Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the Chain Smokers manager Adam Out Adam, Hi, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're in l A. Chain Smokers are playing the Forum.
Speaker 1: Are you just how often would you go to a
Speaker 1: gig by your act an arena gig? Yeah, any gig
Speaker 1: I go to about probably probably this tour, probably a
Speaker 1: quarter of the shows. And why do you decide to
Speaker 1: go or not go? The first few of the last
Speaker 1: few New York, l A and Seattle because that's where
Speaker 1: my in laws are from. So the in laws and
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving on this particular trip. Yeah, we're doing Thanksgiving in
Speaker 1: Seattle and then the guys show up. They're like four
Speaker 1: days later. So I'm staying for the whole thing. So
Speaker 1: how did you meet your wife? She's from Seattle. She
Speaker 1: lived in New York, but just through a friend. Okay,
Speaker 1: So did you become the manager of the Chain Smokers? Well,
Speaker 1: that's a loaded question. Um well I actually introduced them
Speaker 1: to each other right now. We were talking about this
Speaker 1: a few months ago, So let's talk about how you
Speaker 1: did that kind of slowly. Sure, so out of college, Um,
Speaker 1: I ended up working in a nightclub, hospitality business. I
Speaker 1: was running nightclub. You went to pen but what did
Speaker 1: you what did you major in pen? Premat pretty bad? Okay,
Speaker 1: so at what point did you say, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go on that track. What happened was I was promoting parties,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was in college, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's fun and you make money, and um, while I
Speaker 1: was studying for pre met, I was just like studying
Speaker 1: for the MCATs, and I was just like, this is
Speaker 1: really what I want to do for the next god
Speaker 1: knows however many years and I just said, you know what,
Speaker 1: this isn't This isn't what I love it, but it's
Speaker 1: not what I want to do with the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. And I became more and more enamored with
Speaker 1: the hospitality business and boutique hotels and exclusive restaurants, and
Speaker 1: I ended up where a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: music industry today started as a nightclub promoter. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go back. Did you take the m cats? Never took him?
Speaker 1: Never took him. I remember when I was in college,
Speaker 1: I signed up for the l S a T. My
Speaker 1: friends knocked on my door and they said, you're not
Speaker 1: taking that. Let's go to Montreal. And we did. That's
Speaker 1: what they called it Montreal, although I ended up taking
Speaker 1: after it broke my leg a year later. But uh well,
Speaker 1: I brought my m CAT book to the bar. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: And then my friends were like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: And what did your parents say when you weren't going
Speaker 1: to take the m CAT Honestly, like, they didn't put
Speaker 1: any pressure on me to be a doctor in the
Speaker 1: first place, so they really just were like, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do. Um. I think there were
Speaker 1: a few years after I was a nightclub promoter that
Speaker 1: they were hoping I had taken them cats so I
Speaker 1: could revisit it. But because I didn't, I couldn't. Okay,
Speaker 1: when I went to college before you, the big you
Speaker 1: know what separated the real candidates from the failures was
Speaker 1: organic KEM. Okay, so if you took organic chem and
Speaker 1: but what did you do well in all those classes?
Speaker 1: I did really really well in the bio classes. Organic
Speaker 1: chem is hard for everyone. I think I did like
Speaker 1: decent in the first level, and then as the levels
Speaker 1: of organic KEM got harder and harder, I did worse
Speaker 1: and worse. But theoretically, if you've got a reasonable score
Speaker 1: on the M guide. Were they good enough to get in? Yeah? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So what was the first party you promoted? The first
Speaker 1: party I promoted was with two of my high school buddies.
Speaker 1: We went to a bar one night and the because
Speaker 1: you're growing up in Manhattan, yes, born and raised in Manhattan, okay,
Speaker 1: and where do you go to school in Manhattan? To
Speaker 1: high school? To harst Man and um, we went to
Speaker 1: this bar. I'm gonna speed through this because there's so
Speaker 1: much better stuff later in my life. But we went
Speaker 1: to this bar on the Upper West Side and they
Speaker 1: had beds and I and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: so cool. They have beds in this bar. We gotta
Speaker 1: throw a party here. But what were the beds for?
Speaker 1: It was just like instead of tables with couches, they
Speaker 1: had beds that you could lie on. And I found
Speaker 1: the owner and I said, my buddy and I want
Speaker 1: to throw um a party here. We'll bring the people,
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, you will keep whatever the you
Speaker 1: make at the door, and I'll keep whatever I make
Speaker 1: at the bar. Okay. So you're in high school, your
Speaker 1: how old? Okay? What inspired you to even do this?
Speaker 1: I just thought the place. I thought the place was cool.
Speaker 1: I was really into just like restaurants and bars and hotels.
Speaker 1: I just found that stuff really cool. And I knew
Speaker 1: that we could do it because we were going out
Speaker 1: on the weekends two bars, you know, on the Upper
Speaker 1: east Side and Upper west Side all the time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: even though you weren't old enough to drink, you have
Speaker 1: a faked yes. And there was a lot of bars,
Speaker 1: especially on the Upper east Side on Second Avenue, a
Speaker 1: third Avenue that let under age people drink. I don't
Speaker 1: know how it is now, but this was probably what year. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: And so we did it the first night and they
Speaker 1: didn't ask really guarantee, just whatever you're getting there, and
Speaker 1: your pitch for people to go was too How did
Speaker 1: you get the people there? I mean, when you're in
Speaker 1: high school, it's if you build it, they will come,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? You know, maybe I went
Speaker 1: to it, went to a public high school. But how
Speaker 1: much did you charge? Oh my goodness, I don't remember
Speaker 1: what we started charging. But what happened was that night,
Speaker 1: as soon as it started, there was a line down
Speaker 1: the block of underage kids. And the owner freaked out
Speaker 1: because everybody was under age for act and he let
Speaker 1: it happen, and we just started charging more, as like
Speaker 1: every hour the door charge would get higher and higher
Speaker 1: and higher. And at the end of the night, my
Speaker 1: two buddies and I had this um like little cash
Speaker 1: box just full of cash and and it was like
Speaker 1: from that moment, I was like, there's like a business here. Okay.
