The “Cat Lawyer” Buzzkill, Unusual Legal Marketing, and the Rump Roast: Game of Life 

Episode Notes

Transcript

Legal Toolkit

The “Cat Lawyer” Buzzkill, Unusual Legal Marketing, and the Rump Roast: Game of Life

02/23/2021

 

[Music]

 

Intro: It’s the Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia with guest Chad Sands, a round of the Game of Life, musical guest the Jury Pool and for you quitters out, there we continue our ongoing spotlight on alternative careers. This episode, pigeon racing.

 

Jared Correia: Welcome back you all. It’s the Legal Toolkit podcast. My name is Jared Correia and because Gene Rayburn was unavailable, I’m your host. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys.  Find us online at www.redcavelegal.com. I’m the COO of Gideon Software, Inc. We build chat bots so law firms can convert more leads. You can find out more about Gideon at www.gideon.legal. Before we get rolling, I’d like to take a moment to thank my mom for listening to every episode. Hi, mom! I’d also like to thank our sponsors. They’re the reason you’re listening to this show right now.

 

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“I’m not a cat.” Everybody’s seen the video. My kids loved it. The lawyer who has a calf filter on his video on Zoom and can’t turn it off and he’s in a court hearing. The darting eyes, the confusion, the mouth syncing up with speech, it is one of the more brilliant unintentional comedy pieces I’ve seen in a long time and the Internet’s reaction is, “Hey, that’s all of us.” Who doesn’t have pandemic fatigue? Who doesn’t have Zoom fatigue? Who hasn’t had video conferencing issues? It’s just superb fodder for the current mood, right? Everybody loves the I’m not a cat lawyer, but I would say that as a lawyer, that’s pretty embarrassing to be a cat on a video that you can’t turn off and there’s also a real lawyer behind the cat filter.

 

Stu’s name is Rod Ponton I think it’s pronounced. He’s out of Texas and I saw an interview with this guy and he said I always wanted to be known as being a good lawyer and not the cat lawyer. So, people always ask me like, “Why do you spend so much time talking to lawyers about legal technology issues?” Well, this is why everybody. This is exhibit A and now, I’m going to have to talk about cat filters for the next three months of my life. But here’s the deal, like this thing is totally preventable if you just understand the settings of the software you’re using. This should really be table stakes right and that’s not a high bar, pun intended, by the way. And if you look at the way that ethics rules have changed, the way the state laws have changed, this is directly in line with what a lawyer’s modern view of professional competence should be.

 

By the definition that was added a while back to comment 8 in rule 1.1 of the rules of professional conduct, this is not competent lawyering because the lawyer in this case is not using tech appropriately, not using it in a reasonably secure way, more on that in a second. Now, nobody’s ever going to get disbarred for this type of thing or sanctioned for that matter because the bar oversees generally don’t understand technology either, right? But I do think it’s dangerous to suggest as the judge in this case did that lawyers are trying really hard during the pandemic and that’s a good thing.

 

I’d look at it from another perspective is that if lawyers don’t understand these technology issues, one day it’s a cat filter, the other day maybe someone’s exposing a highly sensitive email because they’re sharing the wrong screen on Zoom. So, sorry to be a buzz kill but there’s a lot of data security issues in place here. For one thing, if you look at the video, it’s clear and in further investigation, it’s been made even more clear that the attorney was using his assistant’s computer and it’s likely that the assistant’s daughter put that cat filter on the Zoom account.

 

(00:05:03)

 

So, that’s likely violations of lots of stuff, right? Ethics rules, state laws, again, nobody’s going to be prosecuted for this. I’m not suggesting that anybody’s going to be prosecuted for this, but look, it’s 2021, everybody’s working from home, you shouldn’t be using other people’s computers, you shouldn’t be allowing other people’s kids to change the settings on your computer. On my computer at home, I’ve got a fingerprint touchpad that you have to use to get into the computer. Why? Because I don’t want my kids messing with the shit I have on my computer.

 

Again, this should be table stakes stuff and attorneys still aren’t acting like it’s that important. So, while I would never wish for a world in which there was no “I’m a cat lawyer,” I think it’s emblematic of the fact that attorneys need to get their shit together in terms of data security and tech usage. I think it’s well past time even if legal institutions are never going to penalize any attorneys for it, I think that attorneys should start to look at this in a more aggressive way as best practices within a modern law firm. Either that or this is just a cat world takeover that we all missed.

