Mr. Jeff
Children's Music Artist

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:59.704) Today's guest is Mr. Jeff—a children's musician, songwriter, and former preschool teacher who creates joyful, meaningful music for kids and grownups alike. With a background in early childhood education, he masterfully blends music, movement, and cognitive learning into playful songs and high-energy live shows.

An award-winning artist and a parent of three, Mr. Jeff's work celebrates big feelings, curiosity, and human connection—all with a healthy dose of silliness. We're incredibly excited to have him on our show today. Welcome, Jeff, to The Artist Conversation, the Sanctuary of Our Souls podcast.

Mr. Jeff Sandeep, Suraaj, thank you so very much for having me. I'm really excited to be a part of this. It's such a cool thing you both are doing over here, so I deeply appreciate you bringing me on.

Sandeep Kulkarni We are thrilled to talk to you as well. You've lived multiple creative lives—touring rock musician, preschool classroom teacher, and now a full-time children's recording artist. What definitive moment made you realize this specific path was the one for you?

Mr. Jeff Great question. If we go back to my touring musician days, my original indie rock groups would spend anywhere from a third to two-thirds of the year out on the road, grinding in small-to-medium rock clubs. There was a long period of my life where I didn't even have a proper place of residence because we were living out of the tour van so constantly.

When I would finally come back home between routes, I would just crash on a couch in my recording studio. It wasn't a proper apartment or a house at all; it was a highly chaotic, nomadic period of my life. Eventually, I hit a wall where I desperately needed some type of emotional grounding. I needed to come home, anchor myself, and get my life together.

I decided I needed a radical career pivot, which is exactly how I ended up stepping into early childhood education as a preschool teacher. In those initial months, I was completely focused on just learning how to be an effective classroom educator. But when you are a lifelong musician, people naturally find out.

When you find yourself managing a classroom packed with energetic four-year-olds, it becomes a natural survival tactic to pick up an acoustic guitar and start singing and playing movement games with them. The process snowballed rapidly from there.

In those early days, I completely assumed my children's tracks would stay isolated within the four walls of my specific classroom; I had zero plans to perform them publicly because I still held onto this serious identity as an indie rock artist who crafted "grown-up" music.

The turning point arrived when a parent pulled me aside after school and said, "Hey Mr. Jeff, my kid is completely obsessed with the original songs you are singing in class. We have to stream them at home constantly, and I have to physically pick up my guitar and pretend to be you every single night. When is your next public show?" I was completely shocked. I thought, Public show? This is just a teaching tool! Most of the musicians in my rock circles had absolutely no idea I was even doing this. But I decided to book a small public gig, and the audience response was overwhelmingly positive, vibrant, and joyful—not just for the children, but for the parents as well. I watched grown-ups look at me in amazement saying, "Wow, this is what you were built to execute." And I realized, yes, it absolutely is.

Suraaj Parab (05:02.634) It’s incredible how our musical purposes can pivot completely when we least expect it.

Mr. Jeff I think you both can deeply relate to this as tracking artists. Music serves completely different therapeutic roles depending on where you are in your life stage. Suraaj, you were asking about this bass guitar resting on my studio wall over here—that is a raw punk-rock bass. I have spent my full 10,000 hours grinding on that instrument, learning basslines from classic vinyl records and tracking heavy arrangements.

When I was composing my traditional grown-up rock music, the studio functioned strictly as my personal therapy. It was how I coped with trauma, processed depression, and dealt with internal struggles. Because of that, my catalog was packed with dark, sad, highly emotional alternative songs.

Those tracks connected with audiences deeply, but there was a massive personal disconnect. If you sit down and chat with me casually, I am not a dark, melancholy guy at all; I am an upbeat, optimistic, hyper-energetic, and bubbly person.

Audiences would meet me after a gig and say, "Wait, are you seriously the same guy who just sang those devastatingly sad songs on stage?" My artistic output was completely disconnected from my true personality.