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, were you the entrepreneurial sword who was
Speaker 1: always making money as a little kid, or was this
Speaker 1: your first vengee? No? I was pretty entrepreneurial always um
Speaker 1: And so somehow we got away with that night happening,
Speaker 1: and the owner moved the party to a bigger venue
Speaker 1: in a more remote location so that we wouldn't get
Speaker 1: in trouble for future parties. And we ended up doing
Speaker 1: it weekly for a really long time. And you know,
Speaker 1: everybody was underage and drinking, correct, Okay. And then you
Speaker 1: go to school at pen Why do you go to
Speaker 1: pen Um? Well, my dad went there. It was close
Speaker 1: to the city but not the city. Um, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of friends that went there, and it was
Speaker 1: just my high school. A lot of it's from my
Speaker 1: high school went to Penn and so it just kind
Speaker 1: of became like sort of tradition, and I went there,
Speaker 1: I fell in love with it, um, and I went.
Speaker 1: While I was there, I really fell in love with Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: I really love that city, and it is the city
Speaker 1: of brotherly love. But I just think it's quaint and
Speaker 1: the people are so much nicer than they are in
Speaker 1: New York. I mean, it's definitely dirty, but it's in
Speaker 1: certain parts. But um, it's just much more relaxed and
Speaker 1: the people are much nicer. Okay. And when you were there,
Speaker 1: would you go back to New York regularly or just
Speaker 1: like I did, go back regularly. Okay, So how did
Speaker 1: you start promoting parties in college? Um? Well, I had
Speaker 1: already done it, you know, so it was very simple.
Speaker 1: I did it. If I didn't do it that much
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. I did it a few times in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Mostly my thing was when we went home for the holidays. Um.
Speaker 1: I would do those for all the kids that were
Speaker 1: coming back from college for the holidays. So what my
Speaker 1: big thing was thank is Giving Eve, which is actually
Speaker 1: two days and right that was always when people come
Speaker 1: back and they go to the body after they've gone
Speaker 1: away from college. My my, my, my bread and butter
Speaker 1: was Thanksgiving Eve and New Years and New Year's I
Speaker 1: we used to do in Miami. We would take a hotel.
Speaker 1: I did eleven years New Year's Eves in Miami. So
Speaker 1: let's just when you ended up doing once, you know,
Speaker 1: like you're the fourth or fifth year doing it alone,
Speaker 1: or you're doing it with a partner. Um, I had
Speaker 1: partners at that time. How much could you take away
Speaker 1: personally from doing it New Year's Eve? What did I
Speaker 1: make on New Year's New Year's Probably to my for myself,
Speaker 1: probably like grand Okay, so who was paying for college?
Speaker 1: Your father? Were you paying? Since you we're making this money?
Speaker 1: Oh no, I wasn't making that money until after college. Okay.
Speaker 1: So in annie event, you graduate, graduate from college and
Speaker 1: you decide you want to be in the hospitality business,
Speaker 1: you go to New York and we and you do what.
Speaker 1: I got a job with a restaurant tour named Jonathan Moore,
Speaker 1: who was not like the top top guy in New
Speaker 1: York City, but he was like top four and he
Speaker 1: was a guy I really admired. And everyone says, if
Speaker 1: you want to make it into music in the restaurant business,
Speaker 1: you have to start from the bottom up. And so
Speaker 1: I wasn't a bus boy, but I was a host
Speaker 1: um six days, six nights a week from four pm,
Speaker 1: and I didn't get home till four am, six nights
Speaker 1: a week. And because I didn't get home till four am,
Speaker 1: I always slept late. So I would like, literally, wake up,
Speaker 1: go to the restaurant, worked twelve hours, go home, go
Speaker 1: to sleep. I had no life. I didn't see anyone.
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to anyone. It was horrible. What was
Speaker 1: the name of the restaurant. It was called The Out
Speaker 1: It's no longer okay, So how long did that go on?
Speaker 1: Three months? Three months? And I was so, let's go
Speaker 1: back a little bit. You're talking about this guy. How
Speaker 1: did you hook up with him? Um? I just I
Speaker 1: think I applied. I applied, so there was like an
Speaker 1: open again you got the gig? So that goes. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think there was an opening. I sought them out.
Speaker 1: I knew who he was, and I tried to get
Speaker 1: a job there. And how did you close him? Um?
Speaker 1: In the room? Yeah? Yeah, I closed him in the room. Well,
Speaker 1: experience that just a little bit. I went in, I
Speaker 1: told him I went to Penn. I was passionate about
Speaker 1: hospitality and I would do whatever it took. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you do that for three months, four to four and
Speaker 1: then what happens? Then? I was like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I could do more than just what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: Like I'm all four starting from the bottom up, but hey,
Speaker 1: I want to make more money and be I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I'm doing as much as I can be
Speaker 1: and I literally have zero life, um. And so I
Speaker 1: went back to just promoting parties. Oh so you actually left.
Speaker 1: There was very little that I could do because I
Speaker 1: was incapacitated. Right, So I'm trying to say, but you
Speaker 1: actually quit that gig after three months? Yes, quit okay?
