Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: I guess today is David Mucius, president of thirty Tigers. David,
Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast. Well, I am
Speaker 1: very happy to be here. I am. I'm a fan
Speaker 1: of the podcast, as you know. I love hearing the
Speaker 1: stories of so many of your guests, and I learned
Speaker 1: a lot. So it's a real thrill to be uh
Speaker 1: to be joining you. Okay, let's jump in. What exactly
Speaker 1: is thirty Tigers. We are a label services company h
Speaker 1: that that tries as uh much as possible to uh
Speaker 1: to just be a label infrastructure, holistic labels infrastructure for
Speaker 1: artists that allows them to take their music to market
Speaker 1: without having to give up ownership of their masters, but
Speaker 1: also without any sort of diminution in the quality of
Speaker 1: the effort. I'm there the marketing of their their music. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's dig a little deeper. People find you, you
Speaker 1: find them. How is the relationship established? Well, it happens
Speaker 1: you know, any number of ways. UM, I'd say, I
Speaker 1: think with one exception, UM, all the relationships that we've
Speaker 1: entered into came through UH an attorney, a manager, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of an advocate. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's uh. I mean, I try to be open to
Speaker 1: hearing uh, either me or Lee Tonay, who's our vice
Speaker 1: president of van or we make you know where the
Speaker 1: where the sort of the points of entry in terms
Speaker 1: of these conversations. We try to be open and we
Speaker 1: try to listen to you know, everybody. But it takes
Speaker 1: a village to UH in a you know, a robust
Speaker 1: team for artists to succeed at at a high level.
Speaker 1: And so if somebody comes and they don't they don't
Speaker 1: have any teammates, it can be a daunting thing for
Speaker 1: us to to take on. Having said that, UM, well,
Speaker 1: I guess you know we have Actually I think lately
Speaker 1: we've done more things where you know, I've heard an
Speaker 1: artist they didn't really have a team, and then we
Speaker 1: were the first teammate and kind of put something, you know,
Speaker 1: things together. But we won't go out to market without
Speaker 1: a full team. And if I can't put a team
Speaker 1: around an artist, then we don't do it. Do you
Speaker 1: manage any artists or is it always outside management? I
Speaker 1: co managed Patty Griffin with a wonderful UH partner in
Speaker 1: crime named Carolyn Rosenfeld. Um I used to manage more artists,
Speaker 1: but as the label services side of the business grew. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, management is a very full on experience, and
Speaker 1: it just I just I don't think I have the
Speaker 1: you know, the bandwidth to to manage anyone else and
Speaker 1: do it right. And and Caroline and I but I
Speaker 1: just I love Patty Griffin so much. I love her music.
Speaker 1: I feel honored to be um, you know, I was
Speaker 1: honored to be asked to to, uh, you know, help
Speaker 1: go fight for her out in the world. And Caroline
Speaker 1: and I, uh, you know, we really relish that opportunity
Speaker 1: that we've been given. But yeah, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: going to manage anyone else. Okay, So you talk about
Speaker 1: an act coming with a team in the best of circumstances,
Speaker 1: what are the team members you're looking for? Well? Management,
Speaker 1: But honestly, to me, the most important component part of
Speaker 1: the team is probably the agent. Uh you know. The
Speaker 1: live experience is the most intimate way in which artists
Speaker 1: connect with their fans, and if and if an artist
Speaker 1: can't do that, or they can't do it at a
Speaker 1: very high level, then it's really hard for me to
Speaker 1: envision how how all that's gonna work. Um. I know
Speaker 1: that there's certain types of music where the live thing
Speaker 1: isn't uh isn't quite as important, but you know, we
Speaker 1: don't we don't necessarily you know, work in those genres
Speaker 1: quite as much. But for for our wheelhouse, UM, I
Speaker 1: would say the agent is probably the top priority. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: let's style stay with the agent for a second. Sure,
Speaker 1: in this business, traditionally, you can't get an agent until
Speaker 1: you've already proven that you can sell tickets. So is
Speaker 1: it your experience that everybody comes to you already has
Speaker 1: some kind of road business or sometimes they just hooked
Speaker 1: up with an agent and they haven't really worked. I'd
Speaker 1: say that's probably the case of the time. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a handful of agents, uh that I think are
Speaker 1: like I think about Jonathan Levine with Wasserman. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, just found out about an artist named Kylie
Speaker 1: Connell who I'm awe struck by and I encourage all
Speaker 1: of all of your listeners to go check her out. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I was so dumb struck by her talent. And
Speaker 1: I mean, and she doesn't have you know, she's she's
Speaker 1: here in Nashville, she doesn't have a touring base, she
Speaker 1: doesn't really have a team. And I sent her that
Speaker 1: sent Jonathan the music, and he just, uh as I did,
Speaker 1: flipped out, and and he's he's brought her on and
Speaker 1: we're we're sort of building out the team together. I mean, sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, great music just you just can't say no
Speaker 1: to it. You just have to you feel compelled to
Speaker 1: to just get behind it and start working. And so
Speaker 1: it's not but you know that the time, I would
Speaker 1: say that it's helpful if the artist does have a
Speaker 1: little bit of a momentum or some some sort of
Speaker 1: you know, uh, some sort of uh yeah, just some
Speaker 1: sort of a live business already. But it's not it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's not essential. So the lady you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you heard this music, you flipped out? Did she have
Speaker 1: any team members? Well, she now has a manager. Uh
Speaker 1: before when you heard the music, did you have any
Speaker 1: team member? She had nothing. How did you hear the music?
Speaker 1: I heard? I am friendly. I have a whole you know,
Speaker 1: group of people out there that I consider I trust
Speaker 1: their judgment um in this particular time, in this particular instance,
Speaker 1: there's a blogger named Kyle Carron who writes a blog
Speaker 1: called Saving Country Music. And um he I consider him
Speaker 1: a friend and I think he's got great, you know,
Speaker 1: great ears. And he just sent me a text one
Speaker 1: day and just said Kylie Connell and that was it.
Speaker 1: And I went on Spotify and I listened and it
Speaker 1: was just like, oh my god. And I just I
Speaker 1: asked him what her um you know like, And she
Speaker 1: had a publicist because obviously that was how he she
Speaker 1: got his radar. And so I found the publicist and
Speaker 1: and she that was the only person that she had
Speaker 1: on her team. And so then I but I asked
Speaker 1: to be put in touch with her, and then I
Speaker 1: got in touch and we just started talking and and
Speaker 1: and subsequently, uh, you know, other teammates have come on board.
Speaker 1: But I feel like she's got a it's got a
Speaker 1: very you know, good team. She's got a Adam from
Speaker 1: Mcmanagement is going to is managing her now. And then
Speaker 1: Mcmanagement is a great company, and Wasserman is a great agent.
Speaker 1: You know, we do what we do well, and you know,
Speaker 1: so it's like, okay, well here we go. Okay, you
Speaker 1: hear the music, the music is great. Do you say yes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this or you say, let me see
Speaker 1: what I can do it? Is your first call to
Speaker 1: Jonathan the agent? And how do you get the manager
Speaker 1: involved in this case? Um, well, actually the management conversation
Speaker 1: was happening. Uh, Adam had had actually discovered I didn't
Speaker 1: approach Adam about it. Adam had found her him or
Speaker 1: had found Kylie on on his his own. And but
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, but we sort of committed
Speaker 1: and then they continue to converse and and uh and
Speaker 1: then Adam subsequently, uh, you know, came on board. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, and also I'll say, I mean put
Speaker 1: his way with Kylie. I just said like, yes, we'll
Speaker 1: do this. But but again, we're you know, contingent on us,
Speaker 1: you know, because if I can't put the team together,
Speaker 1: if there can't be a robust team, then it's not
Speaker 1: going to go very well for either of us. I'm
Speaker 1: not doing any favors for her by you know, saying yes,
Speaker 1: if I can't convince other people of immense quality to
Speaker 1: come aboard, and um, and it's just not gonna work
Speaker 1: very well for for us either. And so UM, I mean,
Speaker 1: I run a business. I I feel like we have
Speaker 1: very uh equitable terms, but it is a business. I'm
Speaker 1: not an art patron, you know, Uh, necessarily so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's got to make sense for for all concerns.
Speaker 1: But but I'm a very passionate music fan and uh
Speaker 1: and her music just moved me to my core and
Speaker 1: I felt compelled to to try to move having an
Speaker 1: arts to two help put things together for you know,
Speaker 1: because I think she's going to have an incredibly bright career.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the team members, the agent, what
Speaker 1: other team members would you prefer an act come with.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they have, if they have a relationship.
Speaker 1: And this would only be for more established artists. I
Speaker 1: also pay a lot of attention to the PR person. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we're very much we think a lot in
Speaker 1: terms of narrative, you know anytime. Um, I mean, our
Speaker 1: job as marketers is to help explain to people the
Speaker 1: emotional relationship that that we think that they're going to
Speaker 1: have with the music. You know, with the art. Our
Speaker 1: job is to explain the art to the people. And
Speaker 1: that can happen through a multitude of mediums. But for
Speaker 1: most of the acts that we work with, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: press is hugely important. And even though you feel like
Speaker 1: there's a compelling story, I mean, I have a you know,
Speaker 1: shorthand for talking about some of the stuff. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: look if you if you want to be on Morning Edition,
Speaker 1: uh you they have to talk about you for six minutes.
Speaker 1: What are they going to say? You know? And and
Speaker 1: trying to sort of help an artist think about how
Speaker 1: to frame their story, um is where where it's like, well,
Speaker 1: who are you as a person and why did this
Speaker 1: artistic expression flow from you as though inevitable? You know,
Speaker 1: sort of like a Greek drama character is destiny, you know,
Speaker 1: type of thing. And when you can explain who this
Speaker 1: person is and why they're artistic expression flowed from them
Speaker 1: as though inevitable, you are painting a picture of an
Speaker 1: authentic artist. And I think people want to believe they're
Speaker 1: the artists that they uh, you know, they invite into
Speaker 1: their lives and um so getting that story right is
Speaker 1: very important. But it's also important to get the you know,
Speaker 1: a PR person who's hyper credible because you know, if
Speaker 1: you think about, like using Morning Edition as an example,
Speaker 1: if you are uh, if you're that Morning show or
Speaker 1: Morning Edition producer, uh, you have there's PR people that
Speaker 1: you trust when they call you and be like I've
Speaker 1: got I've got a great story for you to tell
Speaker 1: that comes with great music. There's certain people, you know,
Speaker 1: publicists that are going to have more credibility than you know,
Speaker 1: others who are you know, kind of more you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know people that will just you know, if somebody's
Speaker 1: going to write them a check, they'll they'll try their
Speaker 1: hardest and do their do the work, but they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the credibility that certain others will have. So
Speaker 1: it's important and and and and who will be a
Speaker 1: credible advocate differs from the you know, from from project
Speaker 1: to project. You know, we work with um, you know,
Speaker 1: Lupe Fiasco. A credible advocate for Loupe is going to
Speaker 1: be different than a credible advocate for sake Higlie, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's a very different type of music, different stories
Speaker 1: that they're that they're telling. But that's a huge component part.
Speaker 1: And sometimes artists, you know, if they have a pre
Speaker 1: existing relationship with a a publicist, that definitely factors in,
Speaker 1: because um, you know, if there's somebody that comes aboard
Speaker 1: that I don't have a lot of faith in, that
Speaker 1: factors in. But there's certain people that you know, when
Speaker 1: they come with other publicists, I'm like, oh, getty up,
Speaker 1: let's go. You know, because I've seen their work and
Speaker 1: know that when they call that morning edition producer that
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good chance that they're going to take
Speaker 1: that call and give it all due consideration. Okay, so
Speaker 1: those are two members, the agent and the PR person.
Speaker 1: What other team members are you looking for? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean management for for sure. But um but but but
Speaker 1: you know that I think I look at uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I look at you know, managers is like the conductor
Speaker 1: of the orchestra, and it's you know, in the conductor
Speaker 1: you know, has their their role. But if the if
Speaker 1: the violin players can't play and the obo obo has suck,
Speaker 1: then you know you're not gonna doesn't matter what the
Speaker 1: conductor is doing, you know. So I feel like the
Speaker 1: people that are out there, um, you know, building the
Speaker 1: you know, the touring plans and and and and being
Speaker 1: the primary advocate and the and the uh you know,
Speaker 1: the disseminator of the narrative, those are you know, to me,
Speaker 1: those are the you know, I mean it was I mean,
Speaker 1: managers are hugely important. I mean because they can call
Speaker 1: and bring other people and all that stuff. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think they're equally as important. But you know,
Speaker 1: those are those are the kind of the two things.
Speaker 1: And beyond that, I think we pretty much do everything
Speaker 1: else in internally, So um, I mean, we've got you know,
Speaker 1: great you know radio team, We've got people that work
Speaker 1: you know, one person that does nothing but in the retail.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got a you know great uh you
Speaker 1: know woman who's running our European efforts with a small
Speaker 1: team over there. You know. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of that, I think, you know, if we if
Speaker 1: we can get those things right, I think that we're
Speaker 1: pretty much on board. And what about having an attorney, Well, sure,
Speaker 1: I mean I think I think, um, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously we we encourage all of the artists to have
Speaker 1: attorneys who know what they're doing, because we don't want
Speaker 1: any surprises. I mean, our our deals are I think
Speaker 1: in the context of most recording relationships, uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they're there. I think our deals are fairly simple. But
Speaker 1: but I think it's important that that there are no surprises.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't want uh, you know, we want
Speaker 1: somebody who's got a good advocate in the legal front,
Speaker 1: because they can playing the deal, they can any questions
Speaker 1: come up. It's just uh, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like good good fences make good neighbors, well, good contracts
Speaker 1: yield good working relationships because when somebody gets surprised on
Speaker 1: down the road, it's not a pleasant experience for anyone.
Speaker 1: And so, um, yeah, so there's you know, we we
Speaker 1: um in fact, I have great um and I know
Speaker 1: that's your background too, um, but I have I have
Speaker 1: great respect for the legal profession of fact. Um. I
Speaker 1: was on course when when h when the major label
Speaker 1: world invited me to explore my destiny elsewhere and I
Speaker 1: started this company. I went back to school and go
Speaker 1: and finished my uh my undergrad degree with an emphasis
Speaker 1: on pre law. And if this company was not a
Speaker 1: going concern five years in, I was going to go
Speaker 1: to law school and become an entertainment attorney. So I
Speaker 1: love the law. I think it's you know again, that's
Speaker 1: how how we how we make it through. So but
Speaker 1: but I don't I mean, we were we worked with
Speaker 1: a ton of attorney, but I don't, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think most of the attorneys that we work with
Speaker 1: are you know, really solid, they know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: There's very very few attorneys that that you know, we
Speaker 1: I can't even think of anybody off the top of
Speaker 1: my head that where it's just kind of like if
Speaker 1: they come, if they if they're part of the discussion,
Speaker 1: that we're not going to do the deal. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I just think most attorneys are good at
Speaker 1: what they do, and you know, it's it's it's I
Speaker 1: don't really consider that a huge factor and whether we're
Speaker 1: going to do business with somebody or not. Okay, So
Speaker 1: let's just assume somebody comes with people attached two factors.
Speaker 1: You know, I certainly know managers who have fired clients
Speaker 1: because the manager wanted it more than the act. And two,
Speaker 1: there's a long history of people in this business starting
Speaker 1: off with one manager or one agent and as they
Speaker 1: gain traction, going with somebody else. So to what degree
Speaker 1: do you evaluate the desire of the act and to
Speaker 1: what degree but you say, well, you know, I know
Speaker 1: you have this person, but we really should change that person.
Speaker 1: I think if I have doubts about their person that
Speaker 1: there you know, any member of their team coming in,
Speaker 1: I probably won't, you know, do the deal. I just
Speaker 1: feel like that's not you know, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just a personal thing. It just makes me feel you know,
Speaker 1: you know, if they've got somebody that they're committed to,
Speaker 1: like if if you know, and I'm invited in, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to ever tell anybody, and I honestly I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of like times recently where I've
Speaker 1: even felt that way. Um, and I can't really feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, like, well, if they had a different manager,
Speaker 1: I do it. I'm sure it's happened, but I can't
Speaker 1: remember any any instances. But um, if I do something,
Speaker 1: then my goal is to work with that team and
Speaker 1: and and honor the honor that team. Um. And if
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, there's a you know, if
Speaker 1: if if there's something in with a manager and you know,
Speaker 1: I might it just I might not do the deal.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, I can't think of any time
Speaker 1: that that's really worked. And and honestly, most artists that
Speaker 1: we work with are you know, it's very tough to
Speaker 1: make it right now. I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 1: places too. You know, media is so fragmented that you know,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, it's like if you know, I think
Speaker 1: I think most artists have their head on straight and
Speaker 1: they're ready to work hard and and Um, and they
Speaker 1: may not know everything they need to know about about
Speaker 1: the business. But but almost everybody that we work with,
Speaker 1: I can't think of anybody that doesn't have a solid
Speaker 1: work ethic. So you talked about Kylie just to establish
Speaker 1: here she's the anomaly. Most people come to you with
Speaker 1: some sort of base, some sort of traction. Would that
Speaker 1: be accurate? Yes, I think so, Okay, every deal is unique,
Speaker 1: but what is the standard deal so to speak? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of variants in our deals. We
Speaker 1: just sort of do what we do and and kind
Speaker 1: of a rule of thought, you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: rule of thumb for us, is that you know, artists
Speaker 1: are se the gross uh you know the other you
Speaker 1: know percent uh you know uh, you know, the orchard
Speaker 1: takes their distribution fee out of it and then but
Speaker 1: you know we we between that goes to us in
Speaker 1: the orchard. And so when we set up the business,
Speaker 1: our goal was to work um ideally on no less
Speaker 1: than a ten percent gross margin and a three percent
Speaker 1: net margin. So um, but the the artist, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll get back to what they make of gross proceeds.
