Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the pod Least That's Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today the CEO of Artist Meet International Agent
Speaker 1: Dennis Alfan. Dennis, good to have you on the podcast
Speaker 1: and nice to be a Okay, we were talking on
Speaker 1: the phone and you stay to listening to the Repeto
Speaker 1: podcast and he was talking about agents and you wanted
Speaker 1: to give your perspective on what he had to say,
Speaker 1: So why don't you let it ripped there? Well, I
Speaker 1: thought Michael had a lot of very intelligent and wise
Speaker 1: things that he said. Um, but the one factor that
Speaker 1: I thought should be addressed was how the agency game
Speaker 1: is affected by the buying game of major touring companies.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times the one say an artist
Speaker 1: is repped by a Live Nation a G A lot
Speaker 1: of the artists don't see the need to have to
Speaker 1: pay the same commission anymore because a lot of the
Speaker 1: services that they provide are now provided by the promoter.
Speaker 1: So the A game, the A list, A lot of
Speaker 1: agencies have been affected by this and therefore it's very
Speaker 1: hard for them to maintain that commission level. Therefore, the
Speaker 1: A game is very much threatened by um, you know
Speaker 1: the big bucks that the major promoters pay out. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're the agent from Metallica. Metallica made an overall deal
Speaker 1: with Live Nation on their last big tour. As the agent,
Speaker 1: did you still commission Metallica or you squeezed out? Yes,
Speaker 1: we still and we still have a relationship, but our
Speaker 1: our relationship was directly affected by their relationship with Metallica.
Speaker 1: Just to be very clear, you're talking about your financial relationship. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's all the financial relationship. Okay, So when someone makes
Speaker 1: an overall deal with a G or Live Nation, what
Speaker 1: services does the agent still provide? Well, you know, it
Speaker 1: all depends on the agent or the agency I mean
Speaker 1: some agents. I mean sometimes the agent just gets a
Speaker 1: free ride. I mean, may do the routing, may participate
Speaker 1: in putting the packages together, may have overall marketing viewpoints.
Speaker 1: But um, many times, um, you know. But but certainly
Speaker 1: the agent isn't going out there and most of the
Speaker 1: time making the building deals, the agent isn't going out there.
Speaker 1: And you know, and um, basically a lot of the
Speaker 1: agency skills are negated by Live Nations or a G. Okay,
Speaker 1: just in terms of your experience, not only your own agency.
Speaker 1: When people make the overall touring deals with a big
Speaker 1: corporate entity to most of them keep the regent or
Speaker 1: most squeeze their agent out. I mean sometimes sometimes the
Speaker 1: agent gets squeezed out. Sometimes the agent gets you know,
Speaker 1: um has a limited roles. Sometimes the agent tries to
Speaker 1: act like they're very involved a lot of times. Uh hey,
Speaker 1: there are there are promoters within Live Nation who go
Speaker 1: to their touring their national touring partners to buy acts locally,
Speaker 1: not necessarily to the agents. I mean, there are promoters
Speaker 1: who actually just buy within the their own their own
Speaker 1: promotion company to be able to secure acts. Okay, just
Speaker 1: to be clear, every level of act or just the superstars.
Speaker 1: Uh well, I would say, uh that can exist for
Speaker 1: every level of an act, but superstars certainly uh are
Speaker 1: numero uno. Okay, let's let's just assume whether you're getting
Speaker 1: paid or not, the Live Nation or age is promoting
Speaker 1: the tour. Do you think that they do as good
Speaker 1: a job as what an independent agent would do making deals? Well,
Speaker 1: let me put it here this way. Most agents are
Speaker 1: booking agents. And if I was managing a superstar band
Speaker 1: that could sell out basically every arena or stadium, I
Speaker 1: would probably not need the agent because most most promoters
Speaker 1: are more fluent and more educated about what's inside a
Speaker 1: deal than an agent. Many of the agents is uh,
Speaker 1: many of the agencies are in a volume business. They
Speaker 1: don't have the time to be into all of this detail.
Speaker 1: They don't have the time to focus on all the
Speaker 1: nuances that really go inside a deal. So if I
Speaker 1: was a manager and I had a superstar act, there's
Speaker 1: very few agents in the world that can actually, um
Speaker 1: know where all the bodies are buried in all the
Speaker 1: deals you can count on one hand and not only
Speaker 1: know about it in America, but Europe, Australia, around the world.
Speaker 1: There's very few agents you can count on one hand
Speaker 1: that booked the world. Okay, so let's assume you can
Speaker 1: you do a better job than the big corporate entay,
Speaker 1: and what do you do differently? Well, I can certainly, um,
Speaker 1: I have the ability to do as well um as anybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, earlier in my career, I remember
Speaker 1: one time I had a superstar film agent in the
Speaker 1: dressing room of one of my artists and he says, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not hitting on the artists money. And it became
Speaker 1: my goal to never have anybody a promoter. Anybody can say,
Speaker 1: I can get you more money for your artists than
Speaker 1: you can. So I made it my business to become
Speaker 1: an expert in the touring nuances. And then you deals
Speaker 1: and all the ancilliaries. There's the gross and then there's
Speaker 1: the gross gross, and I become a student of that game.
Speaker 1: And I you know, so when we have deals with
Speaker 1: some of our artists, Um, if you can do better
Speaker 1: than me, then you're losing money. Okay, let's just say
Speaker 1: in a perfect world, the band is offered a deal
Speaker 1: by a major entity, or they could go market by
Speaker 1: market using you. Which would way would you say to
Speaker 1: go me? Because because I have an overview of the
Speaker 1: whole world. Again, there's only a very few. There's a
Speaker 1: few promoters that have an overview, but very few have
Speaker 1: an overview of the whole world. And so I would um,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then sometimes it depends on what
Speaker 1: flavor ice cream you like. Some like vanilla, so I'm
Speaker 1: like chocolate. You may like somebody else as opposed to me.
Speaker 1: You may like somebody else's personality, but at least we
Speaker 1: can compete on an equal playing field. And there aren't
Speaker 1: many that compete on that playing that that that elite
Speaker 1: playing field, um that you can. You know that that
Speaker 1: that most can compete with, and I think there's very
Speaker 1: few agents and there's very few promoters on that level. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're the act, Live Nation is writing you a check,
Speaker 1: it's their obligation to sell the tickets. Whereas if you
Speaker 1: go market by market, anything could happen. Okay, you could
Speaker 1: have a cancelation, you could have a COVID for some reason,
Speaker 1: sales or weak. So if you're saying, hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sell by market by market, someone else might say, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I take the lups some I'm guaranteed. I'm not
Speaker 1: quite clear what you're saying. I'm trying to say is
Speaker 1: let's say I'm an act and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: a thirty day tour and Live Nation offers me X
Speaker 1: They're gonna pay me that, irrelevant of how many tickets
Speaker 1: are sold. Okay, they're guaranteeing me that. Whereas if I
Speaker 1: go market by market. Are you saying that you can
Speaker 1: equal that guarantee? Sure, no problem. Sure, Hey I can
Speaker 1: sell it to Live Nation or a g okay and
Speaker 1: be the one still overseeing what's going on, and I
Speaker 1: still listen. I live with Live Nation and a G
Speaker 1: all the time. They're my partners and and and and
Speaker 1: many of my deals. But it's but the quarterbacking comes
Speaker 1: here from here, not necessarily from them. I may be
Speaker 1: directing how my artists should be presented, not having them
Speaker 1: tell me how my audis should be presented. So I
Speaker 1: am directing the game and were yeah, using um, you
Speaker 1: know their strengths and and and and so um. That's
Speaker 1: the difference is I can work with them, except I'm
Speaker 1: quarterbacking as opposed to them quarterbacking me. Okay, a couple
Speaker 1: of questions. Let's just assume go back to that thirty
Speaker 1: state thirty day tour in America. Live Nature Age will
Speaker 1: say I'm writing you a check for X. Let's say
Speaker 1: you're saying the act, don't take that check. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to independence market by market. Okay, assuming you do that.
Speaker 1: If you add up all the guarantees, will those equal
Speaker 1: the Live Nation guarantee. It doesn't have to be either
Speaker 1: or it doesn't have to be independence. You can have
Speaker 1: the same result, and you can you know, working with
Speaker 1: Live Nation or independence or a e G or um.
Speaker 1: You know you can have that same result without having
Speaker 1: to give up control. So that's what I'm talking about
Speaker 1: is control there your partner, and it takes a village,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to give up control, as opposed
Speaker 1: to somebody else buying the tour and they took control.
Speaker 1: They're determining which Marcus to play, They're determining what the
Speaker 1: prices should be. They may consult you, but with me,
Speaker 1: it's tries to try to be it's the other way around.
Speaker 1: I'm quarterbacking. Okay, let me try to drive to a
Speaker 1: very small point here. Let's say you're you know, Pink
Speaker 1: Floyd led Zeppelin, and you're gonna get back together where
Speaker 1: you think you're you know, you should go clean absolutely
Speaker 1: everywhere all over the world. Okay, can you make more
Speaker 1: money making individual deals than you can if you take
Speaker 1: the lump sum? You can? You know? Um you know.
Speaker 1: When uh the Metallica deal went down, I was asked
Speaker 1: to review the deal and tell and tell the management
Speaker 1: whether the numbers were right? With these the right numbers
Speaker 1: that we're getting, Are we getting what an act of
Speaker 1: superstar caliber of Metallica? Are we making those kind of dollars?
Speaker 1: And the answer was yes. But I could answer the question, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're making an overall deal, but I can break that.
Speaker 1: I can break that down individually too, you know. So
Speaker 1: when I see the markets in the cities and I
Speaker 1: see what all the deals are, I then under I
Speaker 1: can take a look at it and say, yes, you
Speaker 1: are making the maximum out of these cities and out
Speaker 1: of these venues, or you're not. Okay if you're making
Speaker 1: an overall deal. Generally speaking, whether and there's two categories,
Speaker 1: you and the full of other people who understand everything.
Speaker 1: Are you leaving money on the table to have a
Speaker 1: guaranteed sum. I think there's a risk reward. I think
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I I don't think of it.
Speaker 1: Here's what I'm aware. If I'm leaving something on the table,
Speaker 1: I'm aware of what I left on the table, and
Speaker 1: I'm aware of what everybody's making. So pending on what
Speaker 1: your risk is to me has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with what your reward should be if you if it is.
Speaker 1: There are promoters that will offer artists and no guarantee,
Speaker 1: and they basically throw every side back into the deal
Speaker 1: that they're gonna make, but they're not taking they're not
Speaker 1: taking much of a risk except paying the venue. Course. Now,
Speaker 1: somebody who's guaranteeing somebody four or five million dollars a
Speaker 1: night or whatever the number is. That's taken a risk,
Speaker 1: so they may you may let them, you know, um
Speaker 1: take a greater a greater profit, so you really So
Speaker 1: that's that's up to the the the artist, the manager,
Speaker 1: the you know, the agent who has ever involved to
Speaker 1: make that decision. But at least you need to have
Speaker 1: the knowledge of what the whole picture looks like it
Speaker 1: before you can decide what's the fair game to play. Okay,
Speaker 1: you talk about this knowledge and a handful of people
Speaker 1: who have it. As we go forward, no one's gonna
Speaker 1: live forever. Is this going to be a lost art
Speaker 1: or will there be new people with this knowledge? Are
Speaker 1: we talking about people are just agents or managers are promoters? Well,
Speaker 1: we're talking about people who don't work for the big corporation,
Speaker 1: whether it be individual agents or individual managers. I listen,
Speaker 1: it's a skill set um that one can develop. And
Speaker 1: and you know, if if you in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: there are people who maintain artists without for that are
Speaker 1: superstars and they have a relationship and make money with
Speaker 1: people for a long time without having the skill set.
Speaker 1: I just think, um, having The skill set doesn't guarantee
Speaker 1: you maintain or you even attract new relationships, but I
Speaker 1: know that it's it's a very important tool in my
Speaker 1: box to be able to be successful in moving forward.
Speaker 1: Is having the skill set? Um, you know, my agents,
Speaker 1: I try to share information and for them to develop
Speaker 1: the skill set. And I've been fortunate. I've had some
Speaker 1: superstar racks that I've needed to have the skill set
Speaker 1: to be able to maintain my relationships. Okay, you talk
Speaker 1: about this skill set, tell me a couple of things
Speaker 1: you learned where people need to know. Well, the the
Speaker 1: skill set is, as I said, is at least certainly
Speaker 1: in the skill set. From a financial point of view,
Speaker 1: I think there's multiple skill sets. I think you as
Speaker 1: an agent have to have a real sense of being
Speaker 1: a promoter. You have to understand how you want your
Speaker 1: artists and how that your artist wants to be represented
Speaker 1: in the world. So I think the I think the
Speaker 1: skill set is having a promoter a mentality. I think
Speaker 1: a skill set is understanding the markets, understanding the difference
Speaker 1: between Atlanta and San Juan, Puerto Rico and San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and and and and understanding that and understanding the climate
Speaker 1: changes in different markets throughout the world. And then it's
Speaker 1: developing a skill set. I mean, if you have a
Speaker 1: band that can sell out places, um, everywhere in the
Speaker 1: country or or the world, you you need to develop
Speaker 1: a skill set to know the maximum dollars that you
Speaker 1: can make. Now, there are countries and there are places
Speaker 1: you're never gonna see what's really behind, what really exists
Speaker 1: in some of these kinds, some of these venues. And
Speaker 1: if that's the case, the only thing I can do
Speaker 1: is is really try to secure as much money from
Speaker 1: whoever I'm selling the day to, whether it be the
Speaker 1: venue or a local promoter. But I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think the art of that skill set to some degree
Speaker 1: has been lost, certainly in the big agency because a
Speaker 1: lot of them have territories. A lot of them, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the the requirements are different. But I just
Speaker 1: feel that as UH as an agent, as a representative
Speaker 1: of an artist, you need to know, um, you need
Speaker 1: to have this information so that they can be able
Speaker 1: to get the most from from you. Otherwise they can
Speaker 1: go somewhere else. Okay, what are some of the markets
Speaker 1: where you really don't know what's going on with the money.