Speaker 1: And what did you say when you quit? Okay, good luck?
Speaker 1: Was to say your whip okay. So then you say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna promote part So I went back to promoting parties, um.
Speaker 1: And what happened was because very few people, um, that
Speaker 1: were actually born and raised in Manhattan still remain in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: And so I was one of the guys that all
Speaker 1: these kids coming back from North that we're moving to
Speaker 1: New York after graduation from Northeast schools that weren't from
Speaker 1: New York. They had no idea where to go or
Speaker 1: what to do. So I ended up becoming that guy
Speaker 1: where so if you went to like any school basically
Speaker 1: in the Northeast, like you called me and I told
Speaker 1: you where to go. So I had we we had
Speaker 1: parties lined up every single night basically maybe five Okay,
Speaker 1: when a little bit slower you quit the gig. How
Speaker 1: do you become the man I already was. I was
Speaker 1: already doing it in the on the holidays during college,
Speaker 1: like people knew you know, and I had I knew
Speaker 1: every other promoter in New York, and you just kind
Speaker 1: of link up with different people. You'll say, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll say to one promoter friend, let's do Thursdays at
Speaker 1: this place. And you'll say to another promoter friend, let's
Speaker 1: do Fridays together and we'll go find a club. You know,
Speaker 1: things like that, And what is the draw? You mean?
Speaker 1: What gets them there? You develop a reputation for throwing
Speaker 1: good parties and you know, taking care of people and
Speaker 1: entertaining people. You know, if I went, I paid my money,
Speaker 1: I get in, what would what would I be the
Speaker 1: experience I had at that moment, dancing in a nightclub
Speaker 1: and you know, potentially buying a table with bottles on
Speaker 1: it for wildly over price amounts and there were people
Speaker 1: just graduated from college. You can afford them, yes, with
Speaker 1: their parents allowance. How much money to get in it
Speaker 1: was either free or it was like twenty and how
Speaker 1: much for the bottle bottle service At that time they
Speaker 1: were like three. Now they're like six eight thousand. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you're promoting these parties and word gets out if
Speaker 1: you want to know what's going on? Are they literally
Speaker 1: emailing you, texting you whatever? There was no text back then. Um,
Speaker 1: there was email, but it was very difficult. Maybe there
Speaker 1: was text, but it was very difficult to mass text,
Speaker 1: like you could text ten people at a time because
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to sit there and text thousand
Speaker 1: people individually. And same thing with email. There were like
Speaker 1: limits to how many emails you could send. UM. So
Speaker 1: you know, we we tried to fix find every trick
Speaker 1: in the book to do that. Okay. The key, the
Speaker 1: key thing to UM that I should say about these
Speaker 1: parties is that at that time the DJ was in
Speaker 1: the corner and nobody cared who it was or or
Speaker 1: could even see them. Really you know, um in that
Speaker 1: kind of led me to where you know, was led
Speaker 1: me to my next step. Okay, So UM. So after
Speaker 1: I made a name for myself as a nightclub promoter
Speaker 1: in New York, I got hired by these two guys
Speaker 1: that UM were known to be like pretty much the
Speaker 1: best promoters and UM restaurant owners in New York. UM.
Speaker 1: These guys, Scott and Ritchie UM and at the time
Speaker 1: they owned a restaurant, Cold Butter, and they promoted other nightclubs.
Speaker 1: And I got hired by them too, kind of be
Speaker 1: the director of promotions, which means like manage all the
Speaker 1: nights and hire all the DJs, and hire all the
Speaker 1: other promoters and just make sure everything's going as it
Speaker 1: should on the marketing and promotion side. UM. And I
Speaker 1: ended up working for them for eight years. Okay, how
Speaker 1: many years out of college did you get that gig?
Speaker 1: Probably two or three. And you would make more money
Speaker 1: working for them than doing it yourself, UM, probably because
Speaker 1: I was getting a decent salary and health insurance, and
Speaker 1: it was more for stability and like for growing my
Speaker 1: career rather than just like, Okay, so you're in the
Speaker 1: nightclub business. People your age are very aggressive in their
Speaker 1: careers and you see people moving up with their careers.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like, well, maybe I didn't play this
Speaker 1: game right or you say, what not at first, but
Speaker 1: after eight years, I you know, started to for sure.
Speaker 1: It's also very very tiring. Um, it loses all its luster,
Speaker 1: you know, being in nightclubs, you know, six nights a week,
Speaker 1: every night, you know, and seeing people that's saying people
Speaker 1: over and over and over and um, you know, definitely
Speaker 1: there was a lot of that and I really didn't
Speaker 1: know what my next step was going to be. But
Speaker 1: I didn't know that it was going to present its health. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we built a nightclub called One Oak um
Speaker 1: in New York City, which still exists today. And um,
Speaker 1: they've expanded and they have a bunch of One Oaks
Speaker 1: and other clubs. It's a pretty big company now. Um.
Speaker 1: But what happened was about three three years into it,
Speaker 1: I noticed a few things all at the same time.
Speaker 1: The first thing I noticed was that people we're starting
Speaker 1: to ask all the time who's dejaying, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: really a thing before. And the other thing that was
Speaker 1: happening with social media was starting to get more prevalent,
Speaker 1: and these local New York City DJs, we're starting to
Speaker 1: get their own followings where people would care who that
Speaker 1: like they would say, Oh, is this guy djaying tonight?
Speaker 1: Is this guy djank tomorrow night? I want I want
Speaker 1: that guy to you know, And I was like, that's
Speaker 1: so weird, Like people didn't used to do that before.
