From Law Enforcement to Country Music: Jeff Stauffer's Journey

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hey friends, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show. I'm Kevin.

Speaker 2: 0:08

And I'm Becca, and we're your hosts, here to help you reach your potential and maximize your impact in every area that matters. Let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:18

All right, well, welcome everyone to the Uncommon Freedom Show. Today I am joined by a very special guest, someone who I have become acquainted with over the last few months, a fellow Buckeye, jeff Stoffer oh, I, just I is a country singer-songwriter from Ohio. He's recently known for turning the Britney Spears pop hit Baby one more time into a country song. Jeff, that remake has to be one of the most creative outside of the genre remakes I've ever heard in my life. It is it's so unique that I wouldn't have even recognized it, except I knew the Britney Spears song back in the day.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Jeff got to start in music early. He learned how to play guitar from his grandfather and how to sing from his mother. He recently released his debut album, which is self titled, and tours locally performing a mixture of originals and cover songs. Jeff, welcome to the show, buddy. Thank you, kevin. Glad to be here. It's so great to have this with you. This is we're going to cover some of the things that I typically do, cover some of the topics on my podcast, but once I found out that you were like, I mean, we've been working together professionally for gosh, what about how long? Four months, five months?

Speaker 3: 1:44

Yeah, something like that. It's been, it's been a minute.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Okay, and it was just about a month ago. I saw your wife post that I knew you were into music but I didn't realize you had your own album out, I didn't realize you were touring. I saw your wife post that you know you were had some CDs available, some merchandise available, and she mentioned your album and I was like, well, I can go check this out. So I went to iTunes and downloaded the album and I was incredibly impressed. And then, as I started we're kind of looking you up and finding you on podcasts is like, okay, this guy, you're honestly, you're super humble. I was like, are you kidding me? I was like this guy's a rock star or a country star, not a rock star, but a rock star in the country world, and I had no clue. So I just love that about you, sir. So music has been a part of your life for a long time. Tell us how you get started.

Speaker 3: 2:41

Well, I was kind of forced to and just it was a part of my life from before I really understood how special that was. My mom sang all the time in the house. We grew up faithful attenders at church, and at our church sometimes our family would get up and sing as a group so we'd be practicing at home. Sometimes mom would be singing along to CDs. She still does that, and so the music was just always around and she kind of got a lot of that influence from her dad, my grandfather, and so we'd go over and visit him and he actually just turned 95 and he still plays guitar. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 3: 3:20

But you know, rewind 20 some years ago. We'd go over to grandpa's and grandma's house and we're just little shavers. I have two brothers and no matter how old we were, we'd sit down. Grandpa'd be like hey, thanks for coming over, here's a guitar let's play.

Speaker 3: 3:37

And we didn't know what we were doing, but we just kind of you know picked it up, started plunking around with it and that just kind of stuck and so the music was always there, the influences were always there and the opportunity was there. And when you have all of those things together you're going to end up doing something with music. And dad was very insistent that I would take piano lessons first and I wasn't super interested in playing the piano. But dad said once you can play out of the hymn book, you can play whatever you want. So I took five years of piano lessons and I'm really thankful for that, because fast forward now that's very helpful Learn into theory and just being able to play another instrument. But what I wanted to do was play stringed instruments, like grandpa you know. So I started playing the mandolin, my brother started playing the guitar, my other brother started playing the banjo and we kind of came up with a little brother's bluegrass band and we practiced together. We were homeschooled so we just had a block of the day where it was music practice time. So we would go up into the spare room, we'd sit down and we jam and not only were we practicing music, but it was teaching us how to play as a group, which is a totally unique element. A lot of people practice by themselves to get in with a group and it's just different. And we were doing that and we didn't even know how cool that was. We were playing shows as brothers and it was just kind of fun and there was no pressure and we loved that.

Speaker 3: 5:15

But got to where you know, we're all grown up, we move out of the house. That kind of falls apart a little bit. Because I got brothers in college. I got married. My other brother got married. We kind of stopped doing that for a while. And I went to a birthday party of a friend and it was at a winery. They had entertainment and my friends, they were friends with the owner. So after hours the entertainment leaves and it's just this little group of friends and the owner and they're like well, jeff, jeff plays guitar. You know, jeff, get up and play some songs for us. And I'm like it's been years since I've been on a stage. All right, I'll get up. I played three or four songs and I was there. Something just clicked and I was like I miss this so much. I got to get back into this and that was in 2019. And from that day forward, my you know shoulder has been pressed into it, very cool.

Speaker 1: 6:12

Quick question for you. Would you rather perform in front of a small crowd or a large crowd?

Speaker 3: 6:19

There's two. The self-adventure is the large crowd, for two reasons. One, it's easier and I don't someone smarter than me knows why that is but it's a little bit less intimidating. Yes, because there's so many people out there especially you get the lights up in your eyes. You can't see, and the crowd noise it kind of boosts your adrenaline. It's just easier, it's a lot of fun. But then in the small settings it's a lot more personal. You know you can. You can see somebody's face because they're just a few feet away from you and you can get a little bit more interaction. So the honest answer is I like a variety. I'd probably have to go with a large crowd because there's just something about all that noise. Yeah, you're in a crowd getting into it, that's. It's really fun, but they both have their place.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Okay, and my second question is did you get into do you write and sing and perform country music, because that's your favorite genre? Or, if not, how did you get into specifically country music?

Speaker 3: 7:24

That's a great question, Because what I grew up with was a lot of gospel, gospel, bluegrass that's what my brothers and I played, and we listened to a lot of Southern gospel music. I didn't really listen to country which is kind of sacrilegious to say when you're a country artist but I really didn't. I didn't listen to country until I was working and would turn on the radio and country music was playing and I found that I really liked that style of music. But I took, you know, I took some influences from bluegrass, I took some influences from Southern gospel and I kind of made them into my thing. So that's a long winded answer to a simple question.