 

Next up, we’re going to talk to Chad Sands about unusual legal marketing and how he’s basically the Forest Gump of 1990s Hollywood. You won’t want to miss it.

 

[Music]

 

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[Music]

 

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[Music]

 

Okay. It’s time to get to the dolphin in the middle of this subway tuna melt. Let’s interview our guest. My guest today is Chad Sands who is the Vice President of Marketing at Tracers. Tracers provides cloud-based investigative research software for the legal profession. Chad, welcome to the show. How are you?

 

Chad Sands: I am great. It’s good to be with you, Jared. I’ve always wanted to say that by the way, it’s good to be with you. It seems like they always say it on NPR and I don’t do a lot of podcasts, so I really wanted to use that.

 

Jared Correia: Check that off the bucket list. Turning this into this American life.

 

So, let’s talk about legal stuff, that’s part one. Stay tuned for part two where we’re going to talk about the fun stuff. So, Chad, you’ve been in legal tech for a while. You want to run down your background a little bit?

 

Chad Sands: Yeah. I started at MyCase and that was my — I kind of went from real estate marketing into legal tech and so, I did content at MyCase for a couple years and the director of marketing at MyCase had moved on to eventually Smokeball, Sarah Bottorff and so, she hired me at Smokeball and I was at Smokeball for about two and a half years, did content, digital ads and then marketing operations kind of did a whole bunch of stuff at Smokeball for a couple years and now, I am at Tracers. I started at Tracers last year and so, while Tracers isn’t exclusively legal, it’s a big focus for us but yeah, so now, I’ve been at Tracers almost a year, coming up on like half a decade in legal tech.

 

Jared Correia: You’re like the swiss army knife of legal tech marketing. Let me ask you, how did you move from like real estate marketing to legal tech marketing? Was that like due to the relationship between MyCase and AppFolio or was it just like something –?

 

Chad Sands: No, I was doing real estate marketing for like Sotheby’s International Realty here in Santa Barbara so I got to make like nice glossy magazine ads for like $20-million homes. I loved working with the agents but I realized that I was going to be just making newspaper ads for like a long time.

 

Jared Correia: And you’re like the newspaper business, not heading in the right direction.

 

Chad Sands: Right and I worked in affiliate marketing for a little bit and I kind of wanted to get into tech and software because I was interested and then I just had a chance to go to MyCase and that’s how I landed there.

 

Jared Correia: One thing I thought you did that was really cool is Smokeball and we’re going to talk about like how legal tech companies market, how you can improve from that playbook in your solo or small firm, like the Calista Flockhart campaign.

 

(00:10:10)

 

Chad Sands: Yes.

 

Jared Correia: I thought that was totally different from what any other legal tech company was doing or is doing. So, that was your thing, right? You came up with that? I’m going to give you credit for it even if you didn’t.

 

Chad Sands: All right, I’ll take it. It was totally different and I think it will be — I don’t think it’ll ever be done again to be quite honest.

 

Jared Correia: Probably not. So, how did you guys come up with that and the whole thing was like Calista Flockhart for people who haven’t seen it pretending she invented Smokeball. Maybe she did. I don’t know. And it was just a really funny commercially put together, long form of commercial essentially.

 

Chad Sands: Yeah. It was basically like a three-minute long form and then we did 30 seconds and six-second bumpers out of it but this Australian copywriter and production company came up with the concept and we all loved it, the whole take on this celebrity kind of endorsing a product and then going too far the day of the shoot and then like claiming that she invented the software and there’s this back and forth with the director and it took a while to get together but like she signed the contract and Jane Oxley and Hunter Steele came out to LA and I’m on the west coast with Christian Beck and we shot it in LA over one day. We premiered it at the ABA TECHSHOW, right? So, we had it at the booth and honestly it was really interesting for me because I went to USC film school and I had worked on the production side of a lot of stuff like commercials or features and it was just weird for me to be on the client side kind of like especially the day of the shoot because like I’m kind of like —

 

Jared Correia: Were you like you’re doing this wrong?