Speaker 1: But any advances that we give or any moneys that
Speaker 1: gets spent on their behalf comes out of that UM.
Speaker 1: And also we put it in our contracts to where uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we can only spend two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars UM a month, so that you know, for sending
Speaker 1: Bruce Warren at wor you know, w XPN a piece
Speaker 1: of vinyl on an artist or something like that, we
Speaker 1: don't have to call the manager and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we send Brusa you know, ah, you know an
Speaker 1: LP UM. You know, some of the basic blocking and tackling.
Speaker 1: We don't want to you know, get bogged down in
Speaker 1: the minute, but we also don't want to all of
Speaker 1: a sudden spring up. Well, we decided to do a
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar Facebook ad campaign surprise, you know, because
Speaker 1: the artists own this work and and the expenses come
Speaker 1: out of their sides. Where we consider it, I mean
Speaker 1: we we won't it won't be a pleasing experience if
Speaker 1: they don't feel like we're we're transparent uh and um,
Speaker 1: you know, good stewards of their financial well being. So um.
Speaker 1: But we also you know, in addition to the of
Speaker 1: what proceeds that come through the distribution channels, we allow
Speaker 1: them to keep a hundred percent of anything they sell
Speaker 1: on the road, a hundred percent of dwo C money
Speaker 1: we don't share. If somebody sells a you know, something
Speaker 1: on the road, they keep a hundred percent of it. Um.
Speaker 1: They keep a hundred percent of master use licenses for
Speaker 1: film and TV. When it comes to sound exchange money,
Speaker 1: they keep a hundred percent of both the artist and
Speaker 1: the label side of the money. I jokingly refer to
Speaker 1: us as the proud home of the sixty deal um.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, and and it works for our artists,
Speaker 1: you know, well, I mean assuming a certain level of success.
Speaker 1: You know, if they keep control over what they're doing
Speaker 1: and they can earn a living, then they're going to
Speaker 1: continue to do business with us. And I think that, um,
Speaker 1: not that everybody stays. And and I'm very zen about
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, artists have started with us and
Speaker 1: then and then gone on to other places and and
Speaker 1: uh um, And we protect ourselves if if somebody something
Speaker 1: starts to blow up and they feel like they need
Speaker 1: the resources to uh uh you know, to you know,
Speaker 1: expand the conversation, like you know, Morgan Wade. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you're familiar with Morgan, but she's you know,
Speaker 1: Sony signed her and she's looks like she's well on
Speaker 1: her way to being a significant country star. It feels
Speaker 1: that way to me. And um, but you know, Sony
Speaker 1: has a great promotion you know team, and they're they're
Speaker 1: you know, really doing a good job. But you know,
Speaker 1: so we I mean, it's not even in our purview
Speaker 1: to stop Morrigan, you know, I mean Luke Holmes was
Speaker 1: with us, you know as well, like if when it
Speaker 1: came time for them to go, they can go at
Speaker 1: their will. They we don't. We don't have anything in
Speaker 1: our contract that stops them, but we do participate with
Speaker 1: an override and so uh so we uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we can afford to be zen as long as we're
Speaker 1: protecting you know, our you know, if we built the
Speaker 1: foundation or or participated in building the foundation, then you
Speaker 1: know we deserve to and it's essential that we you know,
Speaker 1: protect ourselves financially if we're going to sustain as a business.
Speaker 1: So um, but most of our artists don't you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're there, you know, you know, the Jason Isbels
Speaker 1: and Lucinda Williams and people like that there there. You
Speaker 1: know that it's like they're there. They love owning their
Speaker 1: own business. They it's a very remunerative way for them
Speaker 1: to do business. They have control over whatever they want
Speaker 1: to do, and we are they're loving and dutiful back
Speaker 1: end staff, you know. So we encourage all all of
Speaker 1: our artists to think of themselves as their own labels.
Speaker 1: They're just partnering with us to get the the robust
Speaker 1: marketing team behind them. So let's just we make a deal.
Speaker 1: Is there a term, yes? Is it a three year term? Um?
Speaker 1: And but what we do is uh we uh and
Speaker 1: we let the basically, well, you know, let the artists
Speaker 1: terminate at at will, but we get you know, have
Speaker 1: a certain period of time that they have to do it.
Speaker 1: So basically, if if the deal just you know, if
Speaker 1: we do the three years and the artist, which is
Speaker 1: the case quite often most often almost all the time,
Speaker 1: where the artist is like, hey, this is working great,
Speaker 1: let's keep going, um, then the deal just continues. And
Speaker 1: so they can terminate once we get past three years.
Speaker 1: They can terminate, you know, at any point, given sufficient notice,
Speaker 1: so that we can do what we need to do
Speaker 1: to transfer distribution over to you know, to whoever is
Speaker 1: going to be their next home. But it also allows
Speaker 1: us not to have to like touch the contract every
Speaker 1: three years or anything like that. So so they have
Speaker 1: the freedom to terminate whenever they want, you know, and
Speaker 1: and you know, I like to come up with things
Speaker 1: where we don't have to. You know, the more we're
Speaker 1: thinking about that stuff, the less we're thinking about marketing
Speaker 1: their music and helping them make connections with fans. But
Speaker 1: you did mention an override, so hypothetically your Morgan Wade
Speaker 1: or your Luke Combs and within that three years you
Speaker 1: fly up to a Sony Universal Warner. Your override is
Speaker 1: for what projects? Let's say they put one record out,
Speaker 1: they could put three records out, and is there a
Speaker 1: sunset they The override is just for the project that
Speaker 1: we participated in. So we have participation in Luke holmbs
Speaker 1: first album, but we don't have it on anything else.
Speaker 1: Um and um and and it the override runs into perpetuity.
Speaker 1: So um. So that's how that works. How do you
Speaker 1: know so much about business? You're talking about the margins
Speaker 1: gross margins net margins. You picked that up along the way.
Speaker 1: Do you have a background in this? I just I
Speaker 1: you know, I have a very systems oriented brain, you know.
Speaker 1: I love I love puzzles. I love um thinking about
Speaker 1: how things fit together, and I do. I don't read
Speaker 1: a ton of business books, but you know, but I have.
Speaker 1: You know, I've read books along the way that have
Speaker 1: really had a big impact. And to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: one of the big books that UM had a big
Speaker 1: impact on me with Sam Walton's Made in America, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because he you know, when he went out there,
Speaker 1: he had this lowest price every day uh philosophy, And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of critics that were UM going like,
Speaker 1: people can't possibly stay in business selling goods you know,
Speaker 1: that cheap, and so the idea always stuck with me.
Speaker 1: Uh you know. I mean I worked for major labels
Speaker 1: from the time it was twenty one two, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty five or thirty six, and even though I have
Speaker 1: no issues, I don't think there's I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: for the amount of money that they you know, they
Speaker 1: spend some times in in promoting their artists and building
Speaker 1: every think I've got no I have no ethical qualms
Speaker 1: about a major label deal whatsoever. I think everybody has
Speaker 1: the right to say, you know, I'm going to take
Speaker 1: this risk and I'm going to insist on this kind
Speaker 1: of reward. I think in in what I was trying
Speaker 1: to do was to um give artists an option where
Speaker 1: we really thought about ringing all the inefficiencies out of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what Sam Walton did, was you know,
Speaker 1: he looked at supply chain issues. He looked at a
Speaker 1: number of issues and and found a lot of inefficiencies
Speaker 1: in the UM in the chain. And and so he
Speaker 1: in ringing out those inefficiencies, was able to pass the
Speaker 1: price savings onto his customers. Well, my customers are artists,
Speaker 1: and so if we can you know, think about how
Speaker 1: to on things more efficiently so that artists can earn
Speaker 1: more money than they're going to continue to shop in
Speaker 1: our store. And that's really you know, one of the
Speaker 1: you know, animating philosophies about you know, what we do.
Speaker 1: But you know, also like Jim Collins is good, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of the basics, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the the you know, the big books, you know,
Speaker 1: the seven Habits of highly successful people had a big
Speaker 1: impact on me. Jim Collins Good too Great had a
Speaker 1: big impact on me. Uh. Patrick Lyncon's five Dysfunctions of
Speaker 1: Team had a big impact on me. UM and you know,
Speaker 1: help shape a lot of our you know, philosophies, but
Speaker 1: really the core you know, another of the core philosophies
Speaker 1: is that I tell my staff all this all the time,
Speaker 1: is that you know, the artist is the central uh
Speaker 1: thing of value. You know, That's the only thing I
Speaker 1: tell my staff all the time. No one ever bought
Speaker 1: a thirty Tigers record. They have, however, bought a Jason
Speaker 1: Nisble record and the artist. You know, that implies that
Speaker 1: the artists should have more leverage in uh, in these negotiations.
Speaker 1: But I think that there haven't been many. There wasn't
Speaker 1: a big variation in the structures that you know allowed
Speaker 1: them to take their their music to market. And and
Speaker 1: so my goal was to try to build you know,
Speaker 1: something that would you know, allow artists again. Like I
Speaker 1: grew up, as you know, came up in the music
Speaker 1: business as a salesman. I used to go sell you know,
Speaker 1: Alan Jackson and Brooks and Doune records to Walmart you know,
Speaker 1: and to you know Hastings and you know, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: so I understand that you know, sales is the the
Speaker 1: removal of all impediments to it. Yes, And so you know,
Speaker 1: when I think about uh, you know, our artists and
Speaker 1: like what is it that's going to get them to
Speaker 1: say yes to doing business with me or thirty tigers
Speaker 1: us um, you know, like ownership of the master if
Speaker 1: we if we uh allow them to own it, but
Speaker 1: we create an environment where they want to stick around
Speaker 1: and as long as I can get the margin that
Speaker 1: we need to run a sustainable business. Is you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very spiritual thing for an artist. They created
Speaker 1: this work, It came from inside of them and and
Speaker 1: to all you know, and again sometimes it's an entirely
Speaker 1: appropriate business decision to give up ownership of that work
Speaker 1: in order to get the support they need. The records
Speaker 1: aren't the only way that they monetize their career. There's
Speaker 1: publishing revenue, there's live you know, touring revenue. And it
Speaker 1: can be the sane as decision and ever you know,
Speaker 1: an artist ever makes to be uh you know, to
Speaker 1: enter into a major label type of deal. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of artists that you know, like we work
Speaker 1: with Lucinda Williams. Why does she need to do that?
Speaker 1: You know the value of her work is the you
Speaker 1: know sort of intrinsic financial value of of of her work. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a sustainable thing if we can give
Speaker 1: her enough revenue to go and record and to publicize
Speaker 1: and do all that stuff. Like the the monetary value
Speaker 1: of what her work earns um is much higher than
Speaker 1: the input costs of what what she's doing. And so
Speaker 1: why should she not have an option that allows her
Speaker 1: to be able to do that and and and keep
Speaker 1: that that excess value. So let's assume you have an
Speaker 1: act you want to work with, if they have a team,
Speaker 1: you're making a deal. Do the acts usually come to
Speaker 1: you with a finished record? Do they not come with
Speaker 1: a finished record? Do you advance so they can record
Speaker 1: the record? What's your schedule in terms of the music
Speaker 1: being done and how much you know marketing before the
Speaker 1: album comes out? What's what's the timeline of all this? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends. I would say that in terms of the
Speaker 1: time constraints up front, there's there longer now than they've
Speaker 1: ever been because, uh well, two main factors. One is
Speaker 1: is frankly, vinyl production. A lot of our artists, most
Speaker 1: of our artists, um, Vinyl is very important to what
Speaker 1: they do for a couple of reasons. One is that,
Speaker 1: uh well, it's just a growing configuration. Think during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were stuck at home and they
Speaker 1: you know, wanted to find ways to entertain themselves at home.
Speaker 1: And they've been hearing about this this you know up
Speaker 1: surgeon and vinyl, and and to be able to have
Speaker 1: a piece of uh, you know, art that they could
Speaker 1: you know, where they had the tangible artifact and they
Speaker 1: could open up the gatefold and read lyrics and and
Speaker 1: and all that. It was you know, I think it
Speaker 1: was a you know, an important thing during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And we saw sales just surge on vinyl. We went
Speaker 1: from I think we did two thousand units in vinyl
Speaker 1: in ten and then last year we did over eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, So we've almost tripled our our vinyl uh
Speaker 1: you know sales during that time. But the other reason
Speaker 1: why vinyl is important to us is we place, probably
Speaker 1: more than any company I know, placed an inordinate amount
Speaker 1: of emphasis on indie retail because, um, you know, we
Speaker 1: look at them as a medium as much as it
Speaker 1: is a point of sale. If you're here in I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to you from Nashville, and and you know,
Speaker 1: we have the legendary you know, Grimes records here and
Speaker 1: if you if you give a shit about good music
Speaker 1: and you live in Nashville, you shop at Grimes, You're
Speaker 1: probably on their social media feeds. Like that's just part
Speaker 1: of of of the of the media mix. And if
Speaker 1: you don't have vinal for them to sell, uh, then
Speaker 1: they can't participate as you know, your your press persons
Speaker 1: going out and getting you know, uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: know that morning edition piece and and and a radio
Speaker 1: team is getting you on appropriate radio stations. If if
Speaker 1: you're the type of artists that where you know, indie
Speaker 1: retail is an important factor, you're you're leaving them out
Speaker 1: of the conversation. And social media is a huge part
Speaker 1: of how people, you know, accumulate those impressions to to
Speaker 1: be able to make the decision to purchase. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about the last book that
Speaker 1: you bought or the last movie that you want to see,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the first decision, you know, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: the first time you heard about it. Really you're like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about the show Search Party. I
Speaker 1: was very late to the Search Party, but I love
Speaker 1: that show and it was just an accumulation. I heard
Speaker 1: some people talk about it. I knew Bow and Yang
Speaker 1: was a fan and I really like his work, and
Speaker 1: it was just like an accumulation of impressions. And for
Speaker 1: music fans, you know, like in Nashville, Grimey's is like
Speaker 1: their Facebook feed, their Twitter feed, all that stuff. That's
Speaker 1: an important way to communicate. And if you don't include
Speaker 1: them or you don't have vinyl ready when street date happens,
Speaker 1: then you're you're missing an important taste maker, uh, participant
Speaker 1: in the in the conversation. And so so you know,
Speaker 1: you know, lead times can be uh, well they're you know,
Speaker 1: seven eight months now, you know, and so if you
Speaker 1: you can't just sort of be like, hey, I rolled
Speaker 1: out of the studio and like let's go uh you know,
Speaker 1: let's put it up there, it's just not going to
Speaker 1: go as well as it should. I mean, there's certain
Speaker 1: types of music where vinyl isn't quite as important or
Speaker 1: certain you know genre was you know, we we work with,
Speaker 1: you know, the gospel artist Marvin Sapp and you know,
Speaker 1: he's not making vinyl and uh and that probably makes
Speaker 1: sense because vinyl isn't a big issue there and and
Speaker 1: indie retail is not going to be a big factor
Speaker 1: in what he does. Um, so you know, we addressed
Speaker 1: and and and you know, we just look at the artist,
Speaker 1: but the vast majority of our artists are. Vinyl is
Speaker 1: a hugely important thing, you know, for for you know,
Speaker 1: and and also if you're gonna spend with sales being
Speaker 1: as big as they are, if you're going to invest
Speaker 1: the money in a in a great pr person and
Speaker 1: do all the stuff, and you don't have vinyl there,
Speaker 1: like if it's three months late, you know, the conversation
Speaker 1: is largely you know, like journalists are moving on, they're
Speaker 1: talking about other things. You may get your core fans,
Speaker 1: but the general you know public, if they're vinyl, you know,
Speaker 1: buying people in in in your it's not available, you know,
Speaker 1: then you're you're they're not going to become a fan.
Speaker 1: I mean, I done a little bit of looking around
Speaker 1: on that. I feel like if you missed by three
Speaker 1: or four months, it could affect your overall vinyl, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of what you're going to sell long term.
Speaker 1: By like fift you're just taking money off the table.