Speaker 1: 8:04

But no, that's good. And then my other question is so I my preferred genre. I was born in the late seventies, I grew up listening to eighties rock, so that is like that is my go to. And then obviously, country music has evolved drastically. I mean, I think of all the genres that are out there, I think country music has probably evolved the most in the last 20, 30 years. In my opinion, yours is, as I listen to your album is more of kind of a classical country sound, and most of the country that you're on the radio today has much more of a pop rock. I mean, there's even a hip hop influence and some of the stuff, the country music that my youngest son listens to. Who do you like? Who are your country influences? And when you listen to country music, do you listen to the modern stuff or who do you listen to?

Speaker 3: 8:56

I listen to a lot of modern stuff, but I have my preferences. Cody Johnson would get he's at the top of. I mean, I got his hat sitting here. Okay.

Speaker 3: 9:06

That's how much of a fan of him I am. He he's a lot more traditional too and but he's modern. So he just put out a record a couple of weeks ago and it's it's got really traditional sounds but with some modern production technology so the recording is cleaner. So you get some of the benefits from that, but you still have that that influence. He's my favorite and there's some others that they have the same kind of a thing where there's not I'm not super into like the hip hop vibe in country. Nothing against anybody, that is it's just like more of that bluegrass inspired stuff. And but I also like the electric guitars. So you add a little bit of electric guitar and you get guys like Cody Johnson and that's what I find myself listening to a lot. And Luke Combs is another one that, especially his last record he'd put out, it's got a lot more of that kind of string instrument influence more than like electronic production stuff.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Yeah, all right, let's talk about the Britney Spears turning point. How in the world did that cover happen?

Speaker 3: 10:11

Yeah, that's not something you'd think you'd ever hear country, definitely not. It was almost trying to think of social media content, because you know of a lot of the problem with getting out there isn't that your music is terrible, it's nobody knows about you. So the easiest way to get out there is with social media. So I come up to here in my spare I call it my studio. It's just a spare bedroom, but you got to start with what you got, yeah, and I sit down to. I've got a block of time, I want to make something for social media and I've just got nothing.

Speaker 3: 10:46

My notepad app on my phone is empty. I've done everything I've already thought of and I'm just sitting there with my guitar like plinking around and Baby, one more time pops in my head. I have no idea why, and I just I'm like baby, baby. How was I supposed to know? I'm like that. That's completely different from how it sounds. I wonder if I can, I Wonder if I can get this whole thing to sound like it was country.

Speaker 3: 11:14

So I kind of pull up the words, take a look at them, because I didn't really have the words memorized. I just, oh, come on, you know I was born in the 90s, but that's a little two 90s for what I remember. I knew some of them. I knew I knew some of them but to to know them well enough to change the melody hard to do. Yeah, pull them up and I look at them and I'm like that sounds like it could be a country song. So I just sat there and just started working through it, kind of like if I was trying to write the song myself and I had gotten the words down. Let's find a melody that complements the words and it sounds country and took me about a half an hour. And when I got done with that I'm like this sounds like it could have come right down country radio. And if someone, if George straight, would have cut the song 20 years ago, no one would have ever heard the Britney Spears version. Yeah, I started, started producing it and it went.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Yeah, and then that really went by role on tiktok right.

Speaker 3: 12:12

Yeah, I, I twice actually. I'm very, very blessed for that, because I did just a quick little production thing couple hours me playing all the instruments in my home studio that day that I thought of it and posted it and it got about 600,000 views. Wow, like this is, this is an opportunity. And a lot of the comments were like we need the full version because I only did verse and chorus, okay, and so I'm like all right, gonna do it. So I sat down and actually went into the studio and recorded the rest and it wasn't till January. I posted in like November, january. I actually have it done and I put it out again. Course, no one sees it. A couple videos they don't go anywhere.

Speaker 3: 12:53

And and then I made the best video with my wife and that one went the most viral and 1.9 million views is where it ended up and oh, that translated into people coming over into Spotify and actually listen into the music because it was Actually available. It wasn't just, you know, on social media at that point and it it changed this entire year for me the way I chose booking and all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:17

It was a huge blessing, interesting interesting in Jim Collins book Either great by choice or from good to great, or maybe it's in both. I don't know if you're familiar with that book. I'm reading good to great right. Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:31

Awesome, awesome, great minds think alike. Exactly, he talks about a concept where you fire musket balls instead of cannonballs, mm-hmm, and the idea there is you test things out with something that doesn't cost a ton. You just kind of want to test the waters, and that's exactly what you did with this. Is you? You were strategic and you said, man, I'm gonna try something and see if this would work, and then you tested it. Obviously, you had a great response, but you had to continue to develop it. And then now you've got a you know full-blown album which is kind of the cannonball version of it. But I love that quick question for you. Yeah, when you do a remake, a cover like that, how does that work with as far as copyrights and licensing? How does a you know a guy like you figure out what to do with all that?

Speaker 3: 14:23

Good question. That's a very intimidating thing when you're first getting into it, because that's a big like Big worry there's. The short answer is there's a lot of companies these days that help you with that.

Speaker 3: 14:36

So, I chose a distributor. That part of their distribution agreement was, if I did some legwork and figured out who the songwriters were and provided that information for them, they would set up the license so that the songwriter of that song would get paid. So there's like two sides of. I Don't want to get down in a huge nitty gritty, but basically you've got the songwriting and you've got the the master, they call it, which is the audio recording, and that's an oversimplication. There's more stuff but those are your big buckets of royalties. If you will so then my master is is mine, because I recorded that. I paid for the recording but I didn't write the song. So when that song gets distributed and someone listens to it and that generates a royalty, the songwriter share just goes to the same songwriter. You know it's been getting royalties from the Britney Spears version.

