In this musical episode, Darci Monet, an intuitive vocal and mindset transformation specialist, shares her journey from a young singer to her experiences in the music industry and her role in “Napoleon Dynamite.” She discusses her favorite coaching clients and the challenges artists face.
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Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are speaking with Darci Monet. Darci is an old friend of mine and she is an intuitive vocal and mindset transformation specialist. And.
We have this.
Odd connection and that I live in the town that Napoleon Dynamite was filmed in.
And Darci was actually part of that movie, and I'm going to let her tell you the story later on in the podcast, but welcome, Darci, I'm so glad that you decided to join us. I've been wanting you on here for so long.
I know that's my bad. I finally got off my rump.
And did what I needed to do to be on your lovely show. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be.
Here. Well, we're excited to have you. So story how?
Did you get into music? What? What's?
Your background well, if you ask my mother.
I was pretty much.
Born singing, she likes to tell the story that when I.
Was a baby.
You know, babies cry when they wake up because they have no other way of letting you know they're awake and hungry. Apparently I didn't cry when I woke up, but she'd hear me like singing. She'd come into the bedroom and I'd be like holding my toes and.
La.
And so I pretty much came out singing.
Around 10 years old.
I started taking violin lessons to be in the school orchestra and they had. That was when schools had music programs in the public.
schools started violin a few years later, I started to learn piano and I've always sung.
But begged, begged for voice lessons.
The whole time and mom would be like, no, your vocal chord is still growing. No, no, no, no. I think pretty much she just.
Didn't want to pay the money.
But I finally wore.
Her down and at 16 we found a teacher and got me started and then it was off to the races.
From there, that was my.
That was the real.
The thing that was my instrument was my voice. So then college, then bands, then studio work, and then, you know, the career. But that's how I got into music to start with.
You live in.
LA So you're kind of.
In the throes of all.
The happenings down there and.
Kind of. Yeah, of.
Stuff going on.
Course you'd be surprised how much I don't.
So who you were?
Leave my house though. But anyway, who does anymore?
Yeah, right.
OK. It's like, yeah, I'm comfortable at home.
Thank you. I'm sorry I had interrupted.
You. What were you going to ask?
That's alright. So who are your customers? What kind of people do you do you have and how?
Do you help them?
Well, as a voice coach, because I started.
In the scene.
I've been kind of voice coaching off and on, helping friends out from my college days, but about 15 years ago I actually was like, OK, this is going to be.
A job? A business.
I my favorite students to work with are people that have natural, innate talent that need to learn how to wrangle that and need to learn how to control it. But I also seem to attract some broken little birds who have great talent, but they can't get out of their own.
Dad gum way.
With their emotional issues or.
Past trauma that they never released or mindset or just intimidation, they're super shy or whatever people that need and encouraging.
Person in their life to cheer them on to, to step into this industry and and really go for their dreams.
So those are the people I love to work with, the best people who just, you know, really who are on a career path and then I.
And talk.
Be a little extra help will with those who need a little more emotional.
Help as well.
Yeah, I can see how that would be really necessary. If you've got somebody who's yeah, who really is talented, but they're not really.
Confident in their.
Talent, or they're just lazy. I know people who are just like.
Complaining all the time about how they're not making a living as a musician or out here an actor you know as.
An actor everywhere you toss it.
A rock, but.
Right.
And they just complain about it. But they don't ever actually do anything about it. They don't. They won't invest in themselves. And and I think that's part of the probable law with a lot.
Of people who have.
The never made it.
Situation is that they just weren't willing to.
Take the steps they needed to take, whether it was healing themselves or whether it was just making some sacrifices financially to be able to invest in their career, you know, so.
There's a.
Lot. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons people don't ever get there, you know.
Just be back in the day, people would just go to college and figure, oh, I went to college. Therefore I.
Have arrived and.
Right.
The world is my oyster and and to some extent that was true mainly from.
White males, but.
When women started going to college, suddenly that wasn't.
Such a big deal.
For something more than just to find a husband because you know that was the thing in the 50s and early 60s when you really just needed to find a guy that could support you because.
To support you, yeah.
You didn't have any other choice for me.