Speaker 1: So we insist as much as we can. And she
Speaker 1: had happened sometimes and you know, things happen and and
Speaker 1: but you know, but it's a it's a big priority
Speaker 1: for us to have vinyl on street days. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: stay with the vinyl for a second. Sure, since you
Speaker 1: do not almost a million units a year, do you
Speaker 1: reserve time and the pressing plants and then just insert
Speaker 1: the acts as they come along? Absolutely? Yeah. We have
Speaker 1: a woman who is a an absolute maestro at organizing
Speaker 1: all that. Her name is Mickey Windham, and she uh
Speaker 1: came out of Kindercore, which is a vinyl pressing plan
Speaker 1: out of Athens. She understands the the process inside and out,
Speaker 1: and she communicates with all these all these uh manufacturers,
Speaker 1: and she we you know, yeah, we definitely reserved space
Speaker 1: and and and and move the you know, move the
Speaker 1: parts around and all that. So how do you come
Speaker 1: up with the vinyl number? And two? What is the
Speaker 1: breakdown between retail and merch sales at the show? And
Speaker 1: I would assume just like you don't charge for c
Speaker 1: D s or anything else that show, you wouldn't charge
Speaker 1: for vinyl either. We don't, you know, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, I don't know what the percentage breakdown is
Speaker 1: between what we do and um and what the artist does.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's different. But because they don't report those
Speaker 1: to us, I mean, and you know, and we make
Speaker 1: sure that they get set up to you know, report
Speaker 1: their sales through at venue or whatever, so that you know,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff accumulates. But you know, we don't
Speaker 1: have any financial interest in what they sell on the road,
Speaker 1: and so we don't really you know, we don't really know.
Speaker 1: But you know, it can it can differ. But it's
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of artists between their deep their
Speaker 1: websites and on the road, they sell a significant amount
Speaker 1: of vinyl. And uh, you know, so but it's yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't, to be honest, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the percentages. Okay, So how do you decide
Speaker 1: how much vinyl to produce? Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's an established artists, you know, we have a
Speaker 1: track record of what they're gonna do and and um
Speaker 1: and we also uh you know, we'll we'll also um
Speaker 1: just you know, I don't. We just use our experience
Speaker 1: to try to you know, make the best guests we can.
Speaker 1: I mean, so and most of the time I think
Speaker 1: we get it fairly right, and sometimes we get it
Speaker 1: wrong and we're playing catch up and and you know,
Speaker 1: we but we just do the you know, the best
Speaker 1: that we can. But for artists that have a history, um,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good you can you can you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty easy to guess. And so and sometimes
Speaker 1: we have acts that just you know, bust loose. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think about Tyler Childer's in his Purgatory record. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know we're over you know, that's a platinum record now,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, it was like and that thing
Speaker 1: exploded quickly and we were playing catch up, like we
Speaker 1: were just scrambling the whole you know, it felt like
Speaker 1: the whole time just to keep up with the with
Speaker 1: the demand. And uh so, you know, we just do
Speaker 1: do the best that we can. But if it's if
Speaker 1: it's a new like like Kylie for instance, we'll probably
Speaker 1: start off with like a reasonable amount, like a thousand
Speaker 1: and and if we're if things explode, we're going to
Speaker 1: be in the in the same situation like Tyler Childer's
Speaker 1: and playing catch up. But you know, we just try
Speaker 1: to make the best decisions we can and honestly with
Speaker 1: the you know, with a FIRMI on the artist, because
Speaker 1: if if we overshoot the mark and an artist is
Speaker 1: paying Uh. You know, you know, we make a thousand
Speaker 1: too many and they're sitting they're sitting in somebody's basement
Speaker 1: and and you know, all of a sudden, they've spent
Speaker 1: five or six thousand dollars. That isn't uh you know,
Speaker 1: I mean five or six thousand dollars for an indie artist.
Speaker 1: That can make a big difference. So we just we
Speaker 1: just do the best that we can. Okay, But when
Speaker 1: you sell the retail, you sell it one way right correct,
Speaker 1: can't come back no, Okay, So let's go back to
Speaker 1: the timeline. You're we're working with an act. Hey, do
Speaker 1: you advance him any money to make the record? Into
Speaker 1: what degree do you get involved with scheduling with the act?
Speaker 1: We do advance the money, I'd say almost all the time.
Speaker 1: Um sometimes uh, sometimes they show up with a record
Speaker 1: that's completely nished, and and you know when they do that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll we'll go through it like a profit
Speaker 1: loss estimate. We'll go through that with like the management
Speaker 1: team and sometimes the business manager, and and we'll put
Speaker 1: all the cost inputs, like if you know we're gonna
Speaker 1: hire this publicist, it's going to cost X. If we're
Speaker 1: going to press a certain amount of violence going to
Speaker 1: cost y and we just sort of add all that
Speaker 1: up and UM, and so we try we try to
Speaker 1: cover all the out of pocket costs that we can
Speaker 1: so that it's it's I mean, honestly like we'll get
Speaker 1: we'll give the biggest advance that we can possibly give
Speaker 1: without feeling like we're digging a hole that we can't
Speaker 1: climb out of. Um. You're working on the thin margins
Speaker 1: that we work on. You know, we just we have
Speaker 1: to be you know, we just have to be a
Speaker 1: little bit careful. But twenty years of doing this, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty good barometer on on where those
Speaker 1: you know, how how to measure risk and um. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, we're we're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to cover all the costs and and if and if
Speaker 1: we say like okay, well something's gonna call to do
Speaker 1: the job right, it's gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars UM,
Speaker 1: but we only feel comfortable with seventy five dollars worth
Speaker 1: of risk. If the act wants to own their work
Speaker 1: and have this asset, they're going to have to figure
Speaker 1: out how to how to cover the remaining thousand dollars
Speaker 1: worth of costs. So let's assume just to make the
Speaker 1: numbers round, you advance a hundred k. Then the then
Speaker 1: it goes, do you take the hundred k off the top? Yes,
Speaker 1: so you re earn the you know, you collect a
Speaker 1: hundred k and then it's okay, it will go But
Speaker 1: well hold on, let me clarify. One thing is that
Speaker 1: you know with with our deal, that hundred thousand comes
Speaker 1: out of their seventy five. So we're we're earning from
Speaker 1: record one. Uh it's important. Yes, that's an important you
Speaker 1: know distinction. So um, so that hundred thousand will come
Speaker 1: out of their sevent and we will collect all of
Speaker 1: that before the split happens. However, remember that the artist
Speaker 1: is collecting all the sound exchange money from both the
Speaker 1: artists and label side from day one. We that never
Speaker 1: comes through us, you know, all anything that they want
Speaker 1: to do if they want to come up with something
Speaker 1: through their website and and you know, do some sort
Speaker 1: of a special thing where they're going to sell two
Speaker 1: thousand pieces of vinyl and it's going to be autographed
Speaker 1: or whatever they get of that. So it's not like
Speaker 1: they have to recoup to start monetizing their you know,
Speaker 1: their record. But it's just we need to fill in
Speaker 1: the hole before split occurs. Okay, so we're gonna go.
Speaker 1: Let's assume I come with a finished record, and let's
Speaker 1: leave the vinyl part out of the equation. How much
Speaker 1: lead time do you want before release date? What do
Speaker 1: you plan to do before release date? For the most part,
Speaker 1: we're scheduling probably no less than nine months and ideally
Speaker 1: a year ahead of time. Um, you know partly you
Speaker 1: know this, you know, those are just the lead times
Speaker 1: that we're working on and and and again there's always
Speaker 1: exceptions to that rule. But that's that's you know, primarily
Speaker 1: the thing. But but but you know, during that say
Speaker 1: nine months period, you know, we're encouraging the artists to
Speaker 1: you know, work on you know, uh, you know, creating content. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the publicist is on on board. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're sort of seating the conversation. Um, you know
Speaker 1: where uh, you know, the three months out, you know,
Speaker 1: they may make the album announcement, they'll do a video premiere,
Speaker 1: you know, to to launch it. I mean, we're doing
Speaker 1: things to start the conversation before street date. You know,
Speaker 1: the street date is is the the time. I mean
Speaker 1: the press, the press journalists treat the album releases, the
Speaker 1: inciting events in the narrative and so um, so everything
Speaker 1: is leading up to that. But also we don't you know,
Speaker 1: we don't. It's not going to work very well if
Speaker 1: you just sort of like, you know, try to try
Speaker 1: to have a have a robust conversation about it without
Speaker 1: of you know, helping lead people you know to it.
Speaker 1: So so so we are doing work and very public
Speaker 1: facing work with the whole team prior to the album
Speaker 1: coming out and the but the other thing too is
Speaker 1: you know, we we're gonna be working with um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be working with artists to try to help uh,
Speaker 1: you know, get things. I'm gonna get into the team
Speaker 1: and like we're not doing anything like we were working
Speaker 1: with another new artist named Drayton Farley. He's from Alabama. UM,
Speaker 1: and uh again we were kind of the you know,
Speaker 1: probably the first one to the to the party there.
Speaker 1: But you know, uh, you know, Brian Greenbaum and his
Speaker 1: team at CIA or on board to book, Kyle Lenski manages,
Speaker 1: Ryan Bingham came on to manage UM and you know,
Speaker 1: the album hasn't even been recorded. He's going to record
Speaker 1: with Sadler Baden who produced the Morgan Wade record and
Speaker 1: is in Jason Isbel's band, who's a great producer, and um,
Speaker 1: they're recording in in May. And but Drayton has it
Speaker 1: record that's out on that he put out on his
Speaker 1: own that we're not involved with. It's you know that's
Speaker 1: out there, but um, you know, he's out there opening
Speaker 1: dates for Charlie Crockett. He's out there opening dates for
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson like he's he's out there building an audience,
Speaker 1: and we're you know, having the conversation and you know,
Speaker 1: but obviously c A is doing that, not us, but
Speaker 1: but it's just part of the team. We're just built
Speaker 1: building uh awareness And by the time that record comes out,
Speaker 1: hopefully a lot of people will have we'll know Drayton
Speaker 1: will have seen him live. You know, they will have
Speaker 1: already developed a relationship. The relationship won't be sort of
Speaker 1: brand new when the when the album streets. So there's sales,
Speaker 1: it's part of distribution. There's marketing, and there's coordination. So
Speaker 1: let's assume you have a reasonable team who is quarterbacking
Speaker 1: like policeman of publicity and tour dates. Are you pretty
Speaker 1: hands off on that? Are you saying, way, I'm coordinating
Speaker 1: all this and we gotta line everything up well when
Speaker 1: it comes to touring. Uh. Yeah, we're not really involved
Speaker 1: in that much in tour marketing. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why the agent is so important.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, you know I think about like, you know,
Speaker 1: Drayton being with CIA. They've got a great tour marketing uh,
Speaker 1: you know, effort and they're working with the promoters. It's
Speaker 1: just you know, we'll do our part. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked to the radio stations, so um, you know, if
Speaker 1: if Drayton is going to be in town in a
Speaker 1: particular town and we can start startup. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: not at the point where anybody's probably gonna want to
Speaker 1: put him on the air to interview him because nobody
Speaker 1: knows who he is. But you know, we can try
Speaker 1: to do whatever we can do to help that. But
Speaker 1: we're not taking responsibility for for tour marketing. It's just,
Speaker 1: you know, we we need other teammates to do that,
Speaker 1: which again was why working with a great agent is
Speaker 1: hugely important. And what about PR and the manager? How
Speaker 1: often are you in contact with them, you know, when
Speaker 1: you have a hot project coming along the line. Oh often,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely very active because I'm the probably the if
Speaker 1: narrative junkie, you know, when it comes to I, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's important for for Lee and I to understand
Speaker 1: the story that's gonna be told. If we don't know
Speaker 1: what the story is and why that how that six
Speaker 1: minute we can't hear the six minute morning Edition piece
Speaker 1: in our own heads, Um, then we're not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to understand how to how to converse about this artist
Speaker 1: work out in the world and so um, and it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, more important and I think appropriate for
Speaker 1: us to be the ones to try to if they
Speaker 1: don't already have a PR person on board, if you know,
Speaker 1: for us to try to help connect them with the
Speaker 1: right people to be that credible advocate. Then um, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm personally very involved in all the discussions that
Speaker 1: happen with PR because that's just a it's just a
Speaker 1: found fundamental principle for me that you've got to get them,
Speaker 1: you got you gotta get the storytelling right. Okay. So
Speaker 1: there's distribution in sales, there's radio, and there's marketing. What
Speaker 1: falls under the head of marketing. What does thirty Tigers
Speaker 1: do well, you know, any any any number of things.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're will advise on on sort of
Speaker 1: social media content, but we don't, um you know, we
Speaker 1: feel like that's the artist's authentic voice, so we don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it really works particularly well. Some labels
Speaker 1: will take over social media. Um, and sometimes artists want
Speaker 1: to have other companies come in and and do that
Speaker 1: and help them keep a consistent voice and a consistent
Speaker 1: flow of communication. But we don't do that uh internally,
Speaker 1: you know, like with the publicists. You know, there are
Speaker 1: companies out there that help do that. We work with
Speaker 1: those companies, but that's kind of up to the artist
Speaker 1: and their and their management as to whether or not
Speaker 1: they want to do that or not. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we will put advertising plans together uh for um, you know,
Speaker 1: for for you know, for you know, to will run
Speaker 1: Instagram campaigns and things like that. You know, kind of
Speaker 1: the standard uh you know advertising. Plus you know, we're
Speaker 1: just we're always uh you know, out out there looking
Speaker 1: for um, you know, appropriate ways to to you know,
Speaker 1: uh you know, make connections. Um, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: I'd say, like brand marketing isn't our you know, we're
Speaker 1: not like super strong. We have relationships out there and
Speaker 1: so you know, like we'll you know, do some things
Speaker 1: with Yettie from time to time and you know, and
Speaker 1: uh um and you know and that. But it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're we're you know, we we try
Speaker 1: to help, uh, you know, manage the real you know,
Speaker 1: like David Ogilvie, who's the kind of the dean of
Speaker 1: modern advertising, he was like the you know, one of
Speaker 1: the founders of Ogilvie and Matther. He used to argue
Speaker 1: that it takes seven impressions before you make the you know,
Speaker 1: anybody knows what it is that you're talking about, and
Speaker 1: so we look at editorial, you know, like editorial in
Speaker 1: our minds has to be one through four. If you're
Speaker 1: advertising something and nobody knows what it is, then they're
Speaker 1: not going to buy it. I mean I think about
Speaker 1: you know, I drive around Nashville, and you know, I
Speaker 1: see some poor act who thinks that like buying a
Speaker 1: billboard on Broadway is going to be there like that
Speaker 1: somehow that's gonna matter. But if like you've never heard
Speaker 1: of that person, you don't know what that you know,
Speaker 1: who that is, You're not going to go you know
Speaker 1: by their record. You know, it has to be editorially driven.
Speaker 1: So my dictate to my staff is, you know, impressions
Speaker 1: one through four half to be um editorially driven. Five
Speaker 1: through seven have to be you know that then that
Speaker 1: can be advertising. And we try really hard to UM
Speaker 1: got talking about NPR a lot, but you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you just use these as shortcause I try to encourage
Speaker 1: my staff to think about sort of how people live
Speaker 1: and how they consume. And like, you know, I talk
Speaker 1: about like somebody driving to to work and hearing that
Speaker 1: morning edition piece and you know, you think about their day.
Speaker 1: You know, they hear it on their way to work.
Speaker 1: Then they get to work. They've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: ship going on at work. Uh, they come home at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know, they have dinner
Speaker 1: with their family, they might watch some TV shows, and
Speaker 1: that thing that they heard that moved them, you know
Speaker 1: in the morning is a is a is a bit
Speaker 1: of a distant memory. So it's important for us to
Speaker 1: through targeting advertising. Uh, you know, like if if we
Speaker 1: can you know, have a uh an ad in their
Speaker 1: Facebook feed to say like, you know, you know, when
Speaker 1: we try to target like in that instance, uh, self
Speaker 1: identified NPR you know, fans and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So if we can have something hit their Facebook feed
Speaker 1: to say like, hey, artist X, you know you you
Speaker 1: heard the you know, you know, like you heard the
Speaker 1: Sturgil Simpson thing, or you know earlier in the day,
Speaker 1: click here to hear the thing, or click here to
Speaker 1: buy the record, whatever the messaging is. What we're trying
Speaker 1: to do is build those seven impressions, but really try
Speaker 1: to work with with the acts budget and spend their
Speaker 1: money smart so that we're reinforcing editorially driven impressions. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just talk about advertising, talk about the mix with
Speaker 1: print radio online and explain how you do online. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't do exclusively online, uh, but that's probably percent
Speaker 1: of it. I mean we you know, if we do
Speaker 1: uh you know, if we do things like I I
Speaker 1: you know, listen to the episode that you did with
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Rappino and you know he talked about that.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's there's certain acts that we're it's
Speaker 1: kind of appropriate, but for the most part, you can
Speaker 1: target so succinctly. UM. Online where is is those other
Speaker 1: mediums are a little bit scatter shot. But um, but
Speaker 1: you know, but but again the artists like we worked
Speaker 1: with Charlie Crockett and one thing that Charlie and it's
Speaker 1: hard with the success he's having, it's hard to argue
Speaker 1: against that. But he places a lot of um, a
Speaker 1: lot of emphasis on on outdoor like billboards, you know,
Speaker 1: he does in key markets and you know, and um
Speaker 1: and so we you know, we uh we carry that
Speaker 1: forth for him, and and and again hard to argue
Speaker 1: with the with the results, you know. And uh so
Speaker 1: but I'd say what we do is online because of
Speaker 1: the same thing that you know that he was talking
Speaker 1: about before, the the ability to target is more efficient. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how do you decide what's a reasonable spending? Where
Speaker 1: do you spend it? Well, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: same places that people spend. I mean, we we have
Speaker 1: a two person team who does all that and and
Speaker 1: uh this, uh you know, our guy who oversees that.