Speaker 3: 15:35

And then I get the royalties from the audio that I created, and then I don't have to think about it. So it's really simple. There's different companies that do it for you, but that's. That's the short version.

Speaker 1: 15:49

When you post something like if you're just messing around as a you know, recreational musician and you post something on social media, do you have to like? Does that enter into Copyright type arena, where you never had to worry about it?

Speaker 3: 16:11

Okay, I've never had to worry about that. A lot of like Facebook and YouTube have built into their Brain, if you will, of the software that it'll recognize Copywritten material and it'll automatically pay royalties to the copyright holder. So, for the most part, people like me that you know throw up a cover on YouTube, don't have to worry about that. Oh, interesting, okay, so it's, it's. It was kind of a bigger deal when social media was kind of getting its feet a few years ago. Now it's not a huge deal now. If I would take, you know, the exact recording that that they Created and put, try to put it up as my, as my own, that could cause some problems. It probably just get flagged and taken down, got it. But just recording a video of me singing whatever song, it's not a problem.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Okay, because I I see videos like that and I think it's a great way to Inspire creativity and people. So I was just curious how copyright affected that kind of stuff. What was? Were you surprised by the reaction to the cover?

Speaker 3: 17:21

No, it's funny. Okay, most of the time when I have a great idea that I well, that I think is a great idea, I put tons of work into it and post it and it gets like the all-state commercial tens and tens of views, right, no one sees it, no one cares, and you're like, okay, that was that didn't work, this one. I was like I think this is gonna work because it's so Unique, it's so out of left field that people are gonna stop and go.

Speaker 3: 17:50

I Can't even believe that's the same song and I'm gonna get them to stay watching it, for you know, and then then it's gonna spiral, so that one didn't surprise me. I've had a lot of other ones that I thought we're gonna do that that didn't. And like, like you said, you fire the cannonball or the musket balls till you hear one hit the side of the ship, and then you fire the cannonball. Yeah, and I fired a lot of musket balls and no ships were out there, but that one I kind of figured would hit.

Speaker 1: 18:18

Yeah, awesome, very cool. All right, so you're a country music performer star, however you want to look at it, not really a star, but I appreciate it. You're working on it. Yeah, the potential is definitely there, and you obviously. You're still in Ohio, yep, not Nashville, no, no, is that on the radar for you? Is it something you'd like to do or is it so Okay?

Speaker 3: 18:45

I early on, when I decided back in 2019, all right, I'm going to give this a serious try. I got on YouTube, like anyone in my position would do, and typed in how to get a record deal because that's what.

Speaker 3: 19:00

I thought I was supposed to do and, thank the Lord, I landed on a certain. His name was Rick Barker, I'll just give him the shout out. He had a YouTube video that got me to watch it and basically it was him saying you're not ready for a record deal, Like stop wasting your time, you need to learn what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 19:23

You need to build a foundation, because back in the day maybe record labels we're going to take new talent and develop it. Now they want a small business, really. They want you to lay the foundation, they want you to build a fan base, they want you to learn what you're doing, they want you to be profitable and then they can throw gas on the fire and blow you up. But they don't really want to waste their time throwing darts and seeing what hits. So you need to learn what you're doing where you are. Take over your town, then grow out. Take over your county, then grow out, take over your state and and then you'll have generated enough noise that once you end up moving to Nashville to network with the right people, they you're worth talking to. So many artists that were where I was, you know, four years ago, or even where I'm now still they. They go down there on a wing and a prayer and it's, you know, just let's. Hopefully someone sees me playing in this bar that no record executive has been in since 1993. But maybe they'll walk in and I'll get my break. That's not a great plan. That's just not the way it works. So I fortunately decided I'm going to stay here, keep my day job and I'm going to invest into learning and growing and building a foundation that you can actually build something sustainable on.

Speaker 3: 20:51

But eventually, I just read a book called Uncommon Freedom, and one of the my big takeaways from there was just how important your circle is the people that you hang around. You want to do something, find someone who's already done it and learn what they did, right, yeah, so there's going to come a point, most likely in my career, that it would make sense for me to go down there, because the people that have done it are there, the people that know how to do it are there, and so the reason, in my opinion, to move to Nashville would be to network with people rather than hope you get discovered. Do the work, discover your. You can make a random left field cover of a Britney Spears pop song and get discovered in Ohio, and that's what I'm trying to do. So that's kind of where my mind is, and hopefully one day it would make sense, but right now I'm still in the Lay the Foundation stage.

Speaker 1: 21:51

I think a good analogy is probably, if you love football, I do Wanting to be a walk on football player, like moving to Nashville as a brand new, maybe a good artist, but without that reputation that you're talking about is like trying to be a walk on either college or NFL player without really having the skills and saying, well, if I make it as a walk on, they're going to get me a trainer, they're going to help me develop. And what you're talking about is saying, no, I'm going to work my butt off, I'm going to be the best guy or one of the best guys on the field and then I'm going to go try out as a walk on and see if I can make it at that point Exactly. Is that it?

Speaker 3: 22:29

Got it, that's exactly it. That's a great analogy. I've never I've never heard it put that way before. But that is exactly it. No one's going to go to the Kansas City Chiefs and say, hey, I'd like to be your quarterback.

