Speaker 1: Danny Glass needs no introductions, Well, will give him no introduction.
Speaker 1: So you were a DJ at regimes? How did that
Speaker 1: come together? How do they get the job at regimes?
Speaker 1: Start from the beginning, because some people may not even
Speaker 1: know what regimes was. Explain regimes, so regime. It's a
Speaker 1: Holocaust survivor who creates the most important discotheque in the
Speaker 1: world in Paris. And from this incredibly hard upbringing, she
Speaker 1: creates an atmosphere where the where the world comes together
Speaker 1: of royalty wealth, jets set, truly jets set and figured
Speaker 1: everything out of what people how they want to be
Speaker 1: uh uh wined and dined. And the more money she charged,
Speaker 1: the better they did at this discotheque in in in Paris.
Speaker 1: That same set moved to your stad they would move
Speaker 1: to today today you call him Aspen and Hampton's, but
Speaker 1: it's a different jets set in those days. So I'm
Speaker 1: in college at Brooklyn College and working a few jobs
Speaker 1: and luncheonette as a short order cook, soda jerk from
Speaker 1: my uncle. But I was deejaying and I was working
Speaker 1: as a publisher also, And the woman who I worked
Speaker 1: for was a very wealthy woman. She owned palisades of
Speaker 1: amusement park and she her husband passed away. She also
Speaker 1: wrote the theme song Palisades. Has wrote she was a
Speaker 1: songwriter because that's what I think of. She wrote that
Speaker 1: song Freddie Cannon and she no, no, that's two. There's
Speaker 1: two Palisades. The commercials she wrote that's this too. She
Speaker 1: also wrote you can trust your car with the Man
Speaker 1: who Wears the Star. She also wrote a standard torch
Speaker 1: song called how did He Look, which was recorded when
Speaker 1: I was there dred and thirty times by the greatest
Speaker 1: singers of all time. So she records this disco record
Speaker 1: of a song that we had in our catalog, and
Speaker 1: she says, you have to bring it two Regime's it's
Speaker 1: opening up. And I had read about it and the
Speaker 1: Liz Smith wrote about and a few other people. So
Speaker 1: in between college and different things, I go to the
Speaker 1: club and nobody is speaking English. The manager was Italian
Speaker 1: pepo Vinini, and her sister Evelyn was there and said,
Speaker 1: sit down, sit down. I thought, I'm just there to
Speaker 1: meet the DJ. For some reason, they're confused. They think
Speaker 1: I'm there to audition for the DJ. So I stayed,
Speaker 1: I have the twelve inches with me ready, and they
Speaker 1: bring me downstairs and the club is unbelievable. It's opening
Speaker 1: in two days. The club and they give me meal
Speaker 1: voucher tickets for shrafts because I'm not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to eat with the rest of the help. I'm not
Speaker 1: eligible yet. I haven't earned a yet to sit at
Speaker 1: the table. I have no idea what's going on, and
Speaker 1: I just keep going with it. Long story short, I
Speaker 1: become the opening night DJ with Jonathan the opening night
Speaker 1: opening night DJ with Jonah Tuck Garvalia because he has
Speaker 1: spoke no English and I did the American music. He
Speaker 1: did the rest of the world music, which really opened
Speaker 1: up my ears and eyes to international music, which is
Speaker 1: why I think Last Note is such an international label
Speaker 1: because of really what happened at Regime's was at fifty
Speaker 1: nine in Park. UM I never strayed from there. By
Speaker 1: the way, my entire career has been in three blocks
Speaker 1: of that time, whether it was Chrysalis, S P K,
Speaker 1: Glass Note, I think my entire career has been between
Speaker 1: sixty one and fifty ninth Street Park in Madison, and
Speaker 1: sing Time, UM, A and M was there. But going
Speaker 1: back to Regime's, it was a magical time each night
Speaker 1: Grace Kelly would come. Next night, Elizabeth Taylor would come
Speaker 1: and and I became a source of information for the
Speaker 1: for the what in those days, you know the page
Speaker 1: six of today. I legitimately became the source of who
Speaker 1: was there. And I learned so much about music. And
Speaker 1: then they'll get paid for being a source. I got
Speaker 1: paid a lot of money to be a DJ, and
Speaker 1: I'm still in college. I got paid money. One of
Speaker 1: the great scenes that Regime's was she saw somebody giving
Speaker 1: me a tip. They give me ten dollars to play
Speaker 1: a song, and I said, I'll get to it. I'll
Speaker 1: get to it. She took the money, she threw it.
Speaker 1: You never ever play anything for less than a hundred hours.
Speaker 1: This is this is the late seventies. Then I made
Speaker 1: a cassette for fifty dollars for somebody. She took the
Speaker 1: cassette and she threw the cassette. She said, a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars for a cassette. I was playing the
Speaker 1: music anyway. All it was taping is what was playing.
Speaker 1: So I learned a lot about what how people wanted
Speaker 1: to be treated, and then how they want. Bottle service
Speaker 1: started there. The whole concept of bottles owning a bottle
Speaker 1: and some of the bottles were watered down. But that's
Speaker 1: a that's another good story. But that's um so many,
Speaker 1: so many lessons in that getting that job. And she
Speaker 1: was thrilled my boss and it said something about showing up.
Speaker 1: So I stayed there for about a year, a year
Speaker 1: and a half maybe more, and that led to another
Speaker 1: DJ job. So but Regime's was the place. Um, it
Speaker 1: was the suit and HiPE place, answered the studio fifty
Speaker 1: four and very hard to get in, very very expensive.
Speaker 1: So we went to a restaurant last fall, one of
Speaker 1: the exclusive lunch places, and we got the best table
Speaker 1: in the joint because you said, the major d you
Speaker 1: knew or the owner you knew from Regimes. So the
Speaker 1: owner was a bus boy. Really yeah, and now he
Speaker 1: owns the coolest bistro in New York. So we go
Speaker 1: back to those days. Yeah, and the bistro's name for
Speaker 1: the audience, we're I'm there three or four days a
Speaker 1: week and the Philippe created you probably read about it
Speaker 1: because Michael Cohen is there three days a week, and
Speaker 1: if he's not there, the other lawyer, Stormy Daniels, Michael
Speaker 1: whatever with a v Avanati. He's there. So this is
Speaker 1: what's going on around our block. Every single day, the
Speaker 1: two Avanati and Cohen, they go to three restaurants. They
Speaker 1: go to Fred's, they go to Bill Bok, and they
Speaker 1: go to Logo Lou and they have coffee at sant Ambrose,
Speaker 1: torturing each other every day. Okay, so you grew up
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Is there music in the house in Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of theater, There's a lot of films,
Speaker 1: is a lot of soundtracks. There's w traction mean like
Speaker 1: the original Broadway gas. My parents took us to Broadway,
Speaker 1: went to the city, um many times a year to
Speaker 1: see you know, West Side Story or King and I
Speaker 1: My Fair Lady. But the West Side Story was the
Speaker 1: first musical I ever saw and changed my life. Um,
Speaker 1: the violence, the the you know, the Hell's Kitchen, the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard a song as as beautiful as Somewhere
Speaker 1: and I was a young boy. And then we saw
Speaker 1: the other ones and they really worked great. And we
Speaker 1: went to the House of Chan afterwards for Chinese food
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Um. But it was extraordinary to go to
Speaker 1: the city and that that was going to the city.
Speaker 1: The only time we went to the city was the
Speaker 1: theater um. How about when you were a teenager, would
Speaker 1: you go into the city as we used to see
Speaker 1: in the sixties, duck around? I only I was sixteen.
Speaker 1: I got into college very early. Eskipped a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and I got into college rather early. So it's sixteen.
Speaker 1: I think I'm already a freshman or sophomore. And my
Speaker 1: friend told me about a club on the what what
Speaker 1: they called Lower east Side now we I don't not
Speaker 1: sure what are you we call it in those days.
Speaker 1: It was on First Avenue in second Street, and it
Speaker 1: was called Club eight two. And he went and he said,
Speaker 1: you have and you said, you have to see this.
Speaker 1: You have to hear it. You have to see the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I said, what happened. What happened is I
Speaker 1: can't explain it. So I went. This was a transvesti club.
Speaker 1: And you walk down the stairs and you see posters
Speaker 1: of David Bowie, the Stones, Uh, David Johansson, all in drag,
Speaker 1: and you get greeted by I didn't know it was
Speaker 1: a woman. I thought it was I thought it was
Speaker 1: a man. And they greet you and you had to
Speaker 1: wear they wanted the men to wear tight pants and
Speaker 1: high heels. And um, it wasn't a gay club. It
Speaker 1: was a club just to have a great time. And
Speaker 1: it was the first time I saw a guy playing
Speaker 1: two turntables and and all I did was I just
Speaker 1: stayed with him. I just stayed watching him. His name
Speaker 1: was Tony Mansfield and he would come back from Paris
Speaker 1: and from London. We got friendly, bringing these seven inch
Speaker 1: records and playing them and he had a headphone on
Speaker 1: one year and he was doing this back and forth
Speaker 1: and it it made me crazy about music and about
Speaker 1: being and watching the dance floor and those days, people
Speaker 1: didn't care if you sat down, you got up and uh.
Speaker 1: But that was the first time I went to the
Speaker 1: city without my parents, and my best friend took me
Speaker 1: to these clubs. And then these clubs gave birth to
Speaker 1: other clubs. It was Dan and and many many clubs
Speaker 1: we went to to hear music and it was great.
Speaker 1: And the first time I ever saw of producers coming
Speaker 1: to clubs. I used to go to the DJ booth.
Speaker 1: So I became known in a few of these clubs
Speaker 1: just a kid look like to hear music. And I
Speaker 1: used to say that this guy Bobby at Infinity or
Speaker 1: J Dan. I said, who's that? Who's that? This guy
Speaker 1: produced this record? It was like Sandy linds Er, you know,
Speaker 1: people like that, or those Bob Gordio got kind of
Speaker 1: guys would come in to the gay clubs and play
Speaker 1: the music. And then I saw what I guess what
Speaker 1: major label people coming in. And then the greatest thrill
Speaker 1: was when this very very overweight black guy came in
Speaker 1: and it was Verry White and he wanted to hear
Speaker 1: the records. He wanted to test the records, which is
Speaker 1: why White. No, I didn't talk to I didn't kind
Speaker 1: of know who he was. His voice was great. It
Speaker 1: was a big man, and it was the it was
Speaker 1: the Love's theme. There was no there was no there
Speaker 1: was no vocal theme song from Love Unlimited, right, And
Speaker 1: he had all these and every time we the D
Speaker 1: two would places, I got more had a whole stable
Speaker 1: because he had I think the three Degrees might have
Speaker 1: been or what was the name of the women that's
Speaker 1: saying I forget Love Unlimited orchestra, But he was in
Speaker 1: Love Unlimited. So he used to go there. And I
Speaker 1: always tell the artist that we signed a glass note
Speaker 1: to play the music for the audience first, which is
Speaker 1: counterintuitive to a lot of my competiti ds. With my peers,
Speaker 1: you know, they want to keep the security. I said,
Speaker 1: play include the audience tested, play it early. Mumford and
Speaker 1: Son is a great example of an artist that always
Speaker 1: plays the music early. And I remember they were playing
Speaker 1: with you two last year and they were playing music
Speaker 1: that I'm just hearing now being recorded. So my first
Speaker 1: trip to Minneapolis, I saw this five ft three guy
Speaker 1: go into the booth and you know who that was,
Speaker 1: And he went in and tested his music. And I
Speaker 1: went to Atlanta. The same thing happened in Atlanta. In
Speaker 1: Miami Beach, producers would do that the t K Gang
Speaker 1: l A, which is very late to disco and dance.