Speaker 1: His name is Garrett Carty and he came out of
Speaker 1: uh Corporate America and uh you know he's he's he's
Speaker 1: got a much better sense of that, uh, you know
Speaker 1: than I do. You know, honestly, like we we just
Speaker 1: depend on him. I mean, you know, they look at
Speaker 1: you know, they'll run ads, they'll they'll monitor how they're
Speaker 1: how they're working or not working. If something's not connecting, well,
Speaker 1: you know, will ramp it down, maybe change our messaging
Speaker 1: or change our approach. But you know, I think you know,
Speaker 1: we just used this. You know, we go we're people
Speaker 1: are so you know Instagram, Facebook, you know, etcetera, and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know we're not you know, and you
Speaker 1: know and occasionally, uh, you know the things like we're
Speaker 1: a lot of our acts aren't necessarily like you know,
Speaker 1: TikTok uh you know, uh, you know, artists, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, but we'll look at it at any medium
Speaker 1: that we think is um is appropriateing. But Garrett Is
Speaker 1: is definitely our maestro when it comes to that. He'll
Speaker 1: he'll know what a lot more about it than than
Speaker 1: I do. So I depend on my staff to do.
Speaker 1: Let's let's switch to radio. Major labels putting out fewer acts,
Speaker 1: fewer records than ever before. They tend to promote everything
Speaker 1: they go in. Let's say, with five records, they don't
Speaker 1: say this is great. You want to play this this
Speaker 1: one You'll never play it. So, you know, there's issues
Speaker 1: of credibility. To what degree do you work radio for
Speaker 1: your acts and how do you do it? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: we have to to very see eas and great radio
Speaker 1: promotion people. Um. Uh Lindsay Reid, who uh is our
Speaker 1: person who does triple A an Americana. Um, great promotion
Speaker 1: person one you know at the at the Bowlder conference. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know two years ago he won Promotion Person Indie
Speaker 1: Promotion Person of the Year. Last year we won Indie label.
Speaker 1: It was you know, because of his work um uh
Speaker 1: and his advocacy for our our artists. Um. In addition
Speaker 1: to the quality of work our artists are producing, of course.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, we we place a lot of
Speaker 1: importance on on that. I mean, you know, it's uh,
Speaker 1: um you know, I you know, I tend to you know,
Speaker 1: like I'll go to the noncom conference in Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: you know, shake hands and slapbacks and and try to
Speaker 1: build relationships to show those you know, promotion people. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's you know, I like these people, and
Speaker 1: and and secondly, you know, if if I'm showing up,
Speaker 1: it shows that we you know, really care about their
Speaker 1: contributions to you know, to to you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to what they're doing. And uh we uh recently brought
Speaker 1: on Mike di Pippa, who was a season guy who
Speaker 1: was a senior VP uh for like rock and alternative
Speaker 1: at um at At Island f JAM and then he
Speaker 1: was with Republican Elector before that, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: great in those genres and and so if if you know,
Speaker 1: in Mike's world, it takes probably more of a team, lindsay,
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll bring on maybe an independent. Maybe we
Speaker 1: won't in the Triple A and Americana world, but for
Speaker 1: you know, if we're taking something to uh either rock
Speaker 1: or alternative, we'll you know, need to tap into you know,
Speaker 1: to teams. So we'll either add independence a lot of
Speaker 1: times will work with the Orchards in house team that's
Speaker 1: under Danny Bush. Really it just depends on record by record.
Speaker 1: But we you know, we have ways if we need
Speaker 1: a team, we have ways to access a team. If
Speaker 1: we uh don't need to spend an artist money on
Speaker 1: on a team that and we can handle it internally,
Speaker 1: then we handle it internally. But but but we we radios,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, radio is hugely important. Are there
Speaker 1: some records you put out where you don't go to radio? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I you know, I think no, I mean I can't well,
Speaker 1: I can't think of any uh. I mean it feels
Speaker 1: like they're there, you know there there there must be,
Speaker 1: but I feel like, um, you know, even projects that like,
Speaker 1: I mean we you know, I'll go to Folk Alliance
Speaker 1: every year. You know, we have we you know, we
Speaker 1: have projects that um, you know that are are but
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll go to the Folk DJ Reception
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. And and Lindsay works
Speaker 1: you know that market too. So you know, I think
Speaker 1: there's for almost all that I can't think of an
Speaker 1: act that doesn't fit somewhere at radio. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of you know, is it a big commercial format
Speaker 1: or is it more of a niche thing like uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like uh, you know the folk panel. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, if if if there's any relevance anywhere,
Speaker 1: we try to make sure that we come up with
Speaker 1: a plan to you know, to introduce that music and
Speaker 1: advocate for our artists. Um. And and also there's certain
Speaker 1: types of music like you'll not see any straight pop
Speaker 1: acts you know on our roster. I mean, we're starting
Speaker 1: to sort of creep creep into that a little bit,
Speaker 1: but just you know, but heretofore, you know, not yet.
Speaker 1: It's really might with Might pivot being on board, it
Speaker 1: feels like we can we can now we have somebody
Speaker 1: who knows how that is done, and so you know,
Speaker 1: so we might sort of creep into that, but heretofore,
Speaker 1: you know, we we haven't done that because we just
Speaker 1: didn't have the relationships and the knowledge about how all
Speaker 1: that worked and where all the bodies are baring. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just like you've got to have somebody who can
Speaker 1: who can deliver a roadmap. So if if you know,
Speaker 1: even though if there's a style of music where it
Speaker 1: depends on radio and we're just not uh the right,
Speaker 1: if it's like we don't know how to how to
Speaker 1: connect the dots, that we're not going to take it on.
Speaker 1: We're not doing anybody any favors if we're you know,
Speaker 1: sucking their ship up. So let's pull the lens back.
Speaker 1: What moves the needle? What we do know certainly since
Speaker 1: the internet error, will just call it the year two thousand.
Speaker 1: Everything shifted used to be you wanted on beyond late
Speaker 1: night TV. It worked now people say basically s n
Speaker 1: L and CBS Sunday Morning, And of course radio is
Speaker 1: less of the pie than it used to be. And
Speaker 1: of course we have online. We even have some print
Speaker 1: in terms of stories we established earlier. You want seven impressions,
Speaker 1: but really, what's the hierarchy of power and what really works?
Speaker 1: You know? I think you know the things that you
Speaker 1: you know, talked about. I mean, you know, we've been
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have people on CBS Sunday Morning. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had uh you know, like like Anthony
Speaker 1: Mason is a big fan of the type of music
Speaker 1: that we do a lot, and even when they don't
Speaker 1: show up on CBS Sunday Morning, he'll have them on
Speaker 1: CBS This Morning or CBS Saturday Morning. And you know
Speaker 1: that has an impact. Um, you know it's but before
Speaker 1: you go beyond that, does any other TV have an impact?
Speaker 1: Do you say, oh, I want to get you on
Speaker 1: Fallon and Kimmel or do you say that's just not
Speaker 1: moving the needle? Now? You know, I mean honestly, if
Speaker 1: if if, if you never know, I mean sometimes artists
Speaker 1: go on there and you don't really see much of
Speaker 1: an impact. But this wasn't our record. But I think
Speaker 1: about Nathaniel rate Lift and his fallon performance that lit
Speaker 1: the fuse for everything that's happened with that guy, and
Speaker 1: deservely so. He's an awesome artist. But you just never know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you must be present to win, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like if somebody wants to help you tell the story.
Speaker 1: And and again you have to, you know, weigh the
Speaker 1: cost of everything. It's not an inexpensive thing to get
Speaker 1: an artist in their band out there um to be
Speaker 1: able to do that stuff. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: if you believe in your artist and you believe in
Speaker 1: the music, you know, you hope that something happens like
Speaker 1: happens with Nathaniel rate Lift, you know, because you believe
Speaker 1: in the story that you're telling, and you know so
Speaker 1: we will will never pull up short in in those opportunities,
Speaker 1: you know. And and again, I think it just has
Speaker 1: to do with the diffusion of media. Um, there's just
Speaker 1: more places to be seen and heard, so therefore there's
Speaker 1: less eyeballs on any particular medium. And but you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's such a you know, it is such
Speaker 1: a crowded marketplace. To try to uh make an impact
Speaker 1: that if if Jimmy Kimmel wants to put one of
Speaker 1: our artists on, We're gonna show up and we'll write
Speaker 1: the check to make sure that that happens. And you
Speaker 1: just never know and so uh so we we we will,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I'm yeah, I'm a big proponent
Speaker 1: of like must be present to win. So uh you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: what about print, I'm not I'm telling about print editorial
Speaker 1: to what degree is that? I mean hugely important? Fifty
Speaker 1: years ago it was everything, but what is it today?
Speaker 1: It's it's it's hugely important. But I'd say I differentiate
Speaker 1: between um, long form narrative and just sort of like
Speaker 1: you know, reviews. I I again, you know, thinking about
Speaker 1: the revelation of the artist and who they are, uh
Speaker 1: and and why their art flows from them, as though
Speaker 1: inevitable that the explanation of that really only happens in
Speaker 1: long form narrative pieces, and so um hard to do
Speaker 1: on the third page of the album reviews. You know,
Speaker 1: not that we don't love getting our albums reviewed and
Speaker 1: all that, but you know, so we really try to
Speaker 1: uh you know, dig in and and and of course
Speaker 1: that's primarily on the on the publicist, but we try
Speaker 1: to really that's what we we what we absolutely hope
Speaker 1: for and and it can have a huge impact. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think like of a print piece like Jason Isbell
Speaker 1: when the Southeastern record came out, we we uh that
Speaker 1: record came out I think on June eleven, and I
Speaker 1: think it was back when we had Tuesday Street Days
Speaker 1: and on the June two Sunday New York Times. I
Speaker 1: think it was Dwite Gardner that wrote the piece. But
Speaker 1: like that peace was the thing that let the fuse
Speaker 1: because it told the story so viewed of flee and
Speaker 1: believe me, the you know, the everybody on the team,
Speaker 1: the publicists, you know, shared that New York Times Sunday
Speaker 1: piece with everybody else. And then we got Terry Gross
Speaker 1: and then we got you know, because it was just
Speaker 1: such an important, uh and beautiful piece explaining where this
Speaker 1: music came from. That you know, we we definitely look
Speaker 1: for those kinds of opportunities and again some will have
Speaker 1: more impact. You know, The New York Times Sunday magazine
Speaker 1: doesn't do many music pieces, you know, so when we
Speaker 1: get when we get one like that, it can it
Speaker 1: can really be a you know, like I said, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that lights the fuse. So we
Speaker 1: you know, look, we just want to work hard and
Speaker 1: if anybody wants to help us tell the story, we
Speaker 1: welcome it. And you know, we don't you know. And
Speaker 1: again there's when it gets to the point of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we've got a kind of wigh out what it
Speaker 1: is that we're spending in order to get those impressions.
Speaker 1: But um, you know that's a consideration. But you know,
Speaker 1: we we just want to work as hard as we
Speaker 1: can to help people understand the magic with the artists
Speaker 1: that we work with in and we don't bring anybody
Speaker 1: in unless we think that there's magic there. And so
Speaker 1: we just don't want to leave anything on the table.
Speaker 1: What is your different and attitude towards satellite radio versus
Speaker 1: terrestaural radio. Obviously you want to play on on everything,
Speaker 1: but how important is satellite and how is it visa
Speaker 1: v ter restaurant? Um, honestly, I think they're I think
Speaker 1: they're equally important. I really do. I mean, if if
Speaker 1: you're a satellite radio uh subscriber, like you know, it's
Speaker 1: important enough for you that you're paying a subscription every
Speaker 1: month to be able to listen to Outlaw Country or
Speaker 1: Willie's Roadhouse or you know or whatever. I mean. You know,
Speaker 1: satellite allows a sort of a finer gradation of of
Speaker 1: of of choices, and and it's a it's a great Um,
Speaker 1: it's a great asset. But you know, um, but terrestrial radio,
Speaker 1: you know, it's also hugely important. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: the the you know here in Nashville. Um, each of
Speaker 1: these you know, terrestrial radio stations has their own constituency.
Speaker 1: W h you know x NP, which is you know,
Speaker 1: kind of our equivalent of like a w XPN or
Speaker 1: a k c r W has their constituency. Lightning one
Speaker 1: hundred has their constituency. The country stations have their constituency,
Speaker 1: and and so, um, you know, it's like it's all
Speaker 1: it's all important. I mean, I don't. We don't really
Speaker 1: prior prioritize. We tried. We just tried. If it can,
Speaker 1: if we feel like it can fit on the station,
Speaker 1: we're gonna show up and explain why we think our
Speaker 1: artist is special, and we're going to ask for their support.
Speaker 1: And we may get it, we may not get it,
Speaker 1: but we're going to show up and ask. So Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go to the third leg of the model, which
Speaker 1: is distribution. Where the rubber meets the road. That's where
Speaker 1: the transaction is. If the transaction that doesn't happen, thirty
Speaker 1: tigers doesn't make any money. Correct. So breakdown how you
Speaker 1: viewed distribution today the varying avenues. You know, we we obviously,
Speaker 1: streaming is hugely important. As you know, I've been a
Speaker 1: big advocate it and defender of the streaming uh you
Speaker 1: know model, and I and I uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't uh you know, and even people that argue, well,
Speaker 1: streaming as a means to an end, I'm like, nope,
Speaker 1: it is, you know, it is an end unto itself. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, we we also place again having one
Speaker 1: person who does nothing in this company, who does nothing
Speaker 1: but communicate with indie retail stores. And I explained earlier
Speaker 1: why we place an inordinate amount of importance on that
Speaker 1: because of the dissemination of the narrative. Um. I mean
Speaker 1: it's just you know, you know, it's all it's all
Speaker 1: important to us, and and you know, and people are
Speaker 1: you know, even like c d S people are kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, or do we even need to
Speaker 1: make CDs anymore. And I'm like, yes, if ten percent,
Speaker 1: if even ten percent of your audience chooses to to
Speaker 1: consume your music that way, and you don't make it
Speaker 1: available to them, uh, you're basically telling them you don't
Speaker 1: care about their you know, about their business. And so
Speaker 1: you know it. You have to manage inventory and uh
Speaker 1: and and you know, put appropriate um, you know, spend
Speaker 1: appropriate amounts of money and all that stuff. But but
Speaker 1: it's all important to is. I look at it like
Speaker 1: a customer service issue. If somebody gets inspired to uh
Speaker 1: consume your artists, then you better have music there the
Speaker 1: way that they want it. And you know, and we
Speaker 1: you know, work with our our friends at the Orchard,
Speaker 1: and I do mean friends, Uh just there. I just
Speaker 1: you know, I can't you want wind me up. And
Speaker 1: I'll talk all day long about all the ways in
Speaker 1: which they've been an incredible partner for us. But you know,
Speaker 1: we work with them, uh you know, six ways to
Speaker 1: Sunday to make sure that wherever our artists music can
Speaker 1: and should be that that we're getting the you know
Speaker 1: that we're there and um and on the streaming side,
Speaker 1: you know, we definitely have you know, the Orchard definitely
Speaker 1: does their part, but we also build our own relationship
Speaker 1: its uh and and work you know. Just you know
Speaker 1: my background as a as a label regional, you know,
Speaker 1: I used to I mean, it was the salesman's rep
Speaker 1: to go to go take the order, uh and to
Speaker 1: do that. But but my job was to come in
Speaker 1: and paint with with finer detail on you know, what
Speaker 1: was the actor mean that the artist you know, or
Speaker 1: any particular record. Um, you know, the salesman couldn't keep
Speaker 1: all the specificity about what was going on with this
Speaker 1: record because he's selling a million here, shearre selling like
Speaker 1: a million records and I'm selling a small handful of records.
Speaker 1: So it's my job to paint in finer detail and
Speaker 1: to understand with the account what needs to be said
Speaker 1: to them too that's relevant to them, and and to
Speaker 1: help get the right outcome, to get the right order.
Speaker 1: Well that's you know, that's what we do with the DSPs.
Speaker 1: And I charged my you know, staff, I tell him like, look,
Speaker 1: at some point, no matter how great the orchard is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, at some point because the volume of what
Speaker 1: they are charged with with handling, our number one priority
Speaker 1: may be their number six priority. And by the time
Speaker 1: the number six priority gets talked about. Um, probably the
Speaker 1: person who is on the other side of the table
Speaker 1: is going dead inside a little bit. So it's important
Speaker 1: that we have that relationship so that we can you know,
Speaker 1: we can articulate why our number one priority is our
Speaker 1: number one priority, you know. So, um, so we we
Speaker 1: work with this region much much as you know people
Speaker 1: have in the past. It's you know, it's our job
Speaker 1: to have the relationships and pain and finder detail about
Speaker 1: our artists. Traditionally, well, if you look over the last
Speaker 1: ten years, hip hop and young pop has moved technologically forward.
Speaker 1: First they embrace streaming. Let's leave vinyl out because there
Speaker 1: are people who buy as souvenirs, people who buy the listen.