Speaker 3: 22:39

You know, right, we have a quarterback, get lost loser. Yeah, you go to school, you learn, you work really, really hard and when you show up at the combine, you want to put out such a performance that the Chiefs go we need this guy or whoever it is, and yeah, that's. That's a great analogy. I'm going to steal that, go for it. Go for it.

Speaker 1: 22:59

So what? How does your Ohio roots? How does that influence your writing, your songs? And then I also want you to share, like what does your rhythm look like as far as performing, touring and things like that? What does that look like for you?

Speaker 3: 23:21

Yeah, I'll tackle the first question first. Growing up here in Ohio, I grew up my parents lived out in the country so writing country music. There's some people that write country music that have never lived one second in the country, right, and you can kind of tell. You know, I don't remember the artist, but there was. These two artists wrote a song about pickup trucks and they were like riding in my F 1500 and the somebody heard is like you guys have no idea what you're talking about and it just yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:58

So write about what you know, because people are going to be able to tell you're a fraud. So the Ohio roots for me is I did grew up out in the sticks, playing in the woods, hunting, hunting, fishing, you know, getting taught to work. We had a garden. You know we had chores ever since I was little animals, and so some of that heritage that country music is all about, or at least claims to be all about, that was the way I grew up.

Speaker 3: 24:26

I'm not, I don't have to fake that, you know, because a lot of that stuff you can't fake, and that that has to spill over into the music that I write, because it's experiences that I can live. And that sounds really cliche because a lot of country artists came up that way. But one of the things that I think can be special about someone like me is I'm a nobody from nowhere, like that's. That's just the way it is, and there's a lot of nobodies from no wares and from nowhere. I can't talk today, and when you write music from that perspective it can be relatable to a lot of people because you know it's just, it's just life. So that's part A of the question. Second part of the question I'll filibuster here while I'm trying to think of exactly what you asked.

Speaker 1: 25:15

I was asking about the rhythm of your life and tour and everything.

Speaker 3: 25:18

So got it. So this year, for instance, I'm working a full-time job and my employers were super gracious with me when I came into the company and they allowed me to work a 410 schedule and have Friday, saturday, sunday off. So what my normal week would look like would work in during the day, and in the evening, when I have time, I'll come up here to my studio, I'll work on social media content, I'll write new music, I'll work on producing the music that I have and then on the weekends I'll play shows. So this summer we played a lot of shows, sometimes two or three a week, and we were able to do that because I had a little bit of flexibility in my schedule. So for the most part my tour is local. You know, within an hour, a couple hours. I played one show down in Kentucky this year. That was the only out-of-state show that we did.

Speaker 3: 26:22

But I'm kind of working on expanding the circle but getting into the rhythm of producing new music at home in the time that I have and being on the road in the weekends, and maybe one day the music will be sustaining enough that that can be the full-time job and then I have more time to develop the craft. A lot of people in country music like actual full-timers. They'll tour on the weekend and then Monday through Wednesday or Monday through Thursday they're home and that's when they can do co-writing and have their meetings. And so I've done that and also worked in a full-time job on top of that. So it's busy, but it's good.

Speaker 1: 27:10

Is the country music tour lifestyle? Is it different from at least the stereotypical rock-pop lifestyle where you're on the road doing probably four or five shows a night and it's just kind of balls to the wall, crazy living on the road lifestyle?

Speaker 3: 27:27

Yes, for the most part it's a lot different because most of the time the country acts aren't going out on the road for three months straight and just craziness. Most of the time they're doing three-day runs. I don't know if you've heard that term, but three-day runs like you have bus call at midnight, get on the bus, you drive to wherever you go, you play a show Thursday, you play a show Friday, you play a show Saturday and you come home Saturday night. You just go, get on the bus, go to sleep, you wake up, you're back home, get off the bus Sunday and you have Sunday, monday, tuesday and Wednesday up until the evening when you have bus call and then you just go get back on the bus. And so a lot of them can have a lot more normal of a lifestyle because they're gone a couple of days a week but then they've got four days that some of them they don't really have to work at all if they don't want to.

Speaker 3: 28:19

Luke Combs I just heard him talking about this and he's even playing less shows maybe one or two shows on a weekend, and he just had a kid, and so he comes home Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and he's dad and that's all he's doing.

Speaker 4: 28:31

And that's style design.

Speaker 3: 28:32

Right, yeah, exactly, yeah, much, much better than you know. Three months of being gone, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Awesome, awesome. Let's talk about your career transition, because I know the job you have now isn't what you were doing. You used to be a police officer, yes. So how did you make that transition from law enforcement to your current job, combined with being a country music artist?

Speaker 3: 28:56

There was a good handful of reasons, as there always are. I enjoyed. I enjoyed being a police officer, but the music started to take off to a point where I was having to say no to a lot of stuff because I'm working nights and weekends and I I had a pretty decent schedule as follows law enforcement go, where I was working every other weekend, so I could plan out what weekends there you know I'd be available, but even those I'm. My normal shift is 6pm to 6am. It's really hard to be back and forth. You know in from days to nights to. You don't know when to be asleep and when to be awake, and then you're either falling asleep in your, your cruiser, or you're falling asleep where you're, you know, trying to play a show and I. That was part of it. The other part of it was I had been on nights for years and my wife had been on days the whole time. I got sworn in as a deputy a little bit after the month I turned 21. And three weeks later we got married. So the only life my wife and I ever knew was opposite schedules and it was not going to change anytime soon. At the department that I was at, and if you go to another department you're starting over. So it's.