The second I transitioned into children's music, the songwriting became a mirror of the optimistic, energetic, wild, and silly personality I naturally hold. For the first time in my career, I felt completely true to myself. I am typically the most manic, hyper-energetic person in any standard room—unless I am standing in a room packed entirely with fellow children's musicians, in which case I am perfectly normal!

The beauty of children's music is that the performance is completely scalable. I can execute the exact same material for four toddlers sitting cross-legged on a classroom rug or inside a massive commercial theater packed with 2,000 screaming kids—and I have done both.

The entire medium relies entirely on absolute authenticity and immediate emotional connection. Children possess an evolutionary radar for fake energy; they can see right through you the millisecond you are being inauthentic.

When those initial public shows took off, I realized I faced a definitive choice: do I treat this as a casual side-gig, or do I completely commit my life to it? I knew I didn't want to be a mediocre children's entertainer who just went through the motions; I wanted to execute this genre at the highest possible level of musical production and pour 100% of my soul into it.

I placed all of my alternative rock bands and solo projects on indefinite hold. As an artist who battles ADHD and has historically managed five contrasting creative projects simultaneously, it was a liberating experience to say, "No. Every other distraction is paused. I am going to funnel 100% of my creative focus into this singular basket." It has paid immense dividends for my personal mental health, my family, and the young audiences we reach. That is how I knew this path was my calling. I apologize, my answers are incredibly long!

Sandeep Kulkarni (07:00.622) Please don't apologize! Your timeline is beautiful. Suraaj and I want to remind our viewers that if you are finding value in Jeff's journey, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and join our global creator collective on Discord via the links in the description below.

I spent many years working as a college professor, so I understand the exact classroom dynamics you are describing. Whether you are lecturing twenty-year-old university students or managing four-year-olds, students can read your energy instantly. If you are faking your enthusiasm or phoning in the lesson, they shut down. Having a parent validate that your music was transforming their household must have been a powerful catalyst.

Mr. Jeff (09:03.916) It completely shifted my perspective. You see it constantly in the music industry—traditional rock or indie musicians will look at our field and say, "Yeah, I’m thinking about tracking a casual children’s record next month, it seems pretty basic and easy to write." You know the exact type of pretentious artists I’m talking about! They assume writing for kids requires zero effort. But the moment you step onto a live stage as a children's performer, it is an entirely different matrix. You can easily manufacture a safe studio record, but touring a live show one hundred dates a year as a kid's entertainer requires absolute, uncompromised presence.

Adult audiences are conditioned by social etiquette to stand there and politely clap at the end of a song, even if they are completely bored or planning to head to the bar. Children hold absolutely zero social filter. If a kid is bored by your set, they will literally turn around and walk away, or step right up to the stage lip and say, "I don't like this song, goodbye!" You have to look at them and say, "Okay, Fred, I appreciate the notes, I'll try harder on the next track!" They will give you raw, unvarnished truth right to your face, which makes them the most terrifying and pure audience on the planet. Adults sugarcoat everything; kids give you data in real time.

Suraaj Parab They function as the ultimate, unfiltered focus group. If the energy isn't moving them, they vote instantly with their feet and walk out of the room.

Mr. Jeff Exactly! As a songwriter, I use my three kids at home as my primary test audience. When I finish tracking a new demo in my studio, I play it for them immediately to observe their visceral reactions. My structural choices are heavily guided by how my own children digest the frequencies.

On my debut children's record, I tracked an upbeat birthday track called "It Is Your Birthday". It was a fun, high-energy song, but during the bridge section, I decided to flex my music-theory background by writing a highly complex, jazz-influenced chromatic walkdown arrangement featuring a vintage Italian organ layer. I sat back at the mixing console thinking, Wow, look at me injecting elite, sophisticated jazz changes inside a basic kid's track, I am an absolute genius. I played the finalized master for my daughter, who was about two years old at the time. She was completely rocking out, dancing, and loving the track—until that complex chromatic walkdown hit the speakers. She instantly stopped dancing, her face fell, and she burst into tears because she got terrified.

I realized that to a toddler's developing auditory system, that dense, dissonant chromatic movement didn't sound "sophisticated"—it sounded menacing and scary. To a trained jazz musician or a studio engineer, it’s a brilliant modulation, but to a two-year-old, it disrupted her sense of safety.