Speaker 1: In San Francisco, you'd see Sylvester, you'd see Patrick Cowley,
Speaker 1: you see people in in l A. The Casablanca Records
Speaker 1: crew would come in. Okay, So when do you decide
Speaker 1: you want to be in the music business. M hmm.
Speaker 1: That was controversial. So I'm in college and I'm cruising
Speaker 1: towards becoming a pediatrician. That was the Jewish thing. You're
Speaker 1: a doctor, you already knew you're gonna be a specialized
Speaker 1: be a pediatrician. I wanted to be a pediatrician because
Speaker 1: I loved pediatrician. He was very nice and I wanted
Speaker 1: to be him. So the djaying thing got to me
Speaker 1: and working at the college radio station similar to Rob,
Speaker 1: he did it earlier than he did it in high school,
Speaker 1: and I got hooked. The easiest conversation with with my parents,
Speaker 1: who are very supportive. They said, do whatever you want. Um.
Speaker 1: The only problem with my parents was to to this
Speaker 1: day my mother still thinks I'm a dj um and
Speaker 1: she always say, are you going out tonight? Are you
Speaker 1: working tonight? She still asked me that are you Are
Speaker 1: you working tonight? Uh? But that was the easy one.
Speaker 1: The hard one was going into the dean or student advice.
Speaker 1: I've got what the name of the people at Brooklyn
Speaker 1: College were to explain in my junior year that I
Speaker 1: want to change. And I finally found a woman who
Speaker 1: was very supportive, and she said, you've got to go
Speaker 1: into a theater class, and you've got to take some
Speaker 1: humanities and you've got to study Marshall McLuhan. I said,
Speaker 1: who's that. She said, Oh, he's he's the guru he's
Speaker 1: in charge. He's the whole, He's the whole universe of media,
Speaker 1: communication and messaging. So I switched. Um, I gave up
Speaker 1: stuff I loved. I love the Bunsen Burner, I love
Speaker 1: the lab techniques, I love the emergency room of the hospital.
Speaker 1: And I you know it was for me. It was
Speaker 1: at Einstein or Downstate Medical Center where they was gonna
Speaker 1: go and m but it was easy. Um. Once I
Speaker 1: got into that groove of of doing it, then I
Speaker 1: really I went to I went to college. I checked in.
Speaker 1: I just went to class, but I was not there.
Speaker 1: I physically checked out, well mentally checked that I should
Speaker 1: say in my second half of junior year. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to finish. I had to finish that. I owed
Speaker 1: my parents, and I wound up. One of the things
Speaker 1: you said to me, in which I repeat all the time.
Speaker 1: You have the first SPK Records convention in the desert,
Speaker 1: and you see three things you need to work at
Speaker 1: SPK Records, And I'm not going to say them in
Speaker 1: the order you said said, you have to really want
Speaker 1: to work at SPK records, you have to work retail
Speaker 1: because that's where the transaction actually happens, where people pay
Speaker 1: their money. And you say you have to graduate from college.
Speaker 1: And I cornered you later in the hotel and I said,
Speaker 1: in college, have been the first thing you mentioned. I say,
Speaker 1: you know, I went to college, okay, and I graduated.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is business where people didn't go
Speaker 1: to college. And you say, I said, why do you
Speaker 1: have to go to college? You say, oh, you don't
Speaker 1: learn anything in college, but it proves that you can
Speaker 1: complete something. Yeah, it's some. It really bothers me. How
Speaker 1: many people do not finish a book, a movie, a newspaper,
Speaker 1: do not wait till the closing credits. We're in the
Speaker 1: music industry and I'm always asking people. I called this
Speaker 1: guy from Downtown Music recently. His name is Justin Ollifouit's
Speaker 1: to tell him how how great he did in a
Speaker 1: movie because I saw he licensed all these songs he was.
Speaker 1: I think he was prize that I stayed till the credits. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really bad trade and attribute of
Speaker 1: our business that people do not finish the job. It
Speaker 1: takes a long long time to finish, and it's not
Speaker 1: easy the end. The you know, I've run many many marathons,
Speaker 1: and that last mile, that last point too. They're the hardest,
Speaker 1: but they're the most euphoric. You've got to finish um
Speaker 1: and it's it's it really says something to me when
Speaker 1: people because some people say to me, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't, I didn't. I skipped over that. I probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't hire them. I like people that finish. So you're
Speaker 1: in college and you get their first music business jobs
Speaker 1: with the publishing organization. Yeah, this woman Gladys Shelley and
Speaker 1: Harry Finn for I played this song on my show
Speaker 1: called Wet Weekend, and I read about it in a
Speaker 1: Record World magazine and it's said, if you need an
Speaker 1: extra copy, called this guy. And I called him, and
Speaker 1: my program director, who actually went on to fame in radio, said,
Speaker 1: you should never meet your your listeners. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a mystique. I said, I'm in college, come on.
Speaker 1: So I decided to call this guy and he said,
Speaker 1: love to meet you. So I went to the city.
Speaker 1: My father took me and then he said, where should
Speaker 1: I pick you up? I just thought of the only
Speaker 1: place I ever heard of was the Empire State Building.
Speaker 1: I said, picked me up the Empire State Building, picked
Speaker 1: me up in a Limo. My father said goodbye, and
Speaker 1: I went and my life change. That night. I went
Speaker 1: to a fifth Avenue in sixty ninth Street to a
Speaker 1: dinner at Gladys Shelley's apartment and she offered me a job.
Speaker 1: I went in and no one said hide him. I
Speaker 1: just walked in and I sat at the dinner table
Speaker 1: and the butler had given me a spoon for salt
Speaker 1: and a spoon for pepper. I had never seen anything
Speaker 1: like that in my life from benson Hurst, and I
Speaker 1: noticed there were four or five to as walking around
Speaker 1: and literally urinating everywhere on the curtains and the carpet.
Speaker 1: What am I? It's like a Fellini movie. And there's
Speaker 1: a guy sitting next to me, fascinating guy, and he said,
Speaker 1: what do you do? He says, I own Metro Media.
Speaker 1: I said, you own Channel five. Yes, William Klugey, he's
Speaker 1: he's at the table and he loved Gladys. That's the
Speaker 1: kind of table. So it was the salon that she
Speaker 1: had and I started working that night for her. UM
Speaker 1: and I was the go to publisher and all I
Speaker 1: had to do is get artists to sing our songs
Speaker 1: and um that was my first job. Okay, and then
Speaker 1: you're working as a DJ. You say you look leave
Speaker 1: Regimes to go to another club. What was the motivation there?
Speaker 1: This guy, the six ft five, great looking guy comes
Speaker 1: up to me and says, Dan, because I'm usually Danny,
Speaker 1: never Daniel, Dan, I need to have lunch with you.
Speaker 1: Come to my office. Gives me his card and it
Speaker 1: said Revalon. His name is Frank Shields, his Brookshields father.
Speaker 1: So I go see Frank the next day and this
Speaker 1: is like super wasp again. Never met a guy like
Speaker 1: him before. And he's the number two or three at Revlon.
Speaker 1: I met Charles Revson, who's the number one there, and
Speaker 1: he says, listen, Dan Um, I'm on the board of
Speaker 1: a club called Doubles and we'd like to double your salary.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want. We want the mystique and we want
Speaker 1: the regime's vibe. In the Sherry Netherlands Hotel, I had
Speaker 1: to go one block by the way fifth now going
Speaker 1: out of my comfort zone. Still there by the way,
Speaker 1: still there, and uh it was a no brainer. I
Speaker 1: just got married and I said this would be great.
Speaker 1: And I said, but I want to design the DJ
Speaker 1: booth and he said, whatever you want, and I wanted
Speaker 1: Thorne's turntables, which were my favorite, because that's what Larry
Speaker 1: Levine was using at the at the garage, I wanted
Speaker 1: the same as him and David Van Cusa was using.
Speaker 1: Those didn't turn out to be super I needed to
Speaker 1: go to techniques after that. But we were using thorns
Speaker 1: with rubber bands, um as opposed to direct drive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was. It was really ironic. Is the owner
Speaker 1: of the club's husband, Gerard turntable from England. That's like
Speaker 1: a weird thing. But I wouldn't use those because they
Speaker 1: were terrible. Um so I worked at doubles. What do
Speaker 1: they say regimes when you walked? Well, I can't say
Speaker 1: this because it's not politically correct. Um um what can
Speaker 1: I say politely now? Because I love the people of
Speaker 1: this country and I don't want to make a statement
Speaker 1: from about people from because of a country. But they
Speaker 1: were they're arrogance, said goodbye basically if you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, baby steen the lines Okay, not really, but
Speaker 1: French people would would not give you the benefit of
Speaker 1: the dab. That's why we love them so much. And
Speaker 1: they said, oh wah, I'll be in to uh And
Speaker 1: I left and I went to Doubles, and I was
Speaker 1: quickly rising up in the music industry. And I had
Speaker 1: a you know, we had a baby. Now we have Sean,
Speaker 1: so I need a substitute. I can't work six nights
Speaker 1: a week. So I find this guy named Ted Currier.
Speaker 1: Ted becomes my number two. Ted becomes a record producer.
Speaker 1: He produces Xavier's worked that Sucker to death. Ted becomes
Speaker 1: really big. I get Ted a job at Kiss to
Speaker 1: do the master the master mixes, and I said, Ted,
Speaker 1: you're getting so busy. We can't handle this. I said,
Speaker 1: we can't run a business when the business says, yes,
Speaker 1: we can. Have a guy you need to meet. I said,
Speaker 1: who's that? He said, this guy is gonna sub for me.
Speaker 1: I said, we're already subbing for me. So this kid
Speaker 1: comes in. He's never spun records before. His name is
Speaker 1: Junior Vasquez. I said, what are you gonna do? We're
Speaker 1: going to teach him. He learns how to do at
Speaker 1: Doubles in a suit and tie club. He becomes, you know,
Speaker 1: the go to guy obviously. So now we have the
Speaker 1: master mixes for WBLS and Kiss going on at Doubles,
Speaker 1: all the tapes all the Saturday and Friday night shows
Speaker 1: are coming out of Doubles. No one knows this in
Speaker 1: the world. The owners don't know it. Junior rises up
Speaker 1: to this huge mixer, Madonna discovers him while he's working
Speaker 1: at Doubles, and they do Vogue and all those records.