Speaker 3: 30:23

It was kind of a hard position to be in, and so my wife and I talked about it, prayed about it, and you know, for our marriage to grow, for the music to grow, it was something that had to, had to change. So I started looking around at other careers and eventually made the jump hard to do. I'm assuming you probably went through something similar. It feels different if you're, if you've never been a police officer or in the military. It's hard to describe the camaraderie and the feeling of if it doesn't just feel like you're quitting a job, it feels like you're walking out on your family and that's hard, that's really hard to do and it's it's hard to not let being a police officer become too much of your identity or you're afraid to let go of that, and so it was a hard decision to make, but it was the right decision to make, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:20

No, awesome, I'm happy for you. If you were starting your music career over, what advice or message would you have for yourself?

Speaker 3: 31:30

Invest in your education, and you mentioned the good to great book by Jim Collins. One of the things he talks about in that book is the flywheel and where you figure out these different things that are going to actually turn the dial for your business or your music career. And once you figure out those things, you start turning a little bit at a time and it picks up momentum and you keep going. And the first part of that is you need to learn what things need to be on the flywheel for yourself. And so I would say to my young self invest in learning, look to the people who have done what you want to do and learn from them to learn what you need to do.

Speaker 3: 32:14

And then, secondly, it's really easy to get discouraged with you start moving the flywheel. I'll just keep with that example and nothing happens. And so you're like, maybe I'm doing something wrong and you stop and you change something and you start over. And then you stop and you change something, you start over, and maybe, maybe you weren't doing anything wrong at all, you just weren't doing it long enough. And so I would tell myself that as well, invest in learning, seek out mentors who can help you, and then, once you figure out what you need to do, really lean your shoulder into it and be patient. Don't expect that you're going to break out overnight, because you're not, and if you do, it's probably going to be worse for you in the long run because you're not going to learn everything that you need to learn along the journey. If you focus on the journey, you'll get to the destination.

Speaker 1: 33:05

If you focus on the destination, you might quit the journey and so it's kind of like people who win the lottery If they happen to be that one in 10 million, statistically they're going to go bankrupt because they don't know how to handle that kind of money versus people who slowly become take 25 years to become an overnight success in a millionaire. They're prepared for it. Are there any artists, maybe even outside of the country music scene, that you especially admire or draw inspiration from?

Speaker 3: 33:36

I know I already named dropped Cody Johnson. I like him pretty well. I like Josh Turner too. Josh Turner is one that is an outspoken Christian and I appreciate that. I like he put out an entire gospel record and I like that.

Speaker 3: 33:53

I'm going to have to throw a curveball here. Throw it all the way back to my Southern gospel roots. Gold City is a Southern gospel quartet and I love their music to this day. I grew up listening to it. I listen to it now and I'll go in spurts where I'll listen to a lot of country or whatever genre and then I'll turn back on one of those old Gold City records and it's just uplifting, awesome. It makes me inspired about my own music and it's encouraging to me as a Christian too, because it's gospel music and I appreciate both of those things. So that's got to be my answer there.

Speaker 2: 34:35

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Speaker 1: 34:50

So, talking about your album, jeff, pronounce your name for me Stoffer, stoffer, okay. I've heard it a couple of different ways, so I had a teacher, miss Stoffer, and so that's how you pronounce your name as well On your album. One of the things I hate about digital music is that I love getting a CD, opening up the jacket cover, looking all the liner notes. You know who is the song written by, who played, you know the different instruments, and when you download a song and album on iTunes you don't really have that. So who played all their instruments on the album? How many? How many of the interns did you play?

Speaker 3: 35:28

yourself. So I played. I played some keyboard, acoustic guitar, a lot of acoustic guitar and that's mostly it for what I played mandolin to. And I played electric guitar just minorly, but for the most part I hired out guys and I loved that too in the album covers. So in my hard copy CD I have all the credits for every single song in there.

Speaker 3: 35:58

I really like that there's. There's honestly too many guys to go through in name, but my brother, kyle, played bass on almost every single song. He sang background vocals on every song. He played banjo. He played pedal steel. He's an extremely talented guy. My other brother, luke, played electric guitar in a couple of songs and he played acoustic guitar in a couple of songs. There's some artists Soul Philcox is played on Luke Cohn's records, jim Riley played for Rascal Flats, and it's just a bunch of guys that I reached out to online. Some of them I had no business working with at all, but they were super gracious and they played, so that's awesome.

Speaker 3: 36:49

And then did you record your parts in your studio right there or did you go to a professional recording studio Both Okay, most of them I recorded right here, wow, but the first song on the album we actually all three of my brothers, my wife and my brother's wife loaded up and went to Nashville for the first song and because we didn't know what we were doing and we were just smart enough to know maybe you should go learn a little bit, you know.

Speaker 3: 37:18

So we loaded up, went down to Nashville and they the studio, hired in a band, they played, we sang down there, we kind of learned. It came back up here and the first song we did all our own is not on the album. It is, but I had to remake it. It was just, it wasn't great. We tried to do everything ourselves.

Speaker 3: 37:37

Tailgate kind of day. Okay, and the one on the album is not the first one we made. Got it Because we learned that in that process, what we could do and what it was just smart to get the professionals in. Uh-huh.

Speaker 3: 37:51

And we learned a lot there and then found a local studio. Audio thrills here in in Ohio and we started working with him. And then my wife bought me a microphone that was good enough quality for me to record in my house for Christmas a couple of years ago and I started doing all of the recordings in my home studio, collecting all the recordings that I'd hire guys out to do and then mixing in master in here in my home studio as well.

Speaker 1: 38:19

Wow so well, it sounds great, man. Thank you. When I listened to the album, I would never have a clue that it was done in, you know, a makeshift extra bedroom turned into a studio, so that's really cool. Uh, do you have a favorite song on the?

Speaker 3: 38:34

album yeah, hooked, okay, probably my favorite song. It's the last song really, upbeat. Um, that's probably my favorite song to play because it's such a jam.