 

Chad Sands: Yes! I was like, “Why is the director interrupting Calista? It’s so loud.” You know what I mean and like I’m pacing in the back but like also know that if I say anything, no one’s going to care because —

 

Jared Correia: Right, you’re like the key grip is screwing everything up. Somebody take care of that.

 

Chad Sands: Exactly or like I was talking with like the assistant camera guys and I was like, “You guys are using a zoom lens huh?” And I’m like, “I like primes.” And he’s like a features guy which was just funny but it was a great campaign. We loved it and then we tried to get it out there on social but we spent a lot of money making it, so we didn’t have a lot of money to promote it but ultimately, I thought it was hilarious how it came together.

 

Jared Correia: I loved it. I thought it was really cool.

 

So, that’s like an example of doing something a little bit different in terms of legal tech marketing like way different than what people usually do, but your thesis which I kind of share is that legal tech marketing has been done the same way by everybody for a long time. So, can you walk people through how that gets done like how do the sizes get made and why do these companies — they don’t change it up like why is it always the same?

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, well I mean, so you got to do review sites like you know Capterra, G2 Crowd, Trustpilot. We’ve got to get in a feeding frenzy to get all of our favorite customers/users to leave us a review site, review and then they’re not only paying for the clicks and the traffic from the review sites but they’re paying for like other content that those review sites create. So, there’s like thousands of dollars right there just like into the review bucket.

 

And then obviously like PPC which is it’s like sharks in the water in terms of pay-per-click and Google ads.

 

Jared Correia: Oh, especially in terms of like keywords for legal tech, those cost a fortune.

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, like legal practice management software. I mean, if you want to be like totally vicious to some of these software companies, just Google that and click on the ranking one because it’s like they’ll just blow through their budget in like a couple days.

 

Jared Correia: Just keep clicking.

 

Chad Sands: Yes, just keep clicking because it’s $60 to $120 a click for some of those keywords to be number one and you got all of these software companies like outbidding each other or trying to, to get on the top of page one.

 

Jared Correia: So, we’ve got reviews, we got PPC, what else do you see in terms of like common practices?

 

Chad Sands: Well, there’s obviously social media, I think lawyers are kind of into social media, consume social, so they’re all trying to be active on social. You have a lot of content sharing, a lot of eBooks, a lot of podcasts and there’s the display retargeting banners, so once you visit their site, you’re going to see how great their product is and how much more you could build while on every other website, you go around. And then, there’s the partners like the short list of legal tech blogs out there that also kind of foster some reviews and to help amplify the content. So, it’s a small ecosystem but everyone’s trying to get to the top of it. It’s tough to crack.

 

(00:15:20)

 

Jared Correia: Oh, it totally is.

 

So, before we talk about like maybe doing things in a little bit more innovative way like that laundry list of marketing tactics that you just laid out for us like how could solo and small firm attorneys take advantage of some of that because they’re not going to have the budget of the large marketing company like what should they focus on, what should they avoid, what are your thoughts there?

 

Chad Sands: Well, set aside a big budget celebrity endorsement campaign and I’ll try and come up with a blog post you guys can include in the show notes where I can dive into some of these with more detail but like a top five things you can do for marketing your law firm in 2021. One thing obviously I think is having not just a good website but a great website, and a great website is optimized for SEO, the images are size for web and aren’t just the huge high-res file you downloaded from Unsplash that takes 10 seconds to load, that you your site is structured, that it has a site map, an html sitemap and an xml site map, that you have internal links, that you have backlinks from other websites and that you have a lot of pages and that you keep updating those pages, and if you don’t update your “product pages,” then you should be having a blog and pushing out content through your blog and those sites are updated, and that work with someone, an SEO who can set up you not only Google Analytics but Google Search console and Bing webmasters and so you can kind of monitor and track your impressions and your clicks.

 

I think having a great website is kind of a must and that if you’re going to do anything, focus on that because that’s your face to the digital world. And I think we’ve talked about video obviously that historically, maybe law firms have run know and the 30-second commercial on their local broadcast for their city that they can get but there’s other options out there. There’s companies like Chisel and I think Genius Monkey’s another one, these programmatic advertising companies that can get you into streaming TV and connected TVs and you can actually have your 30-second commercial run during Chopped or Meet The Press and that these are more modern consumers who have cut the cable and are watching streaming television and that’s a new channel so to speak that a lot of firms aren’t using and maybe don’t even realize is out there, but it’s a great way to get your polished 30-second commercial into new audiences.