Speaker 1: So it was a great time for us. We had
Speaker 1: a ball and I was down to like once every
Speaker 1: two weeks at this point, but I had the contract
Speaker 1: and I'm stumping it out to these guys and we
Speaker 1: wind up having like six of the greatest DJs of
Speaker 1: all time coming out of this little club Doubles. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Daniel Glass on the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: This podcast is brought to you by two new which
Speaker 1: brings together all the live, sports, music, news and podcasts
Speaker 1: you love, original, live and on demand audio, all in
Speaker 1: one place. Go to tune in dot com slash left
Speaker 1: Sets to download and listen. Now more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Daniel Glass, recorded live in Santa Barbara at the
Speaker 1: Music Media Summit. Okay, but you marry your wife and
Speaker 1: your wife's father is in the business. I worked for
Speaker 1: Sam for about three or four years. We had a
Speaker 1: lot of success and This was its simultaneous to DJ. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs. Who want to you tell the
Speaker 1: audience who Sam was? So Sam Weiss was a was
Speaker 1: an R and B pioneer entrepreneur who owned the biggest
Speaker 1: one stop in the world, win records and video. First
Speaker 1: guy to ever Danny Bush worked there. Um. So one
Speaker 1: stop was a place where retail stores would come to
Speaker 1: get all the labels, all the brands. And this was
Speaker 1: in the food business, the clothing business. It was a warehouse.
Speaker 1: You could either buy by phone and you could do it,
Speaker 1: you know, or telex before faxing, or visit there and
Speaker 1: you'd go into a little booth, listen to the new
Speaker 1: selections and then you'd buy it. But every single label,
Speaker 1: so the major labels independent, but all the records would
Speaker 1: break out of here and the radio stations would be calling,
Speaker 1: what's happening. This was the pulse of the street at
Speaker 1: a one stop. Everything happened at a one stop and uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, some of the records would come in and
Speaker 1: so quickly unpacked, they wouldnt even get unpacked. They'd go
Speaker 1: right back out to the stores. And you could sell
Speaker 1: out of a one stop twenty five to fifty thousand
Speaker 1: copies of a record, but you saw it all. Our
Speaker 1: little record company was based there and we had we
Speaker 1: had a lot of big dance and R and B hits,
Speaker 1: and we were very tied into radio. And I worked
Speaker 1: for my father in law before I went to Chrystalis.
Speaker 1: I worked there for about three or four years. So
Speaker 1: how did you get the job at chrystmas Well, we
Speaker 1: did a very good job. Um clumb Be. Columbia Records
Speaker 1: hired us secretly to work their records. Bill Graham was
Speaker 1: a was was everybody who who who? Bill Graham is
Speaker 1: the famous promoter and venue of Filmore's Filmore West. So
Speaker 1: Bill Graham had a band called Santana, and Santana had
Speaker 1: a song called One Chain, Don't Make No Prison, and
Speaker 1: it was a dance record, and all these dance records
Speaker 1: were coming out. Rod Stewart had one. Everyone was coming
Speaker 1: with a disco or a dance record, but he didn't
Speaker 1: trust Columbia Records, so they sub contracted this to us
Speaker 1: to run it up the charts and get him on.
Speaker 1: People just wanted us to get records on. One radio
Speaker 1: station was w b LS, which really ran America at
Speaker 1: the time. A DJ named Frankie Crocker, who was you know,
Speaker 1: he was the Howard Stern of music, the biggest DJ
Speaker 1: in the world, legendarily he took money though, well, my
Speaker 1: father in law went to the it's it's in the public.
Speaker 1: My youngest son is studying, has a class. He's in
Speaker 1: college now, and it's actually the trials of and Freed
Speaker 1: or in there. My father in law testified in those
Speaker 1: trials about what happened what didn't happen. Um Al Sharpton
Speaker 1: was the guy, by the way, supposedly the bag man
Speaker 1: for James Brown and all that transactional money. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: if you look at out Al Sharpton. I can't talk
Speaker 1: about Frankie Crocker's past of what he did or didn't
Speaker 1: do because I never saw it, um so I that's
Speaker 1: all alleged or hearsay. But Frankie was great to us, um.
Speaker 1: But the point was we was so tied into w
Speaker 1: BLS and subsequently w K to you and subsequently what
Speaker 1: w xl O had become that the major labels came
Speaker 1: to us for help. So we were doing that on
Speaker 1: the side, and then Barbara Streisan had this song called
Speaker 1: the Main Event, and she had no more tears. Enough
Speaker 1: is enough. We did that. So the president of Columbia,
Speaker 1: guy named Jaff Craigle, left to become the head of Chrysalis,
Speaker 1: and I was his first phone call. What was strained
Speaker 1: was he was my AMO, was best friend. So I
Speaker 1: told my father that I'm leaving. It didn't go very well,
Speaker 1: but I also thought it'd be great for the marriage
Speaker 1: because we would just talk music and business twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: you know, seven days a week. So it was actually
Speaker 1: great for the family, was great for the marriage. And
Speaker 1: then I started at Chrysalis and all he wanted me
Speaker 1: to do was mix and edit records. That was my job.
Speaker 1: Go into the studio, mix edit, and those days it
Speaker 1: was called new music marketing and you I was the
Speaker 1: head of new music production and marketing, and that was
Speaker 1: my job at Crystalis. All I had to do is
Speaker 1: take the cool records from overseas, mix them, edit them
Speaker 1: and give them to the staff. But ultimately you became
Speaker 1: a head of promotion. How did that happen? All my mistake? Um.
Speaker 1: I brought the record we had finished, very passionately spanned
Speaker 1: out l A. I brought it to all my black
Speaker 1: DJ friends. I brought that True True. I brought True
Speaker 1: to Frankie Crocker, who put it on and went number one.
Speaker 1: Then I'm went to Philadelphia to w d A. S
Speaker 1: to see butter Ball and he put it on. And
Speaker 1: I think what got me as the guy had a promotion,
Speaker 1: was my brother in law was graduating from Stanford. I
Speaker 1: had never been to San Francisco, Palo Alto. We and
Speaker 1: I did something crazy. We're driving we Land and my
Speaker 1: father in law was a tough, tough guy. If you
Speaker 1: know anything about the Wise brothers, High Wise, Sam Wise
Speaker 1: and George Weiss, two of them were very tough and
Speaker 1: their stories are in many books. And you know, tough
Speaker 1: guys from the Bronx. So I was a little afraid
Speaker 1: of my father in law. So as we get in
Speaker 1: the rent a car, I said, would you mind if
Speaker 1: we made one stop? And I have to and he's
Speaker 1: already like really upset with me that I took this job.
Speaker 1: Can we stop at kfor C And he said who
Speaker 1: do you know that? I said, don't know anybody. So
Speaker 1: we stopped at this and then parking lot of k
Speaker 1: f r C, which is this big radio station, the
Speaker 1: biggest top forty on the Would you say John biggest
Speaker 1: on the West coast. Yeah, so I stopped there and
Speaker 1: I go out of the car and I've got once
Speaker 1: one I guess. It was a seven inch disc of
Speaker 1: of True by Spandu Ballet. And I go to the
Speaker 1: receptionist and this guy greets me, such a nice guy
Speaker 1: and he says, you know you have no appointment. I
Speaker 1: said no, I said, but I need to get this
Speaker 1: to Sandy Louis, who is a female. She's the music director.
Speaker 1: And he says, let me see what I can do.
Speaker 1: And he comes back. He says, she won't see you,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to give it to her. And he says,
Speaker 1: I know this group, and he says, call me next week.
Speaker 1: I go to the graduation and this guy calls me
Speaker 1: and he says, she really likes it, but she doesn't
Speaker 1: believe in Chrysalis, which is interesting. So eventually she calls
Speaker 1: me and she and she says, we're gonna play it,
Speaker 1: but can you can you guys deliver this? So I
Speaker 1: tell my boss, I said, listen, she believes in the record,
Speaker 1: but not the company. We haven't delivered a hit, and well,
Speaker 1: I just joined the company. The company was cold. So
Speaker 1: everybody starts playing this record. And this guy, by the way,
Speaker 1: is now the president of our c A. His name
Speaker 1: is Keith Naftally. This is the receptionist. He went on
Speaker 1: to KM. Yeah, that's a real story. So be nice
Speaker 1: to people on the bottom and the people on the top.
Speaker 1: Good advice. Keith was great and stayed I stayed friendly
Speaker 1: with him and we're still friends. So True goes to
Speaker 1: number two on the pop charts. And there's a very
Speaker 1: very bad situation with Huey Lewis and the News and
Speaker 1: Chrysalis and it's it's documented in Rolling Stone. The manager
Speaker 1: who was a hothead, this guy Bob Brown's basically we
Speaker 1: want we want off the label The Terrible And they
Speaker 1: weren't that big. They were a bar band from Mill
Speaker 1: Valley at the time and they've done okay um, but
Speaker 1: they delivered this record Cold Sports, and Bob Brown really
Speaker 1: said we would like him to be in charge. And
Speaker 1: I and I said, I don't know anything about this stuff.
Speaker 1: I've never been to any of these radio stations. I
Speaker 1: know nothing about it. So my boss says, you better learned.
Speaker 1: So my wife got flash cards and she did the
Speaker 1: w's in the case and would test me every night,
Speaker 1: and uh, I had to get the program director's name,
Speaker 1: the music director's name, the radio stage location. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what a k was. I don't know what a
Speaker 1: queue was. And um, I had two I had two
Speaker 1: bosses in promotion, but they really weren't my bosses. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I started to travel and I went down
Speaker 1: to these places and I learned about it and got
Speaker 1: named Fred Decippio took me under his wing, who was
Speaker 1: documented in the book hit Man. It was very nice
Speaker 1: to me and mentored me on the game of promotion,
Speaker 1: and I learned it quickly. I guess I did well
Speaker 1: in the flash cards, okay, okay, but also that turned
Speaker 1: into a gigantic album. So when did you know? Wow,
Speaker 1: am I we have a juggernaut here. I was in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and my boss I had never been to it,
Speaker 1: and I've never been to the South, and my boss
Speaker 1: sent me down. It was a consultant named Don Colberg,
Speaker 1: and Jack Craigo said, forget about to promote. You go
Speaker 1: down there. You go down there, and you've got to
Speaker 1: get this record re added the first single I think
Speaker 1: was cold Heart and Soul, and they dropped it. I
Speaker 1: go to the radio station. The guy says, you gotta
Speaker 1: come out tonight. You come out tonight with us, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it. But he said, we don't do that.