Speaker 3: 38:45

My favorite song words. Wise is probably gone, but not forgotten. Okay, Um, and there's a cool story behind that which I don't know. I don't know how we're doing on time, Go ahead. I got all day Right. So I was working third shift as a police officer and that that day I'd woken up. I think I was working 11 to seven is before we went to 12s and PM, damn and so I got up sometime three, four in the afternoon and.

Speaker 3: 39:13

I started writing that song and I had written the first verse in the chorus and it was time to go in for my shift.

Speaker 3: 39:19

So I loaded up, gotten the cruiser, went into work and in the course of the night I ran into a friend, co-worker, another officer from another agency that came through the town and he pulled up beside my cruiser and we chatted for a few minutes and I say it was just after midnight and I said to him hey, I never got a chance to tell you this, but his, his dad, had recently passed away and I knew his dad and I knew him from law enforcement, but I knew his dad from something so different.

Speaker 3: 39:52

I didn't even know they were related until he passed away. And then I saw that on social media and I said I just wanted you to know how much of a special guy your dad was to me. He was always very encouraging of my music and just a blessing of a guy to be around. And he said I really appreciate you saying that and it's kind of funny that you say that today, because today is my birthday and my dad used to every single year he would stay up till midnight or set an alarm and he would text me happy birthday at 12 o'clock every year.

Speaker 3: 40:27

And this year is the first year that that did not happen, that I did not get that message from him. And I'm sitting here checking my phone as I'm talking to you, waiting for it, and I know it's not coming. I know he's, I know he's in heaven, I know he's in a better place, but it just doesn't feel real. And yeah, it's crazy that you, we have this conversation today and that's about all that was said, because we're on duty so we can't talk all night and we end up going our separate ways. And as I'm cruising around that night, I'm like that is the second verse of this song. So I call him up as soon as I got off shift that morning and I said hey, I'm writing a song, can I use your story? And he said, yeah, absolutely. And so I didn't even hardly have to write anything. It was exactly what he had told me.

Speaker 3: 41:13

I wrote that down and I'm telling you, when I first put that pen to paper, goosebumps, yeah, like this is, this is really special, and so that song is probably my favorite words just because of that story and how you know, right place, right time, and I was able to use someone else's special memory of their dad and put it right into that song. And everybody's lost people they've cared about. You know, not a one of us are immune to that, and so we all can appreciate that. There's a lot of people that you know they may have passed away, but they're not forgotten, you know, and we think of the men and women that have served and lost their lives on the battlefield. They're not forgotten and we appreciate, you know, everything they've done.

Speaker 1: 42:00

So that's how I really like that one. My favorite song is Real man, and it's the same thing I go more towards. I'm more like upbeat music, but the words in Real man, I just love them. I mean they're not politically correct in 2023. Tell me, like, where did that come from? I mean, I can tell you have a good relationship. It seems like it was probably heavily influenced by your dad and your family and stuff. But tell me the story behind that particular song.

Speaker 3: 42:31

My dad said that to me so fast or rewind, actually like 20 years, and I was in the car with my dad for something and I grew up pretty sheltered, so broken families were not very normal for me.

Speaker 3: 42:48

So I'm a young kid I don't know what, I was eight, something like that and family, a church. The dad left the family and I was just like what's going on, dad? And he's like he quit and Real Men don't quit. And there was probably more to that conversation, but I don't remember anymore. I just remember that my whole life, from that day forward, I remember Real Men don't quit and one day I sat down and the words just started flowing from that and I was like you know what? There's a lot of broken families in this world that are having a hard way to go, and they don't need to be but people. It's hard to not quit, but sometimes that's what you got to do and so.

Speaker 3: 43:43

I started writing it and I forgot about the song. It's funny that you say it's the favorite one on the album for you. They almost didn't even make it on the album at all, because I wrote it and I was probably working on another song. So I just recorded a demo and forgot about it. And when I was getting ready to get a list of tracks for the album, I was listening through stuff and I heard that one and I'm like that one's got to go on the album and some people might be offended by it. But I don't mean it to offend anybody.

Speaker 3: 44:13

I mean it to be more as an encouragement to people you don't quit because there is another way.

Speaker 1: 44:21

I think the message in that song is needed more than ever currently, so I love it. So let's switch gears a little bit. You recently started getting serious about your health, and that's actually how we connected. Was there a specific event or realization that prompted your focus on your well-being?

Speaker 3: 44:41

Yes, and it's a good story. But first of all I just started being really uncomfortable in my skin, worrying, just stuff wasn't fitting. I didn't feel good and that was just kind of weighing on me. But the real kick in the pants.

Speaker 3: 45:01

I was over at my grandpa's house Not my mom's dad, my dad's dad and we were talking about my music and he had recently kind of learned how serious I was about it and so he wanted to know what you know, kind of like you and I are talking about it now. How'd you get into it? We were having that conversation and I was telling him my plans, my goals, and we're just sitting out in his garage talking about it, talking about it, and he goes oh you know, if you actually want to do this music thing, you should probably lose that gut, just like that. And he reached over and taps my belly and I'm like you know what, grandpa, you're right. And so that kind of prompted the bug. I'm like all right, this has got to happen. And one thing led to another. I'm talking to my dad who connected to me, to a mutual friend of his who was connected to you, who made the connection between you and I. We started getting serious about it, but old grandpa just shooting from the hip got me going.

Speaker 1: 46:08

Wow, that's cool. I guess you know once again, you know. It just goes back to influences, right? The people you surround yourself with, having people that you know, that you give you give permission to just speak truth into your life, that's awesome. You look at most of the modern stars in any genre there tend to be pretty, you know fit and it's you know it pays off. So how does faith play a role in your approach to health and maintaining balance in the midst of a rising music career?