Speaker 1: One of the markets I think, you know, it could
Speaker 1: be China. I mean, Japanese is not necessarily easy to
Speaker 1: go to Japan and you know, try to see Japanese
Speaker 1: backup and know what the what what the actual costs are. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm more South America could be relatively difficult sometimes. Okay,
Speaker 1: you talk about being able to see all the costs.
Speaker 1: I have sat with the promoter with two sets of books,
Speaker 1: but they're showing the act in their real net do
Speaker 1: they actually you have to guess what's going on in
Speaker 1: their books. How much information are you actually getting and
Speaker 1: how you're getting it? Uh I listen, there's no there's
Speaker 1: not any more sequence anymore in terms of all the
Speaker 1: ancillary where where all the money is, Because if you
Speaker 1: go into a venue, I mean, you know, there's the
Speaker 1: peanuts and the popcorn, and the facility fees and the
Speaker 1: ticketing rebates and the and the sweet tickets and the
Speaker 1: unmanifested seats and the parking and these are all the
Speaker 1: things you calculate, and everybody has has different economics in
Speaker 1: their particular facility. But uh so this is there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of information. I mean again, you there's the
Speaker 1: gross and then there's the gross gross. I mean I
Speaker 1: have to actually played buildings, gotten a hundred percent of
Speaker 1: the gross, you have to tax and have had the
Speaker 1: venue make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just for the uninitiated,
Speaker 1: where did they make that money? Uh? Ticketing rebates, UH,
Speaker 1: facility fee, UH, merchandise UM, suits, parking UM. Trying to
Speaker 1: think what else? Uh you know I might have what
Speaker 1: in general? That's that's that's kind of the uh the base. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to when we start to have consolidation
Speaker 1: in retrospect? Was consolidation in touring concert promotion good or
Speaker 1: bad for you? In the acts? I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: the deals where the making overall deals, just in general
Speaker 1: in terms of money and how the businesses run. Well.
Speaker 1: It went from a millionaires business to a billionaires business
Speaker 1: is what really changed. It existed before it existed with
Speaker 1: concerts West and Jerry Wine troub and so you know
Speaker 1: when Jerry weintraud basically in concerts where they had a
Speaker 1: tremendous domination and of superstars and and a list artists.
Speaker 1: So basically they were doing it. You know, prior they
Speaker 1: had the Zeppelins and the the b g s and
Speaker 1: you know, all the Elvis Presley, all the A list.
Speaker 1: So it really just continued and it was just a
Speaker 1: buy up of a lot of the major promoters. But
Speaker 1: it went from a millionaire business to a billionaire business.
Speaker 1: And and and now Concerts West and Jerry Winintroud have
Speaker 1: been replaced by Live Nation and a g well need
Speaker 1: Let's say Live Nation is a company that worth it
Speaker 1: is worth billions public company, but has the money trickled
Speaker 1: down to the acts and to you? Yes? And you
Speaker 1: attribute that too. I think that Live Nation to maintain
Speaker 1: their domination, has to pay the acts because they need
Speaker 1: they they need the inventory to feed all their um
Speaker 1: you know, their sponsorships that they need to feel to
Speaker 1: feed their business. And I think they're very good at
Speaker 1: um uh yeah, at taking care of the artists that
Speaker 1: they that they acquire and represent. Okay, staying with sponsorship
Speaker 1: just by owning or controlling as much as Live Nation
Speaker 1: does they make these overall sponsorship deals. Do you just
Speaker 1: have to shrug and leave that money with them or
Speaker 1: with a superstar? Do you try to get into some
Speaker 1: of that money? Well, again, you know, if there's a
Speaker 1: million dollars on the table, and you know where there's
Speaker 1: a million two with all their money, you make your
Speaker 1: your deal with how much of that million two can
Speaker 1: you get? You know, It's like they don't necessarily try
Speaker 1: to hide what they make. They but so that's your
Speaker 1: negotiation with them. It's like anybody it's say, hey, this
Speaker 1: is we're making a million to a night. You know,
Speaker 1: that's your negotiation you with them? How much of a
Speaker 1: million two is yours? What's your negotiation style? Some people
Speaker 1: are screamers, some people who are quiet. What do you
Speaker 1: do well? You know you're listen. Competition, you know, competition
Speaker 1: is the best. I'm not a I'm not a screamer.
Speaker 1: Was probably more of a screamer in my early days.
Speaker 1: I'm not a screamer or a calculator, uh, trying to
Speaker 1: calculate or what's the best strategy and how I can
Speaker 1: make the maximum dollars. I also want wants to promoter.
Speaker 1: I want them to make money. It takes a vility.
Speaker 1: Everyone's gotta win, so I approach it. The artist is
Speaker 1: my first concern. My acts have to win and they
Speaker 1: have to feel that they're making the maximum money. But
Speaker 1: but the promoter live nation a g they gotta win too.
Speaker 1: So so you look at the pot and again go
Speaker 1: back to risk rewood, what are you risking and what
Speaker 1: should you be rewarded? And now there's sometimes that that
Speaker 1: equation is very much in the favor of the promoter.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's very much in favor of the artist, especially
Speaker 1: if the artist doesn't, you know, sell the tickets and
Speaker 1: the promoter takes a risk and they lose. But most
Speaker 1: of the time, Um, but but if you but your job,
Speaker 1: I believe is to have the knowledge about how the
Speaker 1: pot is getting divided. But you have to know what's
Speaker 1: in the pot before you can know what's divided. And
Speaker 1: my thing is, how many of us really know what's
Speaker 1: in the pot? Not in not that many? Okay, In
Speaker 1: the old days before rolloups, frequently if you had a
Speaker 1: losing date, you would give the promoter money back because
Speaker 1: you have to be in business with them in the future,
Speaker 1: whether it be other after the act wanted to return.
Speaker 1: It seems like nobody gives money back to Live Nation.
Speaker 1: It's a public company. What's your take on that, Well,
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean there's a certain security. Um, you
Speaker 1: want to work with people who are financially solvent, I do,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to be looking over my shoulder, Uh,
Speaker 1: concerned that my artist isn't gonna get paid. And and
Speaker 1: if there is that kind of risk, then I need
Speaker 1: to share that prior to making a deal. And and
Speaker 1: and payment terms are very important in a negotiation, but
Speaker 1: being solvents is very important. I don't want to really
Speaker 1: be looking over my shoulder about being paid. And it
Speaker 1: happens very rarely now, it happens once in a while.
Speaker 1: And uh, but you know, prefer to be with people
Speaker 1: and then and and if I'm not sure if somebody
Speaker 1: we just asked them to pay the money upfront, qual
Speaker 1: of it. Okay, let's assume let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the stack things you know innately but
Speaker 1: not everybody does. Let's assume you're still you're representing a
Speaker 1: superstar client. Do you ever tell the act I think
Speaker 1: you should go on the road or you're always waiting
Speaker 1: for the manager to call? And what's that conversation as
Speaker 1: far as what the timing is of recording, of of touring, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it depends. I mean, uh, you know, I feel that
Speaker 1: I have the ability to Sometimes people ask me what
Speaker 1: my job is and I sometimes describe Sometimes, Um, I
Speaker 1: build the car, and sometimes I just put the gas
Speaker 1: in it. I have the ability and the talent to
Speaker 1: build the car, but sometimes you just want me to
Speaker 1: put the gas in it. So sometimes the artists, they're
Speaker 1: telling me, the manager is telling me what they want
Speaker 1: and that's all. Then they just want me to route
Speaker 1: a tour. They just may want my opinion on certain things.
Speaker 1: On the on the other hand, an artist may say,
Speaker 1: put it all together versus show us what you would do,
Speaker 1: show us where you would go, show us who you
Speaker 1: would work with, tell us the venues you would play.
Speaker 1: So it's just a very individual thing. But you know,
Speaker 1: I having the ability to build it, to build a
Speaker 1: car and have now or sometimes like I said, put
Speaker 1: the gas in it. Whatever you need. But but I
Speaker 1: kind of have a menu to offer in a perfect world.
Speaker 1: What do you prefer? I would generally, uh if I
Speaker 1: think so, you know, listen, I work with some very
Speaker 1: very bright people, and um I have uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a kind of a philosophy. It takes the
Speaker 1: village and if you function as an island, you die
Speaker 1: as an island. So I prefer to function as a
Speaker 1: village with people. And you know, some of these some
Speaker 1: of my artists have wonderful input. My I worked with
Speaker 1: some managers are very bright. They don't have to have
Speaker 1: my particular skill set, but they have different skill sets
Speaker 1: that that that I need for the artist career to
Speaker 1: be complete. Okay, in the old days, everybody paid ten percent.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's looking for a discount today. So what's
Speaker 1: the deal there, especially with your menu as services? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know there are times. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had one client who came to us from another agency,
Speaker 1: you know, look for a deal and ended up paying
Speaker 1: us more because of how much more they earned with
Speaker 1: us and they didn't with that previous UM agency. So
Speaker 1: you know that is hey, you hopefully people will pay
Speaker 1: you for what you're worth. Sometimes people overpay you, not
Speaker 1: a little bit to my but and there are sometimes
Speaker 1: I get underpaid. But hopefully UM the artists and and
Speaker 1: and their team will recognize your value that you add
Speaker 1: to the equation and we'll pay you for it. Well,
Speaker 1: you said someone came from another agency to what degree today?
Speaker 1: Is their radiant poaching other other agencies? Oh, I think
Speaker 1: that that that exists always quietly. I know people will
Speaker 1: deny it, but that's a lot of bullshit. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot I think there's I think internally some
Speaker 1: of the agencies this poetry within there. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of paranoia, you know, but but you know
Speaker 1: poasting always exists. I mean, you know that's the d
Speaker 1: n A of a lot of agents. They see an
Speaker 1: opportunity or sometimes I'm I could be uh, I can
Speaker 1: represent an act and I'm hearing about another agent constantly
Speaker 1: knocking on the door. It's it's it's there, it's seed.
Speaker 1: Be naive to think it's not okay. If you look
Speaker 1: at the agency landscape, you know, the big cahunas W M, E,
Speaker 1: C A A. Then in a tier below you have U,
Speaker 1: T A and Wasserman and overall I'm not talking good
Speaker 1: better otherwise, but your footprint is smaller. What is your
Speaker 1: pitch to go with you as opposed to these larger agencies. Well,
Speaker 1: as I said, I you know, uh, we have a
Speaker 1: worldwide knowledge. I think we're experts and the and the
Speaker 1: and the touring business that we are the uh, maybe
Speaker 1: the only agency on a lot of levels that can
Speaker 1: really compete with the promoters in terms of of of
Speaker 1: what that what an artist can make. I mean I
Speaker 1: sat with one superstar agent from one of these agents agencies.
Speaker 1: And he said to me one day at all one
Speaker 1: he says, I wish I could do what you do.
Speaker 1: I wish I had the time to do what you do.
Speaker 1: And um, and the focus because I got a thousand bands,
Speaker 1: I gotta be a friend too. And you know, I
Speaker 1: always say a man with a thousand friends has none.
Speaker 1: You can be everywhere and know every deal when you
Speaker 1: gotta you know your your your job is to be
Speaker 1: an ambassador a lot of a lot of acts. It's
Speaker 1: very difficult to focus on of this kind of the
Speaker 1: kind of detail you're talking about. It the big the
Speaker 1: big agencies, the big agencies. Yes, and you're saying that
Speaker 1: so one of the pictures irrelevant of the veracity. As
Speaker 1: you go and see any A, W M A U
Speaker 1: t A, they can say, WHOA, we're gonna book your tours,
Speaker 1: when we're gonna get you in television, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: your sponsorship. What do you say to that? Sometimes? Yes,
Speaker 1: sometimes now a lot of times it's a big air game.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I spent five years in my
Speaker 1: career at William Mars. You know, at a different time,
Speaker 1: and there was there's a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 1: of air to it. So that's that's the game. I mean,
Speaker 1: you walk in there, you know, with nine agents and
Speaker 1: different film people, and sometimes the team really works, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just an air game, and sometimes people get disappointed. Hey,
Speaker 1: one of the problems. You can be at one of
Speaker 1: the major agencies and maybe it's maybe it's the literary
Speaker 1: agent that's that you go, this person is done. When
Speaker 1: I was at William Mars, there was some very uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there was some agents that I represented, some
Speaker 1: very big artists in the film and television business. Some
Speaker 1: of them were quite capable, and some of them will
Speaker 1: lose and um, you know, and and sometimes you can
Speaker 1: get stuck with somebody from another area that you don't
Speaker 1: really want and you don't really think is you know
Speaker 1: it has it's good and it's bad. But uh, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of it is there. Sometimes it's not,
Speaker 1: and it depends what the artist needs are. But there
Speaker 1: aren't many rock stars who become major film stars, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. How much of your business is servicing as
Speaker 1: opposed to just doing the work, showing up at gigs,
Speaker 1: calling people, sending presents. Is that important or is just
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts important. Hey, some people have survived
Speaker 1: very well showing off, bringing gifts, uh, sending presents for
Speaker 1: the kids. You know, it takes all flavors and sometimes
Speaker 1: that really works. That is not what I could depend
Speaker 1: and that's not my number one skill set, so if
Speaker 1: I had to depend on that, But I've seen others,
Speaker 1: and I've seen other successful agents basically thrived that way,
Speaker 1: and I think it's amazing. I couldn't do it, but
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing. So let's assume you have a
Speaker 1: band that does good business for a year, if they're
Speaker 1: not going on tour for another year, how much contact
Speaker 1: will you have for the manager or anybody else involved. No,
Speaker 1: stay in touch, absolutely, but it's certainly. Hey, the artists
Speaker 1: want to know the landscape. They want to know new information,
Speaker 1: they want to know who's doing well. They want to know, um,
Speaker 1: what's what, what? What you see in the future for them? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: try to keep them informed new things that are going on,
Speaker 1: new changes, gossip. Absolutely, well, let's talk about new changes.
Speaker 1: Let's talk as we speak right now, COVID and the
Speaker 1: touring landscape. What's your take there, It's pretty fucked up. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that the indoor situation is very concerning at
Speaker 1: this time, and in the fact that, uh, putting shows
Speaker 1: on sale right now is a very difficult climate. It's uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people don't want to certainly sit
Speaker 1: indoors next to um, you know, in a in a
Speaker 1: closed quarters. So the indoor business is slightly altered and
Speaker 1: the outdoor business not as much. But it's very concerning.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who will not sit
Speaker 1: at a concert. So you gotta you gotta anticipate you're
Speaker 1: gonna lose some percentage of people going on sale now
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a normal what what what? What
Speaker 1: was a normal on sale? It's not a normal on
Speaker 1: sale at this point. You know, if you sell out
Speaker 1: an arena, you might have been able to sell out too.