Speaker 1: We don't go back on records. And we went to
Speaker 1: Jim Davenport's house, the old Bear, who is this independent
Speaker 1: promotion guy, and we're hanging around and he's got a
Speaker 1: jukebox and I said, put that record on the jukebox.
Speaker 1: And he says he played it twice and it sounded
Speaker 1: really good. And I said, but that's the one you dropped.
Speaker 1: So they tortured me for about three weeks. Then they
Speaker 1: re add the record. And you needed the south. Atlanta
Speaker 1: was the key to the whole country. You get Atlanta,
Speaker 1: you get Augusta, you get Charlotte, you get Savannah, you
Speaker 1: get everywhere came in north. You know, Tampa was really
Speaker 1: important in those days, and you got them and they
Speaker 1: would spread to EXAs, but you had to have the South.
Speaker 1: But John Young and Jeff McCartney were running the South.
Speaker 1: One Q one was we got nine And once he
Speaker 1: went back on the record, the record goes to number one.
Speaker 1: Every single one number one after that, and I thought,
Speaker 1: that's the way it works. So that's every record. What
Speaker 1: number one? Now you ultimately had a string of hits
Speaker 1: and then Charles Coppelman calls and says, come with me
Speaker 1: to my new company. Well, Chrystal was sold, unfortunately, and
Speaker 1: the one company they said they would never sell to
Speaker 1: as E M I. That the owners had a divorce
Speaker 1: and they sold to E M I. I'm unemployed for
Speaker 1: about six hours, um, and the phone's ringing and it
Speaker 1: was Stephen Swid, Charles Coppelman and Martin ben Deer. We'd
Speaker 1: like to meet you, and they said, we're starting a company.
Speaker 1: E M I is funding us, and we don't really
Speaker 1: have anybody who knows anything about the record business. They
Speaker 1: were publishers and they had just scored. So I took
Speaker 1: the job because I said, this is the best blank
Speaker 1: canvas I've ever seen. That's why I took the job.
Speaker 1: I think it's that old thing that to find out
Speaker 1: just how good you are. It was completely blank canvas,
Speaker 1: well funded. So I took that job coming off this
Speaker 1: incredible We just finished Shade O'Connor World Party in the
Speaker 1: Water Boys so and we went into you know the
Speaker 1: problem with the music of SPK though the beginning music
Speaker 1: was very very pop, very pop, and that was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest three year runs of all time. I
Speaker 1: don't think there would be an Interscope or a giant
Speaker 1: or anything if we didn't have that run, because it
Speaker 1: proved that you could take it from scratch and build
Speaker 1: a huge company. Well, the first hit was Technotronic. First
Speaker 1: big hit was with Pump Up the Jam, and then
Speaker 1: Vanilla Ice No No, No. Wilson Phillips was second. No No.
Speaker 1: We had Katrina in the waves. We didn't have the
Speaker 1: big hit, but we had Technotronic into Wilson Phillips. Technotronic
Speaker 1: was probably the first mass licensed record um and I
Speaker 1: became friendly with the guy that that licensed did, a
Speaker 1: guy n Ron Perlman, who owned Revlon. By the way, afterwards,
Speaker 1: this funny story, one of my rewards for doing so
Speaker 1: well at SPK was they wanted to get me some
Speaker 1: custom suits and I went to this guy fear Auntie
Speaker 1: for a suit. He was there and I told him
Speaker 1: what I did for a living, and he heard the
Speaker 1: song move This and he made it a Revlon commercial. So,
Speaker 1: but if you go to any sports or the sports
Speaker 1: places started playing Pump Up the Jam uh as one
Speaker 1: of the anthems of basketball and baseball football, and then
Speaker 1: Wilson Phillips was the second one. Then Vanilla Ice was
Speaker 1: a monster hit, John Saccada, Blur, Jesus Jones. Then we
Speaker 1: did the Creation Records deal where we had a door
Speaker 1: Robal slow Dive Oasis. All of this in three years.
Speaker 1: It was I'm leaving out. We had the teenage mutant
Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles that was multi platinum. I'm leaving out like
Speaker 1: six more. This is all in three years. That was
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollar company in those days a year.
Speaker 1: And you also assemble a promotion team where those people
Speaker 1: go on to greater success. Yeah, I got the secret.
Speaker 1: The secret was the CBS College Department wasn't called Sony,
Speaker 1: and I would take the best reps every year. I
Speaker 1: used to say to those guys, why don't you take
Speaker 1: those people? I took them all. So that's why I
Speaker 1: found Hillary who went up to run the w n B. A,
Speaker 1: found Greg Thompson, I found uh, Chris Waltman who's now
Speaker 1: managing twenty one pilots and NF came out of that
Speaker 1: school um countless people. They were the greatest because they
Speaker 1: were trained really well, and I just would pluck them
Speaker 1: out and throw them into the field. I threw Monty
Speaker 1: Littman into Atlanta, threw Rob Stone who now owns Fader
Speaker 1: and corner Stone. I threw him into San Francisco. Um
Speaker 1: John Colin, who legend I threw him into Boston. Uh,
Speaker 1: so many of them they were they were great, um
Speaker 1: and still friendly with all them. They were just all terrific. Okay,
Speaker 1: So SPK has this amazing run. They saw the company
Speaker 1: in the e M I twice in my life. Okay,
Speaker 1: and did you then you then get elevated to a
Speaker 1: big position the worst that was the worst, um, the
Speaker 1: golden handcuffs. If I wanted the big check was to
Speaker 1: become president CEO of Emerge e m I Records Group
Speaker 1: North America. We know how great when you emerge three cultures,
Speaker 1: three promotion staffs, three business affairs, three A and rs UM.
Speaker 1: It was a good run, but I didn't enjoy one
Speaker 1: day of it. It was not me, it's not who
Speaker 1: I am. And uh. I spent about two years or
Speaker 1: maybe a little less doing that, and it was tough.
Speaker 1: It was really tough. And every superstar delivered a record,
Speaker 1: shall we say less and Robust I had Billie Idol
Speaker 1: Cyber period, I had rock said I had Queen's Reich,
Speaker 1: I had Robert Palmer, I had Pat bennettor not one
Speaker 1: of them delivered the home run that we thought because
Speaker 1: on paper it looked great. But I think it had
Speaker 1: to do with the culture. We managed to break a
Speaker 1: few on the side. We had arrested development, we had
Speaker 1: a few other pretty big hits, but it was very tough.
Speaker 1: And then the war happened between Blur E M F
Speaker 1: Jesus Jesus Jones, and they weren't happy they were under
Speaker 1: the same because they needed their own cultures to breathe.
Speaker 1: So then that ends and suddenly I can't remember, did
Speaker 1: you go independent before you worked with Doug or you
Speaker 1: went no, no, no, no, Doug, Doug. We all everybody
Speaker 1: lost their job within a month. It was Mo Austen Doug.
Speaker 1: I don't com you know, I'm not saying I was
Speaker 1: on that level, but it was me. Everyone suddenly is out,
Speaker 1: Clive Davis eventually he was out. So Doug called me
Speaker 1: and said Edgar. I said, who's Edgar? Proto e d
Speaker 1: g e are he pronounced it. Edgar is going to
Speaker 1: fund me in a new company called Rising Tide, and
Speaker 1: I'd love you to join me. He said, you're an
Speaker 1: independent record guy, and you know I'm independent now, And
Speaker 1: I did it with him, and the two of us
Speaker 1: had one desk at the Hit Factory recording studio. Eddie
Speaker 1: Germano had generously given us space. And from scratch, we
Speaker 1: create this company called Rising Tide. We get hot. I
Speaker 1: hired Monty Littman, I hired Steve Leeds. I hire Kiddo Massemburg,
Speaker 1: who had given me D'Angelo when I was at E
Speaker 1: m I and I thought he was terrific. And he
Speaker 1: then brought in India Ire and Erica Bado. So we're
Speaker 1: often running. And then Doug calls me up. I was
Speaker 1: in the studio in Muscle Shoals and he says, come home.
Speaker 1: You're the new president and CEO of Universal. I said,
Speaker 1: what's Universal? He said, that's the new record company and
Speaker 1: you have to find a logo. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: be the chairman, I said, went up to al Teller.
Speaker 1: He said, oh, he's gone. They're all gone. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do this, and everybody's excited. So we came and started
Speaker 1: Universal and UH from scratch, and a lot of the people,
Speaker 1: I guess is still there today. And it was a
Speaker 1: very very tough time for me, because when you joined
Speaker 1: somebody to be independent and have a piece of a
Speaker 1: company and all of a sudden you're an executive with
Speaker 1: department meetings and politics and and stuff. I was a
Speaker 1: fish out of water and it was It was a
Speaker 1: very tough time because I joined Doug for that dream
Speaker 1: and I thought we would have been the biggest independent
Speaker 1: in the business. So that that wasn't a great time
Speaker 1: for me. And so then you go independent distributed by
Speaker 1: Sony No. No, I did not. I went independent for
Speaker 1: a few days, and my dear, dear friend Danny Goldberg
Speaker 1: called me, well, you were independent for longer than a
Speaker 1: few days, but whatever. And then Danny said I need
Speaker 1: some help, and I stayed with him for a really
Speaker 1: long time. I had a wonderful, wonderful time with him.
Speaker 1: Learned a lot, and that was really graduate school of
Speaker 1: how to run a company. Had to be fiscally responsible.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I could have done it if
Speaker 1: I didn't spend those years with Danny. So you learn
Speaker 1: more from Danny than you do not from Danny, and
Speaker 1: Danny's it's still a dear dear friend learn and he
Speaker 1: taught me a lot because we had a day what
Speaker 1: you did with today with Rob Glazer, we did every
Speaker 1: single day. Every day we did an hour worth of
Speaker 1: worldwide politics and current events. And I looked forward to
Speaker 1: it and we met Al Franken would come in, Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton would come in, Chuck Schumer, this young centator would
Speaker 1: come in. It was great, um, and we discussed the
Speaker 1: world of liberal left wing politics, UM, and it was.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic. In his house was the centerpiece of
Speaker 1: New York liberal art. And you'd meet Ornette Coleman and
Speaker 1: Patti Smith. It was the coolest place to go with
Speaker 1: it when he had a party because it wasn't only
Speaker 1: people from music, it was people from art. It was
Speaker 1: like being in the Chelsea, except it was at his house.
Speaker 1: So that was finishing school. I guess the lesson for
Speaker 1: anybody listening is for artemus records. But I met these
Speaker 1: people there that I never would have met. I met
Speaker 1: Ricky Lee Jones and Warren Zevon and got friendly with
Speaker 1: Jackson Brown, and then Dylan would make records for us,
Speaker 1: and and Springsteen and Keith Richards played on Peter Wolf's records,
Speaker 1: and it was just meeting the best of the best
Speaker 1: of the best, and that I needed that in my
Speaker 1: education because I've never met those people before, and I
Speaker 1: never went in the studio with them. So I knew
Speaker 1: when I started my company one day, I'd only want
Speaker 1: to be around the originals, the authentics, and I would
Speaker 1: sit with them. I remember driving hours with Graham Nash.
