This week on the Mobile AL Business Podcast, we have a special treat for you guys! We sat down for a video interview with The Peavy's and Matt Lemond to hear about what they are doing to make Mobile an even better place to live. Share this news with your friends and drop a comment on the Facebook post letting us know what you think they are up to next!

Transcript:

Check out the full interview on the Blue Fish YouTube channel:

Marcus sits down with Jake Peavy, Matt LeMond, and Luke Peavy!

Marcus: Yeah, very good.

Jake: Yeah, I think to add upon that, we had obviously been down in Mobile for a couple of years now and Luke and Ben and the team of people that they've assembled have been excited to meet so many new people and to be around and being neighbors with Matt, getting to watch closely what he's built for many years here in downtown Mobile. And we always talk about being a team, I think, around here and working together and find like-minded individuals who can put their egos aside and truly want to make a difference and build something special. This is my hometown and Matt's not from here, but he should be with [crosstalk 00:01:51].

Marcus: His money's definitely invested in the city, that's for sure.

Jake: He's invested as anybody who's been from here their whole life, so getting a chance to partner up and do some fun things in the future is exciting for us all.

Marcus: Yeah. So, both of you have, I think it bears saying, both of you have the Peavy Foundation and does Dolphin Street Sound and all of the other stuff operate underneath that? You were mentioning earlier there's some 13 different businesses.

Luke: Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of things going in different directions, but we kind of keep the for-profit and non-profit stuff separate. We just kind of share a same vision. Our for-profit companies are really all about giving back. We talk about that with our employees from the get-go we were going to be a company that gives back and invests back into our community and to those that need it more than the foundation. Just kind of puts us on a different level and platform to be able to really do stuff and implement programs here in Mobile for the ones that need it most. But they tie in really well just because our shared passion for music. We like to push that and change lives through the music part with the foundation and then with our for-profits being in that sector as well, it's a good mesh.

Jake: That's how we got down here too, is the foundation. And coming down to Mobile, getting back involved. I had been playing for so many years and we started the foundation in 2012 and then it became I was a part of these other communities that was really easy to activate in because of brand recognition and really got some cool stuff in San Diego, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. The four places I played, we all have existing programs up running in these cities and it wasn't neglect to Mobile, I just hadn't been here or spent time here. And we knew that as my career transitioned toward the latter phase that I wanted to get down back to Mobile. We had always talked about, "Where's our space? Let's find some office space." And we wanted to be a part of downtown growing and being great again and just really being a positive influence down here. We obviously love music and business stuff.

Marcus: That's your mechanism for making this happen.

Jake: Just by happenstance, some of the office space ended up being a studio.

Marcus: I was going to say, you like music?

Jake: That pulled at my heartstrings. Seeing that this was Mr. Cooper's place and he already had this studio and vision. And we wanted to give Mobile a chance for all our great musicians and artists that are around this area to not have to go to New Orleans, not have to go to Atlanta, Nashville to have something state-of-the-art so we could have music be born out of our city. So, that's kind of how the studio got here with the foundation offices. But the foundation truly got us down here and back involved. And nobody does a better job of that than Luke and we only have one foundation employee and we ask of all our employees throughout anything we have going to be a part of our foundation events.

Marcus: Very cool.

Jake: It's a key component.

Marcus: Now you all are all very heavily invested, you have mentioned a number of things that you all have going on, but you're very heavily invested in Mobile. Obviously being from here, you are wanting to see change here, but is there more to it? Why is it that you're so heavily invested? And also, what do you see coming from Mobile? What do you think is going to happen over say, the next three to five years that maybe people that are watching this aren't aware of?

Jake: Me or you? I'll take it for a little while.

Marcus: He's not going to say one more word if we can let him, so.

