The Power of Music: Mark Johnston's Story

Prepare to be transported to a world where music serves as a conduit for connection, healing, and creativity as we sit down with the   Mark Johnston of Mark Johnston Music. Mark's music journey, kick-started in the fourth grade, traverses through his college marching band days, a transformative major, and a genuinely captivating career in music therapy. We talk about his favorite apps,  YouTube Live, and more.

Mark's story goes from music therapy to a public music career. Hear his experiences working with teenagers and how music facilitated transformative conversations. The COVID-19 pandemic may have stirred up a storm, but you'll be blown away by how it influenced Mark's music. 

Finally, we'll delve into the creative depths of Mark's songwriting journey, his promotional tactics, and his evolving relationship with different musical instruments. Tap into the story behind Mark's original song, Cup of Joe, and find out about the story behind the song. As we wrap up, we'll hear about Mark's future plans, including a snapshot of his TikTok live shows and an upcoming conversation with his wife, Shoba, for the Woman Entrepreneur Spotlight. So, sit back and allow the rhythm of Mark's journey to inspire and motivate you. The beat drops now.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to. R2rb podcast series. With me tonight I have Mark Johnston of Mark Johnston Music. Welcome, mark, and thank you for joining me tonight. How are you?

Speaker 2: 0:12

I'm doing great and I'm really thankful to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:14

Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you. And before we start, I like to ask two questions to get us warmed up. And my first question is where would you be if you could visit any place in the world?

Speaker 2: 0:25

That is an interesting question. Until about 10 years ago, I had never been outside of the US at all, and here I went and married a young lady from Malaysia, and so my first step outside of the US really was to fly to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur and we got to interact there. And then we went to Australia from there that first time, and so I had some really cool experiences there. And then just this last October we went to Wales and to France and to London and that was amazing. So I've just recently experienced things outside of the US and I think if I was to go anywhere right now, it might be Venice, just because that seems like a very unique place and travel destination where you can hop on a gondola and cruise around in a canal to go from one place to the next. That would be pretty cool, so I think that would be it.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Absolutely. Oh, I like it. I like that one a lot, all right, so what's your favorite app on your phone? Oh, and wait a minute, wait, wait, and why?

Speaker 2: 1:39

And why that's a good one. All right, so I've got. I would say if I had to pick one app, it would probably be YouTube, and the reason why I say that is because you can access pretty much anything on YouTube. You can listen to music, you can learn how to do something. I'm one of those types of people that loves to do things myself and not pay somebody else to do it, and really that is about as helpful and useful of an app as I can experience. You know that I've experienced in my life From a music perspective. I like the Spotify for Artist app where I can track where people are listening to my music and from around the world. But I think if I had to pick a single app, it would probably be YouTube.

Speaker 1: 2:23

That's cool and it's funny. She mentioned about you to learn something and use YouTube. My oldest daughter taught herself with YouTube YouTube videos how to crochet and she has the things that she makes. It's like are you sure this isn't coming off a machine?

Speaker 2: 2:40

So, yeah, yeah, exactly YouTube. I've rebuilt and I've rebuilt an engine on a vehicle with using YouTube as a primary resource. So, yeah, it's super helpful.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Oh my gosh. All right, so you're ready for the big question, the big question is how did you get started with music?

Speaker 2: 2:59

Well, I've been playing music since I was in fourth grade. So I think, if you consider a band instrument which I do, I played trombone since I was a little kid and I've been on that journey all through high school and marched in high school marching band and concert band. All that through college, continued to play trombone through and some of my best memories are marching band in college. Some of my friends that I still consider my people are ones that I went and marched with all through college.

Speaker 2: 3:31

I learned to do nonband type music when I was like 30 years old. I actually got involved, learning to play the guitar and the bass and the drums at a, you know, just for my own enjoyment, as well as to use it in music therapy, which we haven't gotten to yet, but that's something that I've have done since then. So in the last 20 years I've been on a little bit of an exploration, trying to figure out, you know, who it is and what I am and how music works for me. But that's that, that's pretty much it. It's been a lifelong thing since I was a young kid.