Speaker 1: It's a business unto itself. The audience that you tend
Speaker 1: to sell to is not children, not teenagers, but people
Speaker 1: who are older thinking people. Traditionally, I mean, in the
Speaker 1: last ten years, they have been the last to adopt
Speaker 1: new technologies. Do you find I mean, so, if you
Speaker 1: look at it, rock in general is the worst. If
Speaker 1: for no other reason, the acts keeps saying streaming is
Speaker 1: the devil. Okay, So first we had hip hop and
Speaker 1: then ironically country moved in. So to what degree have
Speaker 1: you seen the mixed change from physical to streaming and
Speaker 1: then they're streaming? And to what degree does your do
Speaker 1: your acts had a sales file business? Well again, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like, uh, we just try to push on
Speaker 1: every front that we can. I mean, you know, to
Speaker 1: take like no, no, no no, no, no, you're gonna do
Speaker 1: all that work. I'm asking. I'm pulling back saying in
Speaker 1: terms of a trend, what do you see as the
Speaker 1: trends and if you've seen movement since you've been doing it,
Speaker 1: or go back. I mean a little bit of progress,
Speaker 1: you know. But I mean I look at you know,
Speaker 1: like you had Ricky Lee Jones on you know a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, who we are very honored to work
Speaker 1: with and and you know, like her, her audience is
Speaker 1: is going to probably be some of the last people
Speaker 1: to adopt, you know, new technologies. And but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it's happening. And I think the streaming services
Speaker 1: are are are trying to you know, build communication. It's
Speaker 1: just part of the It's I think it's just part
Speaker 1: of the natural arc of how technologies are adopted. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, younger people are more comfortable with new technologies,
Speaker 1: you know, than the older people. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's much that we can do to alter that trend.
Speaker 1: And I know you're not asking what we're doing to
Speaker 1: alter that trend, but um, you know, it's you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's getting a little better, but it's not
Speaker 1: getting like, it's not getting better very quickly. So let's
Speaker 1: break down what percentage of revenues. We'll put vinyl in
Speaker 1: the mix. Okay, where is the money? Obviously is a
Speaker 1: huge markup on vinyl, uh, and you know there are
Speaker 1: very few costs on digital. But in terms at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, when you look at your spreadsheet,
Speaker 1: where is the money being generated? Well, for us, about
Speaker 1: of the business is streaming. Well, i'd say digital because
Speaker 1: you know, we when we you know, get our you know,
Speaker 1: when we have all of our breakdowns, like Apple is
Speaker 1: includes the downloads. But you know, let's face it, the
Speaker 1: majority of the money even from Apple is definitely in
Speaker 1: Apple Music and not you know, on iTunes and the downloading.
Speaker 1: So about of our sales are are come from the
Speaker 1: digital side and then comes from from physical and uh.
Speaker 1: But on the commercial country label, um that you know,
Speaker 1: we we partner you know also are a partner in
Speaker 1: a joint venture commercial country label is uh you know
Speaker 1: with Sony of that number is is the streaming number
Speaker 1: or the digital number is appreciably higher? You know, it's
Speaker 1: probably like and the only reason why it might even
Speaker 1: be ninety ten is because we work with Scotty McCrary
Speaker 1: and he has a lot of fans who are you know,
Speaker 1: still by CDs and things like that. So but like
Speaker 1: Russell Dickerson, who's another one of our artists, is probably
Speaker 1: nineties six, four five or something like that. So it's
Speaker 1: it's um but but but for thirty tigers about these
Speaker 1: are astounding numbers in terms of what the average person thinks. Hey,
Speaker 1: the acts you work with, are they savvy to streaming
Speaker 1: or do you have to educate all of them? It's
Speaker 1: a mixed bag. I mean, we definitely have, you know, artists.
Speaker 1: But that's one of the reasons why I try to
Speaker 1: be so public about my uh, you know, these conversations,
Speaker 1: and you know, not just for our artists, but you know,
Speaker 1: all artists. I mean I think that you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's just important to it's it can be
Speaker 1: a very complex issue and and and it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's just, um, it's not as simple as Spotify good
Speaker 1: or Spotify bad. You know, it's you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the revenue streams can um. You know, people want to
Speaker 1: simplify things to an incredible degree. Like I know, one
Speaker 1: of the you know, kind of talking points that people
Speaker 1: that are have tend to be suspicious as streaming have
Speaker 1: used a lot. I see it on Twitter a lot.
Speaker 1: But you know, like only thirteen thousand artists earn you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty thou dollars a year or more on Spotify.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, yes, but you know, okay, so
Speaker 1: be it. But but you know, for us, at least Spotify,
Speaker 1: just of what comes through the distribution channels, Spotify themselves
Speaker 1: is less than thirty pc of our business. And so
Speaker 1: if you uh, and and given that they are h having,
Speaker 1: you know, they are able to sell their own product
Speaker 1: when it comes to D to C and on a
Speaker 1: road sales, Spotify probably in terms of their overall revenue mixes.
Speaker 1: So let's say, so then you're talking about an artist
Speaker 1: if if if the thirteen thousand artist is making the
Speaker 1: most successful artists on Spotify, uh is making fifty thou
Speaker 1: dollars I mean, you know, at least by our by
Speaker 1: our metrics, that's an artist who's earning two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars from just from the prerecorded stuff. That doesn't include
Speaker 1: publishing revenue, that doesn't include what they make on the road,
Speaker 1: that doesn't include T shirts that they're selling. And so
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people cherry pick these, you know, these facts,
Speaker 1: and they put them out there and they don't really
Speaker 1: dig in and think about them contextually, and so and
Speaker 1: and and and I think it's destructive because and again,
Speaker 1: like I'll also recognize too that there's certain types of
Speaker 1: genres where, um, where the proportion of streaming is much
Speaker 1: higher than than than it is for ours. But I'm
Speaker 1: just using our experience as an example of how you
Speaker 1: can try to make an argument that sounds bad, but
Speaker 1: when you look at it in context and you take
Speaker 1: the time to explain, you know, you know, it sort
Speaker 1: of explained what that really means, then then it doesn't
Speaker 1: it's not so bad, and and or it's not as bad.
Speaker 1: But having said that, I don't want to diminish the
Speaker 1: experience of artists who are you know, the hundred and
Speaker 1: thirties thousand's most successful, hardest on Spotify because they're having
Speaker 1: a hard time making a living. And and and honestly
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I try to be so
Speaker 1: public in my and again, you know, I'm not holy.
Speaker 1: I don't think Spotify is like a you know, a
Speaker 1: hundred percent perfect or anything like that. You know, as
Speaker 1: a liberal, I feel uncomfortable quoting Ronald Reagan, but he, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, said something very wise. If you if you
Speaker 1: agree with somebody of the time, uh, they're a friend
Speaker 1: and an ally, not a trader. And and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I I feel like the conversation around this tends to
Speaker 1: get so polarized that the the you know, the nuance
Speaker 1: and the facts and the and the perspectives in the
Speaker 1: in the context gets completely lost. And it's a complex business,
Speaker 1: you know, you and if you're not a student of
Speaker 1: the game and you don't understand what's gonna go on,
Speaker 1: you're gonna make some bad decisions. And independent artists those
Speaker 1: Spotify has democratized access and allowed a multitude of artists
Speaker 1: to to to actually have a legitimate shot without asking
Speaker 1: anybody's permission to participate. If if they get despondent and
Speaker 1: give up because they feel like they can't possibly win. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not the right answer, and that's not true, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not how they should look at it. But
Speaker 1: but they do need to understand, you know, what the
Speaker 1: mix is, how they can succeed, how the fact that
Speaker 1: they're given uh an opportunity, how to how to slingshot that,
Speaker 1: and how to translate that into more success later on,
Speaker 1: and and it and it takes a lot of work,
Speaker 1: and and I just you know, it's like I just
Speaker 1: want people to have at least what I see as
Speaker 1: the information. But but again, like in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: of the Rolling Stone piece and your you know kind
Speaker 1: uh um um amplification of my thoughts and ideas. You know,
Speaker 1: I've heard from some very um you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of astute critics about you know that. Again, we're like,
Speaker 1: we largely agree with you. But here's some other things
Speaker 1: to think about. You know, like Tom Gray from the
Speaker 1: band Gomez. Um he you know, has an organization or
Speaker 1: started a movement called Broken Record. And you know, we
Speaker 1: had a an incredibly thoughtful exchange about Okay, Tom, who
Speaker 1: I know and or met once and basically slags me
Speaker 1: all the time. I'm very interested. He's a very advocate
Speaker 1: for the artist. What did he say to you that
Speaker 1: you said, hmm, I didn't think of that. Well. I
Speaker 1: think the point that he made that hit the hardest
Speaker 1: for me, where I was kind of like, I need
Speaker 1: to consider this more. Was you know, a discussion about
Speaker 1: the the the average price UH or the average revenue
Speaker 1: per consumer at Spotify and UM and how you know,
Speaker 1: because you know, you know, I was talking about how
Speaker 1: the um you know, part of the reason why Spotify
Speaker 1: pays less is because they have the freemium model to
Speaker 1: add supported model, which again you can make an argument
Speaker 1: that that depresses overall revenues, but I also make the
Speaker 1: argument that like, well, it's also bringing in revenues that
Speaker 1: we would never see with lower income UH consumers and
Speaker 1: UM and and and UM and I think even from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of of like, you know, people that don't
Speaker 1: you know, we're ten dollars a month, and of course
Speaker 1: you know, some people will say, well if they can't
Speaker 1: afford ten dollars a month, and I'm like, well that
Speaker 1: you're speaking I mean, you know, you're speaking from a
Speaker 1: place of some you know, a certain amount of privilege
Speaker 1: when you know, dismiss you know, people to which a
Speaker 1: d and twenty dollars a year actually does make a
Speaker 1: little bit of a difference, you know, And are we
Speaker 1: going to exclude those people from you know, from the
Speaker 1: consumption of art and music like you know, and so
Speaker 1: and also people who are lower income as soon as
Speaker 1: they can afford you know, uh, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: come up a little bit more. I'm sure they don't
Speaker 1: love listening to ads. They probably rather listen to music
Speaker 1: without ads, and and they may you know, then turn
Speaker 1: into consumers. But we're either if we don't have that
Speaker 1: at least some option, then they're just not going to
Speaker 1: be that be there at all. They're not They're gonna
Speaker 1: going to be They're gonna be utterly non participatory and
Speaker 1: in our business. But the point that he made that
Speaker 1: kind of you know, resonated with me is that he goes, well,
Speaker 1: that's not the only reason why those numbers continue to
Speaker 1: come down. He goes, Spotify has made the decision, in
Speaker 1: order to try to capture market share to do things
Speaker 1: like the family plan, where you know, you can get
Speaker 1: four people for fifteen dollars a month, and and the
Speaker 1: college student thing for for you know, five dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and so they are discounting, uh, you know, and making
Speaker 1: those decisions unilaterally when uh uh sixty plus percent of
Speaker 1: the revenues uh, you know are are you know with
Speaker 1: the artists And he's like and and and you know,
Speaker 1: they have the decision to make it. But but but
Speaker 1: like if if if they wanted to invite stakeholders to
Speaker 1: participate in in those discussions, that might go a long
Speaker 1: way towards artists not feeling uh, you know, aggrieved. And
Speaker 1: and then of course also the and then this is
Speaker 1: one of the things where personally I'm on the side
Speaker 1: is I wish that Spotify would um just drop their
Speaker 1: appeal for the CRB the raise in the CRB rate
Speaker 1: um and and uh and uh you know, and pay
Speaker 1: writers a little better. We all want that, at least
Speaker 1: those on the artistic side. Uh. The unfortunate thing is
Speaker 1: just like the English commission, the government commission, they did along,
Speaker 1: they did hearings, they found out it was the labels,
Speaker 1: not Spotify and their deal. Just going back, because I
Speaker 1: want to be on the record for people listening to this,
Speaker 1: people seem to have forgotten that one of the reasons
Speaker 1: Spotify was so successful was because of the free tier
Speaker 1: which eliminated piracy. Spotify was not the very first reading
Speaker 1: Rhapsody existed in America for over a decade. And so
Speaker 1: the people you know who I mean, do I wish
Speaker 1: that YouTube paid a little bit more? Yes, But interestingly,
Speaker 1: real music fans tend to be on one of these
Speaker 1: streaming services as opposed to YouTube as far I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll be I'll be crashed. In terms of Tom's point, yes,
Speaker 1: Spotify will give you a seat in the table when
Speaker 1: you give him a seat in the studio. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a business. I mean I
Speaker 1: I sat through all this with Steve, with Daniel k.
Speaker 1: And if you think this guy see me, you haven't
Speaker 1: met him. But uh, in the first part of the
Speaker 1: first decade of this century, Okay, they have done. This
Speaker 1: just makes me crazy about a soft business like artists
Speaker 1: and some of this stuff to science. I remember when
Speaker 1: they went to the uh smartphone model and he said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a free tier on the smartphone model
Speaker 1: and I said, no, there should be a line, and
Speaker 1: he says, we did all the research, we get higher
Speaker 1: conversion to paid and he convinced all the labels of this. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: but and I think if I mean to to underline
Speaker 1: your point. Sorry for interrupting, but I'm enthusiastically agreeing. Like
Speaker 1: if you look at the again, I look at our
Speaker 1: our thing, and the number of streams we get from
Speaker 1: the subscription side compared to the freemium side, it's it's
Speaker 1: not even close. And so I mean people, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's such a good value that if people can afford
Speaker 1: to pay, they're going to pay, and they have seen
Speaker 1: that conversion, you know, rate so but I mean, but
Speaker 1: I do think, um, you know, I do think I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the conversation with Tom. I thought it was very thoughtful,
Speaker 1: it was very respectful, and you know, as long as
Speaker 1: people are engaging and open to, you know, other people's
Speaker 1: ideas and thoughts. But but but also at a certain point,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember one time back when I was
Speaker 1: selling records to Hastings, and I don't even remember what
Speaker 1: the issue was, but I think it had something to
Speaker 1: do with a Robert r'keene record and whether he was
Speaker 1: going to be put into country or or you know,
Speaker 1: or having an Americana section or something. But any rate,
Speaker 1: I was talking with Steve Hicks, who was the buyer,
Speaker 1: and I was very impassionate about like what needed to happen.
Speaker 1: He was like, hey, hey, David, guess what I said.
Speaker 1: What because there are stores not yours, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was like it's a valuable thing to you know,
Speaker 1: to learn. So I mean I feel, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't feel like you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, Tom even said like, look,
Speaker 1: you know Spotify, you know, like they'll talk to me
Speaker 1: and and and you know, and and and all that,
Speaker 1: and again I think that there are some valid critiques,
Speaker 1: but you know, uh, it's like, you know, but let's
Speaker 1: have those conversations. Let's have them respectfully, but like let's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and let's all work towards the met a bit.
Speaker 1: But any system, I mean, one thing that I wrote
Speaker 1: at the end of my thing, any any streaming were
Speaker 1: bad for the ecosystem, Like any system that promotes uh
Speaker 1: uh you know, uh you know, in like an incredible
Speaker 1: explosion of access for independent artists also which is raised
Speaker 1: revenues by helped raise revenues from at least here in
Speaker 1: America by sev over the last six years, is not
Speaker 1: a broken system. And one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: was such an advocate early on about streaming and what
Speaker 1: why I felt it was going was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Was I picked up the phone and I called people
Speaker 1: in Sweden where back by um they had scaled the
Speaker 1: of the total revenues in the music business and in
Speaker 1: Sweden was through streaming. And I asked, like, well, what happened?
Speaker 1: How is your business? Are you doing more business? I
Speaker 1: talked to a couple of artist managers. They were happy
Speaker 1: with what they were seeing, you know, and it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like it's been a good thing. Is
Speaker 1: the room for you know? Are there some things that
Speaker 1: I wish they would do differently? Absolutely? But I just,
Speaker 1: you know it when the conversation turned from you know,
Speaker 1: and like the Joe Rogan thing, like look, artists can
Speaker 1: follow their conscience and do whatever they want. They can,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I don't really have an opinion
Speaker 1: about that necessarily, and and you know, artists can come
Speaker 1: to their own conclusion. But it quickly turned from uh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like okay, well they're they're you know, angry
Speaker 1: about Joe Rogan. Where have you been? You know, like
Speaker 1: the real crime is how much they're fucking artists and
Speaker 1: how much they're not paying. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that is not my experience, nor the experience of a
Speaker 1: lot of the artists that that we work with, and
Speaker 1: you know, so I just it's and again like it's
Speaker 1: a you know, it's a it's a complex thing, and
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it takes some time and some
Speaker 1: nuance to try to explain it all. But like I I,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel driven to from my experience to
Speaker 1: try to talk about this stuff because it's important. You know, artists,
Speaker 1: if they're going to succeed, they have to understand the
Speaker 1: state of play. And I'm going to do my part
Speaker 1: to try to help tell it from my viewpoint. But
Speaker 1: I'm also going to remain open to other people's ideas
Speaker 1: and and you know, because it's it's fun to learn.
