Dirty Prescott Kids

Eric Girouard  0:00  

This is Bucket Talk, a weekly podcast for people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity in the trades and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discuss what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way and roll up their sleeves every single day.

Jeremy Perkins  0:28  

All right, we're here today with a very special guest. We're here with Travis. Travis also goes by Dirty Prescott Kids. He's He's a friend of ours, and also a pretty sick iron worker and musician, but wanted to get a little day in the life of what Travis does as an iron worker outside of music and maybe the stuff you see on on Instagram and social media. But Travis welcome.

Travis Seifert  0:55  

Hey. Thank you for having me.

Jeremy Perkins  0:58  

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. So when we first met, we were kind of talking about the trades and iron working and all the stuff that you do off, you know, social media. And one of the things that I always wondered is, how do you get into iron working? And, you know, for somebody that doesn't go to a trade school or isn't actually, you know, touching the iron working industry itself seems pretty sexy, seems like, seems like a pretty badass job. I mean, again, you see the the old school picture of the guys on on the I beam, you know, eating their lunch. It's kind of like a daredevil risk taking, type industry, but like, how the hell did you get your start? How'd you get into it? Like, walk me through all that? Alright, well, I

Travis Seifert  1:51  

guess so. I was in the same boat when I was, like, 22 years old. I remember there was in my commute to work. There was they were building this brand new bridge, and I remember seeing the workers on the bridge, and I just remember thinking like, like, how do you even get that job? I wanted to make more money. I wanted to be I was working at an old folks home at the time, and I was like, kind of supposed to be a transitional job, but I was like, how do you get that job? It's not like you just call somebody and luckily, as fate would have it, my roommate, in my last year in college, I was basically just up there partying, but my roommate, we're at country fest together, and he had, I'm not going to lie, he had the nice Yeti cooler. He had the brand new Ram truck. He had everything that, like I was looking for. I'm like, his name was Luke. And I go, Luke, what do you do for a living? Like, how do I get this life? And he goes, You kidding me? I'm an iron worker, bro. And I was like, not gonna lie, what's that? Because I do it. I literally, it was like, What? What is that I would do it? And he's like, Well, let me get you in contact with the apprenticeship. He's a union Ian worker. So, like, All right, what's the apprenticeship? I kind of look into it, and he's like, I've only been doing it for eight years or so, so my name only means so much, but I'll put you in contact with him. And luckily, I also knew a guy from a hometown that was an iron worker, and they kind of guided me towards the apprenticeship program at your local union hall. It's pretty easy to look up from whatever state you're in, find your local union hall iron workers. And I went in, and it was quite the process. First, they give you a aptitude test, kind of like the military, just to kind of see where where your levels are at, yup, and it's how you score on that will send you to another interview, if you make it. And then when you go to the interview, you know, I was used to going in interviews where there's, you know, maybe four or five people, like applying for a job, you come into this foyer of the union hall and there's hundreds of people, hundreds of people, every age walk of life, and you're like, oh boy, and we sat down, and you do the interview, and there's like, seven people in the room, like, I'm assuming, looking back, like, apprenticeship coordinators, different people that are involved with the union, and everybody's just got their little notepad. It was the most kind of and I would say it's probably the most intimidating interview that I had. I'm like, God, all this just to get into, like, a construction job, and this was my naive mind kind of downplaying it, yep, and it took me two tries. It took me over a year to get in. The references I had weren't quite enough to get in because I had no experience, but I ended up getting in. And you go through a safety training, which is like a whole entire week of them. They basically give you a full crash course on everything, and get you certified in as much stuff as they can, like aerial lifts, scissor lifts, CPR, basically everything. OSHA 10, OSHA 30, MSHA, which is mine safety, they give you the full gamut of training, yeah. And they. Show you some videos, and hopefully you paid enough attention. And basically, they send you off to a job, and you're supposed to be sent off with a certain level of certain amount of journeyman there to kind of get your feet wet, but you go right into the trade, and now you got to go to school for four years, and the apprenticeship hall two nights a week while working, but it's they tell you straight up, like you will learn 99.9% of what you need to know on the job. And so yeah, you know, two months after I got in, I'm just out there working, and that's where you start. You start to become an iron worker. It took years to gain any level of respect from anybody at all, but that, long story short, that was the process I got in. You gotta look up your local union hall, see if they're taking applications for the apprenticeship and get in there as soon as possible. Because as soon as they know who you are and that you're really, really trying to get in, it will massively up your chances, versus just applying once every once in a while, you know?