Speaker 1: It was like they would come to a nightclub be
Speaker 1: because it was the newest or that's where the celebrities
Speaker 1: hung out or whatever it was. The Other thing that
Speaker 1: started happening was dance music started spilling over from Europe.
Speaker 1: You know, guys like David Ghetta. So, what year are
Speaker 1: we in? We're in two thousand and two and um.
Speaker 1: The last thing was um dj AM Do you know
Speaker 1: who that was? D J A m Yeah, So d
Speaker 1: J A m Um was dating Nicole Ritchie and they
Speaker 1: were on the cover of US Weekly and I saw
Speaker 1: the magazine and I was just like, what is going
Speaker 1: on here? Like DJs are like celebrities now, like they're
Speaker 1: like so it's all those things could combine, just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I have all the best DJs in New
Speaker 1: York City DJing at my club, and they really don't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing as far as furthering their career here.
Speaker 1: They can barely send an invoice, you know, they could
Speaker 1: barely show up on time. And since I had worked
Speaker 1: at pretty much the best club in the country for
Speaker 1: eight years, I knew everyone in the nightclub business. And
Speaker 1: so I decided to start a DJ management company. And
Speaker 1: I went and signed the ten DJs that worked at
Speaker 1: our club, who were the best DJs in New York
Speaker 1: City UM to management and really it was it was
Speaker 1: sort of like a booking agency to UM. And that
Speaker 1: company was called four AM, and I, you know, basically
Speaker 1: told them, I'll help you on your social media, I'll
Speaker 1: do all your office work, I'll you know, get you
Speaker 1: working in other places around the country. And within three
Speaker 1: months it exploded, Okay, are you still having your day
Speaker 1: job while you're doing this? Okay, theoretically an agent somebody
Speaker 1: getting work should be like, since you get it, you
Speaker 1: don't get a license, right, of course? Not. Do you
Speaker 1: have anybody working for you at the time? Not? Not
Speaker 1: at first. At first I was doing it all myself.
Speaker 1: What was your take? What was your percentage? So when
Speaker 1: they were playing, before you have this epiphany, what was
Speaker 1: a DJ making in your club? Uh? It could be
Speaker 1: anywhere from three okay, And these guys did not make music.
Speaker 1: They were you know, they were spinning spinning records. Okay,
Speaker 1: you get involved. What does the price turn into. It
Speaker 1: got a little bit higher, But it wasn't just about
Speaker 1: raising their rates. It was about getting them playing more
Speaker 1: nights a week in more cities, um, and helping their
Speaker 1: fan bases grow. Okay, so how far would you go
Speaker 1: from New York? Oh? I mean it was a pretty
Speaker 1: high end, so it was international. But we really Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we were doing things like you know, can Film Festival. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're working at a club. How did you have those relationships?
Speaker 1: The nightclub business, everyone knows each other. We would do
Speaker 1: like pop ups like you know, Sundance Film Festival, Art
Speaker 1: boss Al Toronto Film Festival, like you know. Nightclub owners
Speaker 1: all intermingle at those types of things. Um, and I
Speaker 1: had a little bit of exposure to the music business
Speaker 1: because we'd have lots of artists come to our venues
Speaker 1: and perform, and a lot of the DJs because the
Speaker 1: artists wanted them to spend their records, had relationships, you know,
Speaker 1: I was exposed to guys like Giddy and Jay z
Speaker 1: Um all the time, and um, a little monopoly started
Speaker 1: whereby Oh so after three months it exploded and I
Speaker 1: quit the job working for the hospitality company and um
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine, Rich kleiman Um, who managers Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant now was running rock Nation, and he was I
Speaker 1: told him about that I had left, and then I
Speaker 1: started this DJ company and he gave me a desk
Speaker 1: at rock Nation to run my company. No like, no
Speaker 1: official ties, just here's a desk. Let's see what you
Speaker 1: can do. And so I started working there and eventually
Speaker 1: I was like, Rich, I need to hire somebody, like,
Speaker 1: can I have another desk? And he was like nope.
Speaker 1: And so I started running it out of my apartment
Speaker 1: and then I started hiring people and I turned this.
Speaker 1: I kicked out my roommate and I turned his bedroom
Speaker 1: into like the office, and I had four guys working
Speaker 1: there with me, and the company was just screaming. And
Speaker 1: so we're what we're like two thousan Yes, exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's stop for a second here. At this point, Scooter
Speaker 1: is making some noise, Scooter braun and whatever. Did you
Speaker 1: see that as something separate or did you say I'm
Speaker 1: competing with him or those are the steps I want
Speaker 1: to go in. I wasn't even really looking at that.
Speaker 1: There were other guys trying to do what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and those were the guys I was competing. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you say monopoly, they were trying to do it, But
Speaker 1: you own the market. I own New York City and
Speaker 1: the Tri State area and pretty much Miami. Okay. And
Speaker 1: as a result of having this success, I would assume
Speaker 1: that you're now throwing you're now selling DJs to hire
Speaker 1: and higher levels of people. Yes, so that it was.