Speaker 1: He was the only sober, like normal one of that
Speaker 1: those those those guys, and Graham would tell me the
Speaker 1: stories of Laurel Canyon, I and I actually got I
Speaker 1: made I made wrong turns with Graham in the car.
Speaker 1: He never knows, he never knew this, just to hear
Speaker 1: more stories. Tell me about Neil, Tell me about Elliot Roberts,
Speaker 1: Tell me about that, What about Janie? What about? He
Speaker 1: had complete recall because we were both photography freaks, him
Speaker 1: and I, so we had that common bond. Is very
Speaker 1: good father. So I got to meet Graham, I got
Speaker 1: to meet some wackos and Riggie Lee Jones was totally
Speaker 1: out of her mind and Warren Zevon if you know,
Speaker 1: it's nuts, um, but it gave me the It was
Speaker 1: the last refining of my palate before I went into
Speaker 1: the real world. And most people go into the real
Speaker 1: world at two. I waited tell I was eight to
Speaker 1: go into the real world. And I remember Mo Austin.
Speaker 1: I asked him, when did you go into the real world?
Speaker 1: And he didn't go into the real world till he
Speaker 1: was forty something. He was an accountant, and I asked
Speaker 1: him a lot of questions. But Artemis came to an end.
Speaker 1: Some hedge fund creeps ruined it and uh they fired
Speaker 1: my dear friend Danny, and I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: part of it. So that was the day my wife said,
Speaker 1: we're doing this. We're gonna do this with our own money.
Speaker 1: If we if we starve, if we if we struggle,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do this. No more mergers, no more promises,
Speaker 1: no more people telling you you're gonna be Indie. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do this. And we bought two laptops the first
Speaker 1: day and that was how we started. And the first
Speaker 1: success was Phoenix right no no, no, No No. For
Speaker 1: success was second Hand Serenade. Um. This was the number
Speaker 1: one record. I don't know if you remember my space.
Speaker 1: Number one record on my Space was Secondhand Serenade. And
Speaker 1: the manager had invited us to a show and I
Speaker 1: took my whole staff, which was one person besides me,
Speaker 1: But I showed up with um eleven people that night.
Speaker 1: I stole that scene out of the Godfather, and I
Speaker 1: actually told Francis ford Coppo of this story. He loved it.
Speaker 1: Um I took We had one one guy, my partner
Speaker 1: Chris Scully, and I went to the show at the
Speaker 1: Bitter End. And I couldn't show up alone because I'm
Speaker 1: insecure now, like I'm starting from scratch, and you know,
Speaker 1: the major labels are coming in, rolling deep with SUVs
Speaker 1: and and I was one of them at one time.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, I cannot show up
Speaker 1: alone and I don't want to pay a tab. So
Speaker 1: I said, why don't we just go? So I had
Speaker 1: my son, every friend he had you come in. So
Speaker 1: the scene of The Godfather, if you remember, um, al
Speaker 1: Pacino finds out that his father had been shot, and
Speaker 1: he said, well, who's protecting my dad? And they said
Speaker 1: there's no one there. They called the hospital, there's no
Speaker 1: one there. So he as these guys show up and
Speaker 1: they turn their collars up and the guy actually urinates
Speaker 1: in his pants because the other family came by and
Speaker 1: they see two guys standing outside. They go, oh boy,
Speaker 1: it must be a lot of protection. They move on.
Speaker 1: So I show up deep and I said to the manager,
Speaker 1: this is our team. This is the team. This is
Speaker 1: and I don't remember who came actually at an intern
Speaker 1: and my son brought like five five six friends and
Speaker 1: me and and Chris. And it was an interesting night
Speaker 1: because everybody left. The major labels who had flown this
Speaker 1: guy in, they all leave except for one A and
Speaker 1: R guy from Jive Records. He stayed Jeff Finster I
Speaker 1: think was his name. But everybody leaves, and I said, wow.
Speaker 1: So the next day the major labels have the meetings,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to make fun of people. They
Speaker 1: really messed up with this guy, though, So I flew
Speaker 1: to San Francisco, met the artist there, like Jerry Maguire,
Speaker 1: and I said, listen, this is it. It's You'll be
Speaker 1: the biggest artist in the label. You would be the
Speaker 1: only artist in the label. And I'll kill for you,
Speaker 1: I'll name for you. We sold two and a half
Speaker 1: million copies of that record Fall for You by Secondhand Serenade,
Speaker 1: and it was distributed by Warners and Leo Cohen was
Speaker 1: the head of the company at the time, and I
Speaker 1: made a one record deal with them. That was it,
Speaker 1: and then I and then we joined Sony Read after
Speaker 1: that and really built the company. And then that's when
Speaker 1: the days of Justin Azuka and then Phoenix. Okay, so
Speaker 1: Phoenix had had a career that had sputtered in America.
Speaker 1: What made you believe this would be a hit? The record?
Speaker 1: It was the record it was. We did not want
Speaker 1: to sign anybody with the past, because I had had
Speaker 1: a lot of that at Artemis, and I wanted fresh,
Speaker 1: I wanted the best. I wanted international, left of center
Speaker 1: inspired artists. So they checked a lot of boxes. The
Speaker 1: only thing is they had a track record. They had
Speaker 1: three records released through E M I Corporate and the
Speaker 1: sales were always twenty nine thousand, thirty thousand, thirty one
Speaker 1: thousand albums. That was it. But the record. I brought
Speaker 1: it back to the company. Now we were like five
Speaker 1: people in the company and it was one and it
Speaker 1: was list of Mania and it was it just was
Speaker 1: the best record I had heard in years. And I
Speaker 1: flew to Paris to meet them and told them what
Speaker 1: they need to do to make it. And at that meeting,
Speaker 1: I said, you gotta get rid of a few things.
Speaker 1: We're not going to be French. We're not going to
Speaker 1: be fashion, we're not gonna be pop, and we're not
Speaker 1: gonna be dance. It's gonna be one word rock. And
Speaker 1: they said great, and uh, we signed the deal like
Speaker 1: two days later, and they I think they changed rock
Speaker 1: radio that band, because no one had heard music like that.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the records we've had have
Speaker 1: changed the sound of radio because is what I would
Speaker 1: prefer to sign, something that's not commercial, that that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like the radio. And I think what gives us
Speaker 1: an advantage over the major labels is that they try
Speaker 1: and sign something that sounds like everything else, produced by
Speaker 1: the same people, written by the same songwriters who are
Speaker 1: based in like a five block radius and Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: We this was produced of a band from Versailles, France,
Speaker 1: mixed by a guy from Paris, and we took it
Speaker 1: out there and it took fifty eight weeks to break
Speaker 1: it the first song, and then you know, we're platinum
Speaker 1: and where the Grammys and and then Mumford and Sons.
Speaker 1: So Two Door Cinema Club came next, and the Temper
Speaker 1: Trap came after that, and then there was a band
Speaker 1: touring with the Temper Trap opening for them in Australia
Speaker 1: and I went to see the Temper Trap and the
Speaker 1: band that opened for them in front of literally eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty people was Mumford and Sons. And I had
Speaker 1: never seen anything that passionate, that emotional, because it just
Speaker 1: it just transported me and I freaked out and no
Speaker 1: one liked it. The company that went in the company
Speaker 1: liked it, and the industry didn't really care too much
Speaker 1: about it. So I flew to London three days later
Speaker 1: just to see in my own mind was I romanticizing?
Speaker 1: Was I right? Was I wrong? Was it as good
Speaker 1: as I thought? And again they opened for Temper Trap,
Speaker 1: They were better, They were better, and it was an
Speaker 1: easy deal. Manager was terrific. It was still good friends
Speaker 1: and that was not an easy record either. That That
Speaker 1: record came out and you know, it landed and didn't
Speaker 1: do so well at the beginning until a couple of
Speaker 1: radio stations start a playing it. More of my conversation
Speaker 1: with executive Daniel Glass in a moment. If you like
Speaker 1: the podcast, please go to left stufs dot com and
Speaker 1: sign up for the newsletter comes out once twice timetimes
Speaker 1: even three times a day to keep up on my
Speaker 1: story in the world at large. Now let's continue our
Speaker 1: conversation with Daniel Glass of Glass Node Records. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's jump to today, and today's marketplaces certainly changed from
Speaker 1: what it was in the nineties and even ten years ago.
Speaker 1: So if a how do you signed a band today?
Speaker 1: Do you get in bidding wars with other labels? Do
Speaker 1: you find things that other labels don't want you get
Speaker 1: in early? What what ultimately happens we get in early?
Speaker 1: UM We've been in one bidding war in the history
Speaker 1: of the company, and I regret it. We actually made
Speaker 1: money on the deal, but I regret it because it
Speaker 1: lost the essence of why you It goes back to
Speaker 1: what you said, why would you want to be on
Speaker 1: this label? And when we started to audition for this artist, UM,
Speaker 1: it lost the essence and the taste for me. And
Speaker 1: I still resent that battle. And I think marriages are
Speaker 1: very indicative of the courtship and the engagement, and I
Speaker 1: still think there's a chronic issue in that engagement which
Speaker 1: subsequently affected the band's career after we had the big
Speaker 1: monster hit. We have to be early, we have to
Speaker 1: be very early, and we have to get on it.
Speaker 1: UM we really want to see the live performance. I
Speaker 1: think the artists that we've signed has not been done
Speaker 1: through research or a buzz or some metric and data.
Speaker 1: It's been through hearing the music and then seeing it live.
Speaker 1: Very different than most labels. Most labels do not sign
Speaker 1: that way. Most labels sign, especially major labels, um, social
Speaker 1: media numbers, streaming numbers, UM, that's not how we do it.
Speaker 1: So our current artist that's rising up now, Jade Bird,
Speaker 1: the manager came in and played her and I felt
Speaker 1: the same way about her that I felt about Mumford
Speaker 1: and Sons. This is an artist for the ages. How
Speaker 1: is she doing this at nineteen years old? Where is
Speaker 1: she getting this understanding of folk and blues and rock
Speaker 1: and country? And I met her, and I met perhaps
Speaker 1: the most ambitious person I had met in years. So
Speaker 1: she started checking off these boxes in my head and
Speaker 1: I knew this was going to be that she was
Speaker 1: going to be one of the biggest artists in the world.
Speaker 1: And it may take five years, it may take seven years.
Speaker 1: I don't really care. But we were early, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if anybody else wanted her um, And it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to me if anybody else wanted her. It
Speaker 1: really doesn't. I think those are foolish conversations. Should have,
Speaker 1: would have, could have. Every time we have a success,
Speaker 1: I meet someone in the hallway of a conference who
Speaker 1: says to me, I could have done that, or I
Speaker 1: knew about my boss just wouldn't let me. I just
Speaker 1: walk away, like I said, why don't you do it?