Speaker 1: If you you gotta figure you'll gonna lose ten percent,
Speaker 1: you can lose twenty, you can lose five percent, but
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose some percentage. This isn't an ideal time now.
Speaker 1: We we all need to move forward, so sometimes we
Speaker 1: have no choice, but it is. It is a more
Speaker 1: difficult environment and climate right at this moment than it
Speaker 1: normally is. Okay, so we're talking today, what do you
Speaker 1: see for the next couple of months. I think when
Speaker 1: kids start to get vaccinated that will help loosen things up.
Speaker 1: I think the world in general is very difficult. It's
Speaker 1: very hard to plan a worldwide tour now though some
Speaker 1: are doing it, but it's very difficult in terms of
Speaker 1: what countries are going to be open, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times we're just we're winging it. We hope it's
Speaker 1: going to be okay in March or April or next September,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's still a crapshoot right now. There's
Speaker 1: nothing that's defined that you can Hey, Australia, I've got
Speaker 1: a tour in Australia that was supposed to happen last February.
Speaker 1: That's now maybe it's supposed to start in March. That
Speaker 1: now maybe moved to next March. So how do you
Speaker 1: plan a tour? You know, it's just it's it's very difficult.
Speaker 1: At this point. You just have to I think you
Speaker 1: have to just be prepared when the bell rings to go.
Speaker 1: And then there are sometimes some artists are going to
Speaker 1: dictate to you what they want to do and they say,
Speaker 1: let's go, we want to go in the spring. We
Speaker 1: want to go in the summer. We want to go
Speaker 1: in the winter, and it's a craft shoot. You may
Speaker 1: you may try to, but you may not get there. Okay,
Speaker 1: artist comes to you looking for your expertise today about
Speaker 1: touring within the next three months to a year. What
Speaker 1: do you tell them? You're better off at this moment, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you can play outdoors. I would suggest that for
Speaker 1: the late spring summer. I would suggest that I would
Speaker 1: just say, uh, and you would lose most probably some
Speaker 1: percentage of business being indoors. And you go and you
Speaker 1: take a big risk if you want to be indoors
Speaker 1: in January, February, March. The first quarter. I think the
Speaker 1: first quarter of this year is is pretty screwed up already.
Speaker 1: I I think it's uh, it's it's there's there's just
Speaker 1: an element of risk and and and the other problem
Speaker 1: is you go city by city, you have different rules everywhere,
Speaker 1: and the rules changed. It's such a moving target. I'm
Speaker 1: going here, I'm going there. No, you're not going this
Speaker 1: this mandate so hopefully I can't predict how the virus
Speaker 1: will you know, uh, but the life of the virus
Speaker 1: will be. I don't think anyone knew or believe there
Speaker 1: was a delta variants eight weeks ago when the show
Speaker 1: started going back on sale. But it's just, um, it's
Speaker 1: just a very it's it's a crapshoot, you know, and
Speaker 1: some people are willing to take it and move forward.
Speaker 1: And you know, it used to be like let's go
Speaker 1: out and celebrate on the road. Now let's go out
Speaker 1: and survive on the road. Okay, in the old days,
Speaker 1: you know, you tend to I'm talking about going back
Speaker 1: a couple of decades, people toured all year. Now a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff is concentrated in the summer. What's your
Speaker 1: take on that. Well, you know, there's, first of all,
Speaker 1: there's more opportunities in the summer because of the outdoor events.
Speaker 1: So that's that's why there's a greater concentration obviously, whether
Speaker 1: it's um UM fairs and you know i amphitheater shows
Speaker 1: and festivals. Hey, whether whether when the weather is available
Speaker 1: for shows that that's why there's always um you know,
Speaker 1: whether it plays a factor in opportunity. And so when
Speaker 1: you get to the winter, I mean people can create
Speaker 1: indoor that you know, trying to indoor events, but it's
Speaker 1: it's it's much more difficult. It's much easier to have
Speaker 1: a rib roast and in Ohio and you know, and somewhere,
Speaker 1: and so there's just a lot more opportunity. And that's
Speaker 1: why there's much more touring in the summer. What about
Speaker 1: the issue of the on sale date and how much
Speaker 1: money people have? Let's start with on sale date. Used
Speaker 1: to be concerts. You know, it could be a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, the tickets would go on said nothing go
Speaker 1: on sale two years before. What do you think should
Speaker 1: be done well with COVID? I mean, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a student of this game as well as uh
Speaker 1: you know, um, I practice it. I watch what others do?
Speaker 1: I mean, I watched I watched the Elton John on
Speaker 1: sale where he actually went on sale in cities and
Speaker 1: play in stadiums and cities where he had arena dates
Speaker 1: to play prior. That was amazing to me, and he
Speaker 1: did well. So I learned from that. Can you really
Speaker 1: do that? Can you really pull this off? Can you?
Speaker 1: And nobody really knows prior to what happening when you
Speaker 1: get to gauge what the public does. So I'm a
Speaker 1: student and I'm always observing what I see, and and
Speaker 1: and and and all of that feeds it feeds my
Speaker 1: brain as far as how how to move forward. But
Speaker 1: so right now, on sales, it's it's, it's. It's a
Speaker 1: very unusual time because of the COVID situation to be
Speaker 1: able to say this is how on sales should be.
Speaker 1: I mean there are times, I mean I might think
Speaker 1: of going on sale six weeks in advance, which which
Speaker 1: we haven't done in in third thirty years. I might think, now,
Speaker 1: let's go on sale six weeks for a show because
Speaker 1: our window was open, where before I would not consider that,
Speaker 1: and I would consider being on sale over a year
Speaker 1: in front because the window was open. Now also, as
Speaker 1: time goes on and the COVID situation hopefully gets better,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a on of shows. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: a cluster funk out there. Okay, let's see. Let's look
Speaker 1: pre COVID pre COVID it what's a reasonable amount of time? Uh,
Speaker 1: the on sale before the Deep plays three four months?
Speaker 1: You can go on sale October for a February show.
Speaker 1: And what do you think about the the acts who
Speaker 1: going on sale like a year before? Uh? Listen, there's
Speaker 1: no one formula that guarantees you success. Uh, listen a
Speaker 1: lot of times and when I say three four months,
Speaker 1: that's America, Europe. It's very natural to go on SAILI
Speaker 1: a year in front. So you know, there's different parameters
Speaker 1: for different countries. What's what's the norm here and what's
Speaker 1: the norm in Australia is very different sometimes, or what's
Speaker 1: what's the norm here? What's the northern Germany? So you
Speaker 1: just acqui acquiesced to what the population and what the
Speaker 1: habits are of that particular country. Okay, so there are
Speaker 1: people say, hey, I want my day to play earlier
Speaker 1: in the summer because the kids are going to run
Speaker 1: out of money. Do you think that's a factor. I
Speaker 1: think that's a factor. I think there are a lot
Speaker 1: of factors, I think, you know, but that is absolutely
Speaker 1: a factor. How much competitions in the market, who else
Speaker 1: is coming you know, all of you know, yeah, all
Speaker 1: of this is a factor. Um. Oh, you can live
Speaker 1: in a city that's being supported by uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a major company that's moving out, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of factors. But that go into an on sale competition
Speaker 1: is probably is as fierce as anything. How many other
Speaker 1: artists are going on sale in my genre? In that city.
Speaker 1: Speaking of genres, you made your bones in the rock world.
Speaker 1: Certainly in terms of the Spotify top fifty, rock isn't
Speaker 1: even there. What's gonna sell as we go forward? Well,
Speaker 1: I think pop is the only thing right now that's
Speaker 1: moving the needle. I mean, it's uh, if you right now,
Speaker 1: you can build a career on cont having enough pop hits.
Speaker 1: And what I what I've observed through the years now
Speaker 1: that they used to be you would be a team
Speaker 1: flash and you'd be gone, and that doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: It's you have enough hits. Britney Spears justin Timberlake, Spice Girls,
Speaker 1: these Backstreet Boys, new kids on the block. These artists
Speaker 1: have super careers, you know. And they were pop artists
Speaker 1: that that, and they were Steen stars and then in
Speaker 1: the earlier days they would have their running they'd be over.
Speaker 1: Now the audiences grow with them, so uh, there's no
Speaker 1: longer that uh, you know, so pop to pop today
Speaker 1: some of the artists Bruno Mars for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life, paint to paint for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: These people have careers the rest of their lives. There
Speaker 1: will be people seeing them in forty years from now
Speaker 1: and they are the new Billie Joel's and Paul McCartney's
Speaker 1: and you know all you know, these kind of artists
Speaker 1: who have tons of hits that most of them will
Speaker 1: sustain and carry an audience with them for for a lifetime.
Speaker 1: What about the hip hop business, I think that will
Speaker 1: happen also. I think some of the you know, Travis Scott,
Speaker 1: he could have a career for you know, uh, I
Speaker 1: think his following will stay with him post Malone. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of these superstars, these people people grow
Speaker 1: up in a certain period of time and they identify
Speaker 1: with the culture at that time, and that's what they
Speaker 1: remember and and and then twenty years go by and
Speaker 1: that's what they you know, that's what they remember that
Speaker 1: they went out with their girlfriend and they met here
Speaker 1: and they went you know, and that's the soundtrack of
Speaker 1: their lives. And so I really believe a lot of
Speaker 1: the superstars will will sustain for a long time. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about ticket prices. On one extreme, you have
Speaker 1: the Stones who completely flex price, it's almost like buying
Speaker 1: an airline ticket. Then you have other acts a doll
Speaker 1: tailor's we are trying to get every last dollar out
Speaker 1: of the market. You have a superstar act, what do
Speaker 1: you tell them? What are your protections? Metallica has certainly
Speaker 1: not wanted to overcharge or even you know, play it
Speaker 1: what the market will bear. You know, it's an end festival.
Speaker 1: The artist controls the picture. I I make suggestions, it's
Speaker 1: if if you know, it's but you have to know
Speaker 1: sometimes when you may hit a wall and you may
Speaker 1: say you know. The dynamic pricing is uh. I think
Speaker 1: a very important feature to now be part of an
Speaker 1: on sale so that you can maximum eise or dollars
Speaker 1: when you put a show on sale. But I really
Speaker 1: believe if you and people will flex and reduce the price.
Speaker 1: And but in general, I feel you want to max
Speaker 1: the dollars. I'm not comfortable. And again it's up to
Speaker 1: the artists, but I'm not comfortable trying to have the
Speaker 1: public being the one to horror as many dollars and
Speaker 1: be that kind of uh, you know, solicitor. But again
Speaker 1: I work for the artists, and if they want me
Speaker 1: to maximize every dollar any which way, I will do
Speaker 1: what they want. I will share with them my thoughts
Speaker 1: about UM, about potentially hurting your fan base UM, and
Speaker 1: maybe they'll care. Maybe they won't. But all I can
Speaker 1: do is offer my advice in my opinion, But it
Speaker 1: really is up to the artists and what they want
Speaker 1: me to do. Knowing knowing the uh, you know the position.
Speaker 1: So you talk about high prices, do high prices hurt
Speaker 1: the AX career their fan base? It can? We'll go
Speaker 1: a little deeper it can, you can? You can know
Speaker 1: it can? I mean, if if you're pushing, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go push five fifty dollars, let's a
Speaker 1: ticket or you know, you know whatever, and that's what
Speaker 1: you're putting out there the public. You're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: hit a wall and then you're gonna not gonna sell tickets,
Speaker 1: and uh, then you're hurting your artists. So there's different
Speaker 1: ways people try to disguise how they might do it.
Speaker 1: A platinum v I p there's uh, there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of ways to be able to obtain the dollars without
Speaker 1: necessarily prostituting yourself. So I am not a believer in
Speaker 1: prostituting yourself if you um, and I'm also you know,
Speaker 1: but but the goal is to try to take as
Speaker 1: much money as you can and not leave it on
Speaker 1: the secondary market. I think dynamic ticketing, I think the
Speaker 1: V I think there are platforms that we have that
Speaker 1: help you to take in most of the money. Okay,
Speaker 1: so those would be you know, V I P. Platinum.
Speaker 1: What else helps you take in most of the money.
Speaker 1: Aisle seats. I think aisle seats now is a very
Speaker 1: big income earner. A lot of people would prefer to
Speaker 1: sit you know, four seats in and would pay extra money.
Speaker 1: The uh you know, there's so there's uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: many different ways to maximize Hey, dynamic, dynamic pricing can
Speaker 1: can basically get you with the market bears and uh
Speaker 1: so I would find that, you know, again, I'm not
Speaker 1: in favor. I mean, some people will sell the first
Speaker 1: two rows a thousand dollars and and and that's fine,
Speaker 1: that's kind of unique. But and I and I think
Speaker 1: it's fine that you know, but I think I think,
Speaker 1: I think you want to avoid the image that you're
Speaker 1: prostent do it to yourself. That's all. Whatever works within
Speaker 1: the confines of your artists that that doesn't prostitute yourself. Okay,
Speaker 1: you and me both know that the fees are outside
Speaker 1: of the deal, so that the act can't commission them.
Speaker 1: So ultimately Ticketmaster or whatever ticketing company takes all the heat.
Speaker 1: What is going to happen with the fees going forward? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know ultimately where ticketing goes. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean I you know, I have the fantasy that
Speaker 1: one day that the artists will be able to have
Speaker 1: every artists will be able to have their own ticketing
Speaker 1: and be able to charge their own fees and do
Speaker 1: it directly and be in control of that pick their
Speaker 1: ticketing company. I mean, I would love to see us
Speaker 1: have our own ticketing company and and choose that going
Speaker 1: on sale. Let's kind of out of our that that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist yet, and I'm not technologically advanced to know
Speaker 1: how eventually about to happen. But the until certain bigger
Speaker 1: things change in the overall um scaled I don't believe.
