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Charles Wiley is back with us to talk about the Chapter 2 of the Corn Man story – Corn Inc. Cometh, as well as what sparked his idea for International Corn Man Day!
Checkout Chapter 2 and all things Corn Man at the link below.
➡️ https://cornmanofficial.com/shop/
Transcription
Brian: Charles Wiley has been writing music and playing drums for 25 years. He currently lives in Los Angeles and plays with various bands and artists including rock band Dark Horse, Rising Riot, award winning singer songwriter Chris Angeles, and Americana band Circa 62.
In addition to playing drums, he also writes music for television. His music has been played on Oprah, Dateline, NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Dr. Oz Show, The Young and the Restless and more.
Charles created the Corn Man project to bring awareness to how much corn is in everything we eat. Corn Man is an ongoing action adventure children’s book series, and progressive rock concept album, Charles was inspired to call attention to the issue using music and humor.
Corn Man hopes to be the conversation starter and tackling the complex issues surrounding the food industry, the environmental impacts of it, and the unsustainable nature of how we eat and grow food.
Charles Wiley, welcome back.
Charles: Thank you so much Brian, and pleasure to be back. I’m really excited.
Brian: For those of you who are listening, you may remember Charles from an earlier episode and we’ll link to that in the description, where we first met him met the Corn Man project, and what’s that’s all about.
And now we’re kind of getting back together and being updated on what’s happening in his world, his upcoming book, which is Corn Man Chapter Two.
So that should be out in paperback next week. At the time of when we’re recording this by the time you hear it, it may already be out.
Charles: That’s the hope.
Brian: Yeah. So let’s go right into it.
We were talking a little bit before and you had mentioned, International Corn Man Day, just celebrated. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that is?
Charles: Well, that was yesterday. And I had this idea, How can I bring more awareness to what the Corn Man project is about, and what it’s doing at one time?
I thought, well, let’s have a day, a Corn Man Day. And I liked the way Corn Man day sounds. But for some reason, International Corn Man Day, just had a more grand name.
I was like, I like that, plus two, I do have people that support the project overseas. And you and I both know, tackling our food system, the environment, it’s a worldwide solution that we’re looking for. It’s not singular to the United States or to any other place.
So I said, let’s do International Corn Man date. And my goal was two fold.
One, I wanted to help people find one small thing that they could maybe implement into their lives that would help reduce the amount of processed corn and their food. In September, I posted a suggestion a day.
And they’re very simple, very basic things. But the goal was, I believe, a lot of people don’t realize, since there is so much corn in the processed food for one, but it’s also in the field that gets the food to the grocery store, and pesticides that get sprayed with all this stuff.
The animals being fed corn, it’s such a big part of the entire food system.
My goal was let’s find simple solutions, we can all implement something, go to a farmers market for the first time.
How does that impact how much corn is in your food?
Well, it shrinks how far your food has to travel to get to your front door. That in and of itself reduces how much corn is in your diet.
Everything from, I had let’s do a fruit tree swap. You plant an apple tree in your backyard, your neighbor plants a pear tree over a few years. You guys have apples, you have pears, you give them out, things like that.
The second component was I wanted everyone that had a Corn Man shirt to wear it on that day, and to post a picture on Instagram with the hashtags, Corn Man International, and Corn Man Day. And the goal was to just start sparking the conversations, I say it a lot in my BIOS and things sparking the conversation. And to me, that’s where it matters.
I think for people, once you get them thinking about that excited about that, then it’s up to them, they start checking the food labels, they can do their own investigation.
So that was a goal behind International Corn Man Day. I received probably over 20 or so pictures from people posting with the shirts. And I know another 25 to 30 we’re out there wearing them.
So by all accounts, we probably had close to 65 people roaming the streets with Corn Man shirts, getting the word out there in their own way.
That was the goal behind the project. And my goal is every September 17, it’ll be International Corn Man.
The goal will be let’s spark those conversations. Let’s wear the shirts and let’s reduce our impact of using so much processed corn in our food.
Brian: September 17, Okay, something to keep in mind.
And that’s really a cool concept because I mean, I’m not sure how many of you guys know out there. There are a million different days every day of the week.