Well, I went to a Baptist college and that was a thing too. You went to get your Mrs. degree and start popping out kids. So that was very prevalent.
Even in the late.
80s, early 90s when I was sorry to interrupt continue.
No, it's a thing in the Christian communities where, you know, you, you go and find your husband who's going to be a pastor somewhere. So you can be a pastor's wife because it's a really big deal.
The terror of my life. I remember praying growing up. I grew up evangelical and just begging God. Please don't call me to.
The mission field.
Please don't call me to be a pastors wife. I'll do.
Anything else? Just please.
None of those two things and.
Dodged that bullet, but.
By being a.
Mouthy rock chick. I dodged that bullet, so.
Yeah, yeah, I.
Have to do is be kind of mouthy and.
Yeah. Think about things, think out loud and you're in big trouble. So yeah.
Yep, Yep, that's a thing. So.
We connected because I live in the town. Napoleon Dynamite is filmed in.
Yup, you have a curious story about that movie, so once.
You share that.
It is curious indeed. So if you're familiar with the film.
There is a scene early on in the movie. It's only like two or three scenes in and it's the kids in the high school and they have what's called the Happy Hands Club and it's some, I don't think it's actually.
Legit ASL American Sign Language, but they're doing some kind of signing, and they're doing it to a song that was made famous by Bette.
Midler called the Rose.
The thing is, it's not bet singing it, it's me, because for whatever reason, sometimes.
A filmmaker? You know, they'll want to put a song.
In and, either they won't be able to.
Get permission from the record label to use that particular performance like better performance specifically. Or here's what happens a lot of times with the labels when they don't want somebody to use their stuff, they'll quote an astronomical licensing fee that a little independent film couldn't possibly afford. So when that happens.
Sometimes they'll choose to license. They might have a list of my backup choices, but sometimes like no, it needs to be this song. And so, though that's where I come in, they'll hire an A no name studio singer to come in and do a version of it. Whether it's a sound like or not, I am not.
Sound like?
And they'll do their own thing. So.
The issue with that whole thing, which should have been a really, really cool experience, is that.
You know, the day we're recording it, I signed away my right to getting paid a full SAG day rate recording session rate.
It was a film license. They went with this cheaper just going to festivals and stuff. A festive Film Festival license.
So I agreed to sing.
It for 100 bucks.
Not knowing as you could possibly that it would blow up like it did.
The thing is, I did not sign away my rights to any residuals after the fact.
Nor did any of the actors in the film, all the actors made 1000 bucks to film the whole thing. But when the movie blew up, they negotiated some big paychecks for them.
But unfortunately I am not credited at the end of the film, every piece of music and song that you hear in the film will say at the end of the film, with the credits rolling such and such song written by so and so publishing information.
Performed by so and so.
Except mine, says the Rose, written by Amanda, Big Broom and whoever. Sorry, I can't remember your name.
Publishing information and then no performed by it just is missing.
So I never received credit and because I wasn't a SAG member at the time.
They didn't care. I filed A complaint with them, but they didn't care because I'm not a member.
So never got credited, never got paid. And here we are 20 years later. Yeah. Wow.
I know the caterers really well.
And they don't.
Yeah, that's the thing. Every kid who walked across the camera in the high school scenes, their name, like, there's literally a list of high schoolers, and they're all there. So I just and and the musical director who hired me in the 1st place reached out to me multiple times.
To make sure he had my information correct because he had to have it correct for all the SAG paperwork he had to have it correct for when they started thinking about putting a CD soundtrack together, there was a rumor that maybe I'd be able to be on the sound.
The Rose isn't on the soundtrack at all. They.
Just nixed it and The thing is this song is so memorable, there's no dialogue over it. There's it's just the kids doing their hands and.
It it's a huge moment that everybody remembers when I say ohh that scene with the hands on the sign.
Language they're like, Oh my God.
So it's.
Stupid that it's not even on the soundtrack.
You sound just like her.
I mean, I really thought.
It was her all this time until you said no, it's me and you sent me over to YouTube to go listen to it. It was like.
Ohh my cow.
Wow, that's funny because I don't hear it at all. My friends, of course, who have listened to me sing for years like you.
It is you.
Know it sound like?
