The Musicians Side Hustle - What Misha Mansoor Said to Nik Nocturnal Is SO RELEVANT

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, good morning. How's it Jes old composer decomposing literally and figuratively. Let's watch this clip with Nick Nocturnal and Misha Mansour talk about something that I believe is so important so important for musicians to understand whether you're in a band, you're a solo artist, jazz, all genres, metal, pop, rock, it doesn't matter.

[00:00:23]when music lives in your heart and you have that dream of making it the finances. Let's watch this and then I'll have a little something something to say after this like that's going to surprise you. I I remember you guys kind of talking back in the day of like periphery and how obviously as as a band entity it's much trickier to make revenue but a lot of you guys kind of have your like offshoots whether like Horizon Devices get good drums etc etc of how you guys like actually pay the bills. How do you see that landscape nowadays? It's 2026. There's the internet's a crazy obviously valuable asset for people to monetize as as we see for the good and the bad. Jesus Christ nowadays like how do you see that landscape from I guess that business but also that creative perspective of yourself nowadays?

[00:01:05]>> I'd say it's probably more relevant than ever. People always got the wrong message from what I was saying cuz like I did this interview with Rick Viato and like that was my point was like hey you're going to need side hustles.

[00:01:15]you're going to need income streams and and those take a while like you like you know I'm sure these take a while to to build and to bear fruit if they're going to bear any at all. So start early like this is stuff like that we did from the beginning and any band would benefit from knowing this information from the beginning rather than believing like a man if you just believe it hard enough like you just have to want it more than the next guy you're going to make it the music will be enough. It's just not like being just a musician is just not enough for most people to make.

[00:01:47]>> If it is, it's great.

[00:01:49]>> But like my my advice with that was it's still the same. Like people always took away from it like, "Oh, Misha's complaining he doesn't make money with Periphery." It's like, "No, I don't care that I don't make money with Periphery because I use it as the nucleus for all my other stuff that does make me money so that I can have a life." And I >> oh my goodness, I could have not have articulated that in in any way as eloqu eloquently as he has. And uh I'm an old man riff for a second, but it's it's it's going to be a very unique thing where I'm watching these. I think Nick is in in his early 20s and I think Misha's in somewhere in his 30s, but I'm 65 and I did this path. So I'm about to share something with you. Before I do though, I just want to say how stoked I am that Nick is back and jumping into this. I believe that Nick, he has many layers to him and I've left comments about that that I've recognized in his way that he can speak and listen and so on and so forth. I'm hoping I want it I want it. If you want it, put in the comments. I want it for Nick Nocturnal to be the new version of, let's just say, where Rick Biato is the Johnny Carson that Nick Nocturnal could be like the [snorts] um uh David Letterman offshoot, the younger version and stuff.

[00:03:00]The other thing is too, Misha Monsour, he is what a great personality, so fun.

[00:03:05]I still feel sorry for what I did to him on the time when I did an interview with him. It went like two hours long. I was like, my first interview, I was all like, "Wow, I got this great musician here." At the end of the interview, he was like, "Yeah, listen, uh, Jeeves, uh, I got to feed my dog. Oh, my girlfriend's calling for me. Dinner's ready." "Oh, NM, it's a twister. Oh, my steak is burning." Anything he could do to get away from [laughter] the podcast, but I had a [snorts] great time. Anyhow, uh outside of that, what Misha is saying is not only what he believes is going to be the long tale of or the path that you take uh in duality of of the success that you're dreaming of, you're thinking of, you're working towards is something that I did ever since I'd have to say the early 80s. And even though I've been a composer for 40 years, there is no shame and I will die on this hill. There is no shame to say that I had various side hustles on my trek as a professional composer.

[00:04:09]And what I mean by that is half of my side hustles had to do with music. So while I'm writing music for people, I was also a second engineer at a major studio or I was working at Guitar Center. You guys know that story. or I was teaching or I was uh playing overdubs for other people just scantly making money. But while I was doing that, my side hustle was I was like, let's say a sander at a surfboard factory. Two of my biggest loves, right?

[00:04:40]Music, surfboards. you know, I never felt really comfortable with the money that I was making in the industry because I had probably the single most important lesson within my life, which was my father.

[00:04:55]And um I'm not I'm not going to name drop or anything, but my dad's success is monumental as an arranger throughout the industry of the real the record industry when you were able to make a money as a string arranger and an orchestrator and stuff in the capacity that he did. But I spent a lot of time after my dad would say, "Do a huge project and just make a grip of cash." And then three or four days later, he'd be looking out the window going and I wonder if that was the last one. You know, what would I do?

[00:05:26]Every time almost like clockwork, I can go 3 2 1 4 days later, he's having that conversation. I would talk to him because it is that anxiety. When does that next thing come for myself?

[00:05:37]Why the side hustle was so important for me is it gave me time not to stress about what my focus was on achieving uh things within my music career even though that was evolving as I went.

[00:05:53]So during the peak of what I consider my financial success of being a composer, national spots, you know, bee movies, you know, Saturday morning cartoon, you know, ghost writing and all kinds of stuff was the '9s.