Speaker 1: I believe the fee game will continue as it is
Speaker 1: at the moment, but it's going to take a bigger
Speaker 1: picture to change it. As an agent, how much power
Speaker 1: do you have over the fees? And do you ever
Speaker 1: have acts who share in the fees? Yes, we have
Speaker 1: acts to share in the fees. It depends on the act.
Speaker 1: The act is the power if you've got a superstar act,
Speaker 1: you can, you can, you can participate in a lot
Speaker 1: of revenue. It's it's like if you're selling out a
Speaker 1: venue and I'm walking into your venue and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sell out forty thousand tickets, that's that you have building
Speaker 1: power and you can. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: money to be made for the buildings and so sometimes
Speaker 1: and the venues and the promoters, so in order to
Speaker 1: have you, they're willing to give up for it. About
Speaker 1: an act, it's further down the food chain where it's
Speaker 1: actually a negotiation where you know it's not going to
Speaker 1: go instantly clean in the stadium or an arena. You
Speaker 1: you have, you have, you have less, you have less um,
Speaker 1: you have less power or um negotiating strength. In those cases, Hey,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you know you haven't acted. Let's
Speaker 1: they can do. Hey, you know sometimes you are a
Speaker 1: real to negotiation as when you guarantee again, it's first reward.
Speaker 1: So I if I get them, if I can sell
Speaker 1: them all, I deserve I deserve it all. If I can't,
Speaker 1: I don't deserve it all. I mean I have artists
Speaker 1: that don't expect to make as much as some of
Speaker 1: my other artists. That's all they know. Well, this is
Speaker 1: a superstar. They will get this more than I will. However,
Speaker 1: I can at least tell them what the scoreboard is
Speaker 1: and try to get them as much within their ranks
Speaker 1: as they possibly can get, knowing what else is left
Speaker 1: on the table. Okay, let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: Where are you from? I grew up. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Bayside Queen's basically. And what did your parents do
Speaker 1: for a living? My father was in the garment industry
Speaker 1: and my mom was a homemaker with four boys. Four boys?
Speaker 1: Where are you in the hierarchy? I was third. I
Speaker 1: have a younger brother who's ten years younger than me,
Speaker 1: so I was the baby for ten years. Okay, and
Speaker 1: you graduate from high school, what's the next step? I
Speaker 1: went to NASA Community College, finished NASA Community College, and
Speaker 1: two an a half years I met a I met somebody,
Speaker 1: a dear friend of mine, Corky Abdo from who used
Speaker 1: to play in a local bar band when I went
Speaker 1: and I used to go see the band. I was
Speaker 1: nineteen years old. He used to go to the club
Speaker 1: see the band, and uh we met at that I
Speaker 1: didn't know he went to Nassau Community College. But we
Speaker 1: met at the college and I was kind of a
Speaker 1: little lost in my world, and he offered me a
Speaker 1: job to be their roadie, which I remember bringing home
Speaker 1: a van with equipment in it and uh my dad says, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a movie man, and uh wait wait. What they
Speaker 1: learned for me is that I really wasn't very good
Speaker 1: with my hands and that I had a gift to gab.
Speaker 1: So about six or eight weeks later, I became their manager,
Speaker 1: which was really booking clubs in Long Island and New
Speaker 1: York City. And that's really how I always started. Okay,
Speaker 1: and were you a big music fan before that? I
Speaker 1: was a music fan. Yes, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when I would when I first went to one of
Speaker 1: the clubs and I had a job, and I said,
Speaker 1: wait a second, there's music, there's girls, they're getting high.
Speaker 1: This is I could do this for a little So yes,
Speaker 1: I was very attractive as a matter of fact, when
Speaker 1: I realized that I could actually do this for real,
Speaker 1: and I I was all in. I have found I
Speaker 1: was very fortunate. I had found a passion, and um,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in this game. I wanted to
Speaker 1: play on a major league level, and I was, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was very committed. Two I was only
Speaker 1: the start for it. That's basically where it's at. I was,
Speaker 1: did you starve? Yes, basically I was. I struggled for
Speaker 1: a long time. I lived on unemployment. I you know,
Speaker 1: I had I had jobs in the music business. Um.
Speaker 1: I went from uh when my origin goes. When I
Speaker 1: was nineteen, I worked with the Salvation Maybe. Um that's
Speaker 1: how I met Billy Joel by the way. They opened
Speaker 1: for Billy's band in the Hamptons, and Billy and I
Speaker 1: had a vibe with each other. He was we were
Speaker 1: both lifeers. He saw me as a synergetic kind of
Speaker 1: guy and I and Billy was kind of the star
Speaker 1: are in his in his band, the Hassles, and I
Speaker 1: thought we could do something. And anyway, I went on
Speaker 1: from there and wait, just wait, once you start managing,
Speaker 1: school is done. School. Yeah. Once I got yeah, I lost.
Speaker 1: I think I peaked in the eighth grade and uh,
Speaker 1: I think it started going downhill from there. And by
Speaker 1: the time I was in college, I really didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of interest in college. I didn't uh you know,
Speaker 1: it was like I didn't have another place to go,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really have UH, I didn't really have
Speaker 1: a path. I was kind of lost. You're managing Salvation
Speaker 1: Army Band, You're right, and you're going to uh you
Speaker 1: meet Billy Joel. Then what happens? Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: eventually got myself a job at this company called Universal
Speaker 1: Attractions would still exist, and they were really an R
Speaker 1: and B agency, and they wanted me to be like
Speaker 1: the White Hippie Department and go find bands. And I
Speaker 1: actually really found this band called the Frost, who were
Speaker 1: from Michigan. And and so I was about one and
Speaker 1: I was managed and I became the Frost manager. I
Speaker 1: went out and saw them, and I'm coming from this
Speaker 1: agency and now I was being a booking agent and
Speaker 1: Universal and here I am meeting this band, the Frost
Speaker 1: and became their manager. And I was twenty one years old.
Speaker 1: And I remember we played Cobo Hall, which was the
Speaker 1: arena at that time in Detroit, and we were second
Speaker 1: on the bill because they had a real big following
Speaker 1: in the state of Michigan. And we were second on
Speaker 1: the bill. It was three Dog Night and uh, Frost
Speaker 1: was second. And there I am a Cobo Hall and
Speaker 1: this is kind of but I liked this but it
Speaker 1: was a little bit over my head, but I um,
Speaker 1: I was kind of uh So what happened is the
Speaker 1: band eventually broke up and there was a guitar player
Speaker 1: named Dick Wagner who was in that band, and Dick
Speaker 1: and I. Dick and I formed a relationship and I
Speaker 1: tried to put a band together with Dick Wagner, one
Speaker 1: of the drummer from the Salvation Navy and Billy Joel.
Speaker 1: Billy came down to one session and that was it
Speaker 1: and he moved on to his own solo career. Dick
Speaker 1: Um and myself and we had this guy, Gregor Rama
Speaker 1: from the m Boy Dukes. We formed the band called
Speaker 1: URSA Major We try to we we hearst recorded and
Speaker 1: just when we were going to run out of money
Speaker 1: to keep the band alive, a producer named Bob Ezram
Speaker 1: showed up and UH did an amazing, amazing job producing
Speaker 1: their record and we were signed to our c A
Speaker 1: and UM, But at the end of the day it
Speaker 1: didn't work out. We disbanded and I ended up getting
Speaker 1: a job at twenty three making a hundred bucks at
Speaker 1: an agency called Sutton Artists, and UH the biggest contemporary
Speaker 1: act was all Over Gut three at the time, and
Speaker 1: again I was like, go out there and you know,
Speaker 1: and find acts. And what they did let me do though,
Speaker 1: because in between this experience I also promoted concerts at
Speaker 1: Sunny New Balls, where I met my white money. You're
Speaker 1: promoting concerts. Where's the money coming from the Sunny Pool?
Speaker 1: You know what happened is um my, my. I go
Speaker 1: back to my friend Cooky. He he found two dentists.
Speaker 1: They gave us twenty five thousand dollars to promote concerts
Speaker 1: at Sunny New Balls. And this goes back like seventy three.
Speaker 1: So I bought Frank Zappa. I overpaid. I overpaid for everybody.
Speaker 1: So I lost the all day of money and and
Speaker 1: but I did make relationships with the people at New
Speaker 1: pal To eventually at Queen's College, and they let me
Speaker 1: be their buyer, buy their concerts and paid me a commission.
Speaker 1: And the agencies at Sutton they let me do that
Speaker 1: to subsidize my salary. And what I kept doing is
Speaker 1: buying Billy Joel because now Billy had a hit single
Speaker 1: and had uh you know, and and we had a
Speaker 1: connection and a relation ship and he was with another agency,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Jesus, I really want to work
Speaker 1: with Billy and and when I heard the Piano Man album,
Speaker 1: I was just I mean, I was blown away. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that this guy was talented. I knew he
Speaker 1: was something special, but I didn't know he was this special.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of blown away. I was a fan.
Speaker 1: I thought it was an amazing artist, and I really
Speaker 1: wanted to work with him. And that was one that
Speaker 1: was the way I kept going was I kept buying him.
Speaker 1: I kept seeing him a Queen's College, at Nupolt's and
Speaker 1: you know, we continued, Okay, so you're buying, You're staying
Speaker 1: in business, You're buying Billy Joel. Keep going, so I
Speaker 1: I I. So I stayed in touch with Billy and um,
Speaker 1: I'm working as Sutton Artists and I seeing Billy and
Speaker 1: you know, one day I went up to his house
Speaker 1: and he told me, uh, you know, I should go
Speaker 1: speak to his wife Elizabeth at the time and uh
Speaker 1: and at the time it was a kind of an
Speaker 1: ironic thing that happened. There was a festival in more Self, France,
Speaker 1: and Jazz Festival, and we represented for Man and Tony
Speaker 1: Williams lifetime and so, and Elizabeth was working on this
Speaker 1: festival herself, so we both went over to southern France
Speaker 1: and we didn't go to the festival. We went to
Speaker 1: Santo pay together. And I knew at that weekend and
Speaker 1: now Billy's career at that point he had this was
Speaker 1: he put out his third album, is kind of not
Speaker 1: really making them, you know, taking him to the next step,
Speaker 1: and there was internal change going on and uh, and
Speaker 1: that's why Billy suggested I meet with Elizabeth and and Uh.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and I spent the weekend together and we became
Speaker 1: close friends. And I knew that weekend I was gonna
Speaker 1: be Billy's agent and m On August sixteenth, nineteen seventy six, me,
Speaker 1: Billy and Elizabeth had a mock meeting in their town
Speaker 1: house and we both voted for me to be the agent,
Speaker 1: and me and Elizabeth voted for her to be the manager,
Speaker 1: and I left Sutton Artists. They wanted me to be
Speaker 1: in business on my own, so I started. They were
Speaker 1: home run management and I was home run agency at
Speaker 1: the time, and that's how my career second. Did you
Speaker 1: think you're up to the gig? Yes, yes, I was
Speaker 1: as Gary Busey said to Joe Cocka one night when
Speaker 1: I was there at the Greek Theater. Success is when
Speaker 1: opportunity meets preparation. I was well prepared. I understood. I
Speaker 1: was somebody. I was a student of this game. I
Speaker 1: was a sponge. I understood what to do. I had
Speaker 1: a philosophy about what to do. Uh. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like and nobody knew me. I was a nobody,
Speaker 1: so it was like, why are you going to this guy?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and uh, I remember one time
Speaker 1: they had me meet with their attorney and he just
Speaker 1: quizzed me to see if does does he know he's
Speaker 1: doing And the answer was yes. And I had a
Speaker 1: philosophy when I started with Billy, was like, we're not
Speaker 1: opening for anybody. You know, if we played fifteen under seats,
Speaker 1: if we played two thousand and open for anybody, you
Speaker 1: go headline, because when you go headline, they'll come back
Speaker 1: and we'll get the next time. So that became really
Speaker 1: there was a real philosophy about how to how to
Speaker 1: do this. But I was prepared. I was prepared for
Speaker 1: an opportunity though I was only one who knew it. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you did, you're on a home run. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have your home run agency. It's a very tight network.
Speaker 1: Are you on a percentage or to give you a
Speaker 1: salary discurse? Yes? Now, Actually, um, when I first started,
Speaker 1: I went from like I think I was making a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty and I went to to five hundred, like
Speaker 1: on Friday and making a hundred and fifty on Monday
Speaker 1: and making five hundred. It was like I can get
Speaker 1: rid of the toyota. I got a cougar. I moved
Speaker 1: into the city from Queens. I mean it was a
Speaker 1: life changer, but it wasn't you know. I wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 1: you made it, but it was the beginning of of
Speaker 1: seeing a new world. Okay, you have the home run agency,
Speaker 1: when do you start signing your acts? In addition to
Speaker 1: billion who were there, well, we I ended up signing
Speaker 1: Phoebe Snow and Harry Chapin and Garland Jefferies and you
Speaker 1: know then and and then, um, I I got the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys and uh actually he was doing quite well.
Speaker 1: And then I lost the Beach Boys, and I lost
Speaker 1: Harry and and the uh in nineteen one. You know, um,
Speaker 1: I was I didn't know if I could um sustain
Speaker 1: an agency sustain a business. Elizabeth was now out of
Speaker 1: the picture, and so, uh probably out of fear of
Speaker 1: not being able to sustain myself, I went and worked
Speaker 1: at William Mars five years. Okay. It was Billy cool
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, okay, So did you approach them or
Speaker 1: were they to approach you? Uh, I don't remember how
Speaker 1: their relationship worked out. I was available. I had have
Speaker 1: been approached by others before. But uh I remember though,
Speaker 1: Um I was at William Morris for about three weeks
Speaker 1: and I had a body tremble. It was like it
Speaker 1: was like it was just it was just the wrong fit.
Speaker 1: But it was very educational. For five years, I understand
Speaker 1: learned a lot as far as how it worked, and
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of the bullshit. And you know,
Speaker 1: I met some very wonderful people, and people became stars
Speaker 1: in their fields, and and uh I and I learned
Speaker 1: a lot of the bullshit that existed there, and and
Speaker 1: and the bureaucracy and and and and and how these
Speaker 1: guys were. I remember one time when I was gone
Speaker 1: and I ran into one of the senior agents on
Speaker 1: a plane and he's introduced, introducing me as an alumni.