Her. I'm like, right. And I.
Tried, I tried hard but.
No, you pulled it off and.
You're fatigued, but.
Thank you.
Maybe it's just.
Me and I have, you know, 10 here. But yeah, I I've earned that one.
And that's fine. I mean, I guess it's good that people, I guess the point is that people weren't, you know, noticeably it wasn't noticeably different, but at the same time, like when the press all came out, nobody, they kept billing it as Bette Midler's the Rose.
Like the way they worded it indicated that the with the song wasn't how you would know it, but they never specifically say Bette Midler singing it, but they never say that it's me.
And nobody, to my knowledge, no corrections were ever made, you know. So I feel like they.
I think that just.
Intimated that you were her and.
They were trying to ride.
On her coattails and their fame.
They were trying to ride on that.
Yeah, that's how I feel like it went about. I feel like they purposely made a decision at the end of the day that like, OK, we'll leave her name out of this. We're going to try to write you.
Know we're going to go use the loophole and.
That's disgusting. You know? That's not OK. And stories like mine are a dime a dozen in this city. And the unfortunate thing is that should have been everybody who was involved in that project, their careers seriously leveled up.
Except for mine. So what should have launched me into a career as a steadily working studio vocalist, which is what I moved to Los on Angela's work. It didn't, and that's part of the reason I ended up coach starting to coach, which thank God.
I love it.
I also think that experience has made me, you know, razor sharp. I'm always on the lookout for my own students. I'll be like, don't you sign that till I run my eyes over it. Don't you sign that, get you a lawyer? I know a lawyer, you know. And never let them.
Just make decisions like that without being really clear on what they're getting into because.
It's so easy to get sucked along, especially in places like Los Angeles where they're just like.
There's people trying to take advantage of each other around every single corner.
And yeah.
And it's hard to find people who are just really, truly good people that work in the industry, because even if they started out that way, if they reach a certain level of success, they forget.
Where they came from.
And not to be a negative Nancy. But you know there's a I am a positive person and that there's plenty to go around. I really believe like.
You know the reason.
Part of the reason I didn't become Kelly Clarkson? Basically, she got my career is kind of how I look at it. What I had planned for myself was very much the trajectory she ended up on. Most of it was like, this is part of it. The reality is the big break I need. It didn't happen, but then I.
I let that.
Fester inside of me. You know, I let that become an obstacle. I let that.
Be an excuse.
For why this wasn't happening, that wasn't happening that well. If I had been able to do this, then I could have done this.
You know, so I want to take responsibility for that too. I don't want to.
Say that this town did it because I don't want people listening to this who are maybe considering moving here to think that.
They can't make it because you can.
But that's really more about you as a human being and what you your outlook is what you're putting out there because what you put out there comes right back to you. And I was putting out garbage, you know, so it is what it is.
But that said.
If I may.
Segue into the project I'm working on now.
Yeah, yeah, I did that.
In the last few months I decided to take that narrative back that I was done being a victim of Jared Hess's production company. You know, in his film.
And I was going to be like, you know what? Because I wouldn't even talk about it for years. I wouldn't offer the information if somebody mentioned Napoleon Dynamite. I would never say ohh, by the way, did you know that's me singing there was. I just wouldn't do it. I decided to start doing that. And I do now.
When it comes.
But I also decided that OK, so every once in a blue moon, the die hard fan would figure out. I don't think that's really Bette Midler, and they'd go on a deep dive into the interwebs and they'd find me and they'd reach out and say, did you ever record? I figured out that this is actually you.
Did you ever record a?
Full version of that and I would always have to say.
No, we just did the little clip for the movie. Just what we needed and blah, blah blah. Thanks for your interest though.
And I just decided to take this narrative back. One of the things I'm going to do is I'm going to record a full version of this song and literally just this morning I met with my one of my sometimes students, former Co writer, longtime friend from college, Levi Christ, who is a brilliant musician. Please look him up.
And you're welcome. He and I came up with the arrangement this morning. And then one of my other students who grew up like Napoleon Dynamite, was a huge part of his childhood. And all his little bandmates cause they're younger millennial.
He offered, he said. We want to play on that record for you, he goes. We would love to do this for you.