[00:06:10]And through that whole time period, I was a bartender. Albeit, little bit of a strategy here. I was a bartender at my brother's friend's restaurant. It's still there. It's called Machelli's right across the street from Universal Studios, right down the street from CBS.

[00:06:25]There used to be Hannah Barbara and about 10 other production companies there and they would all come to this bar and drink where I got a lot of my work. So, I used it as networking, but I also used it as just being social and having fun. I loved the bartend. I loved the surfboard manufacturing industry. I love music.

[00:06:45]And even to this day, I had a good window again, you know, probably in the late 90s to the early 2000s where I was kind of just cruising a little more.

[00:06:53]That's when I was kind of building um uh a family, you know, with my ex-wife.

[00:06:58]Sounds kind of funny. [laughter] We're still good friends though. And uh then music kind of came back in. Then 2000s hit, you know, and I was done kind of I I had moved back here to Hawaii and then but when the internet kind of sped back up and the types of files that were, you know, being rendered didn't sound so shitty and actually I could actually write again. I actually had another run of like the late 2000 as to 2015 of, you know, a ton of uh uh well now it's called stock music, library music and stuff from publishers.

[00:07:27]But even through that, I opened up a little teeny boutique company uh out here in Hawaii. uh that just helped you know people with social media and I I and I coded. I loved coding. So my third love came into play which was coding. I was like geeking. It was kind of like arranging to me, right? Coding. If you're a coder and if you're a coder that's a musician, there's kind of a correlation to that, isn't there? And um and then I did that for a while and still wrote music. And then some decent jobs came through. And then there's times no decent jobs came through. And then the last two side hustles, tour guide. I used to be a tour guide at a place called Cool Lower Ranch. Loved it. It was post-production stuff. That's what I did, right? As a composer. And so it was the movie site tour, the Jurassic Park tour for a year and a half. Then I took a break. And then uh COVID hit, kind of stalled everybody out for a while. And now that I'm older, in my mid60s, nobody's calling me anymore. you know, I do have some older uh publishers that still hire me. It's almost like by about October, I'll get a phone call, do about 40, 50 tracks, you know, for uh this music library and stuff. And I'm grateful, but in the meantime, I'm, you know, now got the grandkids and stuff and I'm a tour guide. So, that's four kind of side hustles that I've done throughout my life that I loved to do. And each one of them the music allowed me to get a side hustle that I enjoyed. And the side hustle I enjoyed got allowed me to, you know, enjoy my music, you know, journey.

[00:09:04]I never bought a house. I never bought a car. I never got married until way later.

[00:09:11]So my first marriage I was 50. Now I'm divorced. That didn't last long, but you know, and and that's my journey. And I have no shame in saying that I've always had a side hustle throughout my composing career, but the side hustles that I had, I loved to do, you know. So, it's finding that magic in between it when you have to side hustle because here's the brass ring. I know everybody, even myself, wouldn't it be great to be so famous at music that somebody sets up your rig and they put a guitar in your hand and you play, you know, and you sing or you just do and you show up? I think it's for me I'm not I have no envy of that. I think it's wonderful. I love watching successful people. I love watching you know what people enjoy with their lives and stuff. It's just not something that came my way. That brass ring, by the way, side note, the term brass ring, do you know what that means?

[00:10:04]I'm going to tell you right now. back in the 1800s and a carousel. You'd go around and at the very outside every now and then they'd put out a ring and if you caught the the ring, you win a prize, but every now and then you'd catch the brass ring and then [laughter] Sorry, just an old man moment there. I figured if you if you know what what the brass ring really meant, it's like you get that, you know, one brass ring that comes out, you know? So, anyhow, that's an old man grandpa moment.

[00:10:34]So, I just wanted to kind of close this up and saying I'm just so excited that I that I caught this. Um, please I'm sure most of the people on my channel are very familiar with Nick. Uh, please go check out his uh new podcast. I'm very excited for his journey. I always look forward to his stuff when he posts stuff up. Misha, if you do see this, I hope you're doing well uh with the gang.

[00:10:54]Sorry I talked your ear off, but I did have a blast and it was fun. And I think I'll link it here at the end just if anybody's morbid curiosity on how I burn that poor guy's ear off.

[00:11:05]Anyhow, please don't no shame about side hustle. Let the side hustle lift your music, you know, and and if that does happen and if you do get that brass ring, run with that brass ring because the shelf life is not going to be what you think it's going to be. I and I don't mean to sound negative, but the shelf life that we see when we see all of these old rock and rollers going up there, you know, and still doing their things may not be what it's going to look like by the time, let's say, these artists, you know, uh, Nick and Misha might be by the time they get to 60.

[00:11:36]What's that going to look like? It's not going to look the same as, you know, you know, the tours we have here. So, anyhow, thank you so much for enduring this with me. Um, it it it it's a two cup of coffee driven response, but you guys have a killer day. Absolutely killer day. Don't forget, count the wins. They're small, but if they stack up, you can see over the of life. Guys, take care. All right, see you.