Speaker 3: 46:42

This is a cliche answer, but it's the truth. The body is a temple and if you don't take that seriously, then you know there might be a deeper issue but, that's, that's kind of a base and I've, I've, I'm straight, I've gotten you know off of the, the, the health plan, and just been a glutton.

Speaker 1: 47:05

I mean, that's the simplest.

Speaker 3: 47:06

This is the simplest way, but I love food and so I've ate way too much and not put limits on myself and not focused on diet and exercise, and I can make all the excuses in the world. You know. Oh well, I was a cop and you know I was sitting all the time in my cruiser and the duty belts are uncomfortable and so your back hurts and blah, blah, blah, blah excuses. The fact of the matter is you only have one life, you only have one body and everything else you want to do in life. Being healthier is not going to hurt, you know right. So being healthier, feeling better, is going to extend to more parts of your life than just you know your weight, and so I think it's important to to take that seriously.

Speaker 1: 47:54

Yeah, and you and Sarah, your wife, had been married for how long now?

Speaker 3: 47:59

Seven, seven years and some change, Not to put you on the spot or anything like that. No.

Speaker 1: 48:05

And I know she's a super supportive part of your journey and your music career. How does she fit into all that you have going on?

Speaker 3: 48:12

She's very supportive. Her and her dad especially are. They were early influencers in me to want to get serious about music. I play my guitar for them just over at the house and they were like you should maybe think about doing this more seriously. And I was kind of like you know whatever. Of course, they're going to say that they're my family, they love me. They're going to say that, but it was nice to have that, that support. And yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:38

And now Sarah helps me with a lot of the graphic design. She does a lot of graphic design for her work and so she's talented with that, so she'll help me make banners, some with the photography. She'll run the camera sometimes when I'm making content and she's my sounding board. And sometimes I drive her nuts because, you know, I'm constantly thinking of ways I could improve my brand or my music or different things. I want to try and I'm talking to her about it constantly.

Speaker 3: 49:16

Or I'll write a new song and I'll sit down and I'll play it for her. I'm like, what you think she's? Like it's good, what do you want me to say? And it's just, but it's nice to have someone there, because one little secret about music production and it's a psychological thing, but it really works is that if you're working on something and you kind of don't know what you need to do from here, you don't know what to change. How can you make this better If you bring someone in the room and you play it for them like, what do you think of this? There will be certain things that you hear. You're like when you cringe, you need to fix that part.

Speaker 3: 49:54

And something about someone else being there. Listening helps the creative process and she's always ready, willing and able to just be there when I need some help with that kind of stuff, and it's really, really great.

Speaker 1: 50:08

I like that nugget. So if you're creating, don't do it in a bubble. Invite other people in. Just the mere presence of other people is going to cause you to have a more probably attentive perspective on to what you're creating.

Speaker 3: 50:24

Yeah, it works. That doesn't even include the things that they might actually say or the value they'll provide Very tangibly. It's just a psychological trick, but it helps.

Speaker 1: 50:36

That's good, that's good. What is your plan? I'm curious because obviously the entertainment industry is even in Christian music is full of people who you know their marriages have fallen apart, their families have fallen apart. Because fame, you know, just distractions, you know being on stage and having other women look at you and things like that. I'm curious what types of things do you have in place, or what types of things are you planning to put in place as you kind of rise through the ranks and become more popular, maybe spend more time on the road to keep your family intact and keep your family priority?

Speaker 3: 51:15

I think one of the biggest things that you have to do not just for music, but just in life is remember that we're stewards of what God has given us.

Speaker 3: 51:24

And if God has put you in a place of where you're, you know, becoming more successful, god can take you out of that place. And if you lose focus on God, no matter what you're doing, you are going to have problems, and sometimes that's all it takes for you to you know flee temptation is if you are looking at God and spending time in the Word, spending time with Him, then that you know influence, that fellowship with the Holy Spirit is going to help stave off some of those temptations. And it's easy to you know get busy and stop reading your Bible, or it's easy to you know walk away from some of that stuff. But that's a really slippery slope and you know there's countless examples in the Bible of people who were righteous men walking with God and when they took their eyes off of Him they were problems. Yeah, I think that's that's one thing that I try to keep in the forefront of my mind that God has got to be number one. And if he's not, then what am I doing?

Speaker 1: 52:35

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. So, Jeff, as we wrap up, what is the best way for people who want to hear more of your music, learn more about you? Is iTunes the best thing for them to just go download the album? Or how can they support you?

Speaker 3: 52:53

Whenever you listen to music. If you listen on iTunes, I've got music there. You can download the album there. If you listen to Apple Music, spotify, all of those places, the music is up. So if you type in Jeff Stoffer music on those platforms it'll come up. If you're more of a you know hard CD person, I've got those available. My website's JeffStofferMusiccom. I try to make it real easy. If you type in Jeff Stoffer into the computer, it pops up now and you can click like go to the artist's website. Way to go.

Speaker 3: 53:25

So that's kind of nice. So wherever you like to listen to music, it's going to be there, and if you like live shows, I'm playing live and I'm trying to expand and play more places. Come out and say hi. I'd love to meet anybody that likes the music that I'm putting out, because that's why I'm doing it.

Speaker 1: 53:49

And the Britney remake is not on your album. It's not on this album.

Speaker 3: 53:53

It's. Is it on a? Do you have another album? I'm actually working on a second album right now. Okay. And that one will be on there.

Speaker 1: 54:01

Got it. If people want to hear it right now, do they just go to social media, or is it available as a single.