Speaker 1: It's fun to to hear other people's ideas, even if
Speaker 1: you don't agree with them. Okay, I want to comment
Speaker 1: on that a little bit. Um And this is what
Speaker 1: people get angry with me about. But I hear from
Speaker 1: these people all along. The people I hear from most
Speaker 1: are the people with no traction. They believe that their
Speaker 1: future was stolen by the Internet. Then you have people
Speaker 1: who were sustained by the old model who were never
Speaker 1: in the black ever on their record royalties. Somebody moved
Speaker 1: their cheese and they can't handle it. The other thing
Speaker 1: is I remember watching Bill Maher both these stories going
Speaker 1: to be from Bill Maher, and he had Paul Krugman,
Speaker 1: the economists and Jesse whatever, who had been the governor
Speaker 1: of Minnesota. And he kept on talking Jesse, all the
Speaker 1: farmers getting screwed, the government's taking the money. And Paul's
Speaker 1: got his hand and said, he goes, those are you
Speaker 1: have a completely opposite it's farm supports. They're not taking
Speaker 1: the money, they're giving the money. And the other thing, uh,
Speaker 1: that Bill mart You know, he'd like to play in
Speaker 1: the NBA, but he's five seven. So now since it's
Speaker 1: been Democratye, the number one thing in this world, well
Speaker 1: subsequent to information in general, is access. And what people
Speaker 1: don't realize is when you start in falsehoods, you can
Speaker 1: get no access. Like occasionally these big business titans will
Speaker 1: sit and be bombarded by these people. But if you
Speaker 1: look at the titans and the music business people running
Speaker 1: the major labels, they are never accessible. Never Lucy and
Speaker 1: Grange never did a public thing. The head to the
Speaker 1: other two labels never did a public thing because they're
Speaker 1: inundated with the sour grapes. As you say, they are
Speaker 1: running a business, and in all other walks of life,
Speaker 1: to the winners go the spoils. But in addition, Daniel
Speaker 1: Lex said, and it's actually more is going to the
Speaker 1: so called long tail. And you're not entitled to make
Speaker 1: a living in the arts. So if you want to
Speaker 1: talk to the people who can help you out, you
Speaker 1: should know the lay of the land. If someone's gonna
Speaker 1: talk to you or Danny Bush or any of these labels,
Speaker 1: they come in Spotify is to devil it. They're gonna say, yeah, fine,
Speaker 1: I never want to talk to that guy again. You know,
Speaker 1: is it hard being an artist? These are distribution platforms.
Speaker 1: They're based on numbers. There's so much misinformation. You know.
Speaker 1: I'll write you know, uh, you talk about the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and I agree, totally became less about what Rogan said
Speaker 1: about Spotify the platform. But I'll write something. I'll talk
Speaker 1: about the free tier, and I'll get an email after
Speaker 1: I said we should put your playlists on Title. Well,
Speaker 1: Title doesn't have a free tier, and as the smallest
Speaker 1: market share of all people. I literally wrote it. It's
Speaker 1: what you're responding to. So it gets very frustrating. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, I think if you know, this is where
Speaker 1: consumers have agency, if you if you you know, if
Speaker 1: you care about that, then uh, then go go be
Speaker 1: a title subscriber. I mean this, this is where the
Speaker 1: marketplace you know can speak to it. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are doing that, and I think that's that's great,
Speaker 1: and that's that's what everybody you know. But but but
Speaker 1: like but also just be informed about it. And also
Speaker 1: again like I try to be when I talk about
Speaker 1: this stuff, I do want to be respectful about you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's you know, experienced, uh you know about it, and
Speaker 1: I try to try to be um you know when
Speaker 1: you know, like when I talked about the you know,
Speaker 1: my piece about well, you know, sixt of businesses in
Speaker 1: America fail within ten years, and you know, and when
Speaker 1: you know, I mean and and honestly as a person
Speaker 1: who started a business and um and worked really hard
Speaker 1: and it was by no means certainty. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I paid myself forty thousand dollars a year for the
Speaker 1: first you know, many many years of the company, and
Speaker 1: I did not make a profit, and I came out
Speaker 1: of the major label world. I was making you know,
Speaker 1: a lot more money than than that. But I believed
Speaker 1: in what I was doing, and I lived very frugally
Speaker 1: and worked really hard to make my business work. And
Speaker 1: I know other people do the same. Um. But when
Speaker 1: I see you know, a nail salon, you know, closed down,
Speaker 1: or a restaurant closed down, that's somebody's dream. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's died that, you know. And not to say that
Speaker 1: other dreams can't come up, but like I have great
Speaker 1: empathy for that, Um, I really do. And you know,
Speaker 1: but but you know, it's it's that's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a natural occurrence. And I want people The thing is,
Speaker 1: I want people's dreams to come through. I want artists
Speaker 1: to succeed. Not everyone is going to. If you don't,
Speaker 1: if your music does not connect to the point where
Speaker 1: you it brings enough monetary value in you, you then
Speaker 1: whether you deserve to make a living or don't deserve
Speaker 1: to make a living, that's that's you know, that's a
Speaker 1: subjective thing. The fact is, if you don't bring it
Speaker 1: enough money, you're not going to make a living. So
Speaker 1: look at the situation for what it really is and
Speaker 1: get ready to work your fucking ass off, because that's
Speaker 1: what it takes. That's what I did, That's what you know,
Speaker 1: that's what many many other artists. I think about Charlie Crockett,
Speaker 1: That motherfucker works harder than anybody I know, and he
Speaker 1: is succeeded because his music is great and he works
Speaker 1: his ass off, and it's like, that's what it takes
Speaker 1: to that. I think that's what I really want to
Speaker 1: come out of out of this discussion. And if people
Speaker 1: aren't going to look at it realistically and again, like
Speaker 1: I don't presume that I have a lock on on
Speaker 1: what the truth is. I mean, I need to be
Speaker 1: humble enough to be open and learn, and I do.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking to Tom, and I'm talking to all
Speaker 1: kinds of people that have have you know, opened the
Speaker 1: door for conversations, for respectful conversations about this. You know,
Speaker 1: I think I think you know that's important. But but
Speaker 1: if if if you're if you are giving into despondency
Speaker 1: or you're just you're you're you're just not looking at
Speaker 1: it right, then you're not going to make the decisions
Speaker 1: that you the right decisions that you need to be
Speaker 1: able to succeed. That's just that's just the way that
Speaker 1: it is. Everybody from the boomer generation who works in
Speaker 1: the music business used to be a player and they
Speaker 1: woke up one day and they said, I'm not good enough.
Speaker 1: There's a whole business based on giving people false hope.
Speaker 1: All these sites online will get your gigs whatever. I
Speaker 1: like to be the voice on the other side, because
Speaker 1: you know, there's that Don Henley song. Doesn't happen to
Speaker 1: be a great song, but I love the line it goes,
Speaker 1: how bad do you want it? Not bad enough? You know?
Speaker 1: You know I'll get you know all the time? Well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know Spotify payments. I am I supposed to get
Speaker 1: pay for my car and pay for my house and
Speaker 1: my kids. Who told you to buy a house, who
Speaker 1: told you to have a car, who told you get married?
Speaker 1: It's amazing how many how much people have sacrificed. Let
Speaker 1: me move on a little bit though, In terms of
Speaker 1: the revenue from streaming, how does it break down amongst
Speaker 1: the varying services, Well, Spotify is a number one uh customer,
Speaker 1: you know app Apple is close behind uh um, and
Speaker 1: then uh and then you know Amazon's you know, come
Speaker 1: way up. YouTube is a is a you know, is
Speaker 1: a you know, pretty big contribute. I don't I should
Speaker 1: have prepared for this, and I don't have the exact breakdown,
Speaker 1: but I would say between uh, I mean Spotify is right,
Speaker 1: it's just a little under thirty so whatever, like thirty
Speaker 1: divided by you know, that's what they're you know, proportion
Speaker 1: is at Apple's you know is not not that far behind.
Speaker 1: So and the others are are are coming. I mean
Speaker 1: no Amazon has done you know, they're working really hard
Speaker 1: and you know that's coming up. So I would say, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't you know, yeah, I don't know. It's probably
Speaker 1: not gonna be really compelling compelling listening to to to
Speaker 1: hear me cipher on well we're taking I'm not going
Speaker 1: to annail you on the percentages. Um, let me go
Speaker 1: to the next thing, which is, okay, playlisting and access
Speaker 1: to what degree is this hell take done by the
Speaker 1: orchard into what degree is it done by you? And
Speaker 1: how important relationships and how are important getting on playlists? Well,
Speaker 1: I think this is a big a little you know, understand.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I think that I think people are
Speaker 1: much more conspiratorial than is the truth. I mean, the
Speaker 1: fact is spot Spotify over the last few years has
Speaker 1: has really, um, not completely walled off access to their people,
Speaker 1: but um, they've made it a real priority to like
Speaker 1: to to lessen than the influence of the industry. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a wise thing to do. And I'm
Speaker 1: I'm just speaking about Spotify. I mean Apple, I think
Speaker 1: is the same way. I'm you know, I don't mean
Speaker 1: to keep harping on that, but I guess because Spotify
Speaker 1: has been so top of mind for me the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. You know, it's easy for me to
Speaker 1: go there. But I think that you know, we you know,
Speaker 1: we advocate, Um, I feel like we're heard. Um. I
Speaker 1: feel like if if they understand h sort of why
Speaker 1: we think that an artist is is special, they'll they'll
Speaker 1: give it a they'll give it a shot. Maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not. Sometimes I'm surprised that we don't get support
Speaker 1: on certain things, but you know, it's uh um. But
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of thought goes into it.
Speaker 1: I remember a conversation we were having I was having
Speaker 1: with somebody there about Josh Ritter. This is a very
Speaker 1: big learning moment for me. Um, Josh Ritter. You know,
Speaker 1: has traditionally been really uh solid on in like the
Speaker 1: kind of folk singer songwriter type of playlists. And I
Speaker 1: was talking with somebody about Spotify about you know kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, I'm you know, I'm surprised that we're
Speaker 1: not getting more support from Josh Ritter and you know,
Speaker 1: he's been a big deal and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: the person said, uh that I was speaking to you, said, well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question. I mean, Josh, you know,
Speaker 1: did this more of a rock approach? And there's drums on,
Speaker 1: you know, on that record, and yet you guys submitted
Speaker 1: for uh, you know this, you know, like my favorite
Speaker 1: coffee house or whatever, and like there are we just
Speaker 1: don't like things with drums. That's not the vibe and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So it was kind of putting it
Speaker 1: back on us, like, you know, perhaps you didn't ask
Speaker 1: for the right thing. And they don't have the space
Speaker 1: too necessarily. I mean, they get inundated. It's like they're
Speaker 1: there there, it's like they're getting shot with a fire
Speaker 1: hose in terms of the number of artists they get
Speaker 1: and the number of requests that they get. And so
Speaker 1: whoever was programming that playlist, um the thing that we
Speaker 1: submitted did not fit you know, that the you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that we were asking for. And so even
Speaker 1: though they you know, I feel like they love us,
Speaker 1: they respect us, but like they they you know, we
Speaker 1: didn't get what we were, you know, asking for, So
Speaker 1: it's not it's not um. And and also we'll start
Speaker 1: off with artists on on some of the lower playlists
Speaker 1: and we will only as much as they like us.
Speaker 1: We will only grow onto other playlists. If our music
Speaker 1: works in that thing, they will then spread it. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like, you know, Spotify wants to
Speaker 1: create and I'm Apple too. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: my friends and other DSPs that I keep saying Spotify,
Speaker 1: but you know, but they they want to create an
Speaker 1: environment in these rooms where in these in these you know, playlists.
Speaker 1: They want to create a sonic experience that works for
Speaker 1: the that meets the expectation of that person. If we
Speaker 1: if you're promoting music, no matter how much what they
Speaker 1: like you or how much access they have, they're in
Speaker 1: business to meet their customers expectations. If you're not meeting
Speaker 1: their customers expectations, I don't care how much they like you,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna it's not gonna work, you know, and
Speaker 1: so um and I feel like I feel like that
Speaker 1: that's the reality of the situation. So all this talk
Speaker 1: about like you know, access and people scratching each other's back,
Speaker 1: it was probably a little more that way, to be honest,
Speaker 1: about four or five years ago. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: it's really that way now or or as much, you know,
Speaker 1: but do do do we Probably because of the quality
Speaker 1: of our you know, of what we put out, in
Speaker 1: the high success rate that we have, of of of
Speaker 1: of the you know, of the of our music in
Speaker 1: certain genres, might we get an opportun tunity uh that
Speaker 1: you know, might they give us the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt of an opportunity? Probably? And that's what our job
Speaker 1: is is to you know, be great advocates for our
Speaker 1: for our artists and try to you know, get them
Speaker 1: on the path to success. But it doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't always work. But I feel like that's that
Speaker 1: is a big point of misinformation as far as like
Speaker 1: the the um you know, how how you know, corrupt
Speaker 1: the you know, the process is. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty above board in my experience. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go to the other side of the fence. Let's assume
Speaker 1: you get on the playlist. A couple of questions here,
Speaker 1: how effective or playlists is opposed to songs just picked specifically,
Speaker 1: And let's assume you're on the playlist, tell us about
Speaker 1: them saying, Hey, people saved it, we're gonna move you
Speaker 1: to other things. Or people didn't save it, we're gonna
Speaker 1: drop it. Yeah, I mean, we get that kind of feedback,
Speaker 1: you know, all the time. But one thing to that,
Speaker 1: I feel like people like when when things get on
Speaker 1: a playlist, there's a lot of passive listening that happens
Speaker 1: on that playlist, you know, especially probably kind of the
Speaker 1: more acoustic things and and all that stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we had one of our acts, I won't
Speaker 1: you know, name names, but they were very popular because
Speaker 1: um the playlist, because it just sort of fit what,
Speaker 1: you know, the you know, what was happening. They didn't
Speaker 1: have you know, they had a very low skip rate
Speaker 1: because it it fit the you know, the atmosphere that
Speaker 1: that the that the playlists were trying to foster. And
Speaker 1: you know that we were getting you know, ten and
Speaker 1: twenty million, twenty million streams on their music and you know,
Speaker 1: they went out thinking like, oh, well, god, we're getting
Speaker 1: all these streams. Then you know, we'll go out and
Speaker 1: you know they and they overshot when they were touring.
Speaker 1: You know, I went to a few shows that you
Speaker 1: know where the room was a third full, you know,
Speaker 1: because you know, the the a lot of that listening
Speaker 1: is very passive, you know, you think, I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the numbers that I care about the least is
Speaker 1: the number of you know, when you say like somebody
Speaker 1: has so many monthly listeners, that number needs virtually nothing
Speaker 1: to me. Because if you're on a series of playlists
Speaker 1: and you get any you know, any listening at all,
Speaker 1: no matter how passive it is, you're going to show
Speaker 1: up on there. And that doesn't mean that you've made
Speaker 1: a fan. You know, it's it's a it's a you know,
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to be heard. It's an opportunity for revenue,
Speaker 1: but it is not an opportunity. This is not you know,
Speaker 1: when you're passive listening on on on, you know, Spotify,
Speaker 1: the revelation of who the artist is and you know
Speaker 1: why their music flows from them as inevitable, which is
Speaker 1: when you're gonna make fans, and when you're going to
Speaker 1: like build lifelong relationships with fans. That doesn't happen in that,
Speaker 1: you know, in that in in a passive listening environment
Speaker 1: like that. And so you know, it's great, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's an introduction. But if you're not prepared
Speaker 1: to then extrapolate that conversation and you know, with long
Speaker 1: form narrative and and and and help fill in the gap,
Speaker 1: then you're you're you're going to you're not going to
Speaker 1: do well, You're not you're you know, it's like you're
Speaker 1: not doing the full job. And but that's why we
Speaker 1: don't you know, sign acts who we just think are like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get playlisted and you know, and and
Speaker 1: if it cashes on then we're gonna do It's like
Speaker 1: that is you know, playlisting is not artist development period. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how many people at your company speak to the
Speaker 1: DSPs and how frequently do you three? And all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, we we haven't split out well, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess technically now i'd say yeah, three. I mean
Speaker 1: because one of them we have somebody who specifically focuses
Speaker 1: on video content and so that's you know, they probably
Speaker 1: do more the heavy lifting when it comes to YouTube. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, but the other two and you know, and
Speaker 1: I also you know, I mean I speak to everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, everywhere, and every now and again and again
Speaker 1: I want to put my people in a position to
Speaker 1: do their jobs and and and and but every now
Speaker 1: and again, call somebody it's Spotify and just be like,
Speaker 1: I think you're missing this one. I think you're missing
Speaker 1: this one. Here's what's going on. And maybe I'll get
Speaker 1: a result, and maybe I won't get a result, but um,
Speaker 1: but you know, but but day in and day out,
Speaker 1: we have three people that are are focused on that.