Speaker 1: It was that my company because my club was a
Speaker 1: high end club. My DJs were DJs that dj high
Speaker 1: end clubs and private events like we would do Jay
Speaker 1: Z's birthday party and the Louis Vutan fashion show, and
Speaker 1: you know, so that's just the type of guys that
Speaker 1: So did those relationships help you as you shifted? Gave
Speaker 1: every relationship I've made I made over the eight years
Speaker 1: in the nightclub business and the four years managing UM DJs,
Speaker 1: that's been record. It's I still have and work with
Speaker 1: those people today. It's amazing. That's like the best part
Speaker 1: of it. That's the great thing about the nightclub business
Speaker 1: is like as as much as I hated it, towards
Speaker 1: the end, like I met so many people that I
Speaker 1: have lifelong relationships within every business like finance, film, you, art,
Speaker 1: you name it, and and these are people I still
Speaker 1: do things with today now just so we know. Uh,
Speaker 1: in the nightclub business is that type of thing where
Speaker 1: people come and go or certain people are lifers. There
Speaker 1: are certain people that are lifers and they're either really
Speaker 1: really successful or just have done the same thing forever. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have the four years of managing DJs? What
Speaker 1: does that look like after the four years? So what
Speaker 1: happened was you basically couldn't DJ at any place good
Speaker 1: in New York unless I was managing you. And um
Speaker 1: Al Paul from the Chain Smokers was djaying in New
Speaker 1: York City or was trying really trying to be a
Speaker 1: DJ in New York City. Um and he was djaying
Speaker 1: with another guy. And I kind of heard about them
Speaker 1: a little bit because they were, um, you know, doing
Speaker 1: some things here and there. And eventually and I would
Speaker 1: see them around and I would say, you know, if
Speaker 1: you really want to make it big, you need you
Speaker 1: need me, and they would be like, yeah, sure, whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, lo and behold. They called me eventually and
Speaker 1: said can you manage us? And I said sure? And
Speaker 1: I started telling everybody in in the hospitality industry that
Speaker 1: these guys were my new guys, and um, I booked
Speaker 1: them a gig at a nightclub called Wall in Miami
Speaker 1: where they called the Chain Smokers. They would call the
Speaker 1: Chain Cocks, and um it was well was a respectable club,
Speaker 1: also still open today at the W Hotel in Miami.
Speaker 1: And they went down there and I out of and
Speaker 1: my phone rang at five o'clock in the morning. And
Speaker 1: what do you do when you're a manager and your
Speaker 1: phone rings at five o'clock and pick it and you
Speaker 1: pick it up? And it was the other guy and
Speaker 1: he said, I just got into a fight with Alex
Speaker 1: and he's such an asshole. Am I allowed to curss
Speaker 1: on this? Okay? He's such an asshole? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, just come home tomorrow we'll kiss
Speaker 1: a makeup and uh. The next day we planned to
Speaker 1: meet and um, Alex was the first one to arrive
Speaker 1: and the other kid came in and said, fuck you,
Speaker 1: I'm out quit the group. And where's he today? I
Speaker 1: don't want to say he is he working in the
Speaker 1: music business. I think he's still DJs around the city.
Speaker 1: And when did he ever sue? Because he felt that
Speaker 1: he got sucked over. No, so when he quit Alex
Speaker 1: essentially right then and there, turned to me and said,
Speaker 1: I believe in this. I want to find the new guy.
Speaker 1: I want to produce dance music. Help me. And so
Speaker 1: I said okay. And so he approached the original guy
Speaker 1: and he bought the name chain Smokers for I think
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. So you did you actually get a
Speaker 1: lawyer involved in again? That was smart? Yes. Um? You
Speaker 1: didn't have any paper with these acts, did you? Yes,
Speaker 1: we had written contracts. Oh really with all your details?
Speaker 1: Who wrote the contracts? Um? Yeah, we had a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I had a lawyer. Okay, So this was not actually
Speaker 1: like I may have like used the template at first,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Eventually we had a lawyer, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly. Okay. So when you wait time you
Speaker 1: hit four years, how many people are working for you?
Speaker 1: Probably four full time? And are they still working out
Speaker 1: of your apartment? Yes? Okay low over yes, um, and
Speaker 1: so it's like, okay, the hunt is on to find
Speaker 1: a new part. You were big on the Chain Smokers,
Speaker 1: these other DJs. How many were you? Ultimately you doing it?
Speaker 1: One time? We had like probably at that point twelve
Speaker 1: that were assigned to us. But in addition to those twelve,
Speaker 1: we were getting work like freelance work for probably an
Speaker 1: additional ten or twenty. Okay, but if someone needed a
Speaker 1: DJ and none of ours were available, we we made
Speaker 1: it happen. Right. So, but the ten or twelve you have,
Speaker 1: were you just booking them or giving them career directions
Speaker 1: career We're doing everything for their careers, social media, marketing, routing, travel,
Speaker 1: invoicing everything. And what was the most important thing in
Speaker 1: breaking one of those acts? Getting to work more and
Speaker 1: how their price go up? Well, what I learned is
Speaker 1: that there is no breaking that kind of that kind
Speaker 1: of DJ. The DJs that don't make their own music,
Speaker 1: eventually they hit a ceiling, you know, where it's the
Speaker 1: max that you can make for being that type of artist.
Speaker 1: Um So, everybody was working all the time for the
Speaker 1: most that they were worth, you know, and so the
Speaker 1: company for what was arranged at that point, I mean
Speaker 1: it was still it could be three hundred, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think as much as grand maybe um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we were doing things like um Roman Abramovich's St. Bart's
Speaker 1: New Year's Party, you know, like it was so many
Speaker 1: different types of things. Um, and so the hunt to
Speaker 1: find Alex a partner is on. And uh, well we
Speaker 1: also had interns, and so I'm talking to the guys
Speaker 1: and this is interns before you paid interns. Do they
Speaker 1: pay interns? I'm kidding, um, And so um my intern said,
Speaker 1: you know, I have this friend who know who has
Speaker 1: another friend who I think like I heard like makes
Speaker 1: e d M on his computer and he just graduated
Speaker 1: from Syracuse. And I'm like, give me his number, and
Speaker 1: I called and it was Drew and I cold call
Speaker 1: him and he turns out he had just graduated from
Speaker 1: the band deer program at Syracuse. He was from Freeport, Maine. UM,
Speaker 1: and he was basically in his parents house with no job, um,
Speaker 1: playing on his computer, and I said, send me some stuff.