Jeremy Perkins  6:03  

Yeah, that's actually pretty cool. I know that, especially when I was coming up, I was never Union. But, I mean, you heard, you know, unions were hard to get into and difficult to get into. I know that since I've been working with brunt, we've, we've touched a whole bunch of different locals and and work with a whole bunch of different unions locally to us, and found out that there's a, there's a skill gap. Now, like they, they're, they've kind of opened it up a little bit early, 2000s you know, late 90s, it was like you needed to know somebody or, you know, you had to essentially be born into it. Now, there's, they've, they've opened it up. They need workers. So it's not, it's not something that's unattainable anymore, which is, which is pretty good. And it sounds like you went that route and didn't really know, you know, you weren't born into it, or didn't really know somebody at the top, and you still got in. So that's pretty cool,

Travis Seifert  6:59  

yeah, and that's why I think it took me, like, a year and, and there is still a level, absolutely still a level. Speaking just for the iron workers, it's the only one I know to speak on. But I think some of the other locals are much bigger. So, uh, the iron workers is still pretty exclusive. Yeah, they really do want you to know someone, but we were informed by all of our apprenticeship coordinators and everything that they really are trying to erase that old school mentality that's deterring people. You gotta go out and speak the good gospel and get people to want to apply for this, or else we're doomed. Yeah? So they want to, like, rewrite that, because they were kind of like, yeah, barely anybody gets in here, and now it's like, Dude, we need people to carry this trade on. So totally, I try to speak as highly of it as I can, you know, yeah, I mean,

Jeremy Perkins  7:48  

unions are good. They look out for you. You know, it's like, it's a brotherhood iron workers, especially up here is one of the tightest unions. And not speaking for all the unions out there. But, yeah, it's, it's like, the A team you you get on up here, Boston, New York, absolutely, it's, it's insane. That's cool. So when you first got in, what kind of jobs you're doing, because I now, now I know a little bit more about iron working. There's, like, a whole array, like, I probably still couldn't do it because I'm fucking deathly afraid of heights. But you guys aren't just, you know, building, vertical buildings. You guys are doing a whole bunch of stuff, whether it's bridge work or, you know, rebar and concrete and stuff like that. How'd you first get your feet wet.

Travis Seifert  8:42  

Uh, I got, I mean, this is, I think this is the truth for at least 80% of iron workers. And if, and if you ask me, knowing what I do now, I think it should be almost mandatory, but they pretty much throw a good majority of the first year apprentices in the rod patch, Ty and rebar, and it's arguably the one job that like it's probably the most probable for you to quit if you really, really weren't going to hack it. And so, in my opinion, you might not deserve to get to the more cushier jobs if you can't make it through the rod patch, it's a rougher crowd. It's harder work. It's a lot of just Brunt work, Brunt work, you know, carrying rebar, setting it down, tying rebar all day long, whether you're on a bridge or I, my first job was on a high school but I was the only iron marker they sent there, which was like damn near setting me up for failure. But they were they were nice, and we got through it. But shortly after that, I ended up on a bridge crew, and that's where you're really get your metal tested. And then once I finally got on the structural crew, which is the vertical buildings, the beams, the columns, yeah, that's where I really started to like it. And I got. I still wouldn't call myself a welder, but I got my welding certifications, I started to be someone that could trust a weld, and I found myself getting slightly easier jobs, or more exciting ones than the the rebar tire all day. But yeah, there's many levels of iron work. I respect them all, and I think structural would be my preference,

Jeremy Perkins  10:21  

cool, cool. And they still, I mean, they're still riveting buildings and stuff. Now, is that, like a whole different section, like, do you gotta get a certain in riveting, certain welding? So is there any more notifications to that?