Speaker 1: And to what degree can you get access to the
Speaker 1: playlist creators themselves as opposed to people higher up the
Speaker 1: food virtually none. I mean to be honest with you, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't know who programs my favorite
Speaker 1: coffee house and that's a huge playlist for us, and
Speaker 1: I don't think you know, I mean, it goes through
Speaker 1: the pitch tool and and again like it's it's a
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a dictate from Spotify that they
Speaker 1: you know, it's like they want their people listening to
Speaker 1: the music and making judgments on the music. They want
Speaker 1: to have less influence of because you know, it's like
Speaker 1: people are in their ears all the time and spending
Speaker 1: their time, they're not focusing on the music. And and
Speaker 1: again like sixty thousand tracks a day, so people are
Speaker 1: are are utilizing the pitch tool. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an unbelievable task to try to get
Speaker 1: through all of that music and make judgments that will
Speaker 1: you know, help Spotify create you know, create those playlists
Speaker 1: in those rooms. And so I think that's a wise
Speaker 1: decision on their part. But that's you know, that's just
Speaker 1: a fact of the matter. I mean, it's just not
Speaker 1: a I mean, I think that's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: things that people don't understand about you know, Apple, Spotify, ETCeteras,
Speaker 1: is to the degree they'll take our input, um, just
Speaker 1: as as anybody you know in any walk of the
Speaker 1: business will take our input. But it's it's it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we hear you. Maybe it'll have an impact,
Speaker 1: maybe it won't have an impact, but it's like it's
Speaker 1: not it's not like, you know, we can just snap
Speaker 1: our fingers. And that goes with the you know, with
Speaker 1: the major labels too. I'm I'm you know, I'm certain
Speaker 1: of it. They don't, you know, they're there and they're
Speaker 1: advocating and doing their part, but it's not like they
Speaker 1: just can snap their fingers and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, get everything that they want. And I think
Speaker 1: the proportion I mean I did in preparation for having
Speaker 1: that conversation with Rolling Stone, I just picked a playlist
Speaker 1: at random, and I picked New Boots because, um, you know,
Speaker 1: for country, you kind of think, well, countries dominated by
Speaker 1: major labels and all that stuff. And I looked and
Speaker 1: went through I went through every single track and looked
Speaker 1: at the copyright line of the acts. And some of
Speaker 1: those acts may have labels that are really just them,
Speaker 1: but they just got it. But but I didn't even
Speaker 1: count those. But I counted twenty artists that the copyright
Speaker 1: line was just their name, and so they that artists
Speaker 1: uploaded themselves through tune cores and and they were given
Speaker 1: a shot and and and that that music, like all
Speaker 1: the music that I heard, was really good. And um,
Speaker 1: so they don't have anybody that you know, they don't
Speaker 1: have anybody calling Spotify and and uh trying to convince them.
Speaker 1: Spotify made those decisions strictly on the quality of the music.
Speaker 1: And and again like if you're an independent artist, like
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's like it's important that you
Speaker 1: know that you know, don't get despondent, make your best music,
Speaker 1: get it there, Understand the state of play, Understand the environment.
Speaker 1: But like you know, go take you know, shoot your shot.
Speaker 1: And and you know, I feel like the DSPs have
Speaker 1: have largely stepped up. I think it's much better now
Speaker 1: for them than it was even five years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: occasionally there's big promotions on the home page, etcetera. Is
Speaker 1: that an opportunity that ever comes to you, like with
Speaker 1: a Jason Isabel or is that really just for worldwide stars?
Speaker 1: I think if it's like a like a full cross
Speaker 1: platform you know type of thing, you know, they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna do certain things for the Beyonce's that
Speaker 1: they're not maybe going to do with ours. But you know,
Speaker 1: but we you know, but they're they're definitely open to
Speaker 1: us doing things that are you know, major looks for
Speaker 1: the audience that that artist has. You know, they've they've
Speaker 1: done you know, you know, they've done some you know,
Speaker 1: we've done some pretty you know, impactful promotions with you
Speaker 1: know all the DSPs, and I think that um, you
Speaker 1: know the uh you know the sort of the you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the cover art, the you know sort of
Speaker 1: the you know the picture and you know who's on
Speaker 1: the Indigo playlist or on the on the you know,
Speaker 1: Apple Country playlists or whatever like. You know that those
Speaker 1: those things, you know, you know, really matter. I know
Speaker 1: that's not the promotions that you're talking about, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel I feel that that we get,
Speaker 1: we get the opportunities that are appropriate to us. And
Speaker 1: what does the order? Obviously Orchard takes care of the
Speaker 1: mechanics getting all these tunes to the varying places. What
Speaker 1: might they do in terms of promotion, promotion and pitching
Speaker 1: themselves for your acts? You know, I think they probably
Speaker 1: as a you know, I think that they reinforce a
Speaker 1: lot of what it is that we're talking about. So
Speaker 1: they're they're a second voice, and we keep in constant
Speaker 1: communication with them, and they keep in constant communication with us.
Speaker 1: We're uh, you know, a very large you know label
Speaker 1: in there, you know, in their hierarchy. So know they've
Speaker 1: been they are very supportive of us, but we kind
Speaker 1: of go in in in you know, in unison. But
Speaker 1: we don't depend I mean that's just us. I mean
Speaker 1: we're big enough that we can have the staff to
Speaker 1: have the direct you know, conversations and the direct advocacy
Speaker 1: and they know what it is we're doing and they
Speaker 1: reinforce and and that's great. I think where the Orchard
Speaker 1: UM is a great asset is for companies that are
Speaker 1: perhaps a little smaller and can't afford the staff. You
Speaker 1: know that we have to go in there and they go,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, fight the best fight and um,
Speaker 1: you know, and again they're they're just I think they're
Speaker 1: extraordinarily good at what they do. Okay, let's just get
Speaker 1: a little history quickly so people know who you are.
Speaker 1: You grew up where Lakeland, Florida, and your parents did
Speaker 1: what for a living? My dad was an engineer, not
Speaker 1: not a trained engineer, but you know, a mechanical engineer.
Speaker 1: He helped design phosphate plants, uh and things like that.
Speaker 1: My mom was an artist, um and a visual artist
Speaker 1: and so she painted. She was actually the Tampa Museum
Speaker 1: of Modern Arts, uh Modern Artist of the Year in nine.
Speaker 1: But she did a lot, she did a lot of
Speaker 1: work for UM. You know, she did do graphic design
Speaker 1: for like newspapers, and and you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: she would draw, you know, like when you had models, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like she draw like, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: pencil drawings for ads for department stores, for to help
Speaker 1: you help the newspapers. So um. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up with a certain but music was never part
Speaker 1: of the the equation. I don't really know quite what
Speaker 1: happened that I became the music nut that I did,
Speaker 1: because that was not necessarily a priority in our our
Speaker 1: in our household. Okay, a couple of things. How many
Speaker 1: kids in the family? What were you like in school?
Speaker 1: Were you popular, not popular? Good or bad student? And
Speaker 1: when you got into music, what kind of music were listening?
Speaker 1: So first, how many kids in the family? Five? Initially
Speaker 1: my mom my parents divorced when I was eleven. My
Speaker 1: mom got remarried and I was the last of five children. Um.
Speaker 1: And then when my mom got remarried seventeen years later,
Speaker 1: she had my little brother, who's a wonderful guy's names Adam.
Speaker 1: But you know, and you know, so but in the
Speaker 1: in the you know, sort of the family that I
Speaker 1: grew up with five children, and uh, um, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: what was that you asked another question. Well, it sounds
Speaker 1: like you might have gotten lost in the shuffle. But
Speaker 1: you know, at that time in one's life, it's basically
Speaker 1: about going to school. Were you a good student, bad students?
Speaker 1: I was a good student. I was a good student.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I graduated with you know, with with
Speaker 1: with honors and and yeah, I was I was a
Speaker 1: good student, and I was a very uh I was
Speaker 1: a good kid, you know, but I wasn't super popular,
Speaker 1: But nor was I like unpopped. I was just sort
Speaker 1: of like there. I was just one of those people
Speaker 1: that you know, I was just kind of there and
Speaker 1: I had my group of friends, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was you know, I played a lot of sports.
Speaker 1: I played baseball. I'm still an enormous baseball fan. Played
Speaker 1: on the high school tennis team, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, I was a good athlete. I wasn't a
Speaker 1: great athe I was a pretty good tennis player actually,
Speaker 1: but uh, um, you know that was kind of my world.
Speaker 1: And um, but you know music, I was a big
Speaker 1: music fan very early. And you know how like young
Speaker 1: guys are like, you know, if you're like a young dude,
Speaker 1: you build a lot of yourself esteem around being an
Speaker 1: expert in something. And sometimes it's cars and sometimes it's sports.
Speaker 1: But music was my thing. Like it was you know,
Speaker 1: like I was the kid that knew at ten years
Speaker 1: old all the members of Black Sabbath and and you know,
Speaker 1: every year for Christmas, I'd get the Rolling Stone Record
Speaker 1: Guide or the Encyclopedia of Rock and and you know
Speaker 1: that was social capital for me. And um. When I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, uh, you know, I got a job working
Speaker 1: at a pizza place, uh, bussing tables. And in that
Speaker 1: plaza was a little, you know, a store that was
Speaker 1: part of a four store chain called Carousel Records. And
Speaker 1: I would take my my forty three dollar check you
Speaker 1: know that I made for for busting table piece of restaurant.
Speaker 1: I'd cash it at the record store at Carousel, and
Speaker 1: I basically spin. I'd save ten bucks for gas from
Speaker 1: my moped to get me back and forth to work.
Speaker 1: I'd spend everything else on records and um, and I
Speaker 1: was just consumed by it. And I had a routine
Speaker 1: where every I think things like on Thursday, Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: would come out, and so every Thursday I would buy
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone and I would take buy Rolling a Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and a knee high Peach soda. I love knee
Speaker 1: High Peach still do. And uh, and I go home
Speaker 1: and I would devour Rolling Stone and read it cover
Speaker 1: to cover and and some of the some of the
Speaker 1: formation of my musical tastes, like I'll tell you to
Speaker 1: two two artists that I now work with, and I'm
Speaker 1: still pinching myself and I remember, I remember this vis
Speaker 1: really like going to you know, reading the reviews for
Speaker 1: Steve Winwood Arc of a Diver and Ricky Lee Jones
Speaker 1: Pirates and they got five star reviews. And I got
Speaker 1: on my moped and I went and I bought those
Speaker 1: records and I listened to him, and I just, Um,
Speaker 1: the fact that I now get to work with both
Speaker 1: of those artists is it's a little mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1: And uh, but I I so. Then when I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: during Christmas of the year, um, I was you know
Speaker 1: the store manager. Her name was Laura Harold, and you know,
Speaker 1: we developed a friendship because I was in there all
Speaker 1: the time. It was very tiny store, and she was
Speaker 1: complaining that her person that was gonna you know it
Speaker 1: was interviewing for for Christmas help didn't show up for
Speaker 1: the interview, and I was like, well, do I get
Speaker 1: a discount if I work here? And she was like,
Speaker 1: well for the time you work here, sure, and and
Speaker 1: so I was like, well, if you'll have me, I'll
Speaker 1: do it. And that's how I got my start in
Speaker 1: the music business. And then after Christmas, I was expecting
Speaker 1: to be you know, let go and and and all that.
Speaker 1: But the person who was there, her full time person.
Speaker 1: They're left and so I mean I was still in
Speaker 1: high school, but like I arranged my schedule so like
Speaker 1: I was like after school, I went straight to the
Speaker 1: record store and I would work weekends, but I became
Speaker 1: the you know, the full time person there. And Laura
Speaker 1: was a huge influence on me in terms of my music.
Speaker 1: She was a huge David David Bowie fan and a
Speaker 1: huge Kate Bush fan and um, and she really opened
Speaker 1: me up to all kinds of music that you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a fifteen year old kid, you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: I mean I still love some of those bands, but
Speaker 1: you know, you listen to radio, it was Ario Speedwagon
Speaker 1: and things like that, and you know, and I got
Speaker 1: all kinds of love for for you know, Journey and
Speaker 1: are Speedwagon all that but it really opened me up
Speaker 1: to a wider variety of music. And I just I
Speaker 1: would just spend everything that I made on records, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I would. I had a little basket on
Speaker 1: the back of my moped and I'd strapped my albums
Speaker 1: in and I'd go home and I just you know, devoured.
Speaker 1: I've just always been a huge, you know, music fan.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I went to work for Specs
Speaker 1: when Carousel closed down, and I just I did record
Speaker 1: retail till I was twenty one. Okay, so you graduated
Speaker 1: my school, you were going to college at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I went to the Community Polk Community College in
Speaker 1: in winter Haven, but I when I was eighteen, I graduated,
Speaker 1: uh like basically less than a month after my seventeenth birthday.
Speaker 1: Um and um. So I went to community college. But
Speaker 1: I I didn't know what a music business was, but
Speaker 1: I knew that it wasn't in Lakeland, Florida, and so
Speaker 1: I made the decision to move to Atlanta because whatever
Speaker 1: the music business was, well, I actually had a point
Speaker 1: of access there. There was a guy named Doug Wiley
Speaker 1: who was a salesperson for what was Important and that
Speaker 1: that that then became read and like he would sell
Speaker 1: like I would actually buy some and stuff. I was
Speaker 1: fifteen years old and like buying you know records. Laurel
Speaker 1: let me, you know, do that. And so he was like, uh,
Speaker 1: the cool guy that lived in the big city that
Speaker 1: like worked with all these you know, like I would
Speaker 1: talk to about all these cool records and so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I moved up to Atlanta. I got a
Speaker 1: job working at Record Bar. Um I was living in
Speaker 1: an apartment. I remember this. It was three d nine
Speaker 1: dollars a month. And what year we am, uh nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty uh four or three three maybe, and uh, but
Speaker 1: I lived in an apartment. It was three dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And I remember that because um, I was so poor
Speaker 1: that I uh, you know basically that it was a
Speaker 1: two bedroom apartment. And the deal we made was the
Speaker 1: two guys paid a hundred and fifty dollars and they
Speaker 1: got the bedrooms and I paid ninety dollars and slept
Speaker 1: on the couch. But but it gave me a way
Speaker 1: to be around it all. And then you know, I
Speaker 1: was working at Record Bar and Lennox and that was
Speaker 1: at the time when you know, there was Billboard report
Speaker 1: you know that was you know, stores would report to Billboard,
Speaker 1: and I was. I wound up, you know, work at
Speaker 1: the store and became the singles buyer. So I was
Speaker 1: doing the singles Billboard charts, so that by access to
Speaker 1: label people, as you could guess, was expanded greatly. And
Speaker 1: so I just kind of, you know, politely harangued people
Speaker 1: about like getting a job at a label, and uh,
Speaker 1: I wound up starting at A and M Records as
Speaker 1: as a seventy five dollar a week in turn. And
Speaker 1: that was at the time when they were you know,
Speaker 1: it was like R C, A Arista, and A and M.
Speaker 1: We're all together in a distribution group. And I loved
Speaker 1: my time at A and M. Karen Glauber, I worked
Speaker 1: under Karen Glauber, was one of Karen's kids, and it
Speaker 1: was a great start. But then, you know, uh, and
Speaker 1: everything at A and M. They were like the first
Speaker 1: time I ever saw an Apple computer was at A
Speaker 1: and M. They always drank the best wine and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But uh, you know, I went down the
Speaker 1: hall and I'd see the airs to people and they
Speaker 1: had like, you know dent you know, dented file cabinets,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you know Linda Alter, if
Speaker 1: you knew her, legendary promotion person. And they were like
Speaker 1: yelling at people and tearing their hair out, but they
Speaker 1: were breaking records like crazy. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to go where it's kind of like. And so
Speaker 1: they hired me, uh Candy uh Barry uh. Candice Berry,
Speaker 1: who eventually went on to do sales at Interscope, you know,
Speaker 1: hired me as as as the basically the office assistant.
Speaker 1: I was low man on the totem pole. I made
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars of weeks therefore ten thousand, four hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which for me was actually a pay raise. And uh
Speaker 1: and then I just I you know, like it was
Speaker 1: right when the Whitney Houston record came out, and it
Speaker 1: was like Kenny g and Tony Braxton. So I was
Speaker 1: around all of that and and so you know, operating
Speaker 1: in that environment, I really learned you know a lot
Speaker 1: and and uh and even though I was like many
Speaker 1: many many levels below Clive Davis, um, you know, I was,
Speaker 1: I was involved enough to you know, one thing that
Speaker 1: one thing about Clive that I really appreciated was his
Speaker 1: attention to detail. It was very important, Like he knew
Speaker 1: what was going on with the Deborah Cox record in Providence,
Speaker 1: and if the right things weren't happening, then he it
Speaker 1: was just like go fix it, you know. And his
Speaker 1: level to detail and breaking artists, it was. It was
Speaker 1: a great lesson and something I've carried, you know, with me.
Speaker 1: But that was sort of like how, you know, how
Speaker 1: I became, you know, how I got my label gig
Speaker 1: and then I you know, I spent the next fifteen years,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve of the fifteen years at Arista, both
Speaker 1: in the Pop in the in the Country division. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a couple other gigs along the way, but um,
Speaker 1: but the majority the way these were there, these were
Speaker 1: promotion or sales, sales. It was always on the sales
Speaker 1: and retail into things and and so. And then I
Speaker 1: worked for the Nashville division under Tim Dubos and Mike Dungan,
Speaker 1: and you know that was a great object lesson too,
Speaker 1: because you know, the level of performance was so high
Speaker 1: in our batting average was so high. But they were
Speaker 1: very kind and loving people. You know, I won't name names,
Speaker 1: but you know when I worked for Arista and the
Speaker 1: Pop division, I was up and I got promoted up
Speaker 1: to the New York office, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: a rough environment and there were times where I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure that I'm you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not sure that I want to
Speaker 1: be or around. Uh. You know. It was just a
Speaker 1: very tough environment. And not that I'm not a tough person,
Speaker 1: but it was just, you know, I think there was
Speaker 1: you know, there was I think the level of drug use,
Speaker 1: I think the level of you know, it's just it
Speaker 1: was just not it was it was for a small
Speaker 1: town guy from the South, it was it was. It
Speaker 1: was a tough adjustment. But you know, but like I
Speaker 1: went to work for Nashville and you know, the just
Speaker 1: I mean we were breaking artists and Tim do Waugh
Speaker 1: was a loving person. I remember the first time that
Speaker 1: I met him. It was at backstage before I started.