Speaker 1: If you if you know about it. Um, so you
Speaker 1: have to be early. I think the live performance and
Speaker 1: the songs are the key to us. UM. Lawyers don't
Speaker 1: play a big part and anymore for me. You know,
Speaker 1: if the used to be in the eighties early nineties,
Speaker 1: the lawyer would have a lot to do with it.
Speaker 1: You know, they gets you on the phone and tell
Speaker 1: you why they wind you up. But not anymore. UM.
Speaker 1: It really comes from different sources. We tend to lean
Speaker 1: towards international music at our company. I think if we
Speaker 1: have a prejudice, we we kind of like things that
Speaker 1: are outside of America. UM, and those work really well.
Speaker 1: But we do well with left of center music people here.
Speaker 1: But let's stop there. If we look at the Spotify
Speaker 1: top fifty, it's almost completely urban and most of the
Speaker 1: pop records of the last year have failed Katie Perry,
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, et cetera. And in addition, radio is pretty
Speaker 1: much all urban and the other labels are not signing
Speaker 1: anything other than me to acts. How are you having
Speaker 1: success with the records that don't sound like everybody else's.
Speaker 1: About two years ago we doubled down on spending spending
Speaker 1: more money on making records, making better records, and almost
Speaker 1: went on a freeze of releasing records. So like Churches,
Speaker 1: is a good example of a band that competes and
Speaker 1: makes a lot of money. They make money through licensing,
Speaker 1: sinc sales, streaming. The concert revenue is fantastic. So that's
Speaker 1: a band that's keeping up with the times and doing
Speaker 1: very very well. Um, I think Jade ultimately goes to
Speaker 1: the top of it. When we had our success with
Speaker 1: Childish Gambino, he wasn't hip hop, he wasn't wrap. It
Speaker 1: was just great soul music and we knew we had something.
Speaker 1: We stayed with it as seventy something weeks. So we
Speaker 1: can do that, and I think that's how we compete.
Speaker 1: And you look at our streaming we did. We did
Speaker 1: four point seven million streams last week, a red Bone
Speaker 1: six point seven million on the album last week and
Speaker 1: when he goes on SNL this week, it's gonna go
Speaker 1: crazy again. So two things, good catalog and signed, great
Speaker 1: music and stay with it. Now are you spending on marketing?
Speaker 1: Who's spending on the actual records? You said you'd double
Speaker 1: down on spending and our most important You know when
Speaker 1: you see Dave Cobb is producing three different projects for
Speaker 1: us right now, it might be the hottest producer in
Speaker 1: the world. Greg Kirsten did eight songs on Churches. Nile
Speaker 1: god Rich is about to do something for us. Paul
Speaker 1: Epworth is working on a record for US, um the
Speaker 1: mixing of the records. The Simone Felice, who just had
Speaker 1: the Luminear success, is working on jade Um. You've got
Speaker 1: to hire the best people. You have to have the
Speaker 1: best of the best of the best. Red One we
Speaker 1: have a hit with him right now with Mansion air Um.
Speaker 1: You know who we're connected because of You know, Troy
Speaker 1: Carter has so much success with Red One and Gaga Um.
Speaker 1: Every day That's all I dwell on is the n R,
Speaker 1: the n R, the n R. Everything else is easy.
Speaker 1: After that, You've got to make better records and you've
Speaker 1: got to have the best songs. You've also told me
Speaker 1: with certain acts on your label, you told them, if
Speaker 1: you don't deliver a hit, either stay in the studio
Speaker 1: and if you want off the label, that's fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we've That's really it. I mean that that's a
Speaker 1: that's a kind of a brutal summary. But we're in
Speaker 1: that bag with like three or four people right now,
Speaker 1: and three of the four are loving it. They're loving
Speaker 1: the quote unquote tough love. One of them can handle it,
Speaker 1: and one of them is going to go. So that's okay, Um,
Speaker 1: he'll be better off somewhere else. But you you've got
Speaker 1: to raise the standards because it's just too tough. It's
Speaker 1: just really, really too tough. You know. I had had
Speaker 1: a battle with James Hersey two years ago. I was
Speaker 1: in Berlin with him and he handed his record in
Speaker 1: and it was good, and then we had this whole
Speaker 1: fight about the record, and finally he agreed, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: show you, and he came up with a song called
Speaker 1: miss You, and Will Hicks produced it and Steve fitz
Speaker 1: Morris mixed it. You know, that's I produced at Sharon's
Speaker 1: first record. The other guy did the Stay with Me
Speaker 1: for Sam Smith and Spotify alone where at nine five
Speaker 1: million streams on one song. That song, So we gotta
Speaker 1: beat that song now. But that that that was, that
Speaker 1: was torture. He's gonna beat it now. He's working on
Speaker 1: something with terrific producers now. But that was that was
Speaker 1: a very unpleasant experience. And the only reason I do
Speaker 1: it is because of my three children. Because I I
Speaker 1: noticed when you, and I've said this many times, is
Speaker 1: the indulgences as a father and a mother are not
Speaker 1: always the best thing. You gotta be able to tell
Speaker 1: the kids lights out, no no, no in or tonight
Speaker 1: or take away the phone from them. Well, whatever you
Speaker 1: have to do as a parent. And uh, I think
Speaker 1: artists need that. I don't think we give them enough
Speaker 1: direction and enough expertise and to say to them, because
Speaker 1: ultimately we all fail. If the records come in and
Speaker 1: we do it because they need it out by by Coachella,
Speaker 1: I need it out by Glastonbury or you know my manager,
Speaker 1: nobody wins. Okay, So let's say you get the James
Speaker 1: Hersey record. Tell us how you approach the marketing and
Speaker 1: promotion of that record or a record doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be that specific record, So James will be handling handing
Speaker 1: his record and hopefully in the next couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and it will come out this summer and we'll probably
Speaker 1: starting in Austria, Germany and the Nordics. I think Spotify
Speaker 1: will be very key to his record. I mean they
Speaker 1: were really key that from Denmark and and Stockholm with
Speaker 1: the people that really got behind him, So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start there. Um. I probably will get on a plane
Speaker 1: with our head of international and go to see people
Speaker 1: in St. Coleman, Berlin and started there. I think the
Speaker 1: UK would be next, um, and hopefully the fuse will
Speaker 1: be lit. Sirius XM was very helpful in the last record,
Speaker 1: uh and I think that's key. Um. He's got an
Speaker 1: idea for a video we'll probably want to work with.
Speaker 1: I think the video wars are gonna start up again
Speaker 1: between Facebook and and YouTube and Spotify an Apple, and
Speaker 1: we'll take advantage of that. And I think we'll go
Speaker 1: to each one of them and say, if you love this,
Speaker 1: would you like to fund or create a piece of content?
Speaker 1: And I as an indie, it's nice when they do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when you I know, when you come to l A,
Speaker 1: you have a meeting with Apple, you have a meeting
Speaker 1: with everybody involved. What do you tell them? What play
Speaker 1: the music? I think the main thing is to play
Speaker 1: the music. We're a company likes to bring the artist in.
Speaker 1: And when you have a label that has people as
Speaker 1: as magnetic, as charismatic, as inspirational as Marcus Mumford and
Speaker 1: his guys and you know, guys from Phoenix, Aurora, um Jade,
Speaker 1: you're better off bringing the artists with you. Let them
Speaker 1: tell the story of how the record was made. You know,
Speaker 1: no one better than Lauren Mayberry of Churches to tell
Speaker 1: our story or even play a few songs. So I
Speaker 1: prefer that meeting rather than some record company, you know,
Speaker 1: reading off a piece of paper that's going to be
Speaker 1: a smash. So the better to tell how the record
Speaker 1: was made. But we'll see everybody. We'll see everybody at
Speaker 1: i Heeart and Cumulus and and and to Calm and
Speaker 1: Apple and Pandora. We we go see everybody Spotify, um
Speaker 1: we'll tell us about the playlist wars, how do they
Speaker 1: affect you or how do you enter that system? Relationships?
Speaker 1: You know, somebody asked me, I've forgot the restaurant We
Speaker 1: went to the other day, Oh, I know where I was.
Speaker 1: I was. I was with my wife somewhere and we
Speaker 1: wanted to get a table at a restaurant. And afterwards
Speaker 1: there's a movie screening. So we got the table we
Speaker 1: wanted and the movie theater. The policy is no reserve seats,
Speaker 1: and we get into the theater and the the waiter said,
Speaker 1: would you like your dessert in the theater. I said,
Speaker 1: that'd be great, you could do that. He says, absolutely.
Speaker 1: So we get to the theater and almost embarrassingly, there's
Speaker 1: three seats reserve center center. And I called someone in
Speaker 1: my company who told me it's all about the algorithm.
Speaker 1: I said, was that about the algorithm or was that
Speaker 1: about being nice and going back and being you know?
Speaker 1: It was about a relationship that I had with somebody
Speaker 1: who said something to somebody. So we got those reserve seats.
Speaker 1: And I think it's the same thing with this force,
Speaker 1: that it's all about the algorithm and it's all about
Speaker 1: the the data. I think it's about people. It's about people,
Speaker 1: somebody behind the technology. My son, my youngest son, worked
Speaker 1: at Spotify for two summers. One summer he coded and
Speaker 1: once he worked on an artist development relations thing. They
Speaker 1: were people doing the engineering. People with a hard beat
Speaker 1: and a pulse and a soul. The same people run
Speaker 1: the playlist, the same people that WBLS and W A
Speaker 1: B C and K four C algorithms do kick in.
Speaker 1: You can't keep a stiff up. And I actually like
Speaker 1: that that the playing field gets level for independence when
Speaker 1: you get in there. But getting in there is no
Speaker 1: different than it was in the sixties, in the seventies
Speaker 1: and and five years ago. So you have to have
Speaker 1: incredible relationships and know how dominoes work in life. And
Speaker 1: so let's say you go to Spotify, they agree to
Speaker 1: go on a record and it doesn't react to me.
Speaker 1: You have to have patience. If you overshoot and try
Speaker 1: and get big place for new music Friday, get on
Speaker 1: the top fifty of this rap Cave or whatever it
Speaker 1: is the biggest of the big lists, you're setting yourself
Speaker 1: up for probable failure. I prefer to build slowly. I
Speaker 1: would prefer to get a focalist, an urban list, and
Speaker 1: R and B list, a soul list, um, a chill list.