Speaker 3: 54:06

It's available as a single on Spotify, apple Music. Wherever you listen to music you can, you can hear that one.

Speaker 1: 54:12

Okay, awesome People definitely have to check that out. I've listened to it and, like I said, if someone were to just play your version, you'd be like maybe is that a Britney Spears song, but I mean it's. I don't know who you're about to yeah, it's, it's so creative, so well Is it okay, sorry? Is it okay?

Speaker 3: 54:30

if I throw a like, ask you a question, of course, of course, All right. I just read your book Uncommon Freedom and I really enjoyed it and I was Awesome. I was wanting to take advantage of this conversation you and I are having. You did some research on me, obviously, you know, before we, we had this conversation and if you just we weren't having this and you could speak some, some words of encouragement or I'm not asking for encouragement, let me let me phrase this better what would you say to someone like me as far as advice goes? That's what I'm trying to say, gotcha.

Speaker 1: 55:09

I think that you, when you were talking about getting really good at what you're doing and then moving to Nashville, understanding that having mentors that have done what you want to do one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they take advice from people that are going in the wrong direction. From where someone wants to go, they take advice from people who've failed. It's something that they want to do. So I think it would be easy for an aspiring artist like you to talk to people who tried things and failed. And just because it failed for someone doesn't mean that it fails for everyone. It's possible. But what I've learned in life is that you're much better off taking advice from people who have gone down the path that you want to go down and have achieved what you want to achieve than taking advice from the other type of people. And the other thing I was just having lunch with a new friend today. He's only been in America. He's originally Mexican, he just got his US citizenship and I think he's 30 years old, so he's about 16 years younger than me. Super impressive young man and I see him just networking like crazy. And I was talking to him today about this concept called the proximity principle, and I think there's even a book out there that's been written with that title but the concept is you want to be in proximity to the people that you want to be like. So, whether it's health, whether it's successful marriages or parenting, whether it's financially or whether it's in the career that you want and not just specifically country music, but also identifying who are the people that I want to be like, because there's a lot of people that their lives are a mess. They achieve their goals of being a famous musician, but their life is a mess, and there's things you can learn from those people. But really getting in proximity to some of the role models who are not only country music stars, the way that you want to be, but they have the rest of their life in order, the way that I know is a priority to you, so that's what I would suggest, I mean. The other thing that I love about what you've done is that you gave up security, which I call security is the S word.

Speaker 1: 57:44

I love being a police officer for five years and then I realized, towards the end of my seventh year, around well, I was actually around year five, a little bit beyond that I was burned out and it was interesting. I was just it's such a challenging career field and it competed with my values of being a present husband and a present dad that I got to the point where I just didn't have the passion and I honestly realized that it was affecting my tactical edge. And honestly, I realized that I had a kind of a moral obligation at that point to leave law enforcement because I just didn't have the edge that I once had. And it put myself at risk, it put my coworkers at risk and yet I saw many other coworkers in a similar boat. But security the quote unquote security of a government paycheck, pension benefits, kept them tethered to a job they really didn't belong in anymore.

Speaker 1: 58:47

And whether it's law enforcement, whether it's being a teacher or any type of sale, whatever it is, I think a lot of people allow the illusion of security to keep them tethered to something that is really standing in the way of their passions. And so what I admire about you is that I mean, you still have an appreciation for law enforcement, but you realized, okay, this is my true passion, this is my true calling, and I'm willing to maybe even take a step backwards a little bit and go into a new career field that will support my long-term goal of being a musician and writing music and being able to tour and share that gift with other people. So when I look at you, I mean you're 30, right, I'm 27. 27, okay. So I mean you're a decade ahead of where I was as far as lifestyle design goes. So I'm just impressed that you've made so many other decisions that you've made. So I would just say keep thinking about what you want.

Speaker 1: 59:52

We have a saying I don't remember if it was in the book or not, but I think it was lead from the future, act in the now and it's looking at what you want your life to look like and what are the steps. What would you be doing as a well-known national, if not international, recording artist in the country music scene and what are those action steps you'll be doing then? Start to do them now and that, like we were talking at the beginning, right, you start doing those action steps now and it gets you to where you wanna be. I love that, thank you, you bet.

Speaker 3: 1:00:27

That's a great question. That's a great question. I had to steal some free advice here. Take advantage of your time.

Speaker 1: 1:00:32

Oh man, not at all. Well, jeff, thank you so much. It's really been fun just connecting with you professionally as your coach for the last few months. But like we just we're on the same frequency in many ways and I just our values are so similar and learning more about you. Once again, you're very humble. It was such a surprise to me. If your wife hadn't posted, I still might not know what a cool dude you are. I mean, I knew you were cool but just like you had this album and touring and everything. So it's an honor. I'm grateful for the friendship. Definitely hope to see you out in Arizona at some point.

Speaker 1: 1:01:13

I can't wait for you to get big enough that you're coming out this way for a weekend or something like that, and next time I'm in Ohio I'll definitely keep an eye out to see if if you're gonna be anywhere near where I'm at. So Absolutely Awesome, Appreciate it, man. Hey, thanks for joining us everyone. I hope you enjoyed this. You'll be able to find all the info on Jeff in the show notes, so make sure you check those out. And thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Speaker 4: 1:01:42

Thanks for listening to the Uncommon Freedom Show. We believe freedom isn't man's invention. It was created by God. If you are enjoying the show, please give us a five-star review on the platform we're listening to us on, Then subscribe and share with friends and family that you think will enjoy the show. You can connect with us at beckandkevcom for more resources to learn biblical principles, essential disciplines and the winning habits that help once-average people lead the life they want instead of accepting the life they were given.