 

We’ve talked about social. Again, in video with social I think is more opportunity there. I think Chris Fowler is an ESPN commentator and he does these great things like called the Saturday Recap and he sips tequila and he just shares his thoughts on the games of the day and do your version of that but for your law firm or just topics in general. I think in LA, there’s a public radio station, KCRW and there’s a show every Monday. The show’s called Press Play with Madeleine Brand and every Monday, she has her legal eagle come and commentate with hot topics on law.

 

You don’t even need to start your own podcast or get on somebody else’s podcast because I think there’s a lot of podcasts out there and not every lawyer should necessarily create their own but I think those are a couple ideas. I’ll simmer and come up with a couple more and I’ll give you guys a top five blog post you can include in the show notes.

 

Jared Correia: Yeah, personally, I feel like for those — I think that if I’m a lawyer, I’m probably spending time on the content side of it and being active on social and having like a really unique voice and then I’m farming out the SEO because I mean, let’s be real, you’re not going to learn SEO in a day like the vast majority of lawyers, they couldn’t even tell you what SEO stands for.

 

All right, now, that’s a perfect segue because I want to talk about uniqueness in a little bit. The uniqueness, Chad Sands, of your own life, will you stick around and talk to us?

 

Chad Sands: Yes.

 

Jared Correia: So, thanks so much. That’s Chad Sands of Tracers. Now, Chad is coming back as well as our musical guest that’s going to be the Jury Pool. So, stick around in our next segment for that.

 

[Music]

 

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[Music]

 

(00:20:19)

 

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[Music]

 

Welcome to the rear end of the Legal Toolkit, The Rump Roast. It’s a grab bag of short form topics of my choosing. As I mentioned before, we’re going to play a little game today called the game of life. That’s right. I’m not going to torture Chad with impossible to answer trivia questions. I’ll save that for my next guest and the reason for that is because Chad’s a really interesting dude and we’re going to find out why.

 

Chad, would you be offended if I said that you were not necessarily world famous yourself but famous adjacent?

 

Chad Sands: I would not be offended at all. I think I like famous adjacent it’s like Beverly Hills Adjacent.

 

Jared Correia: I feel like I just made that up.

 

Chad Sands: I think that’s a compliment actually.

 

Jared Correia: Okay, I meant it as a compliment. So, you talked about the work you’ve done in legal tech marketing but you’re also a producer and the creative director of your own company which is Jumper Away. Can you talk to people about that?

 

Chad Sands: Well, Jumper Away is my creative agency shingle that does freelance work going back to my days in Los Angeles and now, a lot of interactive and website stuff. As I mentioned, I graduated from USC film school, so I lived the dream in LA for about eight years and did a whole bunch of different stuff down there.

 

Jared Correia: Well so, let’s talk about USC film school for a little bit. So, you did stuff like you worked on the Terry Tate: Office Linebacker.

 

Chad Sands: I did. I did work on — yeah that’s right. It was definitely like back in the birth of kind of branded content marketing and Rawson Thurber was the director. He went on to make like Dodgeball and a whole bunch of other movies.

 

Jared Correia: Oh, I love Dodgeball.

 

Chad Sands: But Terry Tate, I was a PA on Terry Tate. It’s still like voted one of the best Super Bowl commercials in history. It wasn’t made to be a Super Bowl commercial like Reebok I think just loved it so much and turned it into one but like for example, I PA’d, it was like a two-week shoot and like I had to pick up the guy who played Terry Tate at his apartment in North Hollywood or towards the valley and he would eat like 12 eggs for breakfast and a whole roasted chicken himself during lunch.

 

Jared Correia: He was like The Rock before there was The Rock.

 

Chad Sands: Yes, and like those hits, were real hit — like he was really hitting these actors and like —

 

Jared Correia: Really? Oh, I didn’t know that. That makes it even better.

 

Chad Sands: Yes.

 

Jared Correia: He’s just like destroying people on set?