Travis Seifert  10:38  

There's, there's so many certifications, there was, like, a couple apprentices that we had that like set records for how many damn certs they got. I was not one of them by any means. I did, however, I'll throw a little shout out to myself here. I got a gold watch when I graduated for not missing a single day of class in three years, which was super rare for me to do, just for me to do. I'm not saying no one else could do it, but do it, but I was not known for attendance in my previous 25 years leading up to that. But rivets, specifically, I never did any rivets, from what I understand from what I did, it was kind of an old technology still holds up to this day, and if a bridge calls for, like, rivets. They'll do it, but for the most part, it's bolts. Everybody bolts and welding, but the the rivet is cool when they show you videos how it was done, like the little rivet gang. And then, to this day, I'm sure Larry's done it at the iron workers festival in Michigan. They still have, like, a competition for riveting. So you gotta be the guy heating them up, or you toss them and a guy catches them with a can and hands them to the guy, and he blasted like, it's quite the process, but I've never done it. It's

Jeremy Perkins  11:52  

pretty cool. And then they got the they got, like an air hammer, basically, I'm sure it's fucking, you know, it's probably like being on a jackhammer crew. It's something that you don't want to do your entire life, just smashing rivets all day. That's crazy. That's crazy. So you're doing well in the in the union. You're now working columns and beams and stuff like that. Any issue with heights, any issue with like, like being up there. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure people haven't. They say they can handle it, but like, don't really, it's like, war, you've you don't know how you'll act in war until you go to war. It's like, you don't really know how you'll be until you're 100 stories up walking an I beam. Was there any learning curve for that? Or were you just like, Dude, this is sick. I got this.

Travis Seifert  12:41  

I mean, I did my absolute best to, like, hold my composure. But like, first off, when you first get on a structural job, unless you're an absolute cycle, like, being 20 feet up feels like you're 100 feet up, it's crazy. Like you think you'd be up there with, like, like, when you're really ironworking, you put up like, the first two columns in the beam. You like, imagine there's like things to reach out and touch. You know, when you see the building like, kind of come together. It seems like safer. Yeah, shit, no, dude, they'll have you sitting up on top of column. Just literally, the barely bolted in, flapping in the breeze. My first time up there, I froze that first of all, it was in the middle of the middle of the winter, I was working on a casino job. And shout out to my buddy Chad, at the time, he put me up there for my first time, and I got to the middle of this beam, and just also my legs start just just shaking because I was out there in the middle of nowhere, and you could feel the whole thing move. And I you, you don't trust them at first. So like in the beginning the learning curve was like, obviously you have to do this. You can't just go down and quit. Well, I guess you could, but that wasn't an option in my mind. But I was not like a heights person before, but like there was a a level to me that was like, this is this is what I'm doing now. You gotta learn how to do this. And basically one guy told me, he said, Yeah, you'll never get used to the heights. You just learn how to respect them. And I was like, that's pretty much it, and that's your nut case. Which, there's a lot of iron workers that are some guys that really just Ride the Lightning. I wasn't one of them. I constantly trying to be as safe as possible, but I got up there with the best of them, and you do get used to it. Now I move around pretty damn good. I usually am the guy that they make Connect, which is the person crawling around on Ian the whole time. And it's fun. Once you get going. It's like a big jungle gym.

Jeremy Perkins  14:37  

That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I just like, I don't know if there's like, kind of, kind of looking at how you get into it, like, is there going through your apprenticeship and schooling and stuff like that? Do they put you up at some point in time? And you're like, Okay, I got, I got some sort of understanding and respect for for heights and what I'm going to be. Doing in the future, or if it's just like, hey, we're here now, do it? Get out there.

