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What's up everybody, welcome back to the All Things Croatia podcast. I'm your host,
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Stanko Zovak, and I'm bringing you the best of Croatia from around the globe.
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This episode is brought to you by Adriatic Tours, the best place since 1974 to book your
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information, go to www.adriatictours.com or click the link in the description. Now,
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eat a modalia and let's get started. Alright, what's up everybody, welcome back to the podcast.
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On this week's episode, we have Justus Reid. Justice is an American TikTok and Instagram star
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with no Croatian roots or connection at all, who all of a sudden broke into the Croatian
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social media scene as well as the greater Balkan area. After posting videos, singing songs,
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and Croatian, Justus recently performed on the Croatian singing show Super Talent and is set to
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release a brand new song that he wrote in the Croatian language. In this episode, we're going to
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find out the story behind all of this. Justus, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having
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me, I'm super excited. Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on. Actually, I've been following you for,
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or at least I first heard about you at least a year ago, maybe a little more, I'm not sure, but a buddy
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of mine, who actually we both came from Los Angeles to Croatia together to do this, you know, program
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that I'm in. He showed me said, check this guy out, some American guy singing Croatian songs.
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And, you know, sort of before we get into all of that, how all that started. Can you tell us a
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little bit, you know, where you're from and your background? Yeah, so I was born in a small town
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in North Dakota. That's where my mother is originally from. And when I was about
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five or six moved to Rapid City, South Dakota. And so I would call Rapid City my home. It's not
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very big. South Dakota has less people in it than Croatia is despite being what three or four times
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the size land wise. Most people couldn't point to it on a map. Most South Dakotans don't know where
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Croatia is. And most Croatians don't know where South Dakota is. A mutual relationship. Yeah.
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And I just want to make one thing clear. North Dakota, South Dakota are different states. Every
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time I tell a Croatian person I'm from South Dakota, they go, Oh, Dakota, I know Dakota.
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It's South Dakota. Anyway, so I'm 22 years old. I've been playing guitar for about 10 years.
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I started playing electric guitar because my dad is a musician and a singer. He never did it
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professionally, but he always did it as a hobby. And I have a lot of fond memories growing up with
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him playing and singing. I actually come from a family of singers. My older brother and sister
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are both musicians and singers as well. So and what's funny is I've got all this popularity,
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but they're both probably better musicians and singers than I am. So it is funny. Nobody expected
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that I was going to be the big star, but I had to show them. Does your dad ever say, Oh, you know,
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if I had TikTok back in my day, I'd be famous too or anything like that. Oh, all sorts of things.
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You know, what's funny is all of the, I have him in there, I'm out of my videos. And every time
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views start to go down, I'm like, Dad, you need to be in a video so we can boost the views. And it
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works. People love to see my dad. That's funny. So, so, Justice, tell me now, I mean, so you have a
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history of music, you know, you've always been a musician runs in the family. Where is the,
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how do you end up singing songs in Croatian on TikTok and Instagram?
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Yeah, so it's a little bit of a complicated story. I'll try to simplify. I decided that I was going
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to try to write my own music. I wrote and recorded five songs about that would have been January of
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2021. So a year and a half ago, or almost two years ago, that's crazy.
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So I made five songs and I wanted people to listen to them. And so I did some research and I found
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that TikTok was the best way to promote your music. And I went through making TikTok content
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very mechanically, like, start with, I want to promote my music, but then the video, my first
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viral video was about a car, not about music at all. I had a truck I made a video about and went viral.
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And so I go, well, I guess I make videos about cars now. Because that's the way I work. You just do
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what works, you know, music isn't working. I make videos about cars. And eventually that led to me
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making a video about the Hugo, which is an old car from Yugoslavia from the 80s that they sold in
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America. And I called it the worst car ever made because car and driver said it was the worst car
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ever made. I've never driven one. But I said it was the worst car ever made and that video blew up
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and went super viral. But not in America in Balkan and not just Croatia, but Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia,
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Slovenia, all of them. And they were all commenting. I remember one very clearly, a comment said,
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the Hugo is the only thing that unites Croatia and Serbia. And now you spit on it.
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They were very offended. And so eventually, after making a few more videos poking fun at the Hugo,
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I ended up singing a Serbian song called Mickey Milanay, which I guess everybody in Balkan knows.