I immediately stripped that arrangement out of the master and replaced it with a bright, consonant diatonic structure. That is why having an honest, immediate test audience at home is invaluable. My explicit demographic target is the child, but my secondary target is the parent. I am continuously working to marry those two worlds together. I want toddlers to dance to the tracks, I want preschool educators to use the lyrics as functional social-emotional learning tools, but I want the parents driving the car to say, "Wow, this production is fantastic, the instrumentation is great, and it doesn't make me want to pull my hair out after the twentieth loop."

Suraaj Parab (10:59.79) I listened to your albums during the official voting cycles of the Recording Academy, and your tracks hold a spectacular sense of infectious joy. But beneath that accessible, playful exterior sits a highly intentional educational methodology. How has your background in early childhood development structured the exact way you write songs today?

Mr. Jeff As a tracking artist, you both know there is no standardized manual for songwriting. A track can spark from a unique drum loop, a lyrical hook, or a core philosophical concept. On my first record, my songwriting was tailored specifically for early toddler development—focusing on counting structures, identifying basic emotions, and navigating feelings of sadness versus happiness.

On the second record, Big Kid Stuff, I consciously graduated the lyric sheets to focus heavily on advanced Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) metrics. I wanted to tackle complex developmental topics like diversity, systemic equity, and absolute inclusion.

[Image showing children of diverse backgrounds collaborating happily on a project to represent inclusive social-emotional learning]

Children need to be explicitly taught emotional intelligence and empathy with the exact same focus that we teach them the alphabet or mathematics. You see this massive structural shift happening with educational institutions like Sesame Street—they have archived a lot of their basic "letters and numbers" songs to dedicate their runtime to helping children navigate complex psychological feelings, self-regulation, and emotional health.

I wanted to use my voice to contribute to that evolution, so it was an incredible challenge writing sophisticated messages tailored for older kids. I initially worried my toddler fanbase wouldn't connect with the advanced concepts on Big Kid Stuff, but they ended up loving the tracks just as much.

Even if a two-year-old cannot conceptually break down the societal definitions of inclusion, they lock entirely onto the musical hooks—the rhythmic handclaps, the syncopated vocal ad-libs, or the energy of the vocal take.

For my upcoming record, I am leaning directly into advanced SEL frameworks and emotional self-regulation, tackling how children can navigate grief, frustration, and difficult environments. My own children are growing older, so the conversations I am holding with them at the kitchen table are becoming more sophisticated, which naturally mirrors itself in the lyrics I am tracking. I have fully latched onto a core thematic word for this new studio production: optimism. I have always been a fierce optimist, and I want these tracks to radiate that exact resilience.

Sandeep Kulkarni That is beautiful. Shifting focus to your personal timeline—you are currently over eight years completely sober. How did achieving absolute sobriety transform your daily relationship with musical creativity, and how did it impact your physical presence as a parent?

Mr. Jeff (17:04.397) I state without hesitation that I owe absolutely every ounce of my current career, my family, and my sanity to my sobriety. My trajectory with alcoholism was deeply linked to my environment. Prior to my transition into education, my entire life was structurally engineered around bars. I was touring constantly with rock bands where the green rooms were loaded with free alcohol, and when I wasn't on the road, my primary day job was working as a live sound engineer inside a high-volume music venue. I was trapped inside a continuous loop of nightlife consumption.

When I finally checked myself into a 12-step recovery program, it was primarily because I didn't know a single sober person in my entire professional circle; everyone I knew drank heavily. My sobriety date aligned exactly within a few months of my decision to walk away from live sound engineering to study early childhood education.

Sobriety completely re-engineered my creative workflow. In my past life, I relied on alcohol to act as a chemical lubricant to lower my inhibitions and spark a creative mindset. Suddenly, that buffer was gone, and I had to learn how to access raw inspiration completely clean.

A massive misconception among amateur musicians is that you must sit around passively and wait for inspiration to magically strike you like lightning. If I operated according to that myth, I would write maybe one song every two months!