 

Chad Sands: Oh, yeah like people were worried sometimes that there was like a silence fell over after they were like cut because they weren’t even sure if the stunt person was going to be okay.

 

Jared Correia: Like I think Allen broke his femur. He needs some help here.

 

Chad Sands: Yes.

 

Jared Correia: You also worked for Doug Liman, so can you talk about who that is and then how you also were hanging out in the bathroom with Ryan Gosling? Maybe I should phrase that differently.

 

Chad Sands: Yes. I mean, so that was actually my first job out of school and after I came back to LA after a couple months and I was basically the receptionist for Doug Liman and Dave Bartis’ production company called Hypnotic, so they had done The OC was one of their big hit TV show and obviously Doug Liman did Swingers and The Bourne Identity and so like I got to like roll calls and Brad Pitt calls in and wants to talk to Doug and I’m like, “One moment please.”

 

And yeah, the Ryan Gosling was just awkward because I go to the bathroom —

 

Jared Correia: Is he weird or was it just weird that you guys were in the bathroom at the same time?

 

Chad Sands: No, we didn’t even talk because he was like there for a meeting to meet Doug and Dave and so like I go to the bathroom and he’s in the bathroom I think before the meeting basically and so, I kind of see him and it’s like, “Oh, it’s Ryan Gosling,” and we’re at the urinals and then but after the meeting, I had to go to the bathroom again, I was drinking too much Diet Coke or something and he’s in the bathroom and then, so I walk in the bathroom and now, it’s just weird because I feel like he thinks I’m chasing him in the bathroom.

 

(00:25:05)

 

Jared Correia: Right, and then are you guys thinking like which one of us is incontinent? Is it both of us?

 

Chad Sands: Yes, so like I love that story because it’s just so awkward and I’m ashamed of it but —

 

Jared Correia: That is really funny.

 

Chad Sands: What can you do?

 

Jared Correia: So, I once shared a bathroom with George Bush, former President of the United States.

 

Chad Sands: And what happened? But did you do it twice in the same day?

 

Jared Correia: It’s just once but there was like secret service. I don’t know how I got into the bathroom, like he was the commencement speaker for my college graduation. I’m just like waltzing into the bathroom and I’m like, “Oh, it’s weird. There’s a lot of cops here or whatever,” and I go to the urinal I turn to my left and there’s George Bush.

 

Chad Sands: You could have been like John Malkovich in like that Clint Eastwood movie with like a plastic gun.

 

Jared Correia: So, of course I was like, “How’s it hanging, Mr. President?” A stupid college kid but he was a super nice guy actually like I’ve always liked George Bush after that.

 

Chad Sands: A little low and to the left.

 

Jared Correia: Well, probably to the right if we’re being serious.

 

Chad Sands: I mean, that’s too good.

 

Jared Correia: I know. I just laid it out there for him.

 

Chad Sands: I see what you did there.

 

Jared Correia: I want to get into your music stuff but you also wrote a screenplay or a script adaptation?

 

Chad Sands: I did.

 

Jared Correia: It was an option for a Jack Nicholson movie.

 

Chad Sands: That’s right. I mean, see like that’s why I like famous adjacent, right?

 

Jared Correia: Yeah, I told people there was going to be good stuff here. I wasn’t lying.

 

Chad Sands: Actually, I don’t really talk about all of this stuff too much. I do feel like a douchebag but I do have some interesting stories and I do feel like I’ve been almost famous a handful of times but I did. I read this book Henderson the Rain King in college and I loved it when I read it and then a couple years later, I was working for Doug Liman and I kind of focused on screenwriting at USC and I ended up tracking down the producer who was this producer Andrew Braunsberg. $he did a lot of movies, one of his more famous ones was Being There with —

 

Jared Correia: Yeah, I’ve heard that movie.

 

Chad Sands: And I kind of cold called him and he lived in Vienna and I convinced him that I should write this adaptation and at that point, I didn’t really know Jack Nicholson had loved the book and wanted to make it into a movie. Long story short, I sent Andrew Braunsberg the first 20 pages. He didn’t get back to me for like three months and then he finally said, “This is great,” like finish it. He optioned it from me so it was my first script that was optioned, I got paid.