Speaker 1: It's like my favorite, one of my favorite stations right
Speaker 1: now is this chill channel on on Serious that's where
Speaker 1: records start, it's one of the hottest stations, so that
Speaker 1: leads to all nations, that leads to the Kid Kelly station,
Speaker 1: the serious Hits one or or Venus. I prefer a
Speaker 1: building I think you last longer. So we go in
Speaker 1: with a knowledge of many, many editors in l A
Speaker 1: and New York and London, different people. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing with Beats one. The Beats one is a great
Speaker 1: radio station, a great resource if you only want the
Speaker 1: world record, which is what most UK executives do. They
Speaker 1: want one play on any Mac and then what one
Speaker 1: play on Beats one. They forget about week two through
Speaker 1: week nineteen. So I'd prefer to build equally with many
Speaker 1: of the digital players and spread it out with them
Speaker 1: and build sensibly. Okay, So how important is Serious, very
Speaker 1: very very very important. It's so well run. They are
Speaker 1: so good at what they do. You see them at festivals,
Speaker 1: they get the prominent position. Um. You know, when you
Speaker 1: know how important serious is when your artists starts selling
Speaker 1: three tickets and then six tickets, and that you could
Speaker 1: speak to every club owner and promoter. It's coming from them,
Speaker 1: country dance, every genre of music that they're great at.
Speaker 1: It it's it's vital, it's really really well. What is
Speaker 1: the future of terrestrial radio. I think it's in pretty
Speaker 1: good hands because you still I think we have at
Speaker 1: least a generation and a half of people that still
Speaker 1: push a button in a car. It's still a reflex
Speaker 1: of a DJ and a button in a car. I
Speaker 1: think the car is the battle for serious and the car,
Speaker 1: and for Pandora and for Spotify and for the VR
Speaker 1: of of the echo. UM. But for now, it's still
Speaker 1: about radio. And when you have people like Bob Pittman
Speaker 1: running radio and making it extremely accessible and friendly, I
Speaker 1: think you're in really, really good shape at radio for now.
Speaker 1: I know you and I disagree on this. UM. I
Speaker 1: think radio in tandem with streaming radio just has to
Speaker 1: play more new music. They're playing it too late. The
Speaker 1: lag time has gotta gotta stop. Lagtime. I've judged about
Speaker 1: twenty eight weeks with records. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: You've got to get it down to five or six
Speaker 1: if they can do that, and spot records earlier, because
Speaker 1: young people will abandon them. The two to nine year
Speaker 1: olds that are growing up now, we'll never listen to
Speaker 1: radio if they can't get new music and discover music there.
Speaker 1: So it's like the sixteen to seventeen year old kids
Speaker 1: in Parkland High School. They're gonna vote in a few months,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna vote with their heart and mind and conscious.
Speaker 1: They're gonna take over this country. They're gonna do something
Speaker 1: very similar to the sixties. So I think this generation
Speaker 1: coming up, the two year olds know how to use
Speaker 1: alexa and they're gonna want to hear their music. Now
Speaker 1: they're not gonna want to hear commercials. So radio has
Speaker 1: got to start thinking about this new generation. If they don't,
Speaker 1: they're going to alienate people and no one's gonna listen
Speaker 1: to the radio. But for now, I think when you
Speaker 1: have real, real radio people running it, and I think
Speaker 1: I heart's a good example. I just came back from
Speaker 1: Australia and you know how important Triple J is to
Speaker 1: that market. Uh. I think radio is still fine and
Speaker 1: and it's every manager I meet with they want to
Speaker 1: be on the radio. They want to be on the radio.
Speaker 1: And I think when you speak to a concert venue
Speaker 1: owner and you speak to a a festival person, they
Speaker 1: talk about radio and they want to see the amount
Speaker 1: of streams, but they want to hear about radio. I
Speaker 1: actually think Spotify is excited when radio is in tandem
Speaker 1: with them. Somehow it's rare that they're in tandem. But
Speaker 1: we've talked about Spotify. There's a record company how important?
Speaker 1: Or Amazon and Apple very Uh. Amazon is a secret giant. Uh.
Speaker 1: They've been great partners with us, with Mumford and Sons,
Speaker 1: with Jade. There they do exclusive of music. It's it's
Speaker 1: a very underrated uh ecosystem right now. And every time
Speaker 1: they open up the voice recognition in a country, it explode.
Speaker 1: I predict Australia is going to explode. And the fact
Speaker 1: that Spotify and Pandora and my Heart and Serious are
Speaker 1: going through their system. And you now have our house
Speaker 1: thanks to son Nos. We have Sonos in the office
Speaker 1: and we have Sonos one in our houses. Um And
Speaker 1: to us, it's the best of everything to go on
Speaker 1: demand and here our music. Most of my music, I
Speaker 1: have to say, comes through either Spotify or or Serious
Speaker 1: um when I when I request an artist. But Amazon
Speaker 1: is amazing and country music, rock music. I don't think
Speaker 1: they're dominant in hip hop music. I think SoundCloud and
Speaker 1: in Spotify and Apple or Apple, I think it is
Speaker 1: getting better and better and better every day. You finally
Speaker 1: feel them connecting the different stylos there. I think had
Speaker 1: a lot of issues. Um, but when they they could
Speaker 1: exploit that radio station, I think we're in for in
Speaker 1: for a treat. I think Beats one is just this
Speaker 1: amazing radio station that needs more listeners. More Daniel glast
Speaker 1: wisdom after this break. I hope you're enjoying this episode
Speaker 1: of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear sound bites or check out videos and photos of
Speaker 1: our guests, go to at tune in on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. Welcome back to my conversation with Daniel Glass.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to throw it to the audience and
Speaker 1: see what they have to ask. What what metrics do
Speaker 1: you currently use to gauge the success of developing artists
Speaker 1: that you're working with. Streaming is the easiest and quickest
Speaker 1: for us. UM. We look at a lot of live stuff,
Speaker 1: though we have a touring department, and we really feel
Speaker 1: that if you build it, they come. When when when
Speaker 1: ticket sales start going up, we get more excited. Even
Speaker 1: though it's not really the business warman and we don't
Speaker 1: really have a piece of most of the artist's live income. Uh,
Speaker 1: so I would say streaming numbers first, and then uh,
Speaker 1: I think shazam Is is good in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways in different markets. We like that. I think that's
Speaker 1: a very active participant. But I would say ticket numbers
Speaker 1: is really important for us, and we go to that.
Speaker 1: We go to the shows and we we we watch
Speaker 1: and we see who's reacting. We're on this Alternative Nation
Speaker 1: tour right now with this group Mansion Air, and we're
Speaker 1: looking at that. So I think that's that's a key.
Speaker 1: I think streaming numbers. Hi, Daniel John Boyle, UM, So
Speaker 1: just one quick comment and then a question for you. Um,
Speaker 1: You've probably been the foremost gentleman I've ever worked with
Speaker 1: in this business, from when we had you at E.
Speaker 1: D M. Biz Um, all the way through how you've
Speaker 1: raised your family. UM. I've become friends with your son Sean,
Speaker 1: who is becoming a very important person in the business.
Speaker 1: And so I commend you on that. UM. I think
Speaker 1: you're somebody that I hope to have those same um,
Speaker 1: you know, be looked at in the same way down
Speaker 1: the road Asia. I'm not running Live Nation Japan. Um.
Speaker 1: The Japanese repertoire is nine. Well, the Japanese music business
Speaker 1: is Japanese repertoire. By the way, CD sales still dominate
Speaker 1: in Japan. Um what is and and it's not dissimilar
Speaker 1: throughout most of Asia, including India? What is your Asian strategy?
Speaker 1: Do you see Asia as a panacea being in the
Speaker 1: live music business? I do. But how we break down
Speaker 1: these walls and get further exposure for Western acts I
Speaker 1: think is our challenge. So streaming is a key. I'll
Speaker 1: answer you a question in a sort of a semi circle.
Speaker 1: I started noticing our artists going to Lallapalooza in different
Speaker 1: places that Live Nation owns in South America, and I
Speaker 1: looked at streaming numbers of our artists and the number
Speaker 1: to market. The number three markets were Brazil where Mexico
Speaker 1: were Chili, and I was like, whoa, Now I know
Speaker 1: where they're going down there, and the Android phone is
Speaker 1: bigger than anything in those markets. So I started looking
Speaker 1: at the streaming numbers there. Then I see and I
Speaker 1: called DANIELCT the day he made the deal with ten Cent.
Speaker 1: I said, that's brilliant to throw in with the biggest
Speaker 1: streaming person there. So I think that the ten Cent
Speaker 1: investment the reverse or reciprocal, you call it investment. There
Speaker 1: is is my is going to create a lot of waves.
Speaker 1: I think India is going to go. I'm very encouraged
Speaker 1: about Japan only because I followed Germany very closely. That
Speaker 1: has been a physical market, that has been a domestic market,
Speaker 1: that has been a CD market, and it's changing. It's
Speaker 1: finally changed slowly to a streaming market. Uh. I believe
Speaker 1: if we could penetrate streaming in Japan. They just don't
Speaker 1: know about the music. We went through an era I
Speaker 1: guess it peaked with Michael Jackson where it was American pop,
Speaker 1: and then we did a terrible job as a business
Speaker 1: sending artists there. Um. We still send artists to Japan.
Speaker 1: We send churches that we said Phoenix just left a
Speaker 1: few days ago, and they they're in Beijing actually at
Speaker 1: the Great Wall um yesterday. So managers in working with
Speaker 1: companies like yours have to make the investment to go
Speaker 1: that's probably number one, and then go back again, and
Speaker 1: then go back again. You can't dilude it to we
Speaker 1: can't go everywhere. So I really believe that we come
Speaker 1: back to this conference in two years, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: going I mean seven months, will see South America, We'll
Speaker 1: see India, will see China, and I do believe there's
Speaker 1: going to be a change in Japan. I do believe
Speaker 1: the phone and the streaming Spotify, A bowl will be there. Um.
Speaker 1: It could be a third service though, because we didn't
Speaker 1: see ten cent coming, and it might be a different
Speaker 1: service because the nationalism, the xenophobia, you know, that could
Speaker 1: take over. That could be a deezer or something like
Speaker 1: that in that market. I'm very encouraged though, because of
Speaker 1: what I saw in South America, Mexico and in in Germany.
Speaker 1: Just one question. We've also been talking about Chance the
Speaker 1: Rapper and certain acts debating whether or they even need
Speaker 1: a label. How do you foresee that playing out? So
Speaker 1: Chance the Rapper I get asked about all the time,
Speaker 1: and I think that's the aberration, that's the anomaly. Um.
Speaker 1: He started out with a lot of money. You know,
Speaker 1: Pat is a friend, a friend of my son more
Speaker 1: than me. You know, that's a seven figure investment. It's
Speaker 1: nice to have that. Um, and they did it. And
Speaker 1: he's a really important artist. He sells stadiums out, he's
Speaker 1: really really important. I tend to think that most of
Speaker 1: these artists that are not gonna have a qualified team
Speaker 1: with them, are not gonna have important catalogs, are not
Speaker 1: going to have long lasting careers. I think you still
Speaker 1: need the great agent and the publicity and the licensing sinc.