As a professional writer, your job is to physically plant yourself in the studio chair every single day and do the heavy labor of tracking, regardless of whether you are "feeling" inspired or not. Forcing myself to execute that creative discipline completely sober was a massive psychological exercise.

The moment the alcohol cleared out of my neural pathways, I experienced an explosive creative breakthrough. I hit a massive stride where original music just poured out of me effortlessly because my focus was razor-sharp.

When I initially made the decision to get sober, my personal ego was too fractured to do it for myself. I did it entirely for my oldest son, who was less than a year old at the time. I looked at him in his crib and said, "I am executing this painful transition completely for you, because I refuse to let your childhood be disrupted by my addiction." It took about a full year of continuous sobriety before my internal wiring shifted and I could confidently say, "I am doing this for myself now, because my life is beautiful." I could not exist as "Mr. Jeff," manage a demanding touring schedule, or maintain this vibrant energetic output if I were still drinking. It would be physically impossible to jump around a stage with manic energy for an hour sweating in front of hundreds of kids if I were hungover.

My current wife met me after I had already achieved long-term sobriety, so she has never witnessed the drinking version of my identity. My youngest daughter and my second son will grow up completely insulated from that chaos; they will only ever know a present, completely sober father. Protecting that reality is the most sacred target of my life.

Suraaj Parab (21:54.775) Maintaining eight continuous years of absolute sobriety is a monumental achievement that requires immense psychological discipline and lifestyle integration. You can instantly hear that clarity of purpose radiating through your current children's arrangements. You clearly encountered a definitive rock-bottom moment that forced you to evaluate that fork in your road.

Mr. Jeff That is exactly what it was. Every alcoholic encounters a unique, individualized threshold for their personal rock bottom; mine didn't involve an administrative arrest or a clinical hospitalization. My rock bottom occurred on a standard weekend morning. My partner had confirmed plans to head out for the day, and it was my turn to take over sole parenting duties to watch our infant son. I was trapped inside a devastating, violent three-day hangover from an intensive bender. I lay paralyzed in bed, physically unable to lift my body to care for my child.

I stared at the ceiling in a wave of absolute shame and thought, I have spent my entire adulthood waiting and dreaming about becoming a father. I wanted this family with every fiber of my being. And right now, I am completely failing to show up for my son because of a chemical bottle. This is not the man I choose to be. That was the definitive end of it. I made a silent vow, stepped across that alternate fork in the road into total sobriety, and the universe has rewarded that choice beautifully ever since.

Suraaj Parab Before we move into our next query, I want to highlight an exceptional studio video that you recently posted on your Instagram. Your music is visually reflected in your physical studio—the walls are beautifully saturated with custom paint layouts and vivid color scales. Let’s play this short clip for our audience:

[Clip from Mr. Jeff's Instagram showing his family creative session during toddler nap time]

Mr. Jeff (24:00.00) That video captures the exact room I am sitting in right now—this is my home tracking studio. In that clip, you see my wife sitting at her desk sketching architectural graphics, my oldest daughter focused entirely on engineering a massive Lego structure on the rug, my youngest toddler fast asleep in his bassinet, and me tracked at the console arranging an orchestral notation.

That is our standard operational workflow during toddler nap time. We transformed our home's old, completely dilapidated attic space into a top-tier creative laboratory. When we originally purchased this house, the attic was a disaster zone, but it held beautiful physical structural lines. The moment my daughter was born, we officially drafted the blueprints to construct a high-end sound studio up here.

I originally assumed it would function strictly as my private workspace, but it has organically evolved into a communal creative sanctuary where every single member of our family commands their own dedicated artistic desk space. It is an amazing environment to create within.

Suraaj Parab (25:48.206) Watching that video feels like observing a brilliant, modern, musical version of an old-school Dungeons & Dragons tabletop campaign, where every player is hyper-focused on executing their specific role inside the same room! It is heartwarming to watch.