This would be a.
Big deal for us. Please let us do it. So they're going to.
Do it and.
And play on it. So I'm really excited they're going on tour though, so we have to wait till November to really put it all together. But I feel really.
Excited and I'm going to hire a PR firm and we're going to announce to the world because next year 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the film. So we're going to, as the 20th anniversary celebration, guess what? It's me. It was never bet, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm just going to try to get myself booked at.
Events that they put on for it, you know, to try to sing it live and.
I don't feel kind of depressed.
And if you do.
That would be so.
Much fun.
I'm like, oh, I wonder if they.
Put her record in in popping pins and and lakes and the Jack Burgers and.
The Big day burgers.
Actually, in Richmond, just down the road that's in the movie, but.
You know, a lot of those places are still here.
Businesses and.
Wow, are you saying these businesses have like, what CD's in their stores or something?
Oh, because these days I'm like I have no plans to print it up because nobody buys tangible music anymore, so I'm probably.
Well, you can have a quick lunch over there and they can.
Just gonna digitally release it.
Get it or something?
I'll call you to help me figure that.
Out because that.
Text happy.
But yeah, so I'm really excited about it and I and I had a little, a little meltdown in my session with my friend Levi this morning because it just.
I feel myself releasing this and healing, releasing the bitterness and releasing the trauma of it, and I suspect that there's gonna be a lot of unexpected, you know, breaking of the dam.
As this moves on and this process happens, so I'm just really excited about it.
But I am.
Crowdsourcing this, if I may. And you can clip this out later if you want, and don't feel it's appropriate. But I am crowdsourcing this to pay for this. It's gonna probably cost about $3000 for the recording, mastering, and then the PR blitz. And I need that by like mid-december. So.
Look me up, Darci. With an *I*. Monet the and like paint. Like the painter the artist. And get in touch with me if you would like to contribute to that and I can send you the options to help with.
That so like.
My Venmo is at Darci Monet.
Cash app is Darci Monet.
And I have Zell, but you gotta get in touch with me personally for that.
So anyway, yeah. Yeah. And we'll.
Wants to.
Definitely put the links in the in the show notes and.
That'd be great. Yeah. I'll get you all that.
I'm all about.
Helping you Darci because I.
Just like it's such an important connection to me, it's like I don't know why, but.
Not good.
Every time I tell people I'm from Preston.
Idaho, you know when?
Napoleon Dynamite was filmed and the Dojo was actually a Sunday school room that for a Baptist Church that I.
Was teaching in.
Oh wow.
So that was really fun.
That's funny. I just went down a rabbit hole looking at certain scenes and and the Dojo.
Scene came up.
And it just cracked me up. It's a funny movie, you know, but I haven't watched it in so long because I've.
Been so bitter about it.
It is amazing.
But now I feel like I'm at a point where.
I'm like I can.
Watch this movie again. Now I think you know.
There, there's just like so many parts of it that are just part of the town. I moved here the year after it was released, and so they were still doing tours and stuff like that when the tourists came to.
Oh, OK.
Right.
Town was really fine.
How funny. That's awesome.
Yeah, that's the thing. So.
When you're when you're going to do this.
Actually, like promote an A song like.
Good question because.
When I, you know earlier in my career, I I've, I've put out two actual albums of my own CD's and the world was very different than the way.
Oh yeah.
Things are people still bought CD's or people would download stuff nowadays like my twin nieces who are about to turn 17 next month. They own their entire music catalog is in their phones like they don't own any CD's. They actually have a turntable and they have some vinyl records.
So I'm pretty excited to go shopping for their birthday and buy them some vinyl of stuff that they absolutely need to hear, you know, like heart and every other awesome 80s band that ever was.
But I'm Fleetwood Mac. Oh, I think they have. They have Fleetwood Mac, actually, because one of them, they're twins. And one of them takes lessons from me. And she just sang Silver Spring by Fleetwood Mac the other day. She's really connected to that. She was singing her.
Good math.
I love it.
Little face off. It was so cute and sweet.
But yeah, at the time.
Because it was unsigned, there were so a lot of resources out there for independent artists. There was a big book called The Indie Bible and it was updated every year and it had.