Travis Seifert  15:05  

So like, shout out to the apprenticeship. They do their best with what they have. Yeah, to give you, they can't possibly give you an actual look like they can do this. This is a beautiful thing. They can in our apprenticeship Hall, in the training center. You don't do this till year two, but you get to build a two story building inside the the warehouse is big enough to build a two story building and take it back down with the overhead crane, okay? And on the on the safety training, they'll put you in a boom lift and send the thing straight up to the top, and that's as close as you're going to get to any heights. The rest of it was completely dependent on some of these guys I was working with were already working permit work, which means they were already out in the field, yeah, and I wasn't. So basically, the first day I got tossed up on something high was my first time doing it.

Jeremy Perkins  16:01  

That's wild. That's wild. What's the highest you've been up now?

Travis Seifert  16:06  

Uh, honestly, I've never been on like any, like, high rise buildings, not that I would ever turn it down. But like we built, I think, like 910, 10 stories about the highest I've been in some bridges that I don't know how high they were, but some bridges were, you're like, holy shit, just running water right under you. Like, okay, that's

Jeremy Perkins  16:27  

crazy. That's crazy. So you love what you do. Benefits are good. Camaraderie is good. Benefits are great. You got in.

Travis Seifert  16:42  

I seven,

Jeremy Perkins  16:44  

seven, and they, they still have retirement, or is that 401 K,

Travis Seifert  16:50  

technically, well, I'm my specific union. I think this is, I think they all slightly have a little bit different but, yeah, so you have your 401 k, which is technically considered your annuity. It's kind of like a 401 k, which is your money no matter what. And then you got your union pension, which would be once you get vested and you've been in a certain amount of years and everything, that money will be yours. But that's like the union side of retirement. So it's kind of you get both,

Jeremy Perkins  17:19  

yeah, that's cool. That's cool. So, you know, planning for the future. A lot of guys don't realize that, like, you know, outside of a union, you know, pensions are a thing of the past. You know, gotta, gotta prepare for retirement on your own dime. Which is, which is cool. I mean, you get to mess around with it on your own, right. But you know, if you're looking for that stability outside the 20, 3040, years, you put into it unions, unions are still working the old way, so it's nice if you get to grab a pension and a retirement. Good shit. Yeah. So, yeah, go ahead. No. I

Travis Seifert  17:57  

was just going to say I think that, you know, there's a so many conflicting opinions of the unions, and I totally understand it. I didn't know much about them till I got in. I actually was in a union at the hospital, which everybody hated it, and for good reason, the Union did nothing for you. So whether you're whatever your experience is, the number one thing that I you just can't deny, is the benefit package. So if you're working and you gotta, especially if you're family, I'm a single guy, you as a single guy in the union, you probably get gypped the most because, like, health insurance, if you have four kids, all four of those kids are covered, and your price is the same as mine. Yeah, I'm I'm covered. I can go to the doctor, the dentist, but all four of your kids and you and your wife can. So the ones that are single are kind of holding it down for the people that have four and then when you have four kids, there's some young person holding it down for you. That's also how the pension works. So if you're looking at, you know, taking care of your family and making sure everyone's taken care of, it's a great option. Like the benefits alone could literally steer somebody into the trades. Yeah, and I, and I would, I would say it's one of the biggest perks of it.

Jeremy Perkins  19:16  

So inside, the inside iron working, what? What's your, what would be your goal? Like, what are you trying to work up to? You trying to form in a crew, you trying to get back on, on the ground into a, you know, more design and and managerial perspective, like, what's, what's the top at at a local look like for you.