Speaker 1: And I'm going alumni. I fucking quit, you know, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but it was a good experience and the
Speaker 1: fact that it it just it exposed me to a
Speaker 1: world that uh, I really didn't know about. Okay, And
Speaker 1: did you make good money? Well not really. I remember
Speaker 1: one year I was making about a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, like win a million dollars in commission, I
Speaker 1: mean literally a million dollars. Was in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: and I got a dollar raise. And I remember one
Speaker 1: of the other agents because at the time, the agents
Speaker 1: that were in the music age, so william Mars, most
Speaker 1: of them didn't have any real clients. It was really
Speaker 1: a hotchpotch of people, and their their game was to
Speaker 1: beat the management. You know, let's not they weren't um,
Speaker 1: they weren't trying to get an act. They were trying
Speaker 1: to fool the management to keep their jobs. And one
Speaker 1: guy says to me, hey man, we should just be
Speaker 1: happy we have jobs, and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1: You know, but that with that that day, I knew
Speaker 1: I was done. I was out of william Mars. This
Speaker 1: is never gonna work for me, you know, they were
Speaker 1: It was just uh, they didn't take care of the
Speaker 1: people at that time that wasn't there their mantra. So
Speaker 1: I left. Okay, how long did you contemplate leaving and
Speaker 1: what you do for startup funds for your new agency. Well,
Speaker 1: Roddy Damesfield, who was my client, said to me, I
Speaker 1: mean he had a real prejudice. He felt that the
Speaker 1: senior agents, William Mars, just to abuse him. He was
Speaker 1: just not a fan of theirs, and he hated paying
Speaker 1: meat and percent and going to them. So he told
Speaker 1: me one day, if you don't get out of here,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. I'm not I'm not uh. And I had
Speaker 1: a bunch of different circumstances come around and and obviously
Speaker 1: I just said how they didn't really take care of you.
Speaker 1: So I I was gonna leave. And it took me
Speaker 1: about a year. You're an half. I was waiting on.
Speaker 1: I had pursued some another client that I was trying
Speaker 1: to get that ended up not working out though I
Speaker 1: was promised the client, but it didn't work out. And
Speaker 1: I finally woke up and said, hey, I'm out of
Speaker 1: my mind. I should be out of here. And Rodney
Speaker 1: was the one who advanced me forty three thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to start my own business. Hmm. And believe me, he
Speaker 1: told me for many years how I owed him, but
Speaker 1: he but he did advance me forty three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And I remember Adam Cornfeld has worked me for over
Speaker 1: fourty years. We hopped out, he hopped We hopped out
Speaker 1: of William Morris and opened up on office across the street.
Speaker 1: And our clients who are Rodney, Billy, Ted Nugent. Um,
Speaker 1: I think John Caffey and the Beaver Brown Band and
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys, and uh, we had a little bit
Speaker 1: of we had a little bit of a game going. Okay,
Speaker 1: just for a second. What was Rodney really like? And
Speaker 1: this was when he really started to make get and
Speaker 1: how to what degree were you involved in that? Now?
Speaker 1: I was very close to Rodney. Um. I was thirty
Speaker 1: one when I thought of representing Rodney, and I think
Speaker 1: he was fifty nine. Rodney was a young man's comic.
Speaker 1: I mean, he can really better to me than he
Speaker 1: could to contemporary. We were more on the same page.
Speaker 1: And he his DNA was he it was all comedy.
Speaker 1: He was just uh. I mean he first of all,
Speaker 1: nobody made me laugh like he did. I mean when
Speaker 1: you're hanging with somebody, and he was fast and things
Speaker 1: he would see you, he was It was just extraordinary.
Speaker 1: He was just absolutely brilliant. But he also taught me
Speaker 1: very clearly had to be rich, famous and miserable, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, Rodney was also very depressed. Came from a
Speaker 1: very difficult background with his mom and stuff. But he
Speaker 1: was a brilliant comedy a comedian. He introduced me to
Speaker 1: the world of comedy. He I would travel with him
Speaker 1: and um, you know many times and uh he you know,
Speaker 1: he made good money. He was always you know, he's
Speaker 1: well played casinos and I had a lot of great,
Speaker 1: wonderful experiences Rodney. I was with Rodney till for twenty
Speaker 1: three years until he passed. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I always remember when I went to his funeral. Um,
Speaker 1: I probably hadn't cried in the years, and I saw
Speaker 1: Rodney's daughter, Melody, and she we hugged and I started
Speaker 1: to cry, and she said, he trusted you. And um.
Speaker 1: But I think to him, and I quote him many
Speaker 1: times in my life. I think of lines that he said,
Speaker 1: you know, uh one am I sweating for I got
Speaker 1: the job? I think of that that all the time.
Speaker 1: How about how I approached life because a lot of
Speaker 1: times I gotta remember I I got the job, I
Speaker 1: already won, and um, I don't have to function with
Speaker 1: that fear and uh that might go into a situation.
Speaker 1: So to what degree were you involved in his film career?
Speaker 1: Very little? I mean actually the woman he had a manager,
Speaker 1: a Stell Endlow, who actually produced and oversaw the easy
Speaker 1: of the Back to School, which was his biggest success.
Speaker 1: And uh, she passed, she died of cancel and once
Speaker 1: she passed, I felt that the film career went astray.
Speaker 1: Rodney became as the manager of Rodby and you know
Speaker 1: that had limited success, but he was a phenomena, of course,
Speaker 1: and he was he really made his bones on late
Speaker 1: night TV. To what degree with the manager handle that?
Speaker 1: It was? Really it was once a Stell passed, it
Speaker 1: really wasn't a manager. I mean, uh, I remember when
Speaker 1: Jay Leno, he told me Jay Leno he had an
Speaker 1: open invitation. He could go up on Jay anytime he wanted.
Speaker 1: He really, Uh, he was a godfather. He was a
Speaker 1: golf he was and he was the godfather of the
Speaker 1: young comic. I mean he you know, I Andrew Dice
Speaker 1: Clay who we still still worked with and loved Ice
Speaker 1: and I got him from Rodney and you know, um
Speaker 1: he all of these whether it was Kennethon Seinfeld and
Speaker 1: Rosanne Barr and it was just a WHOSU those hbos
Speaker 1: specials were just and and he loved the the talent.
Speaker 1: They were like his children. Okay, see now you have
Speaker 1: your own agency and you're calling it what q b
Speaker 1: Q because quality before quantity because after my experience and William,
Speaker 1: I don't remember one time we had there was a
Speaker 1: meeting and there was an artist that the fair guy,
Speaker 1: the Fair department wanted the agency to represent. Nobody wanted
Speaker 1: to represent the guy, but we ended up representing him.
Speaker 1: And I said to myself, can you imagine if the
Speaker 1: artists only knew that nobody wanted him? But here he
Speaker 1: is the Fair agents is pushing him and that and
Speaker 1: I and so the philosophy of quality before quantity is,
Speaker 1: which is really a philosophy of mine anyway, who's just
Speaker 1: like um? So that so we were qb Q. That's
Speaker 1: that was how we started and what played out at
Speaker 1: qb Q q b Q UM actually and we started
Speaker 1: in eighties six and and and a eight was we
Speaker 1: just boomed. I mean, we started really making money. I
Speaker 1: mean we had the dirty Dancing to her, which was
Speaker 1: just huge. I mean we sold that eight radio city
Speaker 1: musicals with just an ad I mean so and that
Speaker 1: came from a client, Eric Carman. It ticked me off
Speaker 1: about that. And Debbie Gibson exploded in and and and
Speaker 1: and Billy obviously was a continued superstar. So we were
Speaker 1: just we were just rocking. We were just smoking and
Speaker 1: you know, um and and and that. You know that continued.
Speaker 1: Um So the agency was was basically very healthy in
Speaker 1: the in the early nineties. We got uh the Q
Speaker 1: Prime guys brought over there rocks that us so that
Speaker 1: became Metallica and def Leopard and you know and uh
Speaker 1: Tesler and and their roster. So that became a part
Speaker 1: of you know, and then um Alan Kovac, who had
Speaker 1: been a very close associate, he gave us. We were
Speaker 1: introduced to Motley Crewe and and and that. So you know,
Speaker 1: we just had established we we established a relationship with
Speaker 1: credibility of being very good at what we did. And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of you know, and and people
Speaker 1: were drawn to us, and we were hustled. We hustled
Speaker 1: people we we went out hustling and worked very hard
Speaker 1: to uh to get clients and and it was. And
Speaker 1: then then in the late nineties I sold the business
Speaker 1: to Bob Silliman. Okay, but he did end up buying
Speaker 1: all the other agencies. People thought he was going to
Speaker 1: roll up the age. What was going on there? Well,
Speaker 1: we were, we were going to do it. We did.
Speaker 1: We had five agencies under our umbrella. And then Bob
Speaker 1: sold the Clear Channel and uh he he said to
Speaker 1: me when he sold, you know we had five there
Speaker 1: was you know, he paid everybody's lawyers fees and you
Speaker 1: know that put in the time and energy. And two
Speaker 1: of the agencies, which was I, T. B and John Giddings,
Speaker 1: continued and made deals the Clear Channel, which became Live Nations,
Speaker 1: So they continued. The others didn't happen. But MAB paid
Speaker 1: the legal piece and and he took care of me.
Speaker 1: He gave me my business back, which I was only
Speaker 1: there with him for two and a half years, and
Speaker 1: he gave my business back and he paid me start
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Why did you make the deal? Well,
Speaker 1: it was at the time of the roll up. I
Speaker 1: just saw it as as an opportunity to besides make money. UM,
Speaker 1: I just sort of as uh. I liked what he
Speaker 1: was doing. I thought he was making smart buys. I
Speaker 1: mean at that time buying pace and sell a door
Speaker 1: and uh Delstner and coppolit I mean I thought he
Speaker 1: was he was he was, he was making good picks.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to be part of that team. I
Speaker 1: was interested in that. And I remember um meeting with
Speaker 1: Mitch later and um, you know, he says, you always
Speaker 1: make money, and then he introduced me and I had
Speaker 1: a meeting with Bob and Bob was talking. Then they
Speaker 1: have the meeting was Rodney jokes and uh, Bob made
Speaker 1: me an offer and I became part of his team. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it ends with the sailor you get your business back.
Speaker 1: What goes on there. Well, my experience was so good
Speaker 1: that I was open to be acquired again. And actually
Speaker 1: it did happen. Uh several years later, when um I
Speaker 1: made a deal with Van burkele my son Jared came
Speaker 1: into the business and he said, hey, if I'm going
Speaker 1: to come in, I want to grow the business and
Speaker 1: we needed to find a rabling and uh so we
Speaker 1: spent you know, Jack Kennedy. As a matter we'd have
Speaker 1: financial people I would be saying, well, where did we
Speaker 1: leave off with this one? What's the status of this one?
Speaker 1: But we started to realize that we needed somebody who
Speaker 1: understood or had a sense of the entertainment space. Not
Speaker 1: somebody and not just people who are financial people, but
Speaker 1: people who at that time could certainly understand, uh, the
Speaker 1: entertainment space. And we identified Ron Barkel, who had interest
Speaker 1: in that space and investment in that space. And we
Speaker 1: took some meetings and our lawyer knew somebody connected to
Speaker 1: Wrong and you know, and and ten years ago we
Speaker 1: made a deal with Wrong. And was he an eager
Speaker 1: buyer or you had to sell it to him? I
Speaker 1: think it was mutual. I think the I think timing
Speaker 1: is everything. I think they were open to expand in
Speaker 1: their entertainment game. And uh, and I had such a
Speaker 1: great experience with Bob Sulliman, you know that, why wouldn't
Speaker 1: I want to do this again? Right? So, ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: brokeled in by other agencies. What's going on there? Well,
Speaker 1: we've we've done two deals since then, you know, we've
Speaker 1: done several deals. We brought in Marshall Alassa, who is
Speaker 1: a superstar agent and as a major roster, and we
Speaker 1: brought in K two from England with John Jackson or
Speaker 1: his Metallica and Iron Maiden worldwide. And then we just
Speaker 1: made a deal in association with x Ray who represents
Speaker 1: Coldplay and Guerrillas and um, M and M. So we've
Speaker 1: made some some major in roads over the uh you know, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not we're not trying to be UM
Speaker 1: you know, we we're not trying to be CIA, but
Speaker 1: we've made some uh I think some very calculated, small
Speaker 1: intelligent moves or some great people to who are you
Speaker 1: trying to be? We're trying to be prepared. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I I one time, like I believe ultimately
Speaker 1: that um, you know, if there was ever you know,
Speaker 1: just like in the philosophy of my would we started
Speaker 1: this interview out and we talked about the a artists
Speaker 1: being compromised in the agency world because you know, the
Speaker 1: the artist didn't want to pay for the same services
Speaker 1: or similar services twice. And I felt that the only
Speaker 1: way that if that if you're if you're going to
Speaker 1: be threatened or your business is gonna be threatened, then
Speaker 1: you may have to get into the promotion business and
Speaker 1: why should I lose an artist to somebody that I've
Speaker 1: developed and have a relationship with it. I have a
Speaker 1: foresight because I just don't have the money to go compete.
Speaker 1: So um by now having a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: agents that have relationships with their artists that um you
Speaker 1: know that kind of at the same time, as much
Speaker 1: as we're building an agency business, we're building you know,
Speaker 1: or we have the accessibility if we need it to
Speaker 1: be in that space. We can be in that space.
Speaker 1: We can play in that space if we have there
Speaker 1: as long as we have the resources. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: where I'm going, but it's a possibility. Okay, So you're
Speaker 1: saying theoretically, if you want to go into from motion business,
Speaker 1: Ron has deep enough pockets to support you. Ron can
Speaker 1: and you know, if Ron shows that that that's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just hey, Ron's available for an opportunity. There's some
Speaker 1: great opportunities now, you know, as as as long as
Speaker 1: it works out with others, we don't need that. But
Speaker 1: if it didn't and our business was threatened, then I
Speaker 1: think we got to step up to the plate. And
Speaker 1: I think you go, you know, and I think to
Speaker 1: be aligned with others and hey, and and if if
Speaker 1: I can give my arts the same opportunities as somebody else,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you want to stay with me who you
Speaker 1: already know? So you're saying there's room for more competitors
Speaker 1: beyond as a major scale, beyond a g and live
Speaker 1: nation if necessary, if the agent is now now now
Speaker 1: as long if the agents don't want to promote, the
Speaker 1: agencies don't want to promote, well that's their that's their choice.