You can go and find on a calendar that it’s ice cream day or that it’s butterscotch day or that it, I mean, just any thing you can think of. There is a day and it’s a great idea to be able to take your passion, whether it be a business or a cause, or a project, and being able to make a day out of it.
Just put in some just a little bit more emphasis one day a year for what you’re doing. That’s fabulous.
I love the idea of having a specific action item that a person could do. You don’t see that very often. But if you think about it, when it comes to holidays, there’s a lot of action items that are automatically tied to it.
So on St. Patrick’s Day, you’re wearing green, you know, right and so forth. So that’s really cool.
Charles: Thank you.
Brian: Mind if I asked, how did you come up with that? Was it a specific inspiration? Or did it just pop in? or What were you thinking?
Charles: It just popped into my head. I will say, I was reading Brendon Burchard book, High Performance Habits, I believe it is. There was a chapter about controlling your own energy.
And it’s something I struggled with in the past and continue to with a project. Maybe you can relate Brian, but when you’re knee deep in something, and it’s hard to see the finish line, it’s easy to beat yourself up.
It’s easy to be like, I’m kind of I’m over it, but you can’t be over because you’re not finished yet.
This chapter was really talking about generating energy and you generate your own energy.
I was like, I need to be better at that. How can I be better at that?
That for some reason, I believe dovetailed into what can I do to generate more momentum more energy for Corn Man?
I am releasing chapter two on paperback. That’s a big deal. But at the same time, how can I bring all of these scattered pieces together?
How can I bring someone wearing a Corn Man shirt, one day in Houston and someone wearing a Corn Man shirt.
Then, how can I make a collective like, this is an important issue. This is something we can all do. And it just popped in my head, let’s make a day of it. And initially, of like, let’s throw a festival, let’s throw a party because music is a big part of what Corn Man is doing. That is still the goal.
But with everything in the world where it is now, that wasn’t really an option. Plus, let’s be honest, that’s expensive. You’re kind of excluding people from the start.
Because if I put this festival on in Los Angeles, we’ll have people that wear the shirts in Seattle or Ohio, I really thought let me take the best part of social media, the bringing things together.
Let’s put on a festival a day, you can share from wherever you are. And I wanted to pick three hashtags that everyone can use.
As luck would have it, the hashtags, International Corn Man Day and Corn Man Day, there wasn’t anything. The hashtag Corn Man, there are a lot of people that use that for various things, mostly vendors selling corn, but I wanted to kind of flood that stream.
So if you go on Instagram, and you search the hashtag, International Corn Man Day. It’s going to be all pictures from people posting their photos of trying to get involved. And that’s kind of the inspiration came from the book.
I want to generate more energy. And I wanted to have a cohesive place that we could all go to and celebrate this and take action simultaneously.
Brian: So really great idea. I found that one of the things that really assists in managing your own energy when it comes to creative projects like this is having a good team. And you’ve got a team put together that you put together to put to do chapter one that’s been your yourself, your wife Deirdre, who’s helped out with the story writing and then for illustrations, you have Andy Westhoff, they’re all back for chapter two.
Tell us about how you all work together?
Charles: Well, you’re absolutely right. Having a team, a good team is crucial. And I’m lucky that my wife, who is an amazing writer, she hopped on board to help with the writing of chapter one.
Since the story was getting deeper and more involved, it only made sense to have her kind of take the reins with chapter two as well. She wrote a big part of that her and I will come together, outline storyboard the ideas.
Then she would write a draft. We’ll look at that, see how that goes. But a lot of that was her doing on our own.
And Andy Westhoff, the illustrator I’ve known. I have the best friends with his brothers in sixth grade. So I knew Andy from that and you have friends that like oh, yeah, my brother, he’s an illustrator, he draws.
Everyone has something like that in high school or as you get older, they usually stop doing it. But in Andy’s case, he went on and pursued it and is a great film editor, a great cinematographer, in addition to being an illustrator.
So I just asked him for chapter one, hey, first of all, can you just draw my head on a stock a core, let’s take it from there, see what that looks like. And when I saw how well he did that, and the response to that it made sense for him to do the illustrations for chapter one.
Then I brought them back for chapter two.
My goal is to bring him back for chapter three. And my wife and I already have the story outline for chapter three.
So it was really important though, to get chapter two the paperback version out to the world because to me, that’s like the final thing. The final stamp. The final period on chapter two is complete.
Let’s move on to chapter three. I didn’t want to release another incomplete part of the series.
Brian: Going out and writing a book, which is funny because you didn’t come at this directly. As an author, you came at it as a musician and the music. And the storyline behind the music led to the book, Is that right?
Charles: Yes, absolutely.
Brian: I’ve never been an author or a writer directly myself either. And so, I just recently came out with my first book, and it’s quite a learning experience coming out of with the first one, but congratulations.
Charles: Well, thank you.
Brian: Going through it all, I can see that coming out with a second one would be a lot easier. Did you see that, in your situation?
Where you guys after you had already gone through the process of doing the first one, did the second one was it more plug and play?
Charles: Yes and no.
Definitely more plug and play from you knew the roadmap of where you’re going, you knew what the end look like, know from the standpoint of now you have history attached to it.
Now we have to make sure we are introducing a character or making a point that is in line with the same point we made chapter one, making sure the cohesiveness was the same. And that was a bigger challenge.
And that’ll be the bigger challenge with chapter three.
Because now we have two chapters, more characters, I want to make sure that Bonzo the dog still looks the same as he did in chapter one as he does in chapter three.
So from one perspective, you’re absolutely right, it is a little more plug and play and the counter that be but since you have the history of your first book, are we not repeating ourselves.
Are we saying something new? Are we making sure we’re in line with our message?
So, little of both.
Brian: As a follow up to that? Did you hit any unexpected snags a second time around going through chapter two, both in the actual writing and the putting together and the publishing?
Charles: Yes. From the writing standpoint, I am a big believer in working with people and having people on your team, that I want them on my team because I trust, their input and their creativity and what they bring to the table.
I’m not a fan of being micromanaged and I don’t want to do that. So with chapter two… chapter one is fairly short is only 17 pages or so chapter two is close to 40 pages, the story gets a little deeper.
But when Deirdre and I outlined it, I kind of said, All right, just go and come back with what you have. But there were a few things that she wanted the story to do, that I wasn’t totally sure on. So we butted heads a little bit on that.
And I had to step back sometimes and be like, Well, wait, am I not a fan of this idea?
Because I’m truly not a fan of it, or am I not a fan of it because it just wasn’t what I was thinking?
Let me really think about this and does that make more sense for the story?
So that took some checking on my part to be like, Well, where is the I don’t like this coming from. And we work through that.
The second part with the publishing, we hit some snags, it’s taking a little longer to publish. The first one really, we just published through Amazon and it was you upload the book, they say they review it.
And in my like, I thought they’re being polite when they say we have our review team looking at it. I didn’t really think there was a review team.
I mean, for chapter one, it was like, you hit publish and two hours later it’s published. But for chapter two, there’s a real review team and we’ve gotten, you know, can you fix this, this margin doesn’t look right here and like, okay, so we weren’t expecting that snag.
But I should have thought ahead to with the whole COVID-19 thing. All things are behind, I was working with a band where they want to release a record and the distribution company is like well expect eight weeks longer to get it out than before.
So that’s a part of it, too. But yeah, a couple hiccups.
But as you said, it’s how you learn. That’s how you grow and that’s the beauty of it.
Brian: And good thing to bring up because I’d like to hear more about how has the situation’s of 2020 we’re recording this in September of 2020.
How have these situations affected you in your life and your work?
Has it had a huge impact, or have you been able to kind of work around it all?
Charles: It has had a enormous impact on the drumming side of my work because a lot of that was gig show tour based from usually April to October in the last five years, I was on the road with various bands doing that sort of thing.
So when everything shut down in March, all gigs were canceled for the next few months.
And now we’re in this weird place where it’s still some things are open. Some things aren’t. It has gone away, but it hasn’t gone away.
Like we’re just in this weird flux.
I always kid with my friends. I’m like I remember March and April. I don’t remember what happened in May or June and somehow we got to September.
So I don’t know if it really affected the musical gig aspect in a big way.
But as you mentioned earlier, I do write music for TV. So I was able to focus on that but it also accelerate the whole corn men project I was not expecting to have International Corn Man Day, in February of this year that was not on the radar.
I was not expecting to get Corn Man Chapter Two on paperback out so quickly.
That wasn’t on the radar and I certainly wasn’t going to have a release date for chapter three at the start of this year.
So because of the whole COVID-19 thing, what have I been putting on the back burner because I have all these other gigs. It’s been Corn Man.
You try to keep the Corn Man going. But if I’m on the road and Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s hard to write or schedule a record. But because of everything that transpired, I was really able to focus and just get that done.
It really illuminated even more, this is what I want to do. This is my passion. No matter what happens with music, gigs, I’ll still play with other bands and stuff.
But I want to be playing my own music as much as possible. I want to be writing these stories as much as possible, I want to be doing corn man shows as much as possible.
And I don’t think that was a reality in my head February of this year.
Brian: Fabulous, great that you have the flexibility to be able to shift as a situation comes about so many people out there are tied to just one thing or one source of income or anything else and they found themselves paralyzed over this scenario.
What are your thoughts are in terms of what actually happened, it affected everybody in some form. So kudos to you for being able to keep your head above water.
Charles: Well, thank you for that. But you touched on something, you hit the right words at the parallelisation there was a month and a half where I wasn’t sure what route to go, I was lucky because I my wife was able to work from home.
So we still had the one income stream coming in. But that was a transition.
But for the first six weeks, I was like really questioning, is music a viable way to make a living anymore?
Is that gonna be something I want to do and it took some doing?
Be like, Well, wait, what’s gonna happen?
Yeah, it’s been interesting.
Brian: Very inspiring. Very cool. Um, tell us a little bit for those people who are brand new to Corn Man or need a refresher? Can you tell us a little bit about the storyline of chapter one? And how that feeds give us a little preview of chapter two?
Charles: Absolutely. I got super interested in the food industry back in 2015. I was on tour as reading some books on the food industry and corn just kept popping up everywhere I was reading and how this one crop had infiltrated our entire food stream, it became the replacement to sugar.
It’s just a cheap filler in a lot of things. And I’ve said this before, it’s nothing against the actual crop of corn as a vegetable. I love it. I think it’s really good. And I feel for the farmers that have to grow it in these tough situations.
But for some reason, the corn inundating the food system, the livestock feed, all of that really did something to my brain. And I wanted to bring more awareness to the issue because there’s more and more research showing that things like type two diabetes and childhood obesity is directly linked to these foods that are filled with processed corn.
It’s actually becoming a pretty big health problem. It’s getting harder and harder to get that stuff out of the food system. So I think it’s our job to just stop eating those things.
So I decided let’s try to get more awareness to issue a created the Corn Man project as a three song progressive rock EP, and my buddy Andy Westhoff illustrate my head on a soccer corn.
Then I got the idea, let’s write a children’s book to hopefully bring some awareness to this issue.
So the children’s book follows Bonzo the dog and Beaker the cat, and their human owner who looks a lot like me, has a bad dream, you can say and kind of goes off the deep end.
And he gets lost for lack of a better word. But his bad dream nightmare stems around corn and he figures out that corn is just an everything he’s eating and he kind of loses his mind. But he goes missing. So that’s chapter one.
In chapter two picks up Bonzo the dog and Beaker cat. His pets have to go find him and essentially rescue him for chapter two. He stumbled his way into Corn Inc. Headquarters.
Now he doesn’t know why he is there. He doesn’t know what’s going on there. But that’s where chapter two picks up. And now his dog and cat have to rescue him, but they run into some obstacles, they’re going to need some help.
We find that Corn Inc, does a lot more than just the title implies with corn. So we go down this entire rabbit hole the journey continues. And that’s where chapter two picks up.
Brian: Have you thought about how or what age group your book hits at the best?
Charles: I’ve thought about that a lot. I really have. I think we’ve found the best age group is the 10 to 14 age range really seem to grasp the message of what we’re saying.
I read it at the Mother Earth News Fair, where we first met last year and that was a younger demographic, and they resonated with the industry.
Because they’re goofy, and they’re funny, but I don’t think the seriousness of the nature of the story took hold. But that’s okay.
I think a lot of books that are targeted towards children do have an adult message to them as well. And also kids are really smart kids understand a lot more than I think we realize.
I teach drum lessons as well, and I’m always amazed at how smart these kids are at 10 to 12 years old. And I think to myself, I was kicking a can down their street and these kids are, you know, playing complex drum grooves, figuring out how to navigate a smartphone.
I’m just like, wow, okay, like, it’s crazy. So, I do think that 10 to 14 year age group is probably ideal for the Corn Man book.
Brian: On top of that, you had put out an audio book version of chapter one, where you tie in the music and the illustration. Well I mean, if you’re watching it on YouTube, you’ve got the illustrations with the music, if you’re listening to it, you got the music and the narration going along with it, and you do a great job narrating it.
Charles: Oh, thank you.
Brian: Are you going to do the same thing for chapter two?
Charles: Great question. I want to, I’m not going to yet.
Because for me, I think chapter one audio book did well, it has some views. But I want to focus now on wrapping up chapter three story, because actually, the chapter two ebook version came out last year, but even that hit with a really soft landing, because not a lot of people use Kindle or ebooks as much as I thought they did.
For myself, it’s like I read a physical book or I listen to audiobooks. That’s kind of the two things and so you bring up a really good question with am I going to do an audiobook for chapter two and three, I think I will at some point, my hope is, I can do it after chapter three comes out.
That’ll be the last kind of step to that. But also with chapter three is going to be a package deal where you will get chapter one, two, and three, as a compilation with the book,
I’ll probably release chapter three music on vinyl, and CD as well. So I’m really looking at more of a completed set with all of that.
Brian: That’s awesome. What do you see in the distant future beyond chapter three beyond getting that whole set out. Is there any other concepts in the back of your mind that might be simmering that might turn into something, anything that you can let us know about?
Charles: Yes, there are definitely ideas simmering.
Part of me, I’m fighting my own brain. Because there’s a part of me that wants to write the music and the book, chapter three, get that released. And think about, do I want to do another solo musical project away from the whole Corn Man thing?
Can I just write music without this grand theme and idea?
And I need to see how I feel when this is done.
Because I think I may just be overthinking it, I think I do have a really unique opportunity because I’ve created this entire backstory in a world. And it would kind of be advantageous to continue to build on that.
So when chapter three is over and done, and that story is done. It’s definitely the door open to side ventures of the different characters and and continuing on.
But as far as once these are released, what’s next for Corn Man, I do want to start playing the music live at shows?
And I think I’ll start more with a drum festival type things to start with maybe like Mother Earth News Fairs where they have a stage, but it’ll be I’m going to hire an animator to do a visual.
So it’d be more like the cartoon of the Corn Man story behind me. As I’m just playing drums, I’ll be playing the drums to the music. And that’ll be coming out through the PA reading the message that way.
I want to start partnering with community gardens in my area nationwide. Because that’s another big aspect of the Corn Man project, I really want to encourage you to start growing their own foods.
And myself, I live in a four plex you know, we don’t have our a lot of space. But we have enough space. I mean, I’m growing some tomatoes and lettuce, but I want everyone to start trying to grow their own food.
I want to build a community garden aspect of it.
Because to me, those are the bigger takeaways from the project away from the the arts, part of it the arts and music is definitely like I want to encourage kids to pick up an instrument, read a book, paint whatever get involved in the arts. And my hope is that they can watch and hear the corn man story and get inspired to do that is to growing your own food and you can rely on the box stores deliver everything for you anymore.
I mean, I live in California if there’s an earthquake that puts a gap in the five freeway, the size of you know, a two foot gap that’s gonna hold and hold food delivery for days.
So we need to be able to become a little more self sustaining. And that is my goal. Also with the Corn Man project. I want to encourage to be growing their own food, planting their own food community gardens.
So that’s what’s looking forward after chapter three as well.
Brian: Wow, that’s great, grand ideas, but that’s the type of thing….if you’re anything like me, you have to have something larger to be able to look forward to, in what you’re doing. It’s got to be meaningful. It’s got to have purpose to it. And that’s what I think is so inspiring about what you do.
Charles: Thank you.
Brian: Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you’d like to answer?
Charles: No, I would just like to say thank you, again, for having me on your show. I know, we touched briefly on this before. But to your listeners out there, you provide such a valuable service, your interviews are great.
I enjoy learning about the other guests, but also your own segments you put up on Instagram are fantastic. I’ve recommended to a handful of people I work with, hey, check out Brian’s business tips for this because, you know, I thought it was really helpful.
How you are able to package your ideas. And I think you put it in such nice bite sized chunks that you can hear the information, digest it. I can write down how I want to use it and move on, I think is great.
So I just want to thank you for a having me back on and be the amazing work you’re doing.
Brian: Thanks so much. I really appreciate that.
Charles: Absolutely.
Brian: Why don’t you let the audience know how they can find out more about Corn Man and your adventures?
Charles: All right, well, you can find Corn Man at CornManOfficial.com. We have a new website, two months old. Everything Corn Man related there.
You can hear the music. You can see the books. You can listen to the audiobook. So CornManOfficial.com.
You can find Corn Man on Instagram @cornmanofficial. And Facebook, The Real Corn Man.
But I will say most of the social media stuff takes place on Instagram. I prefer that platform as of now. But yeah, CornManOfficial.com.
Brian: Fabulous.
Well, Charles Wiley, thanks so much for being back on the Off The Grid Biz Podcast. We’ll have to do this again sometime.
Charles: Thank you so much, Brian. appreciate your help. Stay safe.
Brian’s Closing Thoughts: This is the first time we’ve had somebody return back to the show, after a year’s worth of time. I can tell you that just my memory of the original show, the original conversation we had with Charles, I like this conversation better. I think we got to a lot more, although we needed that first one to really get to know him.
And this one, we got to go a little bit deeper.
There’s some great things he brought up here that I can go on and on about, but I’m just gonna point out a few.
One thing is he was talking about using this one day a year to just build awareness. I mean, that’s really what he’s all about anyway, so his entire core man project is about building awareness.
If you can take that same concept and see, okay, if I can make people aware of one thing that would help my cause or my business, or what have you, what would that one thing be?
All he did is he focused on that, on that one thing of building awareness.
And then he said, What’s one small thing you can do to reduce the use of processed corn?
He just kind of built out a list of simple things that people can do, wearing this t-shirt out in public and taking a picture of yourself and put it on social media. I mean, for one thing, he’s getting himself promoted, he’s getting his project promoted.
But on the other hand, he’s also causing people to put themselves out there and put themselves to be asked, hey, what’s that? What’s Corn Man? What’s that about?
And just starting conversations with people like he said, sparking the conversation.
These are real simple steps for people to be able to take part. And if you’ve got a cause behind your business, or a cause behind what you’re doing, that’s a great way to get people started, just have them try something out, have them do something simple and easy for them to do.
Another thing he mentioned is while writing the book, having issues, you know, back and forth with his wife, as we’re putting together the story and everything, and that plays to any partnership issues that you’re going to have.
If you have any form of partners whatsoever in your enterprise, you’re going to have conflicts, and you got to come back to that same place and really ask yourself, which is I think pretty much the question he’s asking himself is, is this an ego thing?
Is this about me, or there’s a reason why I think this way?
That’s an important step to get to in your life and something that can help you out if you can see that coming. Or when that finally shows up. If you can remember just to pull back and take a walk, step away from it. And just ask yourself, what is this really about? What’s this fight really about and so forth.
Overall, the thing that I really appreciate about Charles is his willingness to grow and learn. He’s not kept in a box. He’s willing to take things wherever they’re going to go.
But at the same time, he’s willing to learn, he realizes he doesn’t know everything about this process. He doesn’t know everything that he’s going to do or how he’s going to do it. And he’s willing to open himself up to new ideas and new ways of putting the message out there. I really like Charles’s attitude. I can’t wait to talk with him more in the future.