Speaker 1: I said, I might have an opportunity for you to
Speaker 1: come to New York and be in a DJ group,
Speaker 1: would be djaying every night, you'd be making, you know,
Speaker 1: to start probably somewhere like five dollars at night. And
Speaker 1: to two year old Inport Maine, that was like the
Speaker 1: most incredible thing. And he said, I'll be on the
Speaker 1: next bus and he took the eighteen or what is
Speaker 1: it eight hour bus eighteen No, it's from he went
Speaker 1: to Boston. Mom drove into Boston and then he took
Speaker 1: the bus from Boston. It was eight hours against he
Speaker 1: eighteen dollar bus. And I came to my apartment and
Speaker 1: we sat and we met and he played me some
Speaker 1: of his beats and I was like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: like real deal, like this is something here. And I said,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go for dinner with Alex tonight. And
Speaker 1: they went for dinner. At the time, Alex is how
Speaker 1: old at the time, he must be twenty six? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, so they go to dinner and I call
Speaker 1: Alex the next day and I was like, how dinner go?
Speaker 1: And he was like it went amazing. I love this kid.
Speaker 1: We're doing it. He's in and uh. Drew moved to
Speaker 1: New York. I think like maybe three weeks later, and um,
Speaker 1: he moved into an apartment that was about the size
Speaker 1: of the stable um with two other guys. Alex and
Speaker 1: him locked themselves in a room and worked on music
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours a day, every single day. And
Speaker 1: they sent me and they weren't making songs because they
Speaker 1: weren't songwriters yet. And Alex really wasn't that good of
Speaker 1: a producer, And Drew really wasn't that good of a DJ.
Speaker 1: You know, he had like dj some frat parties. So
Speaker 1: they were like teaching the other how to do the
Speaker 1: other thing. Um. And so they the only thing that
Speaker 1: they could do was either just make instrumental beats or
Speaker 1: remix other tracks. And so how are they working as
Speaker 1: DJs while they're doing this every night? Have them working
Speaker 1: every single night? Um? And they have this idea that
Speaker 1: they were very into their very into all kinds of music,
Speaker 1: but they were very into indie music. And so they
Speaker 1: had this idea to remix indie bands. And at the
Speaker 1: time that wasn't really a thing. It was like you
Speaker 1: were either remixing pop songs or you were remixing E
Speaker 1: d M songs. And so they would message indie bands
Speaker 1: that they were fans of on SoundCloud and ask them
Speaker 1: for stems. And if you're you know, an indie band
Speaker 1: and someone wants to remix your song, you're thinking, hey,
Speaker 1: free promotion, you know, like sure, So they would send
Speaker 1: the stems and then they would do this remix. And
Speaker 1: they sent me the first remix. We're in twelve. They
Speaker 1: sent me the first remix and it was UM of
Speaker 1: a song by Yonce from Cigarass and I was like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, like this is a this is real, Like
Speaker 1: this is incredible and this is how long after you
Speaker 1: introduced them to each other very soon like weeks and UM,
Speaker 1: so I was like completely infatuated with it. Was the
Speaker 1: first time I had a piece of music. You know,
Speaker 1: I had never nothing I was working on. Was there ever,
Speaker 1: like an actual tangible thing. So I was completely completely
Speaker 1: infatuated by it. And you know they were they were
Speaker 1: making a name for themselves as live DJs in New
Speaker 1: York City. Like kids wanted to go to their shows.
Speaker 1: They were fun, they were like party guys, and uh,
Speaker 1: their social media really showed their personalities and they were
Speaker 1: like super funny and witty, UM and so like I
Speaker 1: could kind of so that. So then we put out
Speaker 1: this remix and Alex decides to personally email hundred blogs,
Speaker 1: each each letter unique, and the song came out on
Speaker 1: SoundCloud and it went to number one on hype Machine.
Speaker 1: Hype Machine was, for those of you who don't know
Speaker 1: it was a lot was a blog aggregator that would
Speaker 1: UM take the number of UM blogs that you were
Speaker 1: on and that would and make a chart out of it.
Speaker 1: And so this went to number one on on Hype Machine.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why it resonated with the
Speaker 1: blogs was a because Alex wrote these amazing, hilarious personalized emails,
Speaker 1: but also because people were just not remixing indie bands,
Speaker 1: and also the remixes happened to be fire as they say,
Speaker 1: and UM, so all this so I was like completely infatuated.
Speaker 1: And so then it was like me Alex Andrew sitting
Speaker 1: in my bed like just thinking about how to break
Speaker 1: chain smokers twenty four hours a day. And so we
Speaker 1: would do indie band remix after indie band remix after
Speaker 1: indie band remix, UM, and we're those successful. Every single
Speaker 1: one went to number one on high Machine. I think
Speaker 1: at the end of the day we had like thirty
Speaker 1: three number ones in a row on high Machine. UM.
