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Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode, the Daily Stoke Podcast. Obviously, one of the perks of having the podcast, but also just being a writer so you get to meet people you admire people who's work you love.

I think if you've been talking to a 12 year old version of me, they would have not believed so many of the things about my life would even be possible, but this one they probably wouldn't believe at all.

I remember probably around age 12, I remember I saved up my money and about a stereo for my room and it had the ability. This is very long time ago for some listeners, I'm sure.

But you listen to songs in the radio and you put a tape in the tape deck and if you hit the record in the play button, you can record things off the radio.

And I remember I recorded a song by the band MXPX, I'm okay, you're okay, which I think was their biggest hit to date.

And I just loved this song and I remember I heard it a couple of times, but I never caught it right at the beginning and I finally got it just in time to record it.

And I would listen to this song all the time and then I bought the album when it came out. I remember actually even the first album that I ever bought on Amazon, the first thing that I ever bought on Amazon, which I bought on the gift card, was their next album the ever passing moment.

And the first concert that I ever went to was an MXPX show in Modesto, California in, it's going to be September or October 2001.

And I still have the t-shirt and it still fits and I wore it a few days ago.

So my guest today actually is Mike Herrera, an amazing musician, the founding member and songwriter of MXPX.

So the bass is in a band called Goldfinger, it's got a bunch of awesome side projects he's done over the years that I also like including the band Arthur and yet a country band called Tumble Down.

MXPX is a pop punk band, they do a lot of great acoustic stuff too.

It just been kind of a soundtrack to my life over the years and God knows how many, how much time I've spent listening to their music.

I remember one time I was watching the Super Bowl as a kid and they weren't a Super Bowl commercial and I just thought, holy shit, this is amazing.

And I ended up meeting Mike when I was writing a perennial seller, MXPX is a band that has been now a band for 30 years.

They've had their ups and downs and I wanted to look at how an artist weather's just the realities of something as difficult as the music business comes out of the other side, does great work.

And I got to meet Mike and I've been to a couple shows since then, which has been cool. Anyways, today's guest is Mike Herrera, great conversation, probably even more unbelievable to me as a 12 year old is that Mike's wife Holly and my wife Samantha are friends, things I could not have conceived of as a kid.

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