Travis Seifert  19:40  

I guess you know, the the top, the top of the local depends on each person individually, because some people end up going into, you know, like union jobs, like a business agent, Business Manager, President, like, there's all these different jobs at the local apprenticeship coordinator. And all that stuff. But obviously, in the job specific, Superintendent, company owner, those type of things would probably be the top for me. Personally, I don't know what it is. I've never even been close to a position where, like, I was even considered for a foreman, and I'm not dissing myself, I just don't like inheriting responsibility too much. So I was always the guy that they could count on, like Trav you and this guy, go do this. They knew it was going to get done. They knew I'd do it right. And if I didn't know, I would ask the question. But as far as any type of thing that I needed to do to show like promise as a future foreman, I almost avoided that responsibility altogether. So I don't know what I what main goal is with that, but obviously, no offense to my foremans and superintendents, but the farther you go up the chain, the less you physically have to do. So I would have to say that would be my goal. But the hard part about that is, is now you just, you inherit the idea of the the big boss man calling you 24/7 whether you're at home or what you're doing, can't take off. You're working weekends. Now you work with me, just the, just the worker. They're like, Yo, you're trying to work Saturday, and it's still kind of up to you. Yeah, like, No, I don't think so where, like, I don't know. So I had, I'd have to get myself ready for the day when I wanted to be that guy, yeah, but a company truck would be nice, you know, a company taking care of you and sending you on the road with their truck, and not putting all the wear and tear, like, like, my last job, I can't even tell you the damage that damn sand plant did to my truck. No, they won't even rent them to people down there or rent trucks to bring to these places in West Texas, because they just get pounded. Yeah, I was taking sand out of my cabin air filter like it was coming through my vents.

Jeremy Perkins  21:59  

It's like getting sandblasted on a daily basis,

Travis Seifert  22:02  

literally. And I was like, dude, so you got all the foremans and everything. Got these company trucks. I'm down here with my personal baby that I paid harder and money for, and it's just getting beat. That's crazy. So there's perks to being the guy. I just never tried to sign up for it thus far. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the future would be for that.

Jeremy Perkins  22:21  

Well. I mean, at least when I was in the military man, it was, it was, it was that you go from doing to now showing and and running. And a lot of guys had a hard time making that transition. I mean, we, we called it in. In the military, we call it like the e4 mafia. It was just like a level of like worker, like you got enough respect that you're not doing all the shit work, but you're still in the shit and you're out there, you know, yeah, running a crew and working and whatnot. But like, the minute you started moving up, now you're ordering, now you're doing, you know, procurement and and, you know, reviews and all the stuff that, like, you don't want to do. You just want to get out there and get on the tools. But, yeah, no, I know that's probably a hard transition, and I know some people will do it for their entire career. Just stay on the tools, but just trying to look at it from a different angle. So, and

Travis Seifert  23:16  

it's like, I know, to the right, like, to certain people, they look at that as, like, unambitious. I'm a very ambitious person. I just like, like, I seven years, eight years, however long I've been, it's still not like a lot in the scheme of things. So like to take on it's amazing. Sometimes, when you see it in iron work, you look at these blueprints. It's not just about looking down and being like, Alright, so this, this piece has to go up. This piece, it's having the experience to know if we put this piece up first is absolutely going to screw us for another week. And I'm gonna have to put four guys over here doing this. These guys know how to piece these things together. Bigger the building, the harder it is. And you have to take on a whole nother level of love for iron work to do that shit. So props to all those people taking on the responsibility.

Jeremy Perkins  24:07  

I mean, I guess that's why Brady never took a coaching job and played all the way, you know, as as long as he could, is because it's really for the love of the game. Sweet outside of that. So you're a musician as well. Um, how'd you get into all that?