Speaker 1: The only other guy that was that had something like
Speaker 1: that was R. A. C. Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 1: It was like a famous remixer back then. And UM
Speaker 1: and their social media started to really get good. But
Speaker 1: every day it was all we could think about was
Speaker 1: how do we get likes on Facebook? How do we
Speaker 1: get likes on Facebook? Instagram, wasn't even really big at
Speaker 1: that point yet, so it's like, how do we get
Speaker 1: legs on Facebook? And so they didn't have an agent,
Speaker 1: they didn't have anything. So I got them a gig
Speaker 1: at Live in Miami, which it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: rite of passage. It's like, you know, the best club
Speaker 1: in Miami, All the big DJ's play there, and if
Speaker 1: you're not a top DJ to get a shot, there's
Speaker 1: like a big deal. And the only reason I was
Speaker 1: able to get them that was based on my relationships
Speaker 1: with from when I was promoting nightclubs with the owner
Speaker 1: there UM, who were still really close with today, Dave
Speaker 1: Groutman UM. So they were like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: big deal. We need to find something, find a special
Speaker 1: way to promote this party so that it's successful and
Speaker 1: a lot of people show up and they're really happy
Speaker 1: with us. So we get invited back. And so that
Speaker 1: was our task. And the next day I get an
Speaker 1: email from the guys with a song called Selfie and
Speaker 1: it was a parody song about girl a girl at
Speaker 1: a nightclub, UM strictly made for promoting the show at Live,
Speaker 1: and in the song it says living with my bitches
Speaker 1: hashtag Live. That's about UM Live nightclub. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is hilarious this oh and they
Speaker 1: wrote to me, we think this will perform well on
Speaker 1: Facebook and I was like, definitely, And so we put
Speaker 1: it out on Facebook and it started to It went
Speaker 1: number one on High Machine, but that was normal for us,
Speaker 1: and it started to do well on SoundCloud and I
Speaker 1: I said, why don't we message out two on all
Speaker 1: our social media platforms. Send us your selfies and you'll
Speaker 1: be in a music video. And so we received like
Speaker 1: a thousand or two, I don't know how many. It's
Speaker 1: just selfie images of our fans. And we put together
Speaker 1: a video with some girls kind of lip singing the
Speaker 1: words and and uh collage of all these selfies and
Speaker 1: we put it out spent how much oh nothing, UM,
Speaker 1: and it went viral not only because the song was
Speaker 1: by but people were sharing it because it was like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm in this video, so they would send it to
Speaker 1: their friends and they would post to anticipate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was why. That was where the idea came from.
Speaker 1: And UM. So then we were like, ship, this is
Speaker 1: like turning into something we didn't expect. And at the time, UM,
Speaker 1: Steve ioki Um was one of the biggest DJs and
Speaker 1: he was an expert at social media. His Instagram was popping.
Speaker 1: He was doing all kinds of funny things like throwing
Speaker 1: cakes off the stage into people's faces and riding on
Speaker 1: inflatable rafts over the crowd. And I just knew that
Speaker 1: this was kind of like up his alley. And so
Speaker 1: I had heard about this guy who was helping him
Speaker 1: with his social media, and so I reached out to
Speaker 1: this guy and I was like, I've got this song.
Speaker 1: I think it's going viral. Can you help me um
Speaker 1: figure this out? UM? And he said, let me send
Speaker 1: it to Steve, and he sent it to Steve and
Speaker 1: Steve said, let me sign this to my indie label,
Speaker 1: dim Mac Records and release it commercially. And we were like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So we did a deal for three singles. UM. We
Speaker 1: took it down and we released it commercially. And that
Speaker 1: day I got a call on my phone from a
Speaker 1: guy named Monty Lippman and he said, how does it
Speaker 1: feel to have the biggest record on the planet? And
Speaker 1: I was like, feels pretty good. Meanwhile, I had no
Speaker 1: idea what he was talking about. Did you know who
Speaker 1: Monty Lippman was, and UM, he said, we'd like to
Speaker 1: sign you. We know you're signed to DIMAC Records, but
Speaker 1: well you know, we'll we'll buy you out of that deal.
Speaker 1: And by the time I got off the phone with him,
Speaker 1: there was an offer in my email. UM. Then a
Speaker 1: bidding war ensued, UM, and we ended up signing to
Speaker 1: Republic Records. Okay, Manti's Republic really the hottest executive in
Speaker 1: the business still and he certainly breaks records. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about somebody. Well, we'll get into what I think it's well,
Speaker 1: we'll get I met in church with labels, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to dig a hole here. Secondly, uh okay,
Speaker 1: So who else is interested? Oh? Literally everybody. I spoke
Speaker 1: to every major label head UM in the UK and
Speaker 1: the US. And do you ever think you're over your
Speaker 1: over you know your limits? Do you think that maybe
Speaker 1: you're not sophisticated enough to do this? Not at all?
Speaker 1: But UM. Drew had gone to college with UM a
Speaker 1: guy named Harry Roberts. And Harry's father is Jamie Roberts,
Speaker 1: and Jamie Roberts is a really incredible entertainment lawyer, and
Speaker 1: Harry is now an entertainment lawyer who works with him,
Speaker 1: And so Jamie has been the chains More Chris lawyer
Speaker 1: since day one, and Jamie has been one of you know,
Speaker 1: countless mentors that I've had. So he was kind of
Speaker 1: coaching me. So you bring him in during this bit. Absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so he's coaching me. But I'm uh, I'm the one
Speaker 1: who's kind of uh the communicator with a couple of questions,
Speaker 1: do you think these other companies are calling you because
Speaker 1: they heard the record or they heard Monty was into it? No,
Speaker 1: what had What I found out had happened was John
Speaker 1: Ivy from kiss Um heard the record and put it
Speaker 1: on every station. And that's not something that really ever happens.