As a father of three managing a completely self-contained, in-house production setup—where you compose the scores, track every single instrument yourself, engineer the mixes, and master the final files entirely alone—how do your children structurally influence the literal melodies and lyric sheets you output? What have they taught you about tracking music that you never encountered inside an educational textbook?

Mr. Jeff (27:03.16) My children are the ultimate co-writers for my catalog. When I am holding real-world parenting conversations with my four-year-old, trying to break down a complex emotional situation or calm a behavioral tantrum, a realization will hit me: Wait a minute. If I am currently navigating this behavioral issue with my child, there are hundreds of thousands of parents across the globe staring at their children navigating this exact same emotional hurdle right now. If I can engineer a catchy, structured musical lyric that provides a functional psychological solution to that real-world parenting scenario, I can help thousands of households streamline their early childhood parenting. That is an incredible creative privilege.

My kids will also randomly drop some of the most surreal, hilarious sentences I've ever heard in my life, and I will instantly write it down in my phone thinking, That is a spectacular, hooky lyric sheet, let’s build an entire arrangement around that phrase. Sharing this studio space allows them to demystify the entire architecture of music production. My nine-year-old completely understands the editing process now. He will stand behind my chair while I am tracking a vocal or an instrument take, catch a slight rhythmic error, and say, "Hey Dad, your timing was slightly rushed on that last measure, you need to delete that punch-in and re-track it." He is literally auditing my edits!

Our hit track "Uh-Oh" on Big Kid Stuff was constructed entirely out of real-world domestic accidents that occurred inside our kitchen—silly little inside jokes that I formatted into a rock-pop track because I knew it would make other families laugh.

Sandeep Kulkarni You’ve successfully managed to weaponize your domestic environment into a continuous engine of top-tier content and streaming hits.

Mr. Jeff It keeps the material completely grounded in reality. I have built an exceptionally loyal, grass-roots fanbase here in our region primarily because I perform a massive volume of free public concerts during our summer touring cycles. I will routinely perform two distinct live sets every single day throughout the summer.

Families will attend multiple dates a week, and they learn the exact timing of my physical comedy bits and stage routines. It gives me immediate visual data on which theatrical gags are working and which arrangements need to be updated.

For instance, I perform a signature comedic routine where I pick up an instrument—like an acoustic guitar—and pretend I have absolutely no cognitive understanding of what object I am holding, confusing it for a trumpet or a drum. During a recent high-volume summer festival set, our runtime was restricted to a tight thirty minutes, so I cut the standard "trumpet bit" to save time.

The very next morning, an intense email from a parent hit my inbox stating, "Mr. Jeff, my daughter was completely devastated during your set yesterday because you didn't execute the trumpet bit. She cried the entire drive home. Why did you change the routine?" I immediately wrote back apologizing and realized I can never cut that bit again!

Children develop a fierce psychological attachment to the exact structure, pacing, and catchphrases of a show. They memorize the performance down to the frame.

Suraaj Parab Managing a children's concert requires you to successfully manage two completely different audiences simultaneously: the high-energy children jumping at the front rail, and their analytical parents standing at the back of the room. In many cases, the adult critics are far more difficult to win over than the kids!

Mr. Jeff Oh, the parents are infinitely tougher critics, you are 100% right! That is exactly why I meticulously engineer my children's music to hold high-end sonic appeal for grown-ups. If a parent is forced to loop an album inside their car, and the production values are cheap, irritating, or conceptually insulting, they will immediately ban that artist from their household and refuse to buy tickets to their live tours.

A massive mistake legacy children's media companies make is that they fail to respect the listener. They operate under the false assumption that kids possess zero musical taste, so they output automated, cheap MIDI arrangements that sound like they were manufactured entirely by mindless algorithms.

I refuse to dumb down my tracking. I ensure my arrangements are packed with organic basslines, intricate guitar layers, and top-tier drum tracking. I want to respect the ears of both the child and the adult. I want my young listeners to grow up developing an elite taste in real instrumentation, inspiring them to pick up a physical tool and manufacture original art themselves.