A whole bunch of like, there was a whole section on radio stations that will play your stuff.
You know, and it might be independent radio stations or it.
Might be a.
Unsigned music show for an hour once a week on whatever you know, all over the country in the world, or there would be a list of.
Just like a bunch of contact PR people who deal with just independent people, but that is changed. And now that people don't use anything tangible that they hold in their hands like this book, this indie Bible, it's hard to.
Keep up with.
It you know, I guess so I don't really know and I feel I feel terrible and never know what to tell my students about how to get started in this industry cause it's a completely different world. When I came out. Yeah, you recorded stuff, you sold it at your shows. That's how you made your money. You sold CD's at your shows.
Nowadays you don't even make money off of downloads because everything's on Spotify.
Or Pandora or Sirius and those 3 conglomerates continuously go to court and fight to pay less and less.
And so you can't make money off of your streams. You can have a million downloads. Here's a good example, my friend Levi, who I mentioned earlier. We have a song that we wrote together that we kind of tongue in cheek call our quote hit because it was a song we licensed all over the place. He's the artist on it.
But I'm a Co writer, so we have several million downloads of his version of that song, and I ended up recording it later myself.
Several million, I think in total I've.
Been paid $30.
Over the course of the years, because it's fractions of a penny, if you're the artist and it's even more fractions of a penny if you're the songwriter, publisher. So.
Millions of downloads. People probably think oh man, they're making no we're not because.
It's not like buying CD's anymore. So.
I have an idea for you.
OK. Tell me, I'll take it.
I think if you could get I think.
Musicians that go on like YouTube and places like that, they make their money off of.
Google honestly, they get enough followers that Google pays them through Adsense and you could make a lot of money with Adsense.
But if you.
And same with TikTok or you get like companies will reach out to you to represent.
Them and if.
You'd make a video every once in a while going oh this great mascara I use now you know I'm not opposed to that, but that's basically the way. Now you release a single first of all, albums are dead.
The whole.
Concept of 10 songs in one spot is just dumb that you can't do it anymore. We're back to a single by single society. You release a single and then you just promote the crap out of it on your social media and you do videos of you singing it in the bathtub or you do an official video and then you cut that into pieces and you put.
It out there in little pieces.
And inundate the world with it and you hope.
It goes viral.
And then you get. You can sell merchandise or then you get companies will reach out and you make your money by what little the app will pay you or what a company will pay you to partner with them and be an advertiser. And that's like.
That's the way it goes now, and it's weird.
To me.
I wonder if there aren't any groups out there that are kind of fringy but.
But they have.
A movement going on YouTube or on TikTok or on some of these other platforms that you could reach out to or Instagram influencers or musicians.
People that.
Would like to play your song on there.
Whatever. So you could start like building. You either build your own channel or you.
Yeah. Or something like that.
They do have. There are groups out there that will like, for instance, one of my students just got herself involved in a group of people who, on Spotify, they've created a playlist of all the musicians in the group, all their songs, and then they commit to playing it all the time so that it'll bump it up. The algorithm will put it out there.
Out there, which is fine, and they've committed to.
There are groups out there that you can pay that will get you listed on playlists that are popular playlists, and that's one route to go. But again, that's money out these other groups. I was just mentioning, it's just a it's very time consuming apparently because they have rules you have to play it this many times a week you have to.
Like you have to comment and you can leave comments and hearts and stuff like that so it gets to be very time consuming and you know that's that issue, but they're those. They're people, there's stuff out there.
You really got to dig it up and commit to the time.
And somebody like me like maybe.
If you're in college and your whole life is nothing but this, you know for me in college, my whole life was.
Nothing but music, so.
Might have been more feasible, but.
You know, I got adulting I.
Also have to do.
It sucks. That's why I have.
This background my house is too filthy.
To show you my house.
Today cause I'm not adulting well this week.
But that's a great idea.
Yeah, take a break every now and then, yeah.
But yeah, ideas are out there, so a lot of it too is just finding the time to find the ways and and figure out the new way to.
Connecting with people, yeah.
Do it.
For sure.
It's possible. I have great hope for you and I can hardly.
Wait for you.
To come out because I think it's going.