Jake: No, to start back on that. Mobile, why Mobile? At the end of the day, Mobile's home. I wanted to come home. My family's here, my friends, so many people I've lost connection with with life on the road, just having a hectic schedule. Mobile was home and I wanted to be around my family and my friends and I had some stuff going on in my life to where it just really re-calibrated my thinking on what's the most important thing to me in life and I came back to my relationships. I have so many of those that just go back too far to not be authentic. So, being in Mobile is really meant the world to me and that's, at the end of the day why I say Mobile. When I got back home and saw what Mayor Stimpson and the leadership and saw what Matt, other guys in the community, so many other people, around our age people excited about Mobile and trying to build something special here. It just energized me to jump on board what was already happening in so many ways. What I see to come in Mobile is us binding together. I think we have something special here in Mobile whereas when Matt was telling about Celebrate the City and this stuff that's been happening here. So much has been made of this, the diversity issues that we have in society on a global scale, I guess, especially in this nation and all the hate crimes and the people protesting. Mobile has not seen any of that stuff. We have seen unity. We've seen people come together. We continually see events that-

Marcus: Well, you had an event last year. Dougie Fresh came and held a concert here. And I was so pissed because I, being from DC, old school hip-hop, you know it's just, yeah. So anyway.

Jake: And he killed it too.

Matt: Dump the Funk meets JamMan.

Marcus: I was just like, it killed me that I missed that and I was getting texts from friends all night long like, "Hey!" And it killed me. But I love that you're doing things like that where people can kind of come together and bond, if you will, over music.

Jake: Well, at the end of the day, our vision is bringing people together and building a culture around Mobile. That's singular and it's our own identity. We're proud to be from Alabama and the South, but we are Mobile and this is who we are.

Matt: And that's kind of the definition of it. I'm not from Mobile, but I do consider this home. That was my New Year's resolution last year. When I'm out of town and someone says, "Where you from?" I say, "Mobile." And that's it. And right now, I've been here for about 15 years and I think that Mobilians are the most engaged that I've seen them in my short period of time here. And I think that goes with the excitement about the events. Not just the events that we're doing, but the city's a part of and I encourage them to continue to support those things. Share their ideas, put them into action, let us know how we can help and continue that. Because it's really just going to develop the city as a whole and we'll all continue to come together throughout these events and more people will call Mobile home.

Marcus: That's cool.

Jake: And to add to that, you were asking where I see Mobile going, and that's what we talk about. We talk about getting an already active society, like you said, they're as engaged as I've ever seen them in my lifetime here and I know I haven't been here a ton, but I see it, I feel it, I touch it. We've been a part of so many things, like you said, that we've put on, but also that we're by far not sitting here saying we're the only show in town. We are happy to be a part of so many great things happening here. We're just trying to team up and start making an effort to work together. I think there's been times in Mobile's past that everybody wants to work in their individual silo and it's something we talked about in a foundation meeting yesterday. We're trying to break those walls down and really start working as a team to make lasting change that's sustainable.

Marcus: I think the internet has ... Obviously I work in technology and have for 20 years, right? But the internet has taught us, the more you can kind of release the information or release the control over whatever it is that you have, the more powerful that becomes. Whether being information or data or in your instance just sharing, not control necessarily, but sharing information and sharing experiences and stuff like that. It makes it much more powerful, so.

Matt: Yeah. And we just shared that synergy. And I think when we got in the same room, we were throwing ideas off each other and we were going all over the place and I think that the excitement was there so much for us to start putting those into action.

Marcus: Knowing the three of you I think the difficult part is going be, "These are the few things we're going to do now. Phase two is this."

Jake: Yeah. Add Ben Jernigan and a few other minds to this meeting and it gets awfully interesting. But I think that's part of the fun in this for it all is Mobile, we have such a chance here to do something special that everybody needs to have these ideas and throw them out there and don't be afraid to step out of the box and do something your way or with respect to the past. But we want to be singular in our expedition with respect to everyone who's doing it around us and to the past. But it's been a blast so far and can't wait to see what's to come.