When I first audited the mainstream children's music charts years ago, I identified a massive creative gap. I realized that using my specific background as a trained alternative songwriter and an early childhood educator, I could deliver an authentic, modern style that injected real heart, complex emotion, and rock energy into the kids' demographic.

Sandeep Kulkarni (33:26.51) Your specific sonic identity is completely unmistakable and highly original. As fellow working musicians, Suraaj and I fully comprehend the exact creative and personal risks you took to execute this pivot. Walking away from a highly successful alternative rock career—where your regional bands were consistently selling out venues, pulling strong streaming metrics, and building heavy momentum—to enter early childhood entertainment takes incredible courage. It is much easier said than done.

Mr. Jeff I was met with a massive amount of side-eye and confusion from my colleagues in the alternative music scene when I made the pivot. My legacy rock projects were performing exceptionally well, so when I announced I was pausing those bands to become a children's entertainer, my peer group looked at me like I had completely lost my mind. They asked, "Why are you sabotaging your rock career to sing toddler tracks?" I told them, "I hold a powerful internal conviction about this direction, and I am going to follow it fiercely because I believe this work is infinitely more important than what I have been outputting." I don't regret a single alternative rock record or raw punk bassline I tracked in my youth—that was a vital era. But my current work has entirely transcended my own ego; it has transformed into pure, uncompromised human service to families.

Sandeep Kulkarni Your live performances beautifully blend high-intensity physical movement, deep psychological safety, and absolute silliness. When you step out under the stage lights as Mr. Jeff, what is your ultimate goal for those children when they walk out of your performance?

Mr. Jeff (37:10.99) Well, the comical sales pitch I deliver to the parents at the back of the room is: "I promise you that after my set concludes, your kids will be completely worn out and primed for an immediate, three-hour afternoon nap time!" Sandeep Kulkarni In traditional Indian culture, that evokes the sacred concept of the Lori—which is the Hindi word for a maternal lullaby designed to gently soothe a child’s spirit into absolute rest. Your high-energy physical routines function essentially as the high-octane modern rock version of a Lori!

Mr. Jeff I love that concept! Yes, I physically wear them out through continuous jumping, dancing, and kinetic exercise so they can achieve a peaceful nap time.

But my deeper, psychological target is to grant children absolute, unrestricted permission to be completely silly. Our modern world operates on a highly stressful, intense cultural timeline. As fully developed grown-ups, we struggle daily to process the socioeconomic anxieties of our reality, and we frequently forget that children are absorbing that exact same systemic stress right alongside us. They experience the weight of this timeline deeply.

I grew up performing in intensive musical theater productions as a child, treating every single performance as a grand, dramatic production. But the absolute second I discovered the raw, uncompromised energy of melodic punk rock, it completely illuminated my spirit. It gave me a structural vessel to marry beautiful melodic vocal lines with absolute physical release.

I want my live shows to act as that exact same spark for this generation. I want to show them that it is okay to let go of anxiety, be completely ridiculous, and express their big feelings cleanly through movement.

Our live sets feature five consecutive minutes of high-octane running and dancing, but then I will instantly drop the room down into an intimate, safe huddle to say, "Alright, let's talk about that specific time where you tried your absolute hardest to accomplish a task but failed completely. Let's process how frustrating that feeling is, and map out how you can summon the internal resilience to conquer it tomorrow through hard labor." I inject intentional motivational milestones directly into the fun.

Sandeep Kulkarni What is the exact target age framework that navigates your live shows today?

Mr. Jeff Our sweet spot ranges from two to ten years old. My initial records were structured for ages two through six, but the complex SEL tracking on Big Kid Stuff has successfully pulled in elementary school demographics.

I recently produced a highly unique concert engineered for a school's pen-pal integration program that brought second-graders and tenth-graders together into the same room. I had to map out a performance architecture that bridged a massive developmental gap.

I structured the set list around universal psychological hurdles: What is a real-world emotional crisis that a second-grader is navigating right now that a tenth-grade high school sophomore is also privately battling inside their head? I had to ensure the lyrics reached the second-graders without insulting the intelligence of the high schoolers. That core exercise completely redefined my approach to modern children's writing.