Speaker 1: 4:08

So well, first, that's awesome that you, you stayed with the bands right through college, and so I mean that's such a big undertaking in itself. That's like 24 seven right there, from what I understand, when you're part of a band. And even though I can't even imagine, when you take it into the college level, the dedication that you must have had to do that and for that long.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Yeah, in fact, I was marching in the college marching band even when I wasn't a music major, so it was one credit hour, one and a half hours every day of the week, plus weekends for the games and everything. It was insane, but it was the life changing. I absolutely had the greatest time and I would recommend anybody who's playing a band instrument if you're going off to college, do the college marching band. You will have 300 friends from the day one and it's really really good for your social life and also just as well as perseverance, dedicating yourself to something that's hard but it's very fulfilling, so it's a wonderful thing to be a part of.

Speaker 1: 5:11

So what was your major in college?

Speaker 2: 5:14

My major when I first started was I don't know. I was undeclared major, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And when I went to be a junior they said, mark, you're going to have to pick a major or you have to check out, because you can't just continue to take general ed classes anymore.

Speaker 1: 5:35

So was it at that point Because I know that you and your wife are music therapists Was that your pivotal moment of deciding to go into that field?

Speaker 2: 5:45

That is exactly it. And what happened was is I had to go to the guidance area or whatever I can remember what they call it now and they made me take an aptitude test. And then they sat with you and interviewed you at that point and said whatever your interests, what do you like? And I said I love music, but I don't really want to sit in the band room and have kids honk terrible notes at me. And then I said I also like psychology, but I also don't want to sit in a room and people tell me their problems all day long. So those are the two things I'm passionate about.

Speaker 2: 6:14

But how do you put it together? And the person said have you ever heard of music therapy? And I said I don't know what that is. No, I have never heard of that. And then they sat me down, gave me a little bit of a game in the counselor's name, and so I went actually to the, went over to the music therapy guy and I he allowed me to sit in on some practicums, like where you had somebody in the field doing it in the community, the college students doing it, and I just fell in love right away. Absolutely was like this is fantastic and I want to know more about this. And so, from that day forward, I did music therapy all through the rest of my college and then for the next several years after I graduated from college, to just loved it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Do you and your wife have your own? Are you together?

Speaker 2: 6:59

We, we yep together, yep. So my wife actually was. That's where I met her. She was actually at school. They're doing music therapy as well at the same time, so we've met each other. We we didn't date or, you know, weren't even terribly close at that point, but we knew of each other. And then she went back home after I graduated first and then she went back home after she graduated Because, you know, she did her own private practice. She's been doing private practice music therapy since she was 22 years old or 24 I mean be 24 or 5 but since she was very young and I did it full-time for about 6 years After I graduated and then started, I got involved in church music and was helping with the worship ministry and stuff there and did that Until 2006 when I moved to North Carolina, did to help in my family business. We had. We own a boarding kennel for for dogs and cats while their, while their families are out of town.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Yeah, oh my gosh. Well, you've got both of you have a lot of things going on, but I think that's awesome that you and your wife have your practice together. Do you do adults and children, or?

Speaker 2: 8:03

that's a good question. The her practice is primarily children. The students that I see within her practice are a little bit older, so I tend to do teenagers. And then my oldest student is a 26 year old and he's he's playing harmonica. He's been doing some, he's done some live streams with me and we even did a gig out at an event, a fundraiser. So you know, that's been a lot of fun to interact with young young people from as young as three up until 26 is the range that we currently see.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Wow, and music? Music is Universal and I think I, from what I've read, music like uses all parts of your brain. That is so cool, it's it's fascinating.

Speaker 2: 8:45

When I was doing music therapy full-time after college, I worked with teenagers that had been removed from their families, from the court order, so their behavior disorder, and then some juvenile sex offenders that I worked within a residential program. What's so unique about music also is that people of all backgrounds, all ages, all Everybody identifies with music at some level. What music does give you intrinsically is motivation. I want to learn to do this, I want to learn to do that, I enjoy that and so it's. It's less Threatening than sitting and talking to a counselor. I could bring to you lyrics of a song about alcoholism and we could talk through that in third person and we could actually talk about some things that you would never sit and talk about with a counselor one-on-one. But if you do it in third person and we could break down things that you don't even have to, I don't even have to point at you and say look, this is what you grew up with, you know. But by going through it in third person, they know exactly where, where that's headed.

Speaker 2: 9:47

Yeah, we can learn the song. We could do all this stuff to learn to play it as well. And the next thing you know, you can have in-depth conversations with somebody that they would have never been open to having with you If you just sat and tried to talk to them. Really cool things. That can happen and that's you know. That's not the population we typically work with with show business, but that's what the population was that I worked with. We did group classes as well as individual classes in that setting.

Speaker 1: 10:10

So so we will have to take that part of this interview and we will have to do another. We will take that to another, another interview, because I find all that very fascinating also and. I like to learn about that. You know, mental health is such a such an issue these days, so we will take that to. We will, we will revisit that, absolutely so music has definitely been in your life 24-7, along along with your, with your family.

Speaker 2: 10:34

Yes, correct, yeah, yeah. So my children none of them actually are very interested in playing music at all. They listen to it and they appreciate it. We've tried and tried but none of them wanted to take up an instrument and, frankly, you know what are you gonna do? You? Just you let them not choose not to do that. In the way the school system here works, and North Carolina, is that they're allowed to have two electives and if you do music, like whether it's band or choir, then you lose out on half the electives that you can take. And the kids want to take electives. They want to take robotics, they want to take these cool things that weren't available to when I was a kid. So it's like, wow, how do you tell them? No, you can't do a. You know half of the electives that you could do, so you could be in Band, you know that's a tough, absolutely a tough call.

Speaker 1: 11:21

So what was the turning point for you then to take? And I know you still, you were still a music therapist. But what was that turning point? Or you know that you, you decided you wanted to take your personal music public.

Speaker 2: 11:33

That's a great question and I don't. The answer to that is kind of funny. I've played trombone in bands and been a part of things like that, but I've not ever really sang in bands. So I actually transitioned out of a band and my friend Mark, who's an American garage band with me. He's like, hey, why don't the two of us get together and let's do some open mics or something you know and was was trying to push me to do something, because he knew I played guitar and he knew that I sang a little bit, but I hadn't played the guitar. I'm like 10 years. At that point. I mean, I really was really rusty and I was like, yeah, sure, let's do that.

Speaker 2: 12:07

What ended up happening is that my wife one of her clients his parent was Justin, who's in is the third member of the American garage band that I played with, and so we actually got together all at one time and that just kind of came together. It was crazy and we just started to play and so we were doing that the fall of 2019. And so we practiced together like 1520 times and we actually had landed our very first gig for the three of us to play in a. It's like it was like a play, a shop that sells wine. They were going to have like a place where you could go in there and and just have like a little small, small ensemble. The weekend that that was booked was the weekend that everything got shut down for COVID.

Speaker 2: 12:54

Here we were going to have our first gig that we had worked half, you know, four or five months on, and it got shut down on. That was the day that it got shut down, so it just all fell apart on us. And then what ended up happening is we obviously, like everybody else on the planet, didn't see each other for a year and a half. And then, yeah, and then at the end of that, when we started to be like, hey, you guys want to try to get together again, we started to talk and then we put, we came together as a group, we practiced the first time and I swear it's like we hadn't missed a beat. We were just as good that next time we got together and I hadn't played the guitar in a year and a half, you know.

Speaker 2: 13:31

And so, and those guys, but what had ended up happening was Justin was playing on his heat, started doing live streams as an individual on there. So the next thing, you know, he's like why don't we do a live stream on Tik Tok? And I was like, oh, we're like what's Tik Tok, mark? And I had never even downloaded Tik Tok, ever. I mean, we knew what it was, but we hadn't downloaded it. And so the next thing, you know, that kind of caught fire and we fell in love with that. There was, you know, we're playing in front of 300 people on a phone, so that's kind of fun and exciting, you know.

Speaker 2: 14:01

And and so then I downloaded that and, honestly, it was my desire to start doing a live stream on Tik Tok. That made me start to play music by myself, because I had only ever played in the trio. I'd never done anything by myself at all on the guitar or singing, and so that's what launched me being by myself. So that was kind of a long way of saying that. That that was really. I've never really taken myself terribly serious as a musician. It's always just been about music therapy. For me, this kind of launched that acoustic trio launched me into trying to do something by myself, which has been also very rewarding and surprisingly successful and at some level. You know, just never really gave myself much credit for that to be an opportunity.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Was it a little scary going on by yourself?

Speaker 2: 14:46

It's still scary going on by myself. I think that it was much scarier in the beginning. Literally, deborah, I probably knew three songs when we've worked and I was like, oh my gosh, we have to get to 1000 followers on Tik Tok in order to go live. So, at about 500 followers, I'm like I need to start learning some music, because I can't do these trio songs by myself, you know, and I'm just like I'm not a good guitar player and I've got to figure some stuff out. And so for those last 500, that last month and a half it took me to get to 1000 followers. I was working so hard. I'm like what am I going to do? The same 15 songs every week, you know? So I've done Facebook a couple times. I've done Instagram once maybe, but it's mostly and even when I do do that, it's mostly my Tik Tok people that go over those other platforms to watch it.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Yeah, and you got some awesome followers, that is for sure. We'll talk about them in a little bit.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Sounds good.

Speaker 1: 15:44

So, before we go any further, how do people get in touch with you? Where do they find you? How do they find you?

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yeah, yeah, so a few different ways. I have a website. It's called markjohnstonmusiccom. Also on Facebook I have a Mark Johnston Music page. Those are probably the two easiest ways. If you go to my website, you can see everything these contact information, but also on the Facebook Messenger you can see the link tree where you can see all the different links to things that you would maybe want to reach out to. You can find out information about what kind of guitar I play, what kind of streaming equipment just kind of whatever you would want to know about stuff is there.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Yes, and please go to Mark's website and purchase merchandise. I have my very own that I purchased Cup of Joe mug. I love my mug. So, yes, please go find it.

Speaker 2: 16:36

It was so awesome. Doing the merch thing was almost kind of a joke, but at the same time it was like this is kind of cute and fun. You know to do that, so yeah merchandise, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 16:45

So you do write some of your own songs. How did that process start? Where did it start and what it's? What has it been like?

Speaker 2: 16:53

That is a great question. I've from music therapy days. I've always loved creating and I would be creative with trying to make a different arrangements or take a song and then and make it used with different instruments or just kind of try to mix and match things to make things fun and interesting. I've, and I've always been, decent at writing instrumental stuff where you just like the good, grab a guitar and drums and bass and make up something that's like a nice groove, that's kind of fun. But I've literally had never really tried to put lyrics to anything. I've never, really ever done that. And so I was like, well, I don't really have. I'm like I have as it's to write, because I've been doing all covers on Tik Tok and I'm like I just would love to do something of my own.

Speaker 2: 17:39

And so it was literally in March of this year 2023, right, I sat down with pen and paper and tried to write lyrics to a song. I had just sat with my guitar, I had worked out a little chord progression that I like and thought sounded neat, and I was like, okay, blank sheet of paper, what do I want to say? You know what's going on, what am I feeling? And I basically did that. I sat there, I'd been gone through some a little rough patch of some stuff that was going on, and I sat down and I wrote down things that I thought were significant on the negative side, the positive side, and then tried to match those two together. And so that song that's that first song that I wrote is called Better Together and that's the one that I'm just finished recording this last week, and so I'm excited to release that, maybe like the first of October or something, but that the first song I ever wrote was that, and so that was extremely fulfilling.

Speaker 2: 18:29

I mean, there is something it's one thing to write like a musical groove and something that you can jam to and it's fun and that feels good too. But when you start to put lyrics to something, it takes a whole other level of ownership, you know, and all of a sudden it's like I'm now expressing my heart, what's in my mind, what's in all this stuff is coming out. I was just like, oh my gosh, this has so much more weight, it's so much more me, it's so much more fulfilling. And they know, they share that with people, and when I do that and people give me feedback like, wow, this is man. You know. In fact, one of the guys on my Discord server said in the chat this last Wednesday night during the live that if this song had been written, if I'd heard this two years ago, I think some circumstances in his personal life would be different than they are now. And I don't want to go into that, obviously for his sake. But you know how it's. Just it's crazy to need to hear stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 19:24

And then there's this song, Cup of Joe, that I got to do the. I got to air it prior to the release, Thank you.

Speaker 2: 19:32

I was so excited. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Your followers that night were awesome. They were great. I was having a bit of an issue the week before that and Deborah was kind enough to email me text. Aliens have taken over, so you have some great, great followers and Cup of Joe. So I love the song. Thank you for letting me air it before your release. Is there a story behind it?

Speaker 2: 19:59

That is a great question. The story is completely fictional. I just absolutely made it up. I came up with a little chord progression again that I love. Then I was like, oh, this is catchy and this is kind of fun, it's happy.

Speaker 2: 20:10

And I sat down, I had come up with the first line, just humming something, and then I kind of made up a word, the words to it, and I'm like, okay, so I've got the first line, where do we go from here, you know? And I just sat down there, line by line, by line by line by line, just kind of. I really didn't even know where the song was going until, like the, I got to the third verse. I'm like, what's? What am I trying to say? What's going to happen in this situation?

Speaker 2: 20:35

And so then I made the story that the young man was going to pass away, and now we got to deal with this person's reaction to that. You know, they had just drawn a connection to somebody that seemed deep and sincere. And now I got to be like, okay, how am I going to tie this up, and how do we do the after part of it and everything. And so it was just me making something up and, like I said, I never thought I was a good at writing lyrics and I just thought, let me just do try to do a lyric driven song that. And it just kind of came together and as I look back at the lyrics, I'm super proud of them. To be honest with you, I'm like how did that even come out of my mind? There's some nice color, like Coloring of the lyric, of the words.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely, because when I was listening to the song, because I listened to the song once and I went back to listen to it again it's like there's that story that you pull people into all the way to the end. That was a good congratulations.

Speaker 2: 21:29

This is the first time I've ever tried to do something like that. It was crazy. So I thought to myself I have no excuse, I've got to start to write. I think maybe there's something here that I can do.

Speaker 1: 21:41

I think so.

Speaker 2: 21:42

So what I did is I went to I've got a Discord server. Not everybody knows what that is, but it's a platform where people can interact as a group, and so I have a group of great, great people on that Discord server that are mostly my TikTok followers that are close to me, and we interact on a daily basis doing stuff and there is it's a blast. What I started to do with them is I give them a chance. If they win, we play trivia and once, if they win, on Fridays, they can give me a topic and I've got to write a song at. I call it not a full blown song, but a song at about whatever topic they come up with, if they choose me to do that, Doing that so that I can challenge myself to not just kind of do covers all the time, but also to write and to become more, to be more skilled at coming up with new material.

Speaker 1: 22:33

Oh my gosh, I love that. That's a great, that's a great way to do it. I have another question for you. It's kind of taking you away from that who's your most significant influencer? Influencer in the music realm?

Speaker 2: 22:44

That's a tough question. I would say number one, that college marching band professor, the director of bands at Western Illinois University. His name was Dale Hopper and he's got probably 2000 kids that would say the exact same thing. He was so passionate about music and he was so passionate about relationships and just he was life changing for a whole whole, like decades worth of kids that were in that college marching band program. So Dale Hopper was amazing.

Speaker 2: 23:17

And then I would say, secondly, Bruce Pruder, who was the music therapy professor for music therapy. There he was, he just was the kindest hearted man and his heart went out. He spent countless hours shuttling college students back and forth to their practicums where they actually were trying to take their classwork and put it into action in the community. There he was reaching out. He was getting us places in nursing homes, special needs, children's schooling and all different types of different. You know he just did it all and he did all. So the two of them as far as like a shaping me as a musician. You know, passionate music person from the perspective of music is like enjoying. I love every most styles of music. Grew up on Frank Sinatra and Harry kind of junior, but I love Broadway musicals. I like Dave Miller band, john Mayer you know the cure iron maiden. I like hard rock. New kiss, new kiss. James Morrison. More recently, the script Andy Grammar, jason Maraz, lincoln Peruster, queen, chris Tomlin. I mean, I just like anything I can. I could listen to anything.

Speaker 1: 24:23

I'm the same way. I always say that if the music's good, I'll listen to it, doesn't matter what genre is. So where do you record? Where do you do your recording? Do you do it at home or do you go outside?

Speaker 2: 24:35

It is 100% done right here in this room, at my house, in my little music room here. So I've got very humble equipment and I just do the best that I can with what I've got.

Speaker 1: 24:47

What did you play in?

Speaker 2: 24:48

college trombone.

Speaker 1: 24:49

You play the guitar. I see the drums in the back. What other instruments do you play?

Speaker 2: 24:54

I can play the bass guitar. I can hack around a little bit on some piano stuff. This next song that I'm releasing next month, Better Together has some software instruments in it as well, so I can get in there and use drum programs or use piano programs and stuff like that to help contribute to the arrangement as well. So I've just started to dabble with that a little bit as well.

Speaker 1: 25:18

Do you like doing that part of it?

Speaker 2: 25:20

I do actually, because especially with the drums one I'm an okay drummer but I can make things sound really cool with the software program that I couldn't play in myself. So it does elevate your game a little bit. Nowadays the software instruments have grown so much they're all actual drums that have been recorded and played and then basically you can put them where you want. But it's not like a fake drum set that sounds like junk, like it was 20 years ago.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Do you have a favorite music instrument that you play? Is it the guitar? Is it the trombone? Do you still play the trombone?

Speaker 2: 25:57

I play the trombone occasionally, but not too often. I will admit that I think I like the guitar the most. I feel like when I pick up the guitar and I play and I sing, there's stuff that opens up in me that doesn't open up with any other instrument. Yeah, I can sing to it. It's a great accompaniment instrument that can let your heart pour out pretty easily.

Speaker 1: 26:24

What's the best part of your music? Is it the music itself that you create, writing the music therapy, or a little bit of it all?

Speaker 2: 26:36

I think it's all I think I love. I think I said kind of early on the creation part of it. So whether it's creating a song from scratch or taking a song that I've, that's some that I wanted to learn to sing, or somebody's requested that I sing, making it my own, taking it my own version of it and then being able to sing something that means something to me, whether it's from a therapy standpoint or just for my own expression in a TikTok live show. But that whole process of coming up with something that's unique and something that I'm expressing of myself, that's probably my favorite part.

Speaker 1: 27:13

What's next for Mark Johnston Music?

Speaker 2: 27:16

That's a great question and I don't know 100% At this point. I am still in exploration. I've been enjoying the TikTok lives and I don't know for sure what to expect. I've had relatively good success releasing music onto Spotify, whether it be my covers or my originals, but I think ultimately I'd like to see that grow. But I would like to start playing music out live in the local community more than I have at this point. At this point, that's relatively new, and I've done it with the trio that I play in, but I've not done it as an individual yet, and so I'm kind of wanting to get out there before I get too nervous by not getting out there. So I've gotten to be a little bit more comfortable with the TikTok lives. I don't get quite as nervous about that as I used to, but I do want to get out and try my hand at it in public with actual live people.

Speaker 1: 28:11

You don't seem nervous. I've watched you on TikTok and you just seem very at home, very relaxed. I like how you do it. I liked how you do you know. Guess the song. Guess the band.

Speaker 2: 28:25

Yeah, and that's in the last probably two months. I've gotten to the point where I feel much, much more at ease. The first year was, in the first three months, particularly rough because, like I said, I didn't know much music and I was trying to balance like not overplaying and stuff that people are getting sick of it, but at the same time I don't know a bunch of stuff to play. So it's been a growth in process.

Speaker 1: 28:50

That's great.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Now.

Speaker 1: 28:51

American Garage Band. You do lives on. What night with them?

Speaker 2: 28:55

Those are Thursday nights at 9.30 pm Eastern time, and my lives are on Wednesday nights at 9.30 Eastern time.

Speaker 1: 29:03

Are they both on TikTok?

Speaker 2: 29:05

They're both on TikTok, yeah, and actually American Garage Band also streams on Facebook, so it's available on Facebook as well, and that's American Garage Band. I think that's what it's called. If you search American Garage Band on Facebook, you'd find his there.

Speaker 1: 29:19

I'm pretty sure it comes up that way, absolutely. Is there anything else? Oh no, let me back this up. Can you tell us who did the artwork on your latest single Cup of Joe, because I love that cover also.

Speaker 2: 29:32

My very sweet daughter, kyra, did that. She sat with me. She actually drew it up on a piece of paper and then we sat there with Canva and found the artwork that matched what her drawing was, and she did a beautiful job doing that. It was really sweet.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Absolutely so. It's. Not only is it on the cover, it is also on the mug. Is there a t-shirt?

Speaker 2: 29:52

That's right.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Is there a t-shirt?

Speaker 2: 29:54

There's not. That's a great idea, though.

Speaker 1: 29:56

There you go. I was going to say, because I was just so interested, the coffee mug because that's my thing, it grabbed your attention and everything else just slid away. I was so excited when it was delivered.

Speaker 2: 30:13

Yeah, that's awesome. It was so kind of you to get that.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Yeah, oh my gosh, that was good.

Speaker 2: 30:18

That was good.

Speaker 1: 30:19

So is there anything else you want to tell everybody about Mark Johnston and Mark Johnston's music that I didn't ask or cover? And also, again, let them know where they can find you.

Speaker 2: 30:29

All right, I would say I'm just a guy in process and I'm doing the best I can to make good music and music that you can enjoy. I have. Number one would want to say that I appreciate my wife, shoba, who's been so generous to allow me to explore this avenue of something that I didn't know was even a possibility, and I also, then, would want to tell my friends, the TikTok followers, that are so passionate, like you said, that I appreciate them up and down. They're so generous with their time and efforts, and anytime I'm doing something, I'll all of a sudden have 30 people that will show up, and I can pretty much tell you who those 30 people will be every time, and so they're the greatest, and it's funny because I haven't met them and yet you feel close to them. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 31:19

I do, I do, and they've been following you for some time, so they've become your TikTok family, absolutely. Like I said, you have some great followers, and so I'm looking forward to seeing them again once when we release this Absolutely. Mark thank you so much for taking the time. I'm so glad that I bumped into you. And then we had this opportunity to talk about music and we will be talking again. I'm looking forward to speaking to your wife for the Woman Entrepreneur Spotlight Shoba.

Speaker 2: 31:55

He's excited about that.

Speaker 1: 31:56

Oh my gosh. Yeah, like I said in the beginning about the music therapy, this is just awesome. I'm always learning something. So again, thank you.

Speaker 2: 32:04

I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and you're in real to real broadcasting for taking a chance to interview me with this.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. All right, mark, you have a good night.

Speaker 2: 32:17

You too. Thank you so much, Deborah.