Marcus: So, I don't want to ask any specifics, because I told you I'd give you a little bit of a looseness around what your plans are, but is there anything that you can talk about now that the three of you are kind of joining forces and of course Ben being the fourth Musketeer I guess. So, what is in store here? What do you have that you can talk about?

Luke: I think the best way for me to say it would be, really what's not to expect? We just partnered with an amazing guy who has an amazing staff that's been in the grind of doing this.

Marcus: Are we talking about the same guy?

Luke: Yeah. I think so. He's real clean-cut and looks good.

Matt: He's full of it.

Luke: He's on the ground every day. What he's been able to build at O'Daily's and Draft-Picks and Dog Street Blues Company and now Hole in the Wall. We just saw a crazy opportunity. Like he said, the synergy was there. I think in the end, good people find good people. I think that's kind of what led us to each other and then the synergy once we got in the room was kind of a no-brainer for us. So, man, expect crazy things. Crazy pop-up shows when we have friends come into town and just kind of whatever. We're dreamers, man.

Marcus: Yeah.

Jake: You know I think we're still in the planning phase of what's to come because in Mobile we've had a hard time, us as a team of people, of really getting ahead of the planning and programming. You can only do one-off to one-off so long. You have to have a long-term vision of sustainability and what you want and we're all cognoscente of that fact. So, we're in the planning phase and this is very new to us and-

Marcus: It's weird to think in three-years, five-years kind of plans, right?

Jake: I can't even hardly wait.

Matt: To do this again.

Jake: I'm present-minded always, but I get as excited as about anything in life when we've got some amazing things happening foundation related that Matt's as passionate about as we are that we're going to be able to tie together and make, hopefully, lasting impact here in Mobile. From the O'Daily's and that scene, I think it's going to get exciting. We certainly want to just build upon what Matt's already done and we don't want to throw anything off, just add in any which way we can and I think that's going to be fun and exciting, so. We've got Mardi Gras coming up.

Matt: St. Patrick's Day around the corner.

Marcus: St. Patrick's day, that's what I was thinking.

Matt: We're coming up on O'Daily's eighth year and we add unique events every single year and I think that throughout all the events that we've had each year and building this relationship and sharing that common goal will allow us to continue to bring some awesome events to O'Daily's and to the city to continue to bring people downtown. So, we encourage people to continue to stay engaged and be a part of it as much as they want to.

Jake: And I need to say something too.

Marcus: Sure.

Jake: I really did have ... You know I told you I walked in this place and the studio pulled on my heartstrings.

Marcus: Yeah.

Jake: Wiffle ball really gets me excited.

Marcus: We almost had the Blue Fish dodge ball team this year, and I'm so upset that we didn't actually go through with that because I heard it was an absolute blast.

Matt: It's a fun event.

Marcus: If you can put together a wiffle ball team-

Matt: Wiffle ball!

Marcus: -you might have a slight [crosstalk 00:15:09].

Matt: There are some serious guys out there that are probably chomping at the bit like, [crosstalk 00:15:15] I can take them to the roof.

Marcus: I would love to see that.

Jake: That's going to be a blast.

Marcus: That would be fun. So, any final thoughts or comments you'd like to share?

Matt: We appreciate you. That's what I want to say. Thanks, man. We appreciate what you do and it takes an army to make this thing go around and that's what we're here to do is promote the scene any which way we can and we'll certainly do this again, please.

Marcus: If there's anything that we can do to help you guys, just let us know. We take a very similar approach, right? So, we're just trying to spread the positive news and what business owners are doing for the city and so that's why it was just such a pleasure to get this opportunity to sit with you. So, with that, I'd like to thank you for your time today and I appreciate everything that you guys are doing, so.

Matt: Cool.

Jake: Thanks, pal.

Marcus: Thank you.

Matt: Cool. Thank you.

Marcus: Awesome.

Jake: Nice job, Luke. You killed it, dude.