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And the reason I did that was as an apology. I felt like I had gone too far. I'd said too many mean
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things about the Hugo. And that video went insanely viral. It was the most popular thing I had ever
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made. And there were people who had been following the whole thing. We forgive you. We forgive you
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now. Now everything is good now. You've sung our song. And I was so happy to be able to do that.
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And I was in the news. I was on the radio. I was getting DMs from everywhere, all over, just
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just getting totally blown up. I was like a celebrity overnight. I remember reading an article
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about it and showing it to my friends. We put it in Google Translate because we couldn't read it.
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And it said, a young American man set the internet literally on fire last night with his
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video of him singing Mickey Milanay. I was like, guys, I set the internet on fire, literally on fire.
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And so that led to I guess I sing Serbian songs now. Just like what happened with cars is I just
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do what's popular. It's like, first it started with American music, my own. And then it was cars.
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And now it is Balkan songs. Let's go with it. And so I was making videos every single day for
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over a year singing Balkan songs every single day. And to Croatia specifically, I've gotten
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massive insane support. It just started with I do that Serbian song. And then the Croatians in
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the comments go, I'm from Croatia. You need to sing my song or the song from our country.
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I'm from Slovenia. You need to sing our song from our country. I go, fine. Let's do it all.
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And it has been extremely rewarding. Anyway, that's that's the long story of how I got my start.
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Very unconventional. Yeah, definitely. That's definitely something that can only happen in
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these modern times, you know, with with all the social media that's out there. Do you remember what
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some of the first couple Croatian songs that you posted were? I know the first one for sure was,
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I believe it was a Kote PTU by Petro Krasho was the first one. And one I will never forget. And
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my favorite, I've had to answer this a lot of times, what's your favorite Croatian song? It is a
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Christmas song. Sreten bolžić svakome. My favorite is my favorite Croatian song. It's because I
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did that song with my two brothers for the TikTok page when when they were here for the holidays.
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And an article got written about that video. And I sent it to my older brother. I said,
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you're famous. You're in an article in Croatia. Here's a picture of you. And then and I sent it
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to him before I read it. Then I put it in Google translate. I found out it's, you know, American
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superstar Justice Reed sings song with two others. And I was like, I was like, you are others.
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Not even brother, just others. Just other two others. I think I just read that article actually
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like an hour ago in preparation for this interview. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. And so, I mean,
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what was your what do your family think about all this? You know, once you started going viral,
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I mean, you were doing it for at least a year before you, you know, started before you went to
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Croatia, at least for the super talent. Yeah. So they they've been super supportive. It's actually
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so my first viral video in Balkan, I guess, with the you go was in March of 2021. And then in
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August of that same year, I actually ended up visiting Slovenia, which, you know, it's so long
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ago now is over a year ago. But I spent two weeks in Slovenia with a with a fellow tick tocker,
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who goes by Jello. And he is my best Balkan friend. He covered the whole trip. And it was
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absolutely amazing. I was a celebrity everywhere I went. And my dad was with me, which was the best
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part, because somebody from home could actually see that this was real. It was like being on a
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completely different planet. We're going to stop for photos everywhere we went, and all of that.
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And so I was prepared for Croatia when I went this year. I was ready for the
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to be a celebrity. So so you had fans and even a year ago in Slovenia when you went,
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you had people recognizing you. I did. I was actually, you know, I got more views in
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Slovenia in that short period of time when I was there than I ever have. I think I got 10 million
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views in a week. And Slovenia has 2 million people as a population. Yeah. And so we got in free
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everywhere we went. We, you know, I had a guitar with me everywhere. I was singing
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Slovenian songs and all of that. To be honest, my largest support group for the longest time has
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been in Slovenia. So I was really surprised when I heard about super talent that Croatia was
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interested in me. I had done Croatian songs. They had written about me. I was very popular there.
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But I was shocked by that. I was like, ah, I thought only Slovenians liked me enough to
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invite me to their country. But how did that process work? They reached out to you and said,
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it will fly you out here or you had to get your own flight? How did that work? That one is really,
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I'm not sure what the contractual stuff with that is. But to say the least, it took a very
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long time to negotiate that actually. They reached out far, far in advance. And they were like,
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well, let's do it this way. And I was like, that's not going to work. And it was just lots of back
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and forth. What days are you coming? How long are you going to stay? Where are you going to stay?
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Who's going to pay for it? But we did come to an agreement that was totally reasonable for both of
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us. And I think both parties were really happy. So I think that's probably the most I could say.
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Okay. And when did you, can you say the timeline that you were here? No.
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I was here. Yeah. So I think I can. I was there in June. So it actually, the performance didn't
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premiere until September. So I wasn't allowed to tell anybody. That's why I was in Croatia until
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it aired. And so I'm glad that happened. Everybody was very surprised. I told my fans, I said,
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I'm coming to Croatia. I'll be there for three days. It was very short notice. It was like,
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tomorrow I'll be in Croatia for three days. And then I did the audition, which took about a day.
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And I could talk more about that if you'd like about the audition process. But I did the audition.
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I felt it went really well. And I flew home. It was like 21 hours of total travel time,
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including layovers and hotels and stuff. And I was so jet lagged when I got home. I wasn't back
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to normal for weeks. Yeah, that's the worst. It's easier. Actually, for me, it's easier going from
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Croatia to LA where I'm from than going the other way around to Croatia. But doing all that
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back and forth in a three day span, that's the worst part about going is the trip itself.
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Yeah. And I never got to leave Zagreb as well. That was the only place I was the whole time.
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And it was a beautiful weekend. And so I have friends in Croatia who I had met through typical
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who I had met through tip talk and Instagram through being an influencer guy. And I was like,
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Hey, I'm going to be in Zagreb, your your home city. Let's meet up. And everybody's like,
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I'm on vacation. They're all down at the coast. Everybody was in a split. And there was I had
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four people I knew who I was friends with, I reached out to all of them. And every one of them
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was on vacation. So I didn't get to meet any of I didn't get to meet any of my friends when I was
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in Croatia, but I did make some new friends. I met a acapella group called Voxford. And we did,
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we sang Mickey Milan, my original viral hit as an with an acapella group. And that video
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was extremely popular as well. So pretty cool. Yeah, it sucks that you didn't get to I mean,
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the best part for me, and for a lot of other people I know of Croatia in the summer is being able
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to go to, you know, the beach to the the seaside over there, like split. But were you able to at
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least go around Zagreb a little bit and see see anything there any sites? I was the what do they
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call it the world's shortest chairlift? Yeah, yeah, the I'm forgetting the name in Croatian and
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English now. But yeah, the little thing that goes up to the Gordnikarad to the upper city.
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Yes. So we went to the upper city, we saw the government where they are, I don't know what
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they call them, but the government buildings and just walk through the the center of town.
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We didn't really go in any shops or anything. We just didn't have time. But I got a pretty good
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layout of the city. And I really liked it there. Everybody was very friendly. And once again,
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I was recognized a lot, took a lot of pictures with fans and had a good time. And like I said,
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nobody knew why I was there. I just like, I just happened to be in Croatian. They're like, what
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are you doing here? And I was like, you'll find out soon enough. Wow, what's that like for you to
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be you're in a foreign country basically across the world in Croatia, and people are coming up to
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you recognizing you from, you know, from your videos. Well, I think it was more amazing than I
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expected it to be, you know, with Americans in foreign countries, we kind of create this us
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and them kind of mentality, I think it's kind of difficult to escape, you know, is these aren't
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my people, they're foreigners, right? But I felt right at home in Croatia. I really, I mean,
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it could have been the 51st state, you know, I, everybody's like, what was the biggest culture
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shock? And I was like, pretty, pretty normal. I mean, you can just walk into a restaurant and
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sit down, I guess you don't have to wait to be seated. And this is probably even weird for you.
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In South Dakota, the legal driving age is 14 years old. So I got my first car and driver's
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license and job at 14. And in Croatia, nobody's even got a car. I think the driving age is actually
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18 is the legal driving age here. But yeah, a lot. I mean, the public transportation, especially in
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Zagreb is very good, you know, a lot of people just take that or walk, you know, it's not a big city.
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Yeah, it was super easy to get around. And I felt perfectly safe while I was there too. I mean,
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like I said, I was right at home. And so the impact is much larger than you would think. It's like,
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you're in a foreign country and everybody recognizes you. It's like, it's like I'm in
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a city. And everybody's recognizing me like these aren't foreigners, these most everybody speaks
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English and everybody who walked up to me knew I was American. So they spoke English to me.
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Well, I wanted to ask you about that because you obviously you're singing in Croatian,
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you've got a new song coming out that we'll get to in a little bit here that you wrote in Croatian
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language. Do you speak can you speak at all any Croatian conversationally? Or do you just memorize
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the words singing? I can't speak Croatian, I only memorize the words singing and what a
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I don't know any languages other than English. I hear that learning your first language is hardest.
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It's so I haven't quite got it. I can read Croatian and pronounce the words properly. I know the
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entire Croatian alphabet. And but I I don't know what the words mean. So I can pick up on a Croatian
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song extremely quickly. Like, it used to take me three hours to make one TikTok video forever,
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just practicing and messing up again and again and again. And again, like that first video I did
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it. Mickey Milanay, when I sang that, I like it super excited reaction like, yes, I got it.
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And it's because I've been trying for hours to get the words right. That was a real reaction.
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It was a real reaction. It was genuinely like, finally, I'm done. I did it.
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And but now that I've been doing it for so long, I can pick up a song and make a quick video in
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20 minutes. Really quick. The sounds and the words of the language, or at least the sound of it,
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is more familiar to you now. Yes. But I don't know what the words mean. I can't
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conversationally speak Croatian, not even a little. Yeah, well, it's an extremely difficult
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language for me as an American. I'm that's why I'm actually here in the first place. I know we
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were talking off camera a little bit about what I'm doing here in Croatia and Zagreb. But yeah,
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I'm here in a language program trying to learn Croatian. I've been a year and a half and I
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I still feel like I don't know, maybe I know 20, 25% of like, I don't know, it's very it's difficult.
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Just I mean, the Slavic languages in general just have a whole different scheme than, you know,
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English. So it's difficult that from an English language perspective, for sure.
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When you're when you're singing now, so it's easier for you to pronounce the words, it's
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easier to sing in Croatian. You were in Croatia for super talent. That's like the Croatian America
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American Idol, you know, it's the biggest singing show singing in Croatian. What was that experience
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like for you? Were you nervous? I was extremely nervous. I actually don't think I don't know that
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I've ever been that nervous before. I started feeling ways that I hadn't never felt before. Like, one
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of the things I remember thinking is my mouth was dry. Like, I kept drinking water, I drank a bunch
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of water. And my mouth just wouldn't stop being so dry. And I remember like reading that in a book,
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like he was really nervous. His mouth was dry. This has never happened to me before.
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But the reason I was so nervous is because I was severely underprepared. I'm very busy. I actually,
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I work a full time job and have like a life. And so I did not have much time to practice. I actually
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did most of my practicing in my hotel room before, after I got to Croatia. And just again, again,
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I borrowed a guitar from the guys at Voxford, the acapella group, thanks to them. I borrowed a
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guitar, I locked myself in my hotel room for hours and just kept practicing and trying to get it
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memorized, trying to get it right. And I don't think I got that entire thing right one time,
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other than the final performance when I was on stage. So nothing right in practice, only during
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the final performance. Yeah. And it, there had to be a transition point where I would play until
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I messed up, and then I would stop and I would begin again. And then as the time got closer,
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I just had to accept the mistakes and just keep going. And so once you start to accept mistakes
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and say, mental note, that was not correct, but I'm going to keep going. So maybe no one will notice.
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I never got a performance as good as when I actually was up on stage.
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But I felt like it turned out well. I mean, I bet I've seen that video of me up on stage,
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I mean, a hundred times now. I mean, and I'm happy with how it turned out.
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Yeah, I thought it was great. Are we able to, since this episode will be released on the 11th
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of December, I believe, are we able to talk a little bit about that, leak some of the info
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about what happened on Super Talent? Okay, so Super Talent. Love those guys. They reached out to me.
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I mean, I was super honored and had a great time. I don't really have anything bad to say about them.
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However, I am a little disappointed with how things ended up turning out. So, okay,
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I finished my performance. I got four yeses from all of the judges. I go backstage and everybody
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is like, yes, you nailed it. You did a great job. We love it. And I was like, so you think I'm going
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to make it to the semifinals? And they're like, well, nobody's going to know who actually makes
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it to the semifinals until much later, until like August, like two months from now. And they go,
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but you're going to make it to the semifinals. They're like, you got four yeses. We love you,
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that everybody, you're coming back. And so I signed paperwork for that for the semifinals,
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and they said, you need to come up with a new act for the semifinals. And I go, well, what do you
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think I should do? And they go, do you think you could maybe do your own song? And that was it.
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That's all they said is maybe do your own song. I said, oh, okay, I think I can do that. I think
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I could write a song for this. And so I did. And it took forever to write. But the song is about
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an American, me, flying to Croatia because he's in love with a Croatian girl. And the first half
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of it is in English, because that's the language I speak. And the second half is in Croatian. And
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I initially had lyrics written for it that I just use Google translate to get those Croatian lyrics.
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And I made a few tweaks to make sure it kind of flowed. But I was, I made a demo, I was happy
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with it. And I sent it over to the guys that's super talent. And they were like, we love it. We
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think this is going to be a great performance. And they're like, we're going to send you an email
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with the information about the semifinals right away. And the email I got was like,
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two sentences long, it was like, sorry, you have not been selected for the semifinals. Have a nice
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day. I was like, what? Wait a second. I just, oh, yeah, it was like, you haven't been selected
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for the semifinals. So there is no need to prepare and act. And you had gotten four yeses. How does
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that work? I don't know. I really don't. They didn't really give me a reason. And I, we can speculate
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all we want. But I don't think it's fair to them. The truth is, they were really nice to me. The
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trip was awesome. And I want to add that I've gotten continued support from the team. Even after
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they said they didn't want to pursue the semifinals, the PR team has been helping me with interviews
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and, you know, encouraging me and things like that. And so I'm super disappointed that I'm not
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going to the semifinals. And I was extremely disappointed that I put in so much work into this
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song that I wrote for the semifinals. And I even wrote it in kind of a specific way that I was like,
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this song will do really well on stage. It's a song that you can clap to that we can have backup
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dancers and fireworks. And they're like, kind of musically, you know, like this is a stage song.
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And, and then it just completely like was gone. But I decided I was going to finish the song
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anyway, because I put in so much work. And I was like, who knows, you know, maybe people will listen
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to it anyway. And so I got a hold of a producer to finish it. His name. I don't even know if he goes
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by his new by his real name, but he goes by Raleigh. And he is a super talented producer from
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Balkan. I know he lives in Slovenia now, I believe, but he does a lot of travel. And
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he just did a phenomenal job just totally crossed that song. And he rewrote a few of my
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Croatian lyrics. He was like, this sounds a little clumsy. So let's clean this up. And he also helped
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me with pronunciation. I was like, I've got the recording of the Croatian part. Here it is. And
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he's like, it's not so good, you know. So we had I had to send him a few takes of that. But
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well, now that song is that song is ready for official release pretty soon, right? What's the
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date on that? That actually is already out as of the time of this airing. It comes out November
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20, which is like, soon, it'll be out by now. It will be a few weeks ago today as while people
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are listening to this. Well, definitely have to drop a link to that. So people who are listening
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right now, you can go to the episode description and check out the song. Where are you planning on
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releasing it on what platforms? Are you planning on a music video, YouTube? All of them. It's going
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on all of them. But there will be a music video released. Hopefully that will also be out by the
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time this airs. My older brother is a filmmaker. It's what he does for a living. And he's going
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to help me make a music video and hopefully we'll be filming for that very soon. So expect a music
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video. But other than that, just the listening for the song is going to be out on Spotify,
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YouTube, Apple Music, everywhere you listen to music, all of them. Well, I like that you're
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able to bring the whole family again, involve the whole family in this process. You, what was I
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going to say here? Oh yeah, you mentioned that you wrote the song to be played live. Do you have
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any plans to go back to Croatia and perhaps play it live on stage? I would love to. I do not have
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any plans. I can't say that. But if there is anybody who could help me facilitate that, then
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my DMs are open. Send me a message. Awesome. Yeah, and I'll include links to all your social
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media so anyone who wants to check out Justices Stuff, TikTok, Instagram, where else are you on?
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To talk on Instagram is it. Those are the hip platforms. Awesome. Well, Justices, I want to
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thank you so much for coming on the All Things Croatia podcast, talking a little bit about
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yourself, about your song, your experience with Croatia. Obviously, you've got a lot of big plans
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coming up. You're releasing the song, the super talent. Well, by the time this goes out, the
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super talent will be all released, all those episodes. Do you have any other big plans that we
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haven't talked about? I'm going to be honest. This song is like the biggest thing I've done for
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maybe ever, the biggest thing I've done ever. It was a huge undertaking to make. And my hope is
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that it opens doors for big plans. The song is the plan. And let's hope it's a big hit. It catches
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some eyeballs of some whoever in Croatia, and it facilitates, it gives me the ability to visit
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Croatia again and go on tour or whatever. That would be awesome. Yeah. Well, for everyone listening,
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the song is already out. And for me, I'm excited to hear it soon when it does come out.
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It's going to be great. Justice, thank you again for your time. And thanks for coming on the podcast
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here. Absolutely. Thanks again for inviting me.