Speaker 1: But I think that's the only way to eventually um
Speaker 1: neutralize the game. I mean, otherwise, you know, you're always
Speaker 1: gonna be the tail wagging the dog. But you know
Speaker 1: what would be the trigger to go down that road?
Speaker 1: Keep taking my ax, keep you know, if I can't compete,
Speaker 1: if I can't compete with you, and I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: become somebody that was making you know, seven figures a
Speaker 1: year and beduce to uh, you know, to uh you know,
Speaker 1: to you know, to a small sum of money. You're
Speaker 1: you're you're now costing me my income, You're taking my
Speaker 1: living away. So how how am I going to protect myself?
Speaker 1: I gotta compete with you? And why do I want
Speaker 1: to give up these primary relationships? Because you have the
Speaker 1: resources that I don't have. And yeah, maybe agencies don't
Speaker 1: want to take risks, and I understand that, but that's
Speaker 1: the game you're in. And how did you convince Marsha
Speaker 1: to come with you? I think that I think what
Speaker 1: we offered is the I think Marsha can be an
Speaker 1: independent within an organization. She's she's Marsha doing her thing,
Speaker 1: but she also has us, and she has a bigger
Speaker 1: picture and and and other players when she wants to,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't have to have us when she does.
Speaker 1: She's you know, it's like it's she's she's an independent
Speaker 1: and and and a paul of a bigger picture. So
Speaker 1: she can draw from our resources other experiences with other
Speaker 1: artists are doing. But she's able to run her own business.
Speaker 1: So your CEO, you essentially never tell her how to
Speaker 1: run her business. Now, I don't tell her. I share
Speaker 1: with her. I talked to her all the time, we
Speaker 1: share information. She'll bounce things off of me. I'll bounce
Speaker 1: things off of her. Where where friends? Where you? And
Speaker 1: But I don't tell her what to do? Okay? And
Speaker 1: with the English company, what's the history there? Same thing?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like I think our philosophy is we
Speaker 1: want to give everybody. We want to encourage the entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: and the star ages to be star agents. We're just
Speaker 1: we're just giving you an umbrella with certain resources that
Speaker 1: you can you can extract from. So we really encourage
Speaker 1: I try to avoid all the politics. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: it's not my business. But some of these agencies, you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised em many unhappy people. There are people who
Speaker 1: are miserable politically. It's a s and it's not out there,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of honesty about that that's not
Speaker 1: out there. But there's a lot of very unhappy people
Speaker 1: and a lot of people stay there at a fear
Speaker 1: comfort all that kind of stuff. But I'm I try
Speaker 1: to be if you're a star, I try to we
Speaker 1: try to encourage your independence. We try to encourage, you know,
Speaker 1: the best of both worlds, security and independence at the
Speaker 1: same time. Well, you know, it used to be that,
Speaker 1: especially in the seventies, music was huge income for these
Speaker 1: major agencies. Now the agencies are really like you know
Speaker 1: in sports, the UFC, I mean, what's going through the
Speaker 1: head of these agents there? Music agents are getting no respect.
Speaker 1: Well not in my world, you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: and God bless, you know the entrepreneurship and um and
Speaker 1: you know, and you know and how they've diversed and
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's you know, I'm I admire what
Speaker 1: many many people have done. However, um, that's not where
Speaker 1: i am. I'm not. I'm not some of these people.
Speaker 1: I'm a music business. I'm to Sarrio, i am not
Speaker 1: in the sports business. I'm a sports fan. I'm not
Speaker 1: in the sports business. I'm not you know, we have
Speaker 1: we have alignments with people. We have a sponsorship group
Speaker 1: that we that we have an alignment with. But I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I admire and God bless, but I'm not
Speaker 1: in the shoe business. I'm in the music business. I
Speaker 1: have a lane, I have a niche, I have a
Speaker 1: way of what I know and what I'm an expert in.
Speaker 1: I'm not a you know, I'm not a jack of
Speaker 1: all trades. And the way you tell your story is
Speaker 1: a little different from other agents. Other te agents tell
Speaker 1: the story although they were going out six nights a
Speaker 1: week networking looking for talent, did we not hear that
Speaker 1: or that you didn't just didn't do it that way?
Speaker 1: I did it that way. I mean Hey, I I
Speaker 1: go to l A, and I go to Howard Coftins,
Speaker 1: and I visit people I was chasing all the time.
Speaker 1: I never have considered myself, uh a great signer, though
Speaker 1: we we ended up having, you know, a very good roster.
Speaker 1: But I, you know, I would be out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: but there's different ways of being out there, and and
Speaker 1: you know, and that evolves and and then you grow
Speaker 1: your business. And we've had a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have been with us for a long time and they'd
Speaker 1: be at on the street and and and sometimes you party.
Speaker 1: You're really you know, you have a relationship with one
Speaker 1: manager and he signs bands and he loves your work,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you're representing more bands from
Speaker 1: their roster. So there's just many ways to obtain a roster.
Speaker 1: And uh, hey, there are some some agencies that's hire
Speaker 1: fifty agents and see what sticks to the wall. I mean,
Speaker 1: we haven't been that kind of That's not been our
Speaker 1: motus operendum, but hey, there are other I would like
Speaker 1: to be in the country business. Now, am I personally
Speaker 1: gonna be in the country business. Not really, But if
Speaker 1: I can find and and and the superstar agent, that
Speaker 1: would seek what we offer, um, and you know that
Speaker 1: that would be the way I'd want to be in
Speaker 1: the country business. I wouldn't necessarily myself stop going door
Speaker 1: to door, but I need somebody else who's a superstar,
Speaker 1: who has who can go beyond the big agency or
Speaker 1: feel that you know, would would have the you know
Speaker 1: kind of I guess, the courage, the entrepreneurship and the
Speaker 1: spirit to uh to make a move. I mean, there
Speaker 1: aren't very many independence out there anymore. I think everybody's
Speaker 1: looking for safety net. So how many people work for
Speaker 1: you in New York twenty two twenty two? And how
Speaker 1: many your agents? And okay, now you're only one person,
Speaker 1: So how much can you handle? And if I sign
Speaker 1: with you, are you doing the work or somebody else
Speaker 1: doing the work? Um? Both? I mean sometimes sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: the parent. Sometimes I al, we signed the band, why
Speaker 1: don't we the boy band, which so I believe is
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, superstar band. I'm right in there.
Speaker 1: We've resenting worldwide. I am right in there. I'm there
Speaker 1: with my my son Jared and with Adam Quintfeld, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm right in there doing the work. I mean,
Speaker 1: but again, it takes the village, and I have different
Speaker 1: relationships within different networks and um and uh so, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I you know, sometimes I'm the parent sometimes
Speaker 1: but I delegate. Well I'm a good delegator, but I
Speaker 1: also melodically on and I oversee. Okay, what's your personal future?
Speaker 1: You're gonna do this till you drop? Well, listen, I
Speaker 1: got you know, we have the last year we were
Speaker 1: supposed to have the Death Weap in Motley Cruz Poison
Speaker 1: Stadium Tour, which was probably the biggest tour in America
Speaker 1: last year and I was just hugely successful. And now
Speaker 1: our next years it's going to be the third time
Speaker 1: that this thing is gonna be scheduled. So here we
Speaker 1: are and Billy Joel doing stadiums and Metallica doing stadiums.
Speaker 1: I mean, why would I want to let go of this?
Speaker 1: This is a blast? I mean, to me, what an
Speaker 1: August and it is to walk into a stadium of
Speaker 1: forty people and your artist is playing and I'm having
Speaker 1: a blast. So why would I want to You know,
Speaker 1: It's like if you said to me if I could
Speaker 1: still pitch baseball and win twenty games a year, and
Speaker 1: then he said to me, hey, you when you're gonna
Speaker 1: retired as long as I get to keep If I
Speaker 1: can still win twenty games, why would I'm having a blast.
Speaker 1: So I'm having a great time. If you told me
Speaker 1: I had a big bar, bands and and and what
Speaker 1: crawl my way, I don't know if I could do that,
Speaker 1: but I could do this. This is fun, okay? And
Speaker 1: you're doing this? Is this seven? Or you have any
Speaker 1: other interests I do? I have. I have another life.
Speaker 1: I you know, I I play golf. I still pitch softball.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long that will keep going on.
Speaker 1: I'm a big sports fan. UM. I have a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, some very significant other I'm very close
Speaker 1: to my family, my daughter and my son and my grandson,
Speaker 1: and and and some very close family. And I have
Speaker 1: some very very close friends that have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the business. I don't know. The best friends is
Speaker 1: a shrink and uh sometimes I'll sit there with him
Speaker 1: and I can talk to him and and get a
Speaker 1: whole different perspective of of the world psychologically or what
Speaker 1: what what people are thinking in a way I may
Speaker 1: not have seen something and UH find it, um, you know,
Speaker 1: UH find it very intriguing. So I have a network
Speaker 1: of which most people really don't know of people that
Speaker 1: just have nothing to do with my daily world. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been in therapy? Yes, As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: my therapist, my my buddy more um who I drove
Speaker 1: with him from New York when he went to school
Speaker 1: of psychology in San Diego and he um and and
Speaker 1: and I watched Mawkie had to go through analysis and
Speaker 1: all of this too, um, you know, to to become
Speaker 1: a doctor. And I watched him go through this whole process.
Speaker 1: But he and he was getting so happy. It was
Speaker 1: like he was really working himself out and really understanding
Speaker 1: himself in a very deep level. And I says, man,
Speaker 1: I love this ship. And and so my therapist for
Speaker 1: seven years was one of his teachers, and Stanley was
Speaker 1: just brilliant. I mean, Stanley wouldn't give you much, but Stanley,
Speaker 1: you know, definitely helped me sort out a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, parent understanding and parent issues. And it paved
Speaker 1: the way, um for for for me to have a
Speaker 1: happy life. I took a lot of lessons out of that.
Speaker 1: And um, I'm you know, wisdom is very important to
Speaker 1: be smart. You'd be smart about yourself being emotionally healthy,
Speaker 1: It's very very important to me and to surround you
Speaker 1: people that kind of support that. Like when I go
Speaker 1: out with my buddy, my string friend, Dr. Markminson, and
Speaker 1: we're talking. I mean sometimes I had the stimulation and
Speaker 1: the things we get into and he talks to me
Speaker 1: about his patients and it's just uh said, all that
Speaker 1: stuff to be to be worked out and to be
Speaker 1: emotionally happy is is a journey of life. And I, um,
Speaker 1: you know that's that That's the essence of who I am.
Speaker 1: I want to be happy. How many times you've been
Speaker 1: married once. I'm married to my lovely wife Bonnie for
Speaker 1: forty two years. We've had two children, and hey, we
Speaker 1: have a goal. We have great life. I'm very blessed.
Speaker 1: You're buried in the late seventies. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a business that to me, ends a lot of time.
Speaker 1: How is she with that? Bonnie Bonnie Bonnie vicariously plays
Speaker 1: this game. I mean she doesn't live. You know, she
Speaker 1: could sit here with me and she has um. You know,
Speaker 1: the beginning she traveled with me and went with me.
Speaker 1: Now she doesn't go so much, has been gone for
Speaker 1: for a while. And she said to me, Um, a
Speaker 1: bunch of years ago. Um, it was sent to me
Speaker 1: not too long ago. She said, Oh, I stopped going
Speaker 1: with you when you made it. I never knew that
Speaker 1: she realized that I had made it. She didn't. Uh.
Speaker 1: But Bonnie was a great asset. And first of all,
Speaker 1: I needed to marry a woman who wasn't depressed. Um.
Speaker 1: I remember one time taking a beautiful woman to see
Speaker 1: Eric Harman at the bottom Line, and this woman wanted
Speaker 1: to make it with Eric Harman, not me, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I I and but I needed I need somebody,
Speaker 1: you who who got the game but wasn't impressed, And
Speaker 1: that was Bonnie. And I could take Bonnie. She could
Speaker 1: work a room. The girls would always love her, would
Speaker 1: be Billie's band, and the wives and always liked her.
Speaker 1: She was bubbly, she was up, she was beautiful. And
Speaker 1: I remember when I went to William Morris and UH
Speaker 1: for the first meeting, and I'm sitting there with the
Speaker 1: chairman on the West Coast and he's sitting on her
Speaker 1: and he was sitting in the meeting and this guy's
Speaker 1: trying to get laid with my wife right there. But
Speaker 1: you know, but Bonnie was she was you know, she
Speaker 1: was just a great asset that way, and she understood
Speaker 1: the game. She still does now. She sits there and
Speaker 1: gives me her her opinions sometimes, you know, many times,
Speaker 1: you know, And so she's she it's almost like it's
Speaker 1: like I'm a board game to her. She just you know,
Speaker 1: comments and who she likes and who she doesn't and
Speaker 1: this is smart and whatever. But she's she's been uh,
Speaker 1: and I've only been lucky with Bonnie, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's been uh, it's it's been a great relationship when
Speaker 1: we've raised two beauty for children and my son who
Speaker 1: runs the company, and uh, my my my confidante and
Speaker 1: m and my daughter and and it's just it's just been, uh,
Speaker 1: I've been very blessed. And though I'm on the road, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm doing what I have to do.
Speaker 1: And but my base, my my home base has been
Speaker 1: a very stable factor of my life. How did you
Speaker 1: meet Bonnie? I met her promoting concerts at Suny New
Speaker 1: Pauls and we and we had a guy who was
Speaker 1: our box office. Our box office was you walk into
Speaker 1: the entrance of the of the main building and there
Speaker 1: was a booth and we were selling tickets for Poco's
Speaker 1: Apple Judy college and his girlfriend, Um was Bonnie's roommate.
Speaker 1: And one day we had a party after the Poco
Speaker 1: show and I saw her and I and I walked
Speaker 1: there with my buddy Corky, and it was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I you know. So we had a kind of a
Speaker 1: rocky courtship for a few years. But then um we
Speaker 1: got married in uh seventy nine, and you know, and
Speaker 1: I look back and I look back at the pictures
Speaker 1: of us, and I go, man, she what had a
Speaker 1: great choice I made? Was she hot? But she's still hot?