Speaker 1: And the artist development nuances to be a bona fide
Speaker 1: international artist. I still believe in the team. I think
Speaker 1: the bidding wars of the major labels that are going
Speaker 1: into there was an eight million dollar deal signed a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, then there was a fifteen million dollar
Speaker 1: deal signed a few weeks ago, and that probably is
Speaker 1: just coming because of these infusions of cash from Facebook
Speaker 1: and Spotify that have just come into the vaults of
Speaker 1: these companies. UM, I still think you need a team.
Speaker 1: I think there are managers who are doing a very
Speaker 1: very good job of having promotion and marketing and within
Speaker 1: their own management company. There's maybe four of those though,
Speaker 1: uh So I think you're gonna see one maybe every
Speaker 1: couple of years. We've tried to sign some of them
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not sure how they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Those artists. I think still think you needed I would
Speaker 1: advise somebody to be smart to write your deal the
Speaker 1: way you want to write it. But you still need
Speaker 1: a team. I every artist in our company that had success,
Speaker 1: no way they could have done it without an independent,
Speaker 1: patient company behind them. Um, and I think they all
Speaker 1: start out. You know, somebody in the hallway was using
Speaker 1: the word with me what inspires you? And what's inspirational
Speaker 1: in that word? You know it could be used so loosely.
Speaker 1: I think the inspired artists really do need a team,
Speaker 1: because you know, there was a team behind Kanye West.
Speaker 1: There was a whole team and he then you get
Speaker 1: off in fashion and and and dance and ballet and
Speaker 1: and and all the things that he's been involved in.
Speaker 1: But it was a very good team behind him and
Speaker 1: everybody else that's been successful. So I do believe you
Speaker 1: need a team. Is always going to be a chance though. Okay,
Speaker 1: other questions, how does a new artist get onto your radar?
Speaker 1: How many? How many acts have you passed on with me? Daniel?
Speaker 1: So that's how you get on his radar? You you
Speaker 1: asked him and then he sends. The manager of Jade
Speaker 1: Bird is a great guy, Like I put him in
Speaker 1: that a group of management. He manages Plan b Tom Odell,
Speaker 1: Liam Gallagher, Jess Glynn, and we had a chance to
Speaker 1: sign probably all of those, um, and they're all successful,
Speaker 1: not in America, not in different places. We just didn't
Speaker 1: feel it. You know, there's a culture in our company,
Speaker 1: and it's a family culture and it starts with my
Speaker 1: wife and my children and the people like Bianca. It's
Speaker 1: a family. So that's one thing. You know, you have
Speaker 1: to have a culture in your company. And I always
Speaker 1: look at the artists that would I have them over
Speaker 1: on Sunday, I really think about that. First of all,
Speaker 1: they stars, they have great repertoire, you know that. Let's
Speaker 1: just say they have that. Um. So getting on the radar,
Speaker 1: I would say managers. I really trust agents. I think
Speaker 1: agents are really good and managers are the two best
Speaker 1: sources for me. Club owners I think are great. There
Speaker 1: was an artist that played here. People were singing every
Speaker 1: word of the song. Should have seen the reaction. Those
Speaker 1: are good sources to me. UM. A couple of people
Speaker 1: in Spotify, not not high ups, but middle to lower Uh.
Speaker 1: I still talk to radio people all the time. Um,
Speaker 1: those are sources. UM. I don't know, it's just you know,
Speaker 1: you talk to you talk to people. You gotta trust
Speaker 1: your team too. We have an amazing team, our little team,
Speaker 1: our family member has grown up with us. So now
Speaker 1: you have people have been with us six to eight
Speaker 1: years and they are out there. So that's that's a way.
Speaker 1: But you know, we created a culture in our company
Speaker 1: and it's and it's Fami Maine amount be for everybody.
Speaker 1: We're a family culture where a family of inspired people.
Speaker 1: I would prefer our people go to the ballet or
Speaker 1: a foreign film. I'm I'm taking this Thursday night. I'm
Speaker 1: taking six to eight of our people to the Shed,
Speaker 1: which is the newest, coolest, most cutting edge art space
Speaker 1: in the world world where the high line meets the
Speaker 1: meets uh what's it called the new city, the building
Speaker 1: up over the over the railroad tracks. No, what Hudson Yards.
Speaker 1: And it's it's the people that did the armory that's
Speaker 1: the most that's that's inspirational. If you could see that.
Speaker 1: I want my team to do that. So I want
Speaker 1: an artist that that would be moved by going to
Speaker 1: the Shed with me. I want to hear what book
Speaker 1: they read. I want to see what movie they what.
Speaker 1: That's why one of the reasons I love reading Bob
Speaker 1: is is he turns me onto movies. I turned them
Speaker 1: onto a book in Vice versa. So I want that
Speaker 1: in our company. I want inspiration. And when you say family,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought about it this morning and prep
Speaker 1: and just in preparing this. We started this company, you know,
Speaker 1: ten and a half eleven years ago. There's marriages in
Speaker 1: our company now, beautiful marriages that we've I've attended some
Speaker 1: weddings and there's another wedding, two more weddings coming up
Speaker 1: this summer. Great people. And then I look at the
Speaker 1: lead singer of Phoenix gets married to Sofia Coppola, the
Speaker 1: lead the keyboard player marries Kingoberza, who might be the
Speaker 1: best video director in the world. She's incredible. She just
Speaker 1: did the Aurora video. I see Marcus Mumford marries Carrie
Speaker 1: Mulligan Winston. Mary's Diana grown, another great actor. Um and
Speaker 1: I see now a lot of our artists having children.
Speaker 1: And we go out together, and we we go to
Speaker 1: opera together, we go to we traveled together. And that's
Speaker 1: what I wanted when I started, because that's what Chrysalis
Speaker 1: was for me. That was so beautiful. We we did
Speaker 1: everything together. I got to know Blondie lad and Benatar
Speaker 1: Late and Jethro Tall, I got to he brought us
Speaker 1: gravelocks from his farm to Chris Wright's house where he
Speaker 1: had his trout, and these are these are rich guys,
Speaker 1: you know. And I was, you know, a little pitshirts
Speaker 1: twenty six years old going into these places. But I
Speaker 1: wanted that. So when I started glass Note, I needed
Speaker 1: to learn about the past, to say, what of environment,
Speaker 1: what kind of family. I wanted to have a family culture,
Speaker 1: but I wanted a culture of excellence, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to train people. I didn't want to hire major label people.
Speaker 1: And for the most part we have, and the few
Speaker 1: we did very very good. But for the most part
Speaker 1: I prefer not to. So when you get that culture
Speaker 1: and you have these people that can come over and
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: better feeling. And I never worried. You know, some people say,
Speaker 1: how much money do you make? I think we make
Speaker 1: a lot of money. I think we sell a lot
Speaker 1: of records. But it's not that important to me. What's
Speaker 1: important is that you come to see these artists and
Speaker 1: you go wow. I was emotionally transported tonight. That to
Speaker 1: me is better than number one. That really, I really
Speaker 1: mean that. The first time I heard on the radio,
Speaker 1: and then when someone comes to a show and goes
Speaker 1: that was really something, I think, that's what you want
Speaker 1: to be in business with. So that's the that's the
Speaker 1: A and R of the company in a in a
Speaker 1: roundabout way, it's it's really about fitting into a much
Speaker 1: more inspired cultural world than it is. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a as an artist we signed. I hope I'm not
Speaker 1: boring you, but I went to the Juno Awards, uh
Speaker 1: not this year, the year before and it was in
Speaker 1: Ottawa and Justin Trudeau had given a very emotional speech
Speaker 1: about the indigenous population, the First Nation Indians, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know a lot about it. I did some research
Speaker 1: and this young man gets up on stage and sings
Speaker 1: a song called Breathless, William Prince. And I met William
Speaker 1: that night and he made everybody cry. He sang this
Speaker 1: song and behind him was the scroll of who died
Speaker 1: that year and everybody's crying, and he had a standing
Speaker 1: ovation And thanks to my wife, I went over to him.
Speaker 1: I gave my business card. A month and a half later,
Speaker 1: we decided to go into business together and Dave cop
Speaker 1: just produced his record. And the reason I say it
Speaker 1: is that got the hearst already of what it was
Speaker 1: like to get out of what I said to him.
Speaker 1: This is over many lunches and dinners, what went on
Speaker 1: on the Indian reservation. And he's not supposed to be alive.
Speaker 1: This guy between opioids, diabetes, rape, he's not supposed. If
Speaker 1: you've seen the movie Wind River, that's what it's like.
Speaker 1: You should see that movie. It's an important movie from
Speaker 1: last year with Jeremy Renner. So William overcame that. William
Speaker 1: got into medical school and now I think he's gonna
Speaker 1: have a big hit record. But that's why we signed
Speaker 1: him because of his voice. He is not any Bianca
Speaker 1: asked me a lunch today, who do you think is
Speaker 1: gonna play the record? What play? I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Who's ever going to play this
Speaker 1: guy's record. It's just great. Lucy and Grange wrote me
Speaker 1: a note and he wrote, great song, great record, and
Speaker 1: he said good luck. I don't know if I don't
Speaker 1: know what he meant by that. Was that like a
Speaker 1: dig or is that like good luck? Getting something this
Speaker 1: different on the There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it,
Speaker 1: nothing like his voice, but there was nothing like you
Speaker 1: know the banjo. There was nothing like that. There was
Speaker 1: nothing like you know gambinos. So um, that's the A
Speaker 1: and R of the company. And the song made me cry.
Speaker 1: And then Dave Cobb heard it and he said, I
Speaker 1: gotta produce this. So after he did Chris Stapleton and
Speaker 1: Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell and Brandy Carlyle and all
Speaker 1: the records he's had, he did it and it's coming out,
Speaker 1: you know, in a few weeks. So that's the A
Speaker 1: and R. That's the company, that's the inspiration, that's how
Speaker 1: we worked the company. I don't know if that's a
Speaker 1: business thing, but I think that's what Chris Blackwell did.
Speaker 1: I think that's what Jerry Moss did. I think that's
Speaker 1: what Chris Wright did. And I think that's that's the
Speaker 1: people that I want to be like one day when
Speaker 1: I grow up. So that's that's that's my feeling. And
Speaker 1: on that note, was congratulate Daniel on a grade before
Speaker 1: everyone I thought of introduced. That was Daniel Lass, Executive
Speaker 1: Extraordinaire from the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California.
Speaker 1: Daniel has literally done it all other than be a musician, himself.
Speaker 1: He was at DJ, worked at many labels before he
Speaker 1: started his own company and had mega success. If you
Speaker 1: want to know where it's going, if you want to
Speaker 1: know how to live your life, listen to Daniel Glass.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Don't hesitate to email me at Boba
Speaker 1: left steps dot com with feedback and suggestions. I may
Speaker 1: not always respond, but I read every email until next time.
Speaker 1: I'm Bob left Sets