 

He came out to LA and he stayed at like The Peninsula and like I just remember him like making phone calls because I would go meet him and he’s talking on the phone and he was like, “I’m living here. I’m living at The Peninsula and I’m making a movie.” And it was like this older guy from Europe who I think this was like — because really what the truth is is that he had been trying to make this movie since the early 80s with Jack like from like The Postman Always Ring Twice days and like with Polanski in the early 80s and had all of these scripts done throughout the year and it just never took off and the studios I think, it’s not a “commercial story.” It’s about a wealthy guy going to Africa to find his soul.

 

I got to actually — you’ll enjoy this, I got to drive in my 1989 Gold Ford Tempo that had such a bad oil leak, I would have to put a cup underneath like while I was working during the day. I got to drive that up Mulholland Drive and basically deliver the script to the gate at Jack’s house and then we went home and bought a bottle of $6 Andre Champagne to celebrate because we’re like, “This is it!”

 

Jared Correia: You’ve made it.

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, I’ve made it like what studio would not want to make this? Like Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Jack Nicholson and like going to Africa, who’s going to say no to it? And then like four weeks later like I read that Jack’s attached to The Bucket List, about this old guy finding his soul.

 

Jared Correia: Oh, yes. I remember that movie. That movie made.

 

Chad Sands: With Morgan Freeman who was like his guide and they go to Africa actually ironically in The Bucket List, so there, it died and —

 

Jared Correia: Sadness.

 

Chad Sands: That was it. It was gone.

 

Jared Correia: So, we talked about your Hollywood career. You were also very heavily involved in music as well. So, you actually were in a Seattle band as a teenager and you recorded some demos in Pearl Jam Studio, right?

 

Chad Sands: I did, yeah. Music was probably my first love and still kind of in many ways is. My eighth-grade band called Subminute: Radio, we convinced our parents to give us some money to record an EP at this studio in Tacoma, Washington and then like the drummer sent our demo tape into 107.7 The End and there’s this DJ Marco Collins who is now in the rock and roll hall of fame.

 

(00:30:24)

 

Jared Correia: Oh really? This is in Washington?

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, he was up in Seattle and he like put back Nirvana on the radio the first time and that’s why he’s a rock and roll just because his influence of 90s rock and grunge; but the drummer sent the demo tape in to Marco and he put my phone number as the backup on this letter that he wrote with like crayon to get attention and so, this one night Marco calls Ryan, but it was in the days of like you only had a landline and there was like call waiting and you either had call waiting or you didn’t and his little sister was talking on the phone and so then, by fate Marco calls me and like puts me on the radio and we get our first single played on The End in Seattle, the biggest radio station, one of them on the west coast at that time, and I get interviewed and I get to go into high school the next day.

 

Jared Correia: How old are you at this point?

 

Chad Sands: I was a sophomore.

 

Jared Correia: Oh, so you’re like 16?

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, so 16 and like that year like, so we went with Marco and our manager and they rented an RV and convinced our parents to let us go on this two-week west coast tour and like we played at the Viper Room and all of these other —

 

Jared Correia: Wow! That’s like the real deal.

 

Chad Sands: We were like 16 and we had like EMI publishing out and all these record labels watching our showcase shows. We played South by Southwest and we were supposed to be — do you remember Silverchair, that Australian band?

 

Jared Correia: Yes. You were the next Silverchair?

 

Chad Sands: We were America’s Silverchair and once again, —

 

Jared Correia: How do you lose with America’s Silverchair?

 

Chad Sands: Jared, I’ve been thinking about it for the last 25 years of my life.

 

Jared Correia: But you continued to play though and like —

 

Chad Sands: I did continue to play. I quit Subminute: Radio when we were loading into Studio Litho, Pearl Jam Studio for the second time because I wanted to go to junior prom.

 

Jared Correia: Oh, hey, priorities, man, right?

 

Chad Sands: Then, I also knew I wanted to go to college and was wasn’t going to stay around and so —

 

Jared Correia: Yeah, but you moved on, you played in a band called Carne Asada as well.

 

Chad Sands: That’s right.

 

Jared Correia: So, two things I want to know about this. You’ve got like this alter ego, the ugly American but then you also played something called punk rock mariachi. What even is that?