Speaker 1: But she was really hot. But anyway, that was important
Speaker 1: to me. She was intelligent, she was beautiful, and uh
Speaker 1: and and and she's a great mom. And that's really
Speaker 1: what she wanted to do. But when the first few
Speaker 1: years of our life, if she had a career, she
Speaker 1: would never have been with me. She you know, we
Speaker 1: would never have been together. Ifew we would have been apart. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's good and bad sometimes when your wife
Speaker 1: works and doesn't work. But I kind of encouraged her
Speaker 1: to follow my path and she didn't, you know when
Speaker 1: so we had a lot of experience together. We we
Speaker 1: went to it, we went around the world. We went
Speaker 1: to Australia and Israel and Japan and took our son
Speaker 1: and you know, we we we did a lot of
Speaker 1: the road and eventually, I'll tell you one thing that
Speaker 1: was very funny. Bunny when she knew it wasn't for her.
Speaker 1: We were when I was representing the Beach Boys. I mean,
Speaker 1: we went to Buffalo, got there, checked into the hotel.
Speaker 1: Four hours later, do a day show, gone, Banny, come on,
Speaker 1: we're leaving that we have another show tonight in Toronto.
Speaker 1: She goes, this isn't for me, you know so, But
Speaker 1: but now she's, hey, that's very important. You have to
Speaker 1: have the uh, the right woman to handle the tembent
Speaker 1: and you gotta have a balance. I was always you know,
Speaker 1: sensitive to like I wasn't. I wasn't somebody. If I
Speaker 1: was a road manager, she could never have made the
Speaker 1: marriage work. But as a um, as an agent, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't go on the road for three weeks. Maybe
Speaker 1: I went to Australia, I'd be gone for a week,
Speaker 1: but it didn't go. You know, um, you know that
Speaker 1: wasn't that and I didn't want that. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people when they travel, they it's
Speaker 1: like there, it's the circus, it's goodbye to your family.
Speaker 1: I didn't really have that. I didn't. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: had that at times, but never goodbye to see it
Speaker 1: for two months. It wasn't like that. It wasn't what
Speaker 1: I wanted. You've been very successful. What have you done
Speaker 1: with all your money? Well, I I try to uh
Speaker 1: live comfortably, live live, you know, I try to. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the American dream would or whether America or
Speaker 1: the dream, is to be able to live off your
Speaker 1: money and you know, independent of making money. And I
Speaker 1: think I've accomplished that, and um so and uh, I
Speaker 1: just trying to really you know. Uh it's not like, um,
Speaker 1: I have so much money where I can buy a
Speaker 1: baseball team, which but um, you know, I I you know,
Speaker 1: it's uh most of my money. You know. It just
Speaker 1: helps me live my life, that's all. It's just me
Speaker 1: gives me a lot of freedom. I mean I make,
Speaker 1: you know, make good money now and I have a
Speaker 1: good lifestyle. But you know, uh nothing, just just preserving myself.
Speaker 1: We we we we've invested certain charities. I take care
Speaker 1: of certain people. I have a brother who's uh schizophrenics
Speaker 1: since um, you know, you know, you know that needs
Speaker 1: help and care. So a lot of my you know,
Speaker 1: some of my giving is taking care of my family
Speaker 1: and different different situations. And so okay, now you had
Speaker 1: a hard times at the beginning. There are people who
Speaker 1: are successful and it's all show. They don't count their pennies.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there are people who never forget
Speaker 1: where they came from. Where are you at? Like if
Speaker 1: you say, okay, it's a gig, Yeah, I'm not flying commercial,
Speaker 1: let's higher a plane. Where are you on that continuum?
Speaker 1: As far as um, well, I would always choose to
Speaker 1: fly fly privately when I can, especially in COVID times.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, uh, you know it's um some
Speaker 1: of the things that I've obtained materially, I would never
Speaker 1: work for them. I would never, like, um, bust my
Speaker 1: ass to have a Bentley or if I if if
Speaker 1: it ended up happening by what I did, great, But
Speaker 1: it's not like I would work for a car or
Speaker 1: I never worked to make money and you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to be rich, I never thought
Speaker 1: of that. That was never my goal. My goal was
Speaker 1: this was Everything that happened to me was more of
Speaker 1: an outgrowth of me just doing my job well. And
Speaker 1: then I had to learn about money. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: um you know, I never was somebody who had, oh,
Speaker 1: this is my dream. My dream is to have this
Speaker 1: house or I own this place in Florida. And I
Speaker 1: never thought that way. It just it was just what
Speaker 1: came out of the success of doing my job well.
Speaker 1: It was never never thought about that. Let's assume you're
Speaker 1: on vacation. You on the phone, Yes, okay, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm seven, I'm I'm neurotically on. This is the business
Speaker 1: that nobody needs you. I mean, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: luxury business. And if you're not available, you think I
Speaker 1: can sit there and get a phone call from a
Speaker 1: manager or um and and somebody, and and my responses,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm ondcation, you know. And And when I
Speaker 1: when I started, I swore that nobody would outwork me,
Speaker 1: not that I would never lose my job because of
Speaker 1: my effort. And that still maintains. And as long as
Speaker 1: I want this, which I still do. That's what it takes.
Speaker 1: This is what to me, this is what it takes
Speaker 1: to keep it together. I can get an email at
Speaker 1: ten thirty on a Saturday night with an author. You know,
Speaker 1: am I responding right away? No? But I'm all Emily,
Speaker 1: will you know, I'm I'm in the game, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1: That's you know. I I like my Sunday's. I love Christmas,
Speaker 1: I love you know, certain holidays where I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be bothered. But you know, there are sometimes
Speaker 1: there's more that goes on on a Sunday that goes
Speaker 1: on on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. There are certain people
Speaker 1: that you did are communicating differently. So, um, it's it's
Speaker 1: a lifestyle. It's just it's all you know. And in
Speaker 1: certain ways, a lot of my life and my family
Speaker 1: life has always revolved around my business and where does
Speaker 1: dad have to go? Where's Billy working with Steph Leopard?
Speaker 1: The younger generation in the agency business and a lot
Speaker 1: of businesses can do everything via email. Older generation is
Speaker 1: all phone, Where are you in that game? I am
Speaker 1: Probably I do. I do phone, but I do a
Speaker 1: lot of emails. A matter of fact, my wife would
Speaker 1: would sit there with me and I can be on
Speaker 1: the beach, and she said, oh yeah, not getting that
Speaker 1: many calls. I've been off the email, you know, So yes,
Speaker 1: I'm emailing, as a matter of fact, what I do
Speaker 1: every night, and sometimes it's it's painful because I don't
Speaker 1: go through all my emails. During the day I'm doing
Speaker 1: I'm calling, I'm I got. At night, I sit there,
Speaker 1: I go through my emails and I make notes. I'm
Speaker 1: always making notes so I'm prepared for the next day.
Speaker 1: I have things to move along, different processes that I'm
Speaker 1: working on, so I'm always writing down lists of what
Speaker 1: I need to do the next day. But a lot
Speaker 1: of email. Email is taken over a lot um. I
Speaker 1: speak on the phone a bit, but not nearly as
Speaker 1: much it used to be, obviously a little phone, but
Speaker 1: I do a lot of emailing. Okay, we were sitting
Speaker 1: in the House of Blues at a Newgen concert like
Speaker 1: a decade ago, and you were telling me two things.
Speaker 1: You were telling me you're gonna sell your company again,
Speaker 1: and you were also telling me you were gonna do
Speaker 1: the monthly gig at Madison Square Garden with Billy. So
Speaker 1: that is your idea, tell me that whole story where
Speaker 1: it is today. Well, the Billy the Billy thing is uh. Well,
Speaker 1: but first of all, I did sell my company again
Speaker 1: to Ron, and uh so that that that did happen,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and I'm very I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of that. And and I've had a great relationship with
Speaker 1: Want through these years and and and the great How
Speaker 1: often do you have contact with Ron? Sometimes I can
Speaker 1: we we email, you know, Sometimes I can email Ron
Speaker 1: several times, uh, you know in a week. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: can go by, you know, not speak for a month.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is is and Ron is very
Speaker 1: good at letting his entrepreneurs be their entrepreneurs. So most
Speaker 1: people don't even know I have ownership. I am still
Speaker 1: perceived very much as an independent agent and an agency
Speaker 1: and uh Ron, and but and that and that's perfect.
Speaker 1: I mean if there's many times, like I say, and
Speaker 1: that's and that's why I don't function much differently than
Speaker 1: I did prior to my relationship with Ron. And for
Speaker 1: that fact, even one was with Bob Sullivan. Because I'm
Speaker 1: in the kind of business you can own my money,
Speaker 1: but you can't own me because I don't own me.
Speaker 1: I my artists owned me. I my artists run my life,
Speaker 1: not me, so you can there's only you know, I
Speaker 1: if and if I don't represent my artists, well I
Speaker 1: will lose them, so you need me to represents. You
Speaker 1: can't control me because they do. And that's so to me.
Speaker 1: I I always there's no such thing as owning me.
Speaker 1: You you can own my money, but you can't own
Speaker 1: me because, um, it doesn't exist. I'm you know, the
Speaker 1: artists are who supplies us with our income? Okay, the
Speaker 1: Billy story So um Billy play. Uh closed Shaye Stadium
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, which was, um, maybe the
Speaker 1: greatest gig of that I've ever been involved with in
Speaker 1: my life. I remember right after the gig, Body and
Speaker 1: I flew down to Anguila. It took us a week
Speaker 1: to come down. It was like it was just this
Speaker 1: electric hi. I mean, um, you know it was whether
Speaker 1: it was Steven Tyler and Don Henley and John Mayer
Speaker 1: and um, it was just a Roger Daltrey. It was
Speaker 1: just who's who. And the funny thing about that is
Speaker 1: the Mets had um come to us and we we
Speaker 1: we and they wanted us to play the year before
Speaker 1: at Shaye Stadium and um because they wanted McCartney to close.
Speaker 1: And I said, We're only playing Shafe Stadium if we close.
Speaker 1: So and and if you didn't get McCartney you got
Speaker 1: no butt and and about I don't know. Six months
Speaker 1: later they came back and said, you can close, and um,
Speaker 1: ironically McCartney did close because he came to say stadium
Speaker 1: and um, you know, ended the concert with Billy doing
Speaker 1: uh let it be And I saw her standing there
Speaker 1: and I remember, um. On on the way home, Dave Howard,
Speaker 1: who was the Met executive at the time when we
Speaker 1: made to deal with he is on the phone. Misses, hey, Dave,
Speaker 1: you got your cake and you ate it really close
Speaker 1: and you got McCartney. So but it was well, that
Speaker 1: whole the whole thing was just uh spectacular. So here's Billy,
Speaker 1: who's so iconic in New York. How do you follow
Speaker 1: up Shay Stadium? We played Yankee Stadium, the old Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 1: We had played the Giant Stadium, you know multiple times
Speaker 1: with Elton John What do you do? And and and
Speaker 1: and and uh So one night, Um, I was in
Speaker 1: Turks and Tikos with my Fami Emilee and with Ja Marciano,
Speaker 1: who at that time was president of the Garden and
Speaker 1: now obviously one's a g and and out of that
Speaker 1: dinner evolved the idea of doing a once a month
Speaker 1: in and it didn't happen for a couple of years later.
Speaker 1: Remember J and I we actually had a deal in place,
Speaker 1: and uh when we did it, um, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: and then the Garden and Jay was now no longer there,
Speaker 1: and the Garden came and they talked about making Billy
Speaker 1: a franchise, and the Knicks and the Ranges and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I believe we would sell out twelve the
Speaker 1: first year, which was in two thousand fourteen. That I believe,
Speaker 1: because in two thousand and six we had sold out
Speaker 1: twelve and I think the record at the time was
Speaker 1: the Dead had sold out like thirteen or Bruce or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so the idea once we went on that we
Speaker 1: would sell twenty four two years once a month, and
Speaker 1: we sell nineteen thousand, we sell the whole building. But
Speaker 1: the idea that we could possibly sell twenty four was
Speaker 1: just amazing to me. Well we did it. We saw
Speaker 1: that the twenty four and now we're up to seventy. Um,
Speaker 1: we're up to seventy three. We actually have six shows
Speaker 1: that have been rescheduled UM that we're supposed to take
Speaker 1: place since the virus, so we're really up to seventy nine.
Speaker 1: When we finished next April, we're starting this again. Billy
Speaker 1: returns to the Guarden November five, so we would have
Speaker 1: We have been at the Garden for seven years. I
Speaker 1: mean we've seen people go through college, We've seen people
Speaker 1: go from high school, they graduated, we've seen people have children.
Speaker 1: It's you know, we say, hey, you know, watch seven
Speaker 1: years go by, and we are now up to like
Speaker 1: I said, we finished the seventy nine, will he'll be
Speaker 1: up to his eight show is something like a hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty something lifetime, which I've been to every one
Speaker 1: of them, and it's it's it's it's a phenomena. And
Speaker 1: I and I remember Billy saying to me at one point,
Speaker 1: are you sure this is gonna work? And um, you
Speaker 1: know it did. But I tell you the truth, as
Speaker 1: as as proud as the sighted, and and and and
Speaker 1: first of all, it's so amazing to have an artist
Speaker 1: that you can represent. You can dream all you want,
Speaker 1: but I have somebody that can do it. I mean
Speaker 1: that he's capable of doing that, he can actually draw,
Speaker 1: that's you know, So the fact that Billy can do this,
Speaker 1: and and it's always been my philosophy. I always wanted
Speaker 1: to do rock God, rock God things, things that confirm
Speaker 1: who you are in the world. So if you if
Speaker 1: if if, if you are playing um uh stadiums or
Speaker 1: doing what you do with the Garden God, that's who
Speaker 1: you are. You know, that's you know. And that again
Speaker 1: and and that you can do this, uh these kind
Speaker 1: of events is very very rarefied air, and so I
Speaker 1: always looked to do that. I always look to prove
Speaker 1: who we are and who he is, to show who
Speaker 1: he is. And but one of the proudest things is
Speaker 1: that I am of him and his career. That he's
Speaker 1: a stadium act. I mean we weren't a stadium ac.