Travis Seifert  24:27  

Well, I that that part was, uh, I came into Ian work a musician like I remember sitting in my first classes, and, uh, towards the end of each class, every once in a while we'd end up on some YouTube videos like watching, you know, like old Steve getting a DUI and the scissor lift and just stupid videos having fun. My, my, actually, the apprenticeship was super fun to go through. I love all those guys. But, uh, I remember thinking in my mind, like, God, I hope none of my music videos ever pop up on these guys YouTube. Like, like, because I'm sitting in class I discussed. With nobody. Yeah, I'm talking. I'm still putting out music regularly, doing shows, but I discussed it with nobody. Then once I graduated the apprenticeship, and I started traveling around a lot, because once you're a journeyman, you can travel. You almost can't when you're an apprentice, because you have to be available for class. I don't know. I started embracing it a lot more. And I realized, back to the Brotherhood thing of the Union. I mean, some of my earliest supporters and some of my still to this day, biggest supporters have came from the iron worker brotherhood. These guys, once they started finding out that I was making music, they're like, What the hell. Why didn't you tell us this? And then I started giving people stickers and selling them CDs for $5 a pop. And that's when I really started to be confident enough to like let these guys know I was doing it. I don't exactly know why. I didn't want them to know, but to gain respect on these jobs, you don't want anybody to have any personal ammunition on you anything like you don't want them to know what you do, who you're dating, what like, anything. Yeah, so, because it's just grounds for absolute hazing, and I guess, you know, making some wild ass rap music, like I was doing at the time. I don't know if I was ready for that smoke. Anyways, I was doing it before Ian work, and as soon as I started to kind of make some money, I started to use the fact that I was making more money, and I funneled so much of it for the next six years into trying to make the music thing happen, right? And because of being able to make more money, and it was significantly more getting in iron workers than what I was making before. So I started using that to try to get out there. And then shortly after that, it started to take off to a point where I actually had to take a step back because I was not able to be I technically wasn't able to be that good of employee anymore, because I'm having to be like, Yo, no, I can't work Saturday because I'm going to play this, this show in Iowa. No, I can't work because we to them. It's like, well, you're just taking all this time off. I'm like, It's not the same as taking off to, you know, go on vacation, like, like to them. It's like, why would you have a job when you have a job? And I was like, because I have this sometimes stupid childhood dream of this working Yup, and there's just some sort of calling. And I'm like, it took a lot for me to start to step back from something where I was making to this day. I mean, I've had some good years and I've had some slow years, but to this day, I absolutely made more money, iron working, but I was also beating the shit out of myself every day. Iron barking. So what I'm doing right at this exact moment is exactly what I wanted to be doing now,

Jeremy Perkins  27:55  

for people who don't know you and your music, it's not like you're some wedding singer, or whatever, you are absolutely crushing it, and you're on the verge and you have you got phenomenal music. You've worked with a ton of cool artists and a ton of cool people. Who's one of the coolest artists in your inspiration that you've either got to work with or want to work with,

Travis Seifert  28:21  

who, well, it, I'll answer it in two parts. One, like the artist that, like, I really want to work with. Like, it's like, yellow wolf Kid Rock Jelly Roll. Like, like those artists, like, right after rip, there's so many more than that. Brian Martin, I would love to work with him. A lot of these artists that I've met, I'd have to put Brian, Brian Martin's a country singer, up there with some of the coolest people I've met. And I didn't work with him, per se. I think we will in the future, but I was just opening up at a festival and got to play before him, yeah. And that was enough interaction for us to realize we were cut from the same cloth, and this guy's like, I mean, some people you meet are a little more different than you see online. Yeah. Figure he wasn't one of them. He was just one of those people I met. It was like, holy, like, he is exactly who I thought he

Jeremy Perkins  29:16  

was, right there. Brian Martin actually came on our podcast, and did a podcast with him, yeah? So he was in the pipeline oil field, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was working that dude. He was so pumped to tell that side of the story, like, everybody's music, music, music. But he's like, Dude, you know, I was in the oil fields on Derek's, like, all day long, like, just, and then he would just be singing, you know, songs, same, same to you. Like, he didn't really want to let anybody know he was a musician at first, but then, like, he was writing songs, and then his brothers actually pushed him into the industry, and was like, You need to get off the oil fields and go support and go represent us. And it was kind of his launching point, yeah.