Speaker 1: They had hired me but I hadn't started yet, and
Speaker 1: Tim said to me before I left, you know, because
Speaker 1: we were wrapping up, we're having a conversation and and
Speaker 1: he said, well, Mr, welcome to the family. And then
Speaker 1: he poked me in the chest and he goes and
Speaker 1: I want you to remember this is a family. And
Speaker 1: he was basically putting me on notice that like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're expected to comport yourself with you know, with loving kindness,
Speaker 1: even even though he didn't use those terms. And that
Speaker 1: was the way that they acted it. But but like
Speaker 1: it didn't, it didn't, they didn't let up. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like it. You know, love wasn't uh you know, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a sign of weakness, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books of all time is Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King's Strength to Love For and I recommended to
Speaker 1: everybody because you know, love is you know, it gave
Speaker 1: me the intellectual framework to know that, you know, love
Speaker 1: is is actually strength. It's not it's not a weakness.
Speaker 1: So what is your last job and how does it
Speaker 1: in working for the labels? I worked at Giant Records. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was the head of sales with uh, you know,
Speaker 1: with uh you know, for for Giants Nashville division. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I found my way out of Arista, you
Speaker 1: know when they you know, when when they merged uh
Speaker 1: with our ci A and they just didn't need duplicate
Speaker 1: sales staff. So you know, I respect Joe Gilanni, you know, immensely,
Speaker 1: but it's just you know, it's a business decision. It
Speaker 1: was nothing, no disrespect or anything like that to me.
Speaker 1: And and but uh, but so I wound up running
Speaker 1: giants sales and marketing division. But it was right as
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, I set my bags down, and it
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, you know, I'm hearing rumors
Speaker 1: that Irving is going to sell the company, and so
Speaker 1: I was like, oh boy, here we go again. And
Speaker 1: so um so when I left there, I was just like,
Speaker 1: do I want to like hop back on this treadmill again?
Speaker 1: It seemed like the trend was really going towards people
Speaker 1: getting laid off and downsizing because we were starting the
Speaker 1: sort of inevitable decline at you know, with the post
Speaker 1: c D you know boom we were, you know, revenues
Speaker 1: were dropping and people were seeking efficiencies. And I thought
Speaker 1: very hard about what I wanted to do and how
Speaker 1: I was going to respond to that. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if I go to some small label that's only going
Speaker 1: to have like one or two artists and they're paying
Speaker 1: me seventy five thousand dollars a year, um, like what
Speaker 1: am I gonna? I mean, like, I do everything that
Speaker 1: I could think of for that with those one or
Speaker 1: two artists, but I'd run out of things pretty quick.
Speaker 1: And and it's not and my even my presence, there
Speaker 1: is an inefficiency that will help, uh make the country,
Speaker 1: the company less viable. So rather than you know, so
Speaker 1: I decided and I started this company with a partner,
Speaker 1: deb Markland, who I worked with at Ariston, And the
Speaker 1: general idea was, rather than get somebody to you know,
Speaker 1: pay me or us, uh, you know, seventy five dollars,
Speaker 1: let's get ten people to hire us for seventy. That
Speaker 1: way we'll be busy all the time. It will be
Speaker 1: safer for us because one or two things go away,
Speaker 1: we still got income. But also the fact that we're
Speaker 1: doing this makes all of those entities more viable. And
Speaker 1: and you know, so that's part of my sort of
Speaker 1: business orientation, thinking about you know, sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: how can things be done in a sustainable fashion? And
Speaker 1: so you know, that's how we started. And we started
Speaker 1: just as a straight consultancy. But then you know, Ken Antonelli,
Speaker 1: who has been so important in my professional life during
Speaker 1: in so many ways. But he came to me and
Speaker 1: was like, man, we love the work you do. You
Speaker 1: prepare our sales reps, to go in and they know
Speaker 1: what they're talking king about. So we want you to
Speaker 1: bring everything to us, you know, we want you to
Speaker 1: do all your work through us. And it was like, well,
Speaker 1: and this was a year before Spotify, I mean before
Speaker 1: iTunes started, So if you didn't have distribution, you were
Speaker 1: you know, you were screwed. And so I I but
Speaker 1: I understood stood that, like access to distribution was an
Speaker 1: existential issue, and so what I said to him was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well let's do like a kind of an aggregator thing.
Speaker 1: You signed me. I'll take the financial I'll take the
Speaker 1: risk of the responsibility, but like, let me if if
Speaker 1: I can bestow distribution on a client, then that gives
Speaker 1: me more um importance to them. And so so that's
Speaker 1: the way we set everything up. And that's what I've
Speaker 1: been doing for the last twenty years. Kenny was running
Speaker 1: red which morphed into the orchard. That's how that relationship. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: are you married, Yes, have any children? No? You do
Speaker 1: not have a children. No children. I've never been able
Speaker 1: to convince anybody how many times you've been married three.
Speaker 1: Nobody likes a quitter. When you started this business twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, were you married to the president. Why for
Speaker 1: that was before this No, actually, well that's an interesting story.
Speaker 1: When I started this business. Um. Uh actually, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're bringing this up because it gives me an opportunity
Speaker 1: to talk about Nancy Quinn, who is the number two
Speaker 1: person in our company. Um, Nancy, Um, we were married
Speaker 1: at the time. Shortly after the company started, we became
Speaker 1: not married and um, and you know, we took a
Speaker 1: couple of years to kind of heal up. But you know,
Speaker 1: I've met Nancy through worked. I mean she worked for
Speaker 1: BMG Distribution. I worked for Arista and we were like
Speaker 1: colleagues and friends before we got romantically involved. And you know,
Speaker 1: then when you know, and after a little bit of
Speaker 1: time to heal up, all that I needed as the
Speaker 1: company was growing, um, you know, and she had found
Speaker 1: her way out of the company or out of the
Speaker 1: of the position and that she was in before. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's one of the most She's one of the hardest working,
Speaker 1: just down to earth, like solid record people, you know.
Speaker 1: You know. So I was like, you know, it's like, well, life,
Speaker 1: I hope I'm making a healthy decision here, but like
Speaker 1: she's one of the best people that I know, and
Speaker 1: so we started working together again. And um and she
Speaker 1: is she's she's she's the number two person in this company.
Speaker 1: And um and she's she's the she's the one that
Speaker 1: really helps promote structure and organization. I mean, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a good business person. I am actually reasonably organized.
Speaker 1: But I'm also my fascination is with you know, artists
Speaker 1: and narrative and building relationships and talking about this. Nancy
Speaker 1: is the one that makes sure that all the contracts
Speaker 1: get signed. You know, She's the one that helps me
Speaker 1: think through the structure of the company. And and and
Speaker 1: it's just you know, so um so it's yeah, so
Speaker 1: Nancy was, um, you know, she was, you know, my
Speaker 1: my second wife. But also she's um, you know, still
Speaker 1: in my life and in an integral part of everything
Speaker 1: we do at thirty Tigers. That begs the question the
Speaker 1: third wife. Um, well, I did an album. Uh uh
Speaker 1: you know, I did an album in two thousand four
Speaker 1: along with uh two uh you know partners in crime,
Speaker 1: Steve Fishel and Tamra Saviano. Um. I had this idea
Speaker 1: about doing an album of Stephen Foster's music, or doing
Speaker 1: an album of Stephen Foster's music. For those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know Stephen Foster's you know, I think one
Speaker 1: of the five most important people in in American musical history.
Speaker 1: He was the first person to be a famous songwriter.
Speaker 1: And he um he did um he wrote, Oh Susannah
Speaker 1: Camptown Races, a dream of Genie with the light brown hair,
Speaker 1: just like a multitude of songs that are in the
Speaker 1: in the in the American Canon of song songs. But
Speaker 1: he um. He became famous his early you know hits
Speaker 1: Oh Susannah and um uh. And I'm getting around to
Speaker 1: Judith in a second. But I promised, but the the
Speaker 1: but I was at the time I was attending when
Speaker 1: I went back to school to do the pre law thing,
Speaker 1: I was attended a historically black university. So I was
Speaker 1: in Africana studies class, and I was thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about white appropriation of black culture. And I
Speaker 1: grew up in Florida where you know our state song
Speaker 1: with Swansee River and we I grew up singing out
Speaker 1: of a Stephen Foster songbook when I was in pre
Speaker 1: K and all that, and so um, he kind of
Speaker 1: had an outsized um, you know place in my musical
Speaker 1: uh consciousness but he um. But it was interesting because
Speaker 1: he his first hit songs were basically songs that were
Speaker 1: written for the minstrel stage. Oh Susanna and Count Camptown Residute,
Speaker 1: his first two famous songs, which basically minstrel ry was
Speaker 1: was essentially white whites appropriating black culture, you know then,
Speaker 1: and so I got the idea of and and also
Speaker 1: Stephen Foster sort of lost um he became he went
Speaker 1: got consigned to the back burner of public consciousness in
Speaker 1: the seventies with the advent of a more um uh
Speaker 1: you know, when when we were more became more conscious
Speaker 1: about race issues. And you know, he would use the
Speaker 1: N word and songs and he would use the word
Speaker 1: Darkian songs. And so it occurred to me that his
Speaker 1: whole arc of of you know, rising into the public
Speaker 1: consciousness and then fading from it was all bracketed by race.
Speaker 1: And I just felt compelled to tell that story. And
Speaker 1: I'd never I mean, all I did was sell, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, we sell records to Walmart. I've never
Speaker 1: tried to do anything like this before. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to tell that story. And and so I, you know,
Speaker 1: with the help of Like I said, Stephen Tamer, we
Speaker 1: you know, we told that story. And then Tamer was
Speaker 1: friends with with with Judith and and uh and suggested
Speaker 1: her as an artist on the record. So we met
Speaker 1: through she was a she's a recovering singer songwriter. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh so she she was on on that record
Speaker 1: and we met through that. How many employees at thirty Tigers. Uh,
Speaker 1: I own the majority of it, but we have um
Speaker 1: um I own about eighty percent of it, and then
Speaker 1: the other is split between present and former employees and
Speaker 1: uh um and uh. Well and also you know the
Speaker 1: you know the I don't know if you ever knew
Speaker 1: Bob Goldstone did you ever know him? Okay, he was
Speaker 1: a legendary sales guy and everything he was. We lost
Speaker 1: him unfortunately in a in a bicycling accident in um
Speaker 1: and his his widow owns a you know his you
Speaker 1: know his his portion of it and uh and uh
Speaker 1: you know, with the success of the company, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things is is knowing that his work and
Speaker 1: his contribution sustains or does the sustain I mean contributes
Speaker 1: to sustaining his family, and that makes me feel fantastic.
Speaker 1: He was a lovely guy, Why thirty tigers? Where's the
Speaker 1: name come from? Well? I back in so we used
Speaker 1: to be called Emergent Music Marketing. Um, I didn't love
Speaker 1: the name, but it was it was our name. And
Speaker 1: we got a cease and desist order. There used to
Speaker 1: be a label called Emergent with an Eye and uh.
Speaker 1: They sent us a cease and desist letter. As we
Speaker 1: became more label like and we were distributing and things
Speaker 1: like that, and my attorney called me and said, well,
Speaker 1: we got this thing, and so you have two choices.
Speaker 1: Either we can you can pay me a lot of
Speaker 1: money to fight this and we'll lose, or you can
Speaker 1: give up now. And so I was like give up now. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then and and so we were trying to come
Speaker 1: you know, we had to come up with another, another
Speaker 1: name and do it pretty quickly. And at the time,
Speaker 1: now this was back when Nashville was solely this is
Speaker 1: before the Black Keys got here and Jack White got here.
Speaker 1: So we were strictly like a a country in Christian
Speaker 1: music town and that was about it. So there's anything
Speaker 1: off the beaten path, I'd get the call. And so
Speaker 1: an attorney called me and wanted there was an opera
Speaker 1: singer that she was working with that needed a business
Speaker 1: plan written for a Doctor Seuss opera, and uh, so
Speaker 1: I was all immersed at the at the very moment
Speaker 1: in the world of Dr Seuss, and he uh had
Speaker 1: a book called I Can Lick thirty Tigers Today, and
Speaker 1: I thought, I don't know, it just popped into my head,
Speaker 1: like and I while checking with my trademark attorney to
Speaker 1: make sure I wasn't going to get sued by the
Speaker 1: Sieus estate, but you know, I thought, being thirty tigers,
Speaker 1: that sounds like mysterious and powerful and uh and there
Speaker 1: was some dissension in some of the older people in
Speaker 1: the company were like, I don't know, that feels kind
Speaker 1: of weird. But at the time, we were working right
Speaker 1: above Grimes, and I went downtown or downstairs and asked
Speaker 1: all the young people that worked at Grimes, and I
Speaker 1: was like, what do you think of that name? And
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, we love it. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: funk it, We're going with that. So how we became
Speaker 1: thirty Tigers? You know? So I and I still love
Speaker 1: the name, so okay, just a couple more questions. How
Speaker 1: many acts on thirty Tigers roster? At this point hard
Speaker 1: to say. Um, you know, most artists, I mean we
Speaker 1: we put out about fifty records a year, assuming that
Speaker 1: there's a uh you know, most artists are working on
Speaker 1: a two year album cycle. Um, you know, I would
Speaker 1: say that the number is probably in and around a hundred.
Speaker 1: But again, like you know, artists aren't. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a record by record type of thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if you know they're they're not locked into deal.
Speaker 1: So if somebody is gonna you know, feels like something
Speaker 1: else is better, we may or may you know, we
Speaker 1: may or may not know whether or not they're gonna
Speaker 1: do it until they do it. But um, I would
Speaker 1: say my best guest is probably around a hundred. Okay,
Speaker 1: final question. Jason Isabel put out an album at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the pandemic when everybody was locked up at home.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of ink on it, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of making the record. Convention wisdom is that
Speaker 1: it underperformed commercially and people said it wasn't a good
Speaker 1: time because he couldn't go out and promote it. Was
Speaker 1: that the case that really you need the road component
Speaker 1: and all those other things to have a d percent
Speaker 1: success or is that a vision that's incorrect now, I mean,
Speaker 1: it sure helps, and he's such a compelling you know,
Speaker 1: live act UM. But I also think Jason under you know,
Speaker 1: he understood that. I mean I remember this being a
Speaker 1: point of conversation at the time. He understood that, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what he was up against. UM. But he's
Speaker 1: done well enough in his career that the motivations were
Speaker 1: for him were to UM have music that would be
Speaker 1: uh um sort of a psychic sav to his fans.
Speaker 1: And also, UM, we did a lot of work in
Speaker 1: terms of trying to um do things with indie retail.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you remember, we released that out a
Speaker 1: week early to indie retail, and we talked to it
Speaker 1: to our DSP partners and explained, you know, the situations
Speaker 1: is no disrespect to you guys, but you know this
Speaker 1: is important to you know, Jason to be able to
Speaker 1: do this, and we we didn't hear. I mean, they
Speaker 1: we had nothing but their support and understanding. And so UM,
Speaker 1: I don't think that you know the motivations for Jason
Speaker 1: at that point. I mean, sure, I mean, everybody wants
Speaker 1: their record to do as well as they possibly can.
Speaker 1: But I think he he and his incredibly great manager,
Speaker 1: Tracy Thomas, understood the that the you know, that they
Speaker 1: were wandering into some you know, difficulties when it came
Speaker 1: to know marketing and the ultimate success of the record,
Speaker 1: but chose to move forward anyways because Jason's you know,
Speaker 1: he's doing great. He's a very successful artist, and so
Speaker 1: he could make that choice. Okay, David, I think we've
Speaker 1: come to the end of the feeling we've known. You're
Speaker 1: quite the rack and tour and very informative and insightful
Speaker 1: in terms of the business. I want to thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this. Well, I want to thank
Speaker 1: you right back because I've enjoyed this thoroughly and um
Speaker 1: and again you this isn't the first time that you know,
Speaker 1: when I've expressed myself that you've amplified, you know, my
Speaker 1: views to the world. And I really appreciate it. And
Speaker 1: and also I think that again, like I really, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like you're a conduit for I
Speaker 1: learned a lot from listening, especially the podcasts. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love your newsletter, but the podcasts and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, hearing hearing what some of the you know,
Speaker 1: the titans of industry or the you know, artists that
Speaker 1: you know that participate, you know their viewpoints. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just learned so much. So I I hope, uh
Speaker 1: that I'm paying that forward to some people and if
Speaker 1: they can you know, um, you know, learn anything from
Speaker 1: my experience, then that it would make me feel great.
Speaker 1: But I've I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, so thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. Well, you definitely paid it
Speaker 1: for There's a lot of stuff here that even people
Speaker 1: deep in the business doesn't know, so I want to
Speaker 1: thank you again. Until next time. This is bald left
Speaker 1: sense Bo