Speaker 1: I mean this guy could sell a stadium anywhere, and
Speaker 1: it's whether it's Kansas City or Buffalo or Green Bay,
Speaker 1: and that with no hit record, but it's it's all
Speaker 1: a testament to his body of work. But the idea
Speaker 1: that in the last eight years we went basically from
Speaker 1: an arena ract to clean me up to play every
Speaker 1: stadium anywhere is just that is what I am most
Speaker 1: proud of. That he can do that, and that becomes
Speaker 1: that that that existed out there and that that's where
Speaker 1: he went and when we were able to do that
Speaker 1: with nothing, with nothing more than his catalog is a
Speaker 1: great testament to him. And that's something I'm just so
Speaker 1: proud about. Is he still into it? Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you know he's um. You know, Billy doesn't get
Speaker 1: ever too high and too low. But yes, he's I
Speaker 1: think he's very proud of it. I mean his Rapino
Speaker 1: said in his interview, he is something with you. You
Speaker 1: you are what you can sell and what venues you
Speaker 1: can play. And and hey, I do certain things because
Speaker 1: others can't. I mean, you know, we played we we
Speaker 1: played in Kansas City, the first show at Coaufman Stadium
Speaker 1: with the Royals played baseball thirty eight years. I heard
Speaker 1: that I couldn't wait with a hook thirty eight years
Speaker 1: with the first show, and we blew it right out.
Speaker 1: So I like the way I like to do things,
Speaker 1: Like hey, when I hear buffalo and I hear nobody
Speaker 1: sells that buffalo over hey, we sold that buffalo on
Speaker 1: the onset. I mean I like to do things. We
Speaker 1: played Fenway Park seven years in a row, We played
Speaker 1: Wrigley Field five years in a row. He played Citizens
Speaker 1: Bank Bullpark six years in a row. Why because nobody
Speaker 1: else can do that you know you can go there once?
Speaker 1: Can you go there every year and sell it out?
Speaker 1: And we're not the grateful day? Well, well you know
Speaker 1: we're not fish. We don't have that. So that's an
Speaker 1: amazing testament to his work. And so I love doing
Speaker 1: things that most don't. They can't Okay, most acts coming
Speaker 1: through New York City, they played Medicine Square Garden for
Speaker 1: the status. They can't make any money. So I assume
Speaker 1: you have a special deal that this is lucrative for
Speaker 1: you and Billy, I would hope. So, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: not the Okay, let's go back to history for a second.
Speaker 1: How did the Olton and Billy thing come together? And
Speaker 1: I know Abilly needed an operation? Why did it never
Speaker 1: happen again? Well, it came together. I'll tell you. I
Speaker 1: remember one night we were in Toronto and I'm saying, hey, Billy,
Speaker 1: let's do some stadiums, and well, you know when he
Speaker 1: was like, well, I don't really think I think we
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a bang for the buck for
Speaker 1: the fan. We've got to give him somebody else we
Speaker 1: should be we should put something together. So we're all
Speaker 1: sitting around and and we came up with Elton, and
Speaker 1: I said, okay, Um, well, hey Dennis, Well when went
Speaker 1: to Carey went to call Elton's people. So I call
Speaker 1: Howard Rose out of the blue, and this is exactly
Speaker 1: how the conversation went. I go, Howard, would you be
Speaker 1: interested in going out with us? And Howard goes there's
Speaker 1: a pause on the phone, and he goes, how many
Speaker 1: nights you think we could sell out Philadelphia? That's how
Speaker 1: and we sold out three And that's exactly how it
Speaker 1: how it it started, and um, and actually it was
Speaker 1: so unique in that uh. And I love Howard Rose,
Speaker 1: I mean I do, I I had. He was such
Speaker 1: a wonderful partner through the whole process and um, and
Speaker 1: he represented Elton with the passion that I represented Billy.
Speaker 1: And we were equal and there was never and he
Speaker 1: he never and we we were both and we had
Speaker 1: arguments and all kinds of stuff, but he was as
Speaker 1: genuine to Elton as I was to Billy, and we
Speaker 1: were kind of both in the same position. And it
Speaker 1: was it was just, uh, it was great. And we
Speaker 1: you know, we we played stadiums like the tour remember
Speaker 1: started a ninety fourd San Diego, um bill Silver Presents
Speaker 1: and uh, it was. It was just an amazing and
Speaker 1: today you couldn't. You couldn't put it together because they
Speaker 1: don't they don't need each other. Financially, you can't afford it.
Speaker 1: What can you do? You can double the prices, you
Speaker 1: can't get It's almost economically not possible unless worldwide. Who
Speaker 1: could sell more tickets? Elton or Billy worldwide? Am I
Speaker 1: announcing a reunion too? I mean I know no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no not. I'm just asking no when they when you
Speaker 1: put the tour together? Okay, I thought was Elton was
Speaker 1: a bigger act. We're not talking to forget the music,
Speaker 1: let's just stock selling tickets, okay. But now at this
Speaker 1: late day, it looks like Billy's the bigger act. You know, um,
Speaker 1: el you know one thing like like I always believe
Speaker 1: with Billy, you know, he was always an underdog. He
Speaker 1: never got the notoriety that Bruce, Michael Jackson, a lot
Speaker 1: of artists Elton, you know, you know, Billy was kind
Speaker 1: of we just he just won quietly. Up until the
Speaker 1: early nineties, he was the number one selling artist in
Speaker 1: in America behind the Beatles. And you know now he
Speaker 1: hasn't put out a record since ninety three. But um,
Speaker 1: but Elton, you know Elton, you know, I would say
Speaker 1: probably at that time worldwide. I mean we we got
Speaker 1: a lot of exchanges. There were different cities and different countries.
Speaker 1: I mean, m Elton. Elton played a lot more England,
Speaker 1: and you know, his touring was different. He'd played many
Speaker 1: different kind of venues. It wasn't like Elton was just
Speaker 1: touring stadiums throughout Europe and then we came along. He
Speaker 1: would play all kinds of different venues and and things
Speaker 1: that that you know, that that the Billy would do.
Speaker 1: So I think at the time it was, um, it
Speaker 1: worked for both of them. They both could it. Just
Speaker 1: it took them up a level. We kind of in
Speaker 1: the billy world. We did the arenas, we did the
Speaker 1: multiple arenas. We needed to go to another level. And um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like we're gonna stary having a hit record.
Speaker 1: This was the next level. And um, hey listen, a
Speaker 1: lot of artists emulated that package. That was the home
Speaker 1: of the of two of the greats. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know you'll probably never see it again, at least, you know,
Speaker 1: you can never say never. I know Billy and Elton
Speaker 1: still close or still still communicate, to each other, but
Speaker 1: it's it's just um, you know, uh, you know they're
Speaker 1: they're they're both you know, it's just it both doing
Speaker 1: amazing at this time. I mean, Billy was Elton, now
Speaker 1: on his retirement tour, has done spectacular business and uh
Speaker 1: and Billy Hey quietly has done amazing. I mean, Billy
Speaker 1: is is this is what you aspire to be, is
Speaker 1: what Billy Joel is doing. Okay, two best shows you
Speaker 1: ever saw LED's Zeppe one at the film Worice when
Speaker 1: I was nineteen. I was sitting in the seventh row
Speaker 1: and they were headlining for the first time in America
Speaker 1: and they had to prove it. That is still a memory.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like the greatest four of musicians
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. Robert Plant was the ultimate frontman sexy.
Speaker 1: You know, he s took his jeans. I was a
Speaker 1: guy who just like this guy. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it wasn't my thing, but you know every
Speaker 1: girl wanted fuck him and you know, uh and you
Speaker 1: know Page and Bonham and John's it was just bottom was.
Speaker 1: It was just incredible and you know, certainly I Billy
Speaker 1: at Say Stadium was uh, it was as as great
Speaker 1: as it can be. Bruce at the bottom Line. I
Speaker 1: saw Bruce's bottom line in seventy four and he he
Speaker 1: took im talk about the year before born to Run. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bruce when it was an amazing moment that he was
Speaker 1: a guy playing this four hundred sea club and he
Speaker 1: was breaking around the world as a superstar, and it
Speaker 1: was like all coming from this little club. It was
Speaker 1: just you know, so that that was probably an amazing
Speaker 1: moment of watching an artist being celebrated in this bar
Speaker 1: that was now becoming a worldwide phenomena. But you know,
Speaker 1: Billy at Shay Stadium was h you know, like I
Speaker 1: say I said before, it took me a week to
Speaker 1: come down from that. But um, but Jeppelin at UH
Speaker 1: and I was a major Doors fan. I went to
Speaker 1: I saw the Doors um multiple times in my um
Speaker 1: in my life, and it was Jim Morrison was a
Speaker 1: very big influence. You know, it was actually one of
Speaker 1: the great influences of my life. Was Terry Knight really
Speaker 1: Terry Knight in the pack Crook? Well, I don't I
Speaker 1: can't speak for what he did internally, and I you know,
Speaker 1: but I but he took a band and those days,
Speaker 1: in those days, how do to you either be from
Speaker 1: England or San Francisco. You how you know it was
Speaker 1: it was um you know, you had to get radio play,
Speaker 1: you had to be hit. And he took three guys
Speaker 1: from Michigan who got no airplay, who look who were
Speaker 1: supposed to be uncool, and and they got and and
Speaker 1: he and they came the biggest band in the world.
Speaker 1: They sold out, Chase stayed even seventy two, fastened the Beatles,
Speaker 1: and his campaign, I mean I emulated and I still do.
Speaker 1: And I remember one time Chef Gordon and I when
Speaker 1: we when he was talking about the Alice Cooper campaign,
Speaker 1: we talked about Terry Knight. But I emulated what this
Speaker 1: guy does, what he did, and I still use some
Speaker 1: of the things that he did. He'd buy six pages
Speaker 1: in Billboard or cash box in those days with pictures
Speaker 1: of the guys, and I would go and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was one of those at the time.
Speaker 1: I was a student learning, and I was like, they
Speaker 1: have to be big. Look at this, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: he sold me on how big they were before they were.
Speaker 1: And I've used through the years some of his strategies
Speaker 1: in the marketing and the making of an artist. It
Speaker 1: was like, if you tell the industry, they will tell
Speaker 1: the public. That's your best shot. So but he did.
Speaker 1: I remember one time on the US to the Home album,
Speaker 1: he took his billboard out on Times Square. It was
Speaker 1: just huge, and there was a painter strike that their
Speaker 1: pictures were hanging on that billboard for months, and it
Speaker 1: was just it was like only people that were stars,
Speaker 1: big stars, would get this, and they weren't yet, but
Speaker 1: they had to be. So he sold me and I
Speaker 1: bought into it, and and years later I represented them
Speaker 1: for a while. I represented them to kind of when
Speaker 1: it was the end of the Grand Fund, when Mark,
Speaker 1: Donnie and Mel were still all together and David Fisher
Speaker 1: was managing them at the time, I had a chance
Speaker 1: of representing them for a while and it was so
Speaker 1: and I was a fan. It was one of the
Speaker 1: few times I was like, really, I'm such a fan,
Speaker 1: but I was a fan of the phenomenon. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you got the original members back together as their demand
Speaker 1: for that today, you mean for for Grand Fund right today?
Speaker 1: You know, Um, there's some demands. I mean, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of been warded down over the years.
Speaker 1: I don't know, um, you know, I'm sure it certainly
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the demand that it was, and it's prime.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like uh some other combinations would
Speaker 1: would that if if this member came back to the band,
Speaker 1: that would enhance them. Anybody you have who you don't represent,
Speaker 1: that you'd like to represent, we have a vision how
Speaker 1: to do it? Oh, I think that all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm a student. I think of things. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that because I'd like the artist to hear it,
Speaker 1: but I it wouldn't really be fair. But I think
Speaker 1: of certain artists that should be doing things that would
Speaker 1: enhance them if they're doing arenas, why they're how they
Speaker 1: can get the stadiums, what they're not doing. Oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I definitely see that. I mean, I definitely think I
Speaker 1: can help move some people's career to hey, Leopard and
Speaker 1: playing stadiums, def Leopards playing stadiums for the second tour
Speaker 1: in a row in America, I mean, you know, and
Speaker 1: making a huge money. I mean that wasn't happening. Now.
Speaker 1: There's a perception def Leopards a fucking a huge band
Speaker 1: and and and and crew. So you know, but there's
Speaker 1: definitely things that um, I would love to do if
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to. You know, that's you know,
Speaker 1: make the help, enhance people to be bigger, make make
Speaker 1: moves dea Leopard lose, leaves, Q Prime goes to Howard Kaufman.
Speaker 1: How do you remain the agent? I used to go
Speaker 1: to l A when you when you said to me,
Speaker 1: um earlier you said, um, you know, to go on
Speaker 1: the street to go to clubs. I visited managers and
Speaker 1: I used to visit Howard and I didn't have any
Speaker 1: clients with him, but he would see me. And and
Speaker 1: then when you know, when Leopard left and went to Howard,
Speaker 1: Howard stayed with me. That's that, you know, just from
Speaker 1: those meetings, he stayed with me. And I became very
Speaker 1: close to Howard. And we'll be you know, as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, to give me poison you really admired
Speaker 1: might work. We had a very good relationship and um,
Speaker 1: you know he uh, you know, I was fortunate. I
Speaker 1: I could have lost it at that moment, but um,
Speaker 1: he stayed with me. That's as simple as that. And
Speaker 1: then when he passed, Mike Kobe Ash has done a
Speaker 1: great job with the band. Uh you know everything's you know, Um, Mike,
Speaker 1: I have a great relationship and he's helped elevate I mean,
Speaker 1: Howard rest in peace. He'd be sitting here rooting Mike
Speaker 1: and me on, like you guys have done such a
Speaker 1: great job taking it, taken the mantle to the next step,
Speaker 1: and we're so proud of it. On that note, I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna end for today. This has been wonderful. Dennis.
Speaker 1: You know I want to do you because you're opening honest,
Speaker 1: You'll hold no punchers. Thanks so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Bob A lot of fun. It's nice listen to myself
Speaker 1: tell all these things because I never did, but it
Speaker 1: was it was cool. I like, like fun. Thank you, Bob.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob Love sex