours, you know? But the chances that I could take now and all the like, it's just, they're like pop songs.

And they're cool pop songs because we're taking so many chances because the, you know, it's like when you write pop songs, like the cool stuff happens when you do step out of the box and take big chances. But with children's music, it's already given that you can do that and nobody's going to judge you because they're children and it's going to be cool sounds. And then by the end of the day you write the song, the album's done. And you're just like, man, that's so cool. That could have been a, that could be a pop song, you know?

Brian Funk (01:49:27.339)

Yeah, that's awesome. I can't wait to hear that.

carlos sosa (01:49:28.814)

Yeah. Yeah, man, I'll send you some stuff. But that's on Spotify. The first record is already done, but I love the second record. It's going to be great. And there's of course, Jason Mraz's last record. I'm on and. Zach Brown just released a live record, and there's a version of Sweet Emotion with Steven Tyler singing it live at Fenway Park that I'm on. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:49:55.472)

What?

Oh my god.

carlos sosa (01:49:59.374)

Yeah, so it's live at Fenway Park, Zach Brown Band. Sweet emotion.

Brian Funk (01:50:07.267)

Wow, Eris was one of my favorites too. In Boston.

carlos sosa (01:50:10.798)

Yeah, dude, you can imagine. You can imagine when Steven Tyler walked in, I was just like, Jesus Christ, this is awesome.

Brian Funk (01:50:20.115)

Yeah, he's a rock star, huh?

carlos sosa (01:50:22.478)

He is, man. When we played that gig, we were just doing that song. I had never in my life seen anybody have that many people in the palm of their hand. Like he, everybody was like right here for Steven Tyler. It was awesome to see. And to be a part of like, shit, I was in the band. Like, you know, it's crazy.

Brian Funk (01:50:32.838)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:50:36.582)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:50:40.724)

Yeah.

Right. I had seen Aerosmith with a buddy of mine play in a Foxwoods casino in Connecticut. Yeah, small place. What a cool place to see Aerosmith play. And afterwards in the casino, he was just out like playing, you know, roulette and stuff. But what really struck me was like the way he interacted with people.

carlos sosa (01:50:53.486)

I played there, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

carlos sosa (01:51:06.862)

That's awesome.

Brian Funk (01:51:14.083)

Like you said, they're in the palm of their hand. But when he was talking to somebody, they were the only person in the whole universe. It was really kind of amazing. Cause here's a guy like you think he'd be looking, he doesn't have time for anybody. But the way he really interacted with the people, it was just, it was cool to just watch them just, just playing roulette and talking to people.

carlos sosa (01:51:36.842)

That's cool, man. I'll tell you, man, somebody told me that recently, not to remotely compare myself to Steven Tyler, but somebody told me that they met me in Portland after a show, and I don't even remember this, and that I was so, that they felt like that, that I can't believe you took the time to speak to me, and I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like, no, you're just so busy and whatever. And you're like, you're so nice. And I felt like you were, you just like really cared. And I'm like, well, I mean, from my perspective, I'm just a sax player, but regardless, like I'm really grateful for people to come out to see me play or to like what I do. Like it's important to me. So if...

why wouldn't I be respectful and grateful and treat you like you're important because you are important. You like, you know, I'm lucky to be doing what I'm doing and you like what I'm doing. And that's a massive gift to me. So if I, the least I could do is be nice and sweet and engaging to you, you know?

Brian Funk (01:52:52.803)

Yeah, that's a great attitude to have. It doesn't happen without those people.

carlos sosa (01:52:56.966)

Exactly, exactly. So, well, man, thank you so much for having me. And this has been awesome. Uh, yeah. I mean, if you ever, maybe one day I can figure out this, uh, update my operating system so we can share some audio.

Brian Funk (01:53:13.687)

Yeah, of course, it'd be great to catch up with you again. It's been really nice to talk with you after a few years now, and this is a great excuse to do it. So I'm so happy for you, all your success. Your story is great. It's inspiring. There's powerful lessons for, like I said, anyone that wants to do anything, really. What you've done, it's kind of no wonder.

carlos sosa (01:53:22.022)

Yeah.

Absolutely, man. I appreciate it.

Brian Funk (01:53:42.111)

you're seeing the results and the fruits of your labor are paying off like this, it's great. So we'll send people to your work. You wanna get some Carlos in your music, check out the Splice Pack and thanks for listening. Oh, reach out to him, yeah, 24 hour turnaround. I guess, I don't know if that's in the guarantee, but yeah, reach out.

carlos sosa (01:53:46.894)

Thanks man.

carlos sosa (01:53:51.639)

Yeah!

carlos sosa (01:53:58.664)

Or reach out to me.

Brian Funk (01:54:11.567)

We'll put all that contact info in there. Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening.

carlos sosa (01:54:13.814)

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, man. Nice.

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, Carlos sosa, Grooveline horns