Me too.
To be really exciting.
Me too, and I feel like, you know, this has got everybody has heard of Napoleon Dynamite, even though it's 20 years old, people still remember it. And I feel like that's gonna be my foot in the door. You know what I mean? That gets me the attention, obviously, is that it's not just Darci Monet releasing the next song she wrote. Because who's Darci Monet? You know what I mean? So.
I'm excited. I'm hopeful that this will actually do something.
And then you know.
Yeah. And sometimes you do concerts on Facebook and Instagram and.
Yes, I do. I have been doing face simultaneous Facebook and TikTok because I haven't quite figured out how to also do it on Instagram all at the same time. I literally will have a friend come and I I'm TikToking on their phone and then I'm facebooking on my phone.
So I know there's probably an app out there where I can stream simultaneously to all three, I just haven't found it yet. But yeah, I do Facebook live concerts.
Cause in this?
Town. Also, it's so expensive to play live because you got to play your band, pay your band and then it's, you know, it's a $20 to get in the door for your friends. And then they have to buy 2 drinks.
Or food. And then there's 15 to $20 parking. There's gas, which is already. It's like $100 night to ask my friends or supporters to come see me.
And I don't want people who just need a blessing to miss out on that. So I got started doing Facebook lives during lockdown because nothing else to do. And I was like.
Well, now I've got a captive audience.
Now you have to listen to.
Me and I just kept up with it because I.
It give it's because it gives me. It feeds my soul to do them and to fall back in love with singing again.
Which I had definitely fallen out of love with. And so it's really fun. So yeah, if you find me on the Facebooks and on the Tik toks, I'm Darci Monet on TikTok. I am Darci Smith Monet on Facebook. But if you connect me with me there, then you can.
Definitely catch my lives.
And they are fun. I I've really.
Enjoyed watching them?
I appreciate that you have done so. Thank you very much.
So Darci is.
There one thing you want to leave the audience with today.
Oh, just.
Stay true to yourself no matter what you're doing.
Know who you are.
Find out who you are, what you.
Believe in what your passion is.
And then.
Keep doing that.
Whether you decide to do it as your job, try to do it as your job or just because you do it because you love to do it. Do you really believe that?
When you put something out there and you make a decision, I'm doing this. The universe conspires with you to make it happen and to build it up. And for a lot of people that can become the difference between their hobby that they love and and their career path.
So I would say.
Know yourself. Stay true to yourself and just do what you love to do.
And not, but good can come of it.
So true, so true.
And you never know the connections that you make along the way. And like, totally turn your life around 180 so that you're going in a direction that.
You never even.
Thought it was possible.
But really, the universe is good and.
I agree.
Doesn't inspire them, but.
Oh well, that reminds me. The one of the guys from Napoleon Dynamite.
He was he.
Was the one that dated lafonda. What was?
Ah, Kip, Kip, Kip, I think his character.
'S name was. He was the one that talked.
Like this all the time and he because this film had no here's an example. This is why I'm interrupting again. Here's an example of what it might not turn out the way you thought it was going to, but you're going to maybe find your passion in a different a different passion.
That works out.
He was in this film fabulous actor, but they didn't have a budget, obviously, and they needed to take.
Stills on the set, you know, that's part of the process. The process of making films, taking just still shots. He was an amateur photographer, so he did it. What ended up happening is that out of these still shots he got called by other.
Of films and companies to take photographs of him, so he's now he's this photographer and has this huge career as a photographer and he loves it. And it's all because of this little film that he was acting in and he thought that's what he wanted to.
Be when he grew up.
But it what took a different.
Direction and he's perfectly happy.
You never know too. Be open to things that might curveball and still be just as much fun.
Yeah, yeah.
And maybe you're.
Coaching is because you're supposed to be coaching and not a fan of studio singer because somebody out there is going to be famous because they ran into you.
That's the plan. Yeah, that's it. I know. I'm called to do this, and I'm, and I'm perfectly happy with that. It's good.
Yeah, you're so good at it.
I try.
Thanks for joining me today.
Darci, I really appreciate your time and your talent.
Thank you.
Just for being you. You're so cool.
Well, thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for.
Asking me, I appreciate it.