Speaker 1: Usually a record has worked, even if it's a smash,
Speaker 1: it's worked. It's not like somebody hears a record and says,
Speaker 1: everyone play this. You know, he knew it was a
Speaker 1: viral hit UM and so everyone knew that obviously, and
Speaker 1: so every and everybody was reading the data. So everybody
Speaker 1: called UM and we took the meetings. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the key things UM at that time was
Speaker 1: because it was my first UM time dealing with that,
Speaker 1: I was blatantly honest with every label. You know, I
Speaker 1: had no problem because I knew I had what they wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, I knew I had the record. So I
Speaker 1: I was like, um, this is what we like about you.
Speaker 1: This is what we like about this label. This is
Speaker 1: what we don't like about that label. This is what
Speaker 1: we don't like about you. This is what we want,
Speaker 1: this is what we don't want. And I think that
Speaker 1: people really respected the fact that I wasn't playing games,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't lying about amounts, and I wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: playing them against each other. I was just straight up
Speaker 1: because I had I had no reason to lie, you know.
Speaker 1: And UM, I think that resonated with a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and a lot of my friendships with label heads uh
Speaker 1: that I have today is from started at that moment.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, I met a lot of guys that
Speaker 1: I that I love and I'm super friendly with still
Speaker 1: today during that process, um, And what I ended up
Speaker 1: doing was getting the deals to be matched across the
Speaker 1: board so that Alex Andrew could pick the label that
Speaker 1: they wanted to be at, not based on the deal,
Speaker 1: and I let them make the decision at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. Um. And so we sold. We signed. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: you're missing a chapter though about your conversation with Doug Morris. Well,
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten to that yet, okay, Um, I thought
Speaker 1: that happened so so so Doug Um. Doug was at
Speaker 1: Sony and and for whatever reason, he got involved in
Speaker 1: the negotiation. UM, and we had met with him several times.
Speaker 1: I had met with him several times. I met with
Speaker 1: all these guys, with Alex and Drew, but with with
Speaker 1: them alone too, because you know, during a biding war,
Speaker 1: they're always they always want more meetings, more meetings, more
Speaker 1: meetings that they want to sign you. UM and UM
Speaker 1: I met and we we met with Doug and UM
Speaker 1: and we ended up not signing with Doug. We ended
Speaker 1: up signing with Monty. And it was definitely a scary
Speaker 1: phone call for me to have to call Doug Morris
Speaker 1: UM and tell him that we weren't signing with him.
Speaker 1: Um and uh selfie came No. I thought that that
Speaker 1: was when he took a shigne to you before the
Speaker 1: record was actually blown up on republic. Yeah, but what
Speaker 1: did he say to you? He said, he said that
Speaker 1: he wanted to work with me either way, whether he
Speaker 1: got the record or not. And I At the time,
Speaker 1: I didn't let that affect my decision or anything that
Speaker 1: I was doing with this record or with this band,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know whether I could believe him or not.
Speaker 1: And when he when you called him to say he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get it, what did he say at
Speaker 1: that point? He just said okay, and we signed a
Speaker 1: album deal with the Republic, and um, Selfie came and went, okay,
Speaker 1: just so I know. The guarantee is what your business? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: I thought about money product. Oh it was at first
Speaker 1: it was an album and they had I think three
Speaker 1: album options. It was only a guarantee for one album. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, but Selfie was a huge success. I mean
Speaker 1: not to me now, but at the time it was um.
Speaker 1: But it was a novelty record and I didn't even know.
Speaker 1: You know, I always say this sentence. I always think
Speaker 1: it's funny, but at the time, I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what a novelty record was, you know. Um, And how
Speaker 1: long for the time that Monty gets ahold of you,
Speaker 1: do you does it take to sign with Monty? Oh?
Speaker 1: It was a two week process. Yeah, so so so
Speaker 1: Selfie came and went, and then a few weeks a
Speaker 1: few weeks after that, I got a call from Doug
Speaker 1: and he said, will you come in? And I thought
Speaker 1: it was super weird, and he offered me a joint venture.
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, remember when I told you
Speaker 1: I wanted to work with you, Well I meant it,
Speaker 1: and so he offered me a joint venture. UM, and
Speaker 1: I told him that, UM, I would love you know,
Speaker 1: how could I say no to having my own label
Speaker 1: out of Major UM, even though I had never done
Speaker 1: it before? And I, UM, I told him. If I
Speaker 1: could do that, I still need to be a manager
Speaker 1: and I need to be able to manage artists. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run my label like a manager. UM. And
Speaker 1: what I meant by that is that I was going
Speaker 1: to help the managers of the artist signed to my
Speaker 1: label with every aspect of their artist career, touring, merch sponsorship, strategy,
Speaker 1: social media, press, whatever it is. I wanted to act
Speaker 1: like a co manager to those artists. And that's how
Speaker 1: I do it. That's how I feel now. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that I'm not involved in and that my
Speaker 1: artists feel like they can't come to me forward because
Speaker 1: I'm the label. UM. Trying to think so the chain Smokers,
Speaker 1: the track comes and goes, let's play it out their
Speaker 1: Universal Republic. Um. It came, and it came and went.
Speaker 1: And you know, I started signing artists at my joint venture, Disruptor.
Speaker 1: And how did you find those acts? Um? A variety
Speaker 1: of ways. Some of them kind of found me through
Speaker 1: managing the Chain Smokers, Some was just scouring the internet. Um.
Speaker 1: Some was word of mouth, various various ways. And you're
Speaker 1: still managing and booking your traditional DJs. Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. I wasn't booking anything by that point. I
Speaker 1: was oh so so around this time when I got
Speaker 1: offered the joint venture, I had to sell my piece
Speaker 1: of my my DJ management company, which I did, and
Speaker 1: then I started