Suraaj Parab (41:07.436) Jeff, my eyes have been locked onto your punk rock bass guitar this entire hour. Could you please lift it up and show its custom finish to our audience?

Mr. Jeff Absolutely! Here is the sticker bass in all its glory.

[Mr. Jeff holds up a heavily road-worn bass guitar completely wrapped in custom vintage stickers, seamlessly matching his vibrant pattern shirt]

Suraaj Parab That is phenomenal! The custom layout of those stickers completely blends into the pattern of your shirt; it looks like a high-end designer instrument!

Mr. Jeff It functions exactly like a camouflage suit up here! This physical instrument was the absolute first bass guitar I ever owned. I bought it when I was twelve or thirteen years old, working multiple odd summer lawn-mowing jobs to save up the cash. I bought it entirely with my own hard-earned money.

I completely beat this instrument up on the road for decades, eventually layering it with stickers from every venue, independent band, and city we toured through. This piece holds immense sentimental value for my spirit because I physically unlocked the rules of music notation on these exact frets.

Suraaj Parab The pickup alignment is spectacular. You’ve configured a vintage split-coil P-style pickup layout over there, which is exceptionally rare for that specific body shape.

Mr. Jeff I am a massive, unapologetic fan of the classic Precision Bass tone. It delivers that thick, warm, punching mid-range pocket that anchors an arrangement perfectly. Do either of you gentlemen maintain a signature physical instrument that has traveled with you across your historical eras?

S संदीप Kulkarni Suraaj is far too humble to boast, but he is a masterful multi-instrumentalist who plays advanced classical piano, acoustic guitar, and has performed professionally as a live session touring bassist for over ten consecutive years. Suraaj and I originally met thirteen years ago when I hired him as a session bassist to track my solo indie-rock records! I function strictly as a singer-songwriter; my vocal cords are my primary physical instrument.

Suraaj Parab Yes, I maintain a highly customized bass instrument that I engineered alongside my musical mentor eight years ago. We ordered specialized custom components from the Warmoth company, meticulously hand-painted the wood grain body, and installed a high-output three-band 18-volt active preamp system to sculpt the frequency output. I hold deep respect for your sticker bass because building a custom instrument completely alters your relationship with tone production.

Mr. Jeff (45:49.164) That sounds absolutely beautiful! You must send me a high-resolution photo of that active layout after we wrap this stream. Did you ever give a formal name to your custom Warmoth bass?

Suraaj Parab I haven't assigned a formal name to it yet!

Sandeep Kulkarni Given your identity as Mr. Jeff, you must officially designate your historic instrument over there as "Mr. Stickers"!

Mr. Jeff Done! It is officially christened. From this moment forward, our live touring team consists of Mr. Jeff and Mr. Stickers. I love it!

Suraaj Parab Growing up, my personal musical roots were completely anchored in extreme heavy metal and complex progressive rock—tracking complex rhythms by bands like Lamb of God, Tool, and Rush. When I was approved as a voting member of the Recording Academy, I was formally introduced to the massive depth of the contemporary children’s music category. Traditional record labels like Capitol and Decca have been archiving kids' releases since the 1930s, yet the mainstream public still treats children’s music as an isolated, minor genre. Why do you think this institutional bias persists?

Mr. Jeff (48:50.22) When traditional musicians hear the phrase "children’s music," their brains automatically default to assuming we are just tracking lazy, repetitive covers of "Wheels on the Bus" over cheap MIDI synths. They view the field as an artistic downgrade.

But children's music isn't a single sonic genre; it is a massive human demographic framework. Within our contemporary category, you can discover records tracked across absolutely every musical genre on Earth—from elite hip-hop and traditional Indian classical kids' music to progressive rock, reggae, and extreme death metal written specifically for children!

The absolute core definition of children's music is any piece of complex sonics that effectively registers with a child's spirit. The stylistic diversity inside our community right now is staggering. I didn't fully comprehend the magnitude of this movement until I formally joined the Children’s Music Network.