Travis Seifert  29:57  

And that's the thing too, is like, I. There's a level. There's no real way to explain it other than saying, I think there's a level of guilt that comes along with it, because you feel like you're kind of abandoning some people, and you don't want to be like, like, like, good riddance, fuckers, because that's not how we feel. You actually feel a level of guilt living it, but it is what you wanted to do, and you can't, like, slight somebody for you know, it's like, buddy, see you later. It's like, I don't know, man, I feel for him, because I felt like, really bad when I started to kind of pull away. And it's never far behind me. I might be doing it again tomorrow. I don't know, yep, but Brian is the shit. I didn't know he was on the podcast, but that's awesome. I will actually check that out right when I'm done. I sent him a message, alright, he commented something recently on on the internet and said, Well, I just did this song with Adam Calhoun, and I commented something like, Oh, I think, I think the people need one from us. And he commented back, let's do it. So I think that pretty much seals the deal that something's going to come on, I would, I would love to work with that guy. And honestly, like the level that he's at right now. He's still underrated. He's getting so much more credit than he was two years ago, but he's still underrated comparatively. When people are naming the heavy hitters in country, it's like, how are you not listing Brian Martin?

Jeremy Perkins  31:20  

Yeah, no. I mean, there's not a bad song he has out, and they all hit, yeah, yeah.

Travis Seifert  31:25  

And it's got that mad traditional feel to it, that there's a lot of country songs lacking that, yeah. But there's someone I want to work with in every genre. I met some cool people, and not all because of music. I meet some people because of content, you know, the whole crazy world, the Tick Tock and reels and all that. So I got to meet some cool people. It's I, I'm very thankful for it.

Jeremy Perkins  31:50  

That's awesome. That's awesome. And don't feel bad, because, you know, your brotherhood would always a put you up on a pedestal and say, hey, that's one of us. I worked right, right alongside, you know, Travis and and it's something for them to say, like, hey, that came from us, that came from our camp. Like, that dude's an iron worker, you know what? I mean? So, like, we're always happy when somebody makes it. I mean, not that iron working is not making it. It's one of the, one of the highest paying jobs in the trade. So,

Travis Seifert  32:24  

because I literally, I will say I felt like Ian, I still, I felt like I made it the day I got in the apprenticeship, like it felt similar to when I like, here's a great example, a little shout out, a little tiny shout out, back to myself and my team. What's going on right now? Our second song just hit a million streams on Spotify. Or our second time hitting a million streams, which is something I never fathomed could ever happen? Yeah, and as jacked as I was and that happened, that's exactly how I felt when I got an iron workers. I felt like my whole entire life changed overnight, and I was getting a shot at something that was way bigger than what I did before. And it was like, I think I went from making from working at the hospital. I was making $13 an hour after being there for a couple years. And I started out in iron workers, like 25 and this is eight years ago, yeah. And I was like, what? And then, and then, and the journey meant three years, four years later, you're making way more than that.

Jeremy Perkins  33:27  

Totally, totally. I mean, it's good money, it's good money. It

Travis Seifert  33:31  

is good money. And especially if you get on one of those jobs where, I definitely got on some jobs where, if they're if they're cutting you off at 40, and you got to drive there every day, and they're not giving you sub pay. It can seem like you're not getting a lot of money, but you get on the right job, where the overtimes there, they're giving you per diem to drive like all that shit, dude, you can make some coin on those. Your tax, your taxes taken out, is like previous checks. You're like, so if someone's getting into it, man, as soon as you can, don't be afraid to travel, because if you go where the work is, you'll stay busy. 24/7, 365,

Jeremy Perkins  34:14  

so one of the last things I like to ask is, what's next for you? Like, I know you don't have it all mapped out, but what? What big, big picture? What are you looking to to do?