 

Chad Sands: Well, what do you think it is?

 

Jared Correia: I don’t even know. I know what mariachi is. I know what punk is, but like I’m having difficulty pushing them together.

 

Chad Sands: It’s a fusion of punk rock and mariachi music.

 

Jared Correia: Are you like the only guys who ever did that? I have no idea if there are other bands out there in that genre.

 

Chad Sands: I think we were the first but I actually do think there are others and there was only one Mexican dude. The rest of us were Gringos, but yeah, so we did, we like played La Cucaracha and like Cielito Lindo and a couple traditionals and then the other songs were just straight up punk rock like In Your Face.

 

Jared Correia: That’s funny, wow. And you guys actually like you and your band mates were in an MTV series as well, in an animated version.

 

Chad Sands: Yes, an animated Good Vibes, which was a short-lived series on MTV created by Brad Ableson who worked on The Simpsons and now, I think he’s working like on the Minions movies.

 

Jared Correia: Oh, can I say that I love the Minions movies, not to digress too far but I really enjoy them as a parent. They’re really funny.

 

Chad Sands: I think I should see them then because I respect your taste.

 

Jared Correia: Dude, the first Minions movie was great.

 

Chad Sands: And then so we got forever — he basically, Brad who knew about the project at Carne Asada, he wrote us into Good Vibes and so we were in a couple videos and like the main character has a Carne Asada banner and like they go to this bar and Carne Asada’s playing and so, I’ve been animated. I am a cartoon character and I’ll be that for the rest of my life. Even Brad, the guy who created the show that is no longer on the air, he can’t even take that away from me and he created it. And so, I sometimes use it as like my avatar and it’s like pretty funny.

 

Jared Correia: I think that’s awesome. Can I say though like I watched the preview — you sent me a link for the preview. The show was actually really funny. I really enjoyed it, legitimately so.

 

(00:35:01)

 

Chad Sands: Who knows why the studios you know turn on you.

 

Jared Correia: This is all like really educational for me like you’re right there and then like, man, the Hollywood types, the studio types just don’t buy in like I don’t know. I feel like you were wronged.

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, right. And now I’m in legal tech and so I think —

 

Jared Correia: And here we are, bringing it full circle. But the other thing I thought was funny is like in this Good Vibe show like the cast was kind of crazy like you had Josh Gad in there. You had like Adam Brody from The OC, which you talked about before. Olivia Thirlby was in there too, like they’re famous people in the show.

 

Chad Sands: Yeah, I mean I think like it was supposed to be a great animated series and I think they only got one season, I want to say.

 

Jared Correia: Yeah, that’s right. So maybe the alternative world version of this is if Good Vibes continues, if you’ve skyrocketed to fame as Carne Asada appearing on Good Vibes like maybe Josh Gad is never Olaf in Frozen and then my daughter’s life is ruined, so there’s another way to look at it as well.

 

Chad Sands: And that sounds horrible or there’s another alternate universe where I’m in my mansion, not in legal tech.

 

Jared Correia: True.

 

Chad Sands: We are in this reality.

 

Jared Correia: Which one of those realities doesn’t have a pandemic? Anyway, this was great. I had a lot of fun talking about this, Chad, seriously. Amazing work.

 

Chad Sands: Good. I’m glad you enjoyed hearing about my almost famous past and yeah, a lot of good stories and you know what? I still have the dream one day, I gave up with the hope of getting a movie made in my mid-20s and being in LA but like I also haven’t given up on the hope of maybe I’ll be 50 and get to make my movie and that’s the ultimate maybe dream.

 

Jared Correia: You never know, man, maybe one of those days, you’re in the bathroom and Ryan Gosling’s like, “Hey, man, that movie was great!”

 

Chad Sands: Right, “Do I know you?” So, we’ll see.

 

Jared Correia: Everybody, that’s Chad Sands of Tracers, Jumper Away and formerly of Carne Asada. My producer is now telling me that we’re running out of time. So, we’re going to forgo our discussion of alternative careers, pigeon racing edition. We’ll save that for next time. Instead, let’s jump straight to our musical guest. Ladies and gentlemen, playing All Over You off their 2009 album, Ulterior Motives, the Jury Pool.

 

[Music]

 

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