When I was tracking my initial records, I wanted to anchor my sound between the timeless legacy of artists like Raffi and Laurie Berkner, while completely avoiding the automated, robotic content like Cocomelon that saturates streaming platforms today.

Much of that corporate YouTube content sounds like it was manufactured entirely by soulless digital algorithms to act as cheap sensory pacifiers for screens. I wanted to bring real, human rock instrumentation into the space to provide a modern, soulful choice for families.

Suraaj Parab Your records beautifully fulfill that mission. Big Kid Stuff tackles profound, heavy human themes in an exceptionally playful format. Why should adults and independent creators pay closer attention to this modern era of children's music?

Mr. Jeff (51:53.536) Because the contemporary children's charting scene features some of the most courageous, structurally important, and socially critical music being recorded in the industry today. Our creators are tracking albums with absolute intentionality to actively rewrite the future of the world for the better, starting directly with the emotional intelligence of the next generation.

The universal life lessons we absorb as young children are the exact frameworks we are forced to completely relearn as adult parents. When you step into parenthood, you have to actively retrain your mature brain to strip away years of cynical, jaded conditioning.

When your child asks you a profound, raw question about a difficult real-world environment, your default adult brain might want to deliver a cynical, jaded response. You have to stop, check your ego, and retrain yourself to deliver a healthy, emotionally honest answer.

Children's music acts as a structural guide for the parents, re-educating the adults on how to effectively nurture human souls. We are actively constructing the human beings of tomorrow.

Sandeep Kulkarni That is an exceptional target. Looking back at your evolutionary journey, what vital piece of advice would you hand to up-and-coming independent musicians who want to create meaningful work for children without sacrificing their own authentic artistic identity?

Mr. Jeff My absolute rule is: Never dumb down your music or your concepts for a child. Children are infinitely more resilient, intelligent, and perceptually advanced than mainstream society gives them credit for. They can absorb highly complex arrangements if you deliver them with absolute authenticity.

Sandeep Kulkarni Would you say that high level of cognitive absorption is specific to this current digital generation, or is it a general truth of childhood?

Mr. Jeff (56:45.998) It is an absolute general truth of childhood, though this current generation possesses an advanced neuro-plasticity regarding digital technology because they are introduced to user interfaces practically from birth.

My youngest son turns two years old next week. He is completely obsessed with baseball. Yesterday, I opened my phone to show him a live video clip of us sitting at a baseball game last summer. While the video was tracking, a push notification suddenly slid down from the top lip of my touchscreen. My twenty-three-month-old toddler smoothly reached out his thumb, swiped the notification upward to delete it from the screen, and went right back to watching the baseball clip!

He executed that advanced interface workflow instinctively. Children are natural geniuses. If you choose to compose music for them, do not insult their intelligence with simple structures. Utilize rich vocabulary, track complex time signatures, and above all else—remain completely authentic. They can detect a fake performer instantly.

Suraaj Parab (58:13.518) That is spectacular advice for any tracking artist entering this space. Independent creators like you and our mutual Recording Academy colleagues—like the phenomenal Grammy-winners 123 Andrés—are executing vital, high-stakes structural work to guide the consciousness of our future generation. You hold our absolute respect.

Mr. Jeff Thank you both immensely. Being invited to share my timeline on your podcast is a massive professional honor. Thank you for giving me the space to unpack my soul with your audience today.

Sandeep Kulkarni Jeff, thank you for your absolute transparency, your massive heart, and the profound resilience you bring to the arts. Your journey is a beautiful testament that playfulness, academic learning, and raw emotional honesty can coexist flawlessly for children and adults alike.

To our global audience listening in today, thank you for sharing this time with us. If Jeff's timeline sparked a light in your spirit, please take a second to subscribe to our channel and share this episode with a parent or an artist who needs a dose of optimism today. Explore Mr. Jeff’s vibrant catalog on Spotify, Apple Music, and follow his daily touring updates on Instagram. Join our creator collective on Discord, and we will see you all on the next edition of The Artist Conversation. Thank you!

Mr. Jeff (59:12.238) Thank you, brothers! Respect.