Travis Seifert  34:30  

Well, my big picture is always to take over the world one song and video at a time. That's what I'm trying to do. But I learned a lot in the last year we bought a house for the first time and moved out the trailer park. So my responsibilities changed as a person, my priorities changed. Obviously, I had kind of a cush situation when I had the trailer. I had the shit paid for, and there was not that much to run it per month. So I was. Able to act a little more reckless this year, I learned I had to be way more calculated. I can't just come up with songs when I'm feeling creative. I can't just make videos when I'm feeling like making videos. There has to be a reason to the madness. So what's next? What I need is going to see a whole lot more music coming out from me. I need a follow up album than my first one. I got the whole thing mapped out. Now. I got plenty of songs coming out. I need to get way better at collaborations. I have so many connections with people I've met, but my I don't know what's inside of me, and that makes me do this. But it's like, just because I'm like, friends with you on social media, and you tell me, Hey, if you ever need something, hit me up. I still have this feeling like, Well, I'm not going to reach out for shit because I don't know. I don't want to bother people, whatever. And I realize that is a mistake. I have this moment in time or have access, they said, Yo, whatever you need. I need to collaborate with these people and make some shit happen. And then the last thing I need to do is in the first couple years navigating this music world, I relied on when bookings and things came to me, and I learned that a lot of people are you, whether you got a tour manager or a booking agent or whatever it is, there's someone out there going to bat for you, finding festivals and all this. I didn't know that, so some of my concerts would be few and far between, and I need to really dial in whether I have to come up with the dirty Prescott kids House Party Tour funded by myself coming to your house or your shop or your work place or a venue your favorite bar. I don't know what I have to do, but I have to schedule something, or else I'm there's going to be states that I just don't hit because I'm waiting like, you wait to get booked. Okay, now we get to go to West Virginia, or we get to go to Iowa. I'm like, No, I need to book my own damn tour because, or you wait for a bigger artist to pick you up on a tour, which might never happen. Yeah, yeah. Yep. So, no, so this next year, what's coming is me taking complete control, because I want to stay independent. I don't want the the yes, it would be helpful to have some of these. You know, that extra help, but I wouldn't want to give away what I've done thus far. Yeah, so I need to figure out in this next year, like fast how to navigate being someone that doesn't have the backing of these bigger artists, and use my my profiles that I have and my connections to try to launch this up a notch, because I'm getting streaming, the streaming numbers I always prayed for, I'm getting them, and we're still making music at home. There's not a bunch of people paid out like we're doing enough, right? I just need to start connecting the dots. And I don't know, I don't really have an answer of what's next, but I do know this, it's about to happen, and I feel overly confident that it's like, one click away from where I'm standing right now. Hell yeah, so, and if it doesn't it,

Jeremy Perkins  38:03  

so this is the end of the show. I always give you the the opportunity to to say what you want, plug, who you want. Obviously, if you want to know more about iron working, you can, you can DM, dPK, or, honestly, the best place to go is what the union hall and and yes questions down there. But anything else you want to plug Well,

Travis Seifert  38:26  

you know, I think that is a if anybody listens, that's got kids that are trying to get in the trades, or they're thinking, I think you should, first and foremost, do research about all the Trades Union, non union, look into all of it and find out what really aligns with your life or what you're trying to do, because there's so many trades out there. They're all in really need of people. And you don't just gotta pick a trade because this one's bad ass, or my uncle did this one. There's a lot of good trades out there. And then, yeah, start, start asking around. Go to your local union. I'll ask them how you get in. This information is out there. I mean, you can look up exact pay scales and everything. So don't just think that you gotta wait for someone to get you in. You can start doing your proactive research right now. And they are very good paying jobs. So if you're in a situation like I was making no money, and you want to change your life, the trades is a great option, and it's way more risky to try to be a rapper, way more risky. So that probably shouldn't be your main goal. I'm not knocking being creative, but a lot I hear, a lot of these kids now are like, I want to be a YouTuber. I want to be a singer. It's like, That world is very unforgiving. I'm not telling you not to, but the trades is way more. It won't take you that long to start getting some of that money. But, uh, yeah, you can always find me at dirty Prescott kids, everything. That's the only thing I want to plug. And you know, I'm always wearing them Brunt boots, baby.

Jeremy Perkins  39:54  

There you go. Well, thanks for coming on.

Travis Seifert  39:57  

Hey. Thanks for having me, Jeremy

Jeremy Perkins  39:59  

and. As a special thanks to our loyal listeners, we're giving $10 off your next purchase of $60 or more at bruntworkwear.com Use Discount Code bucket talk 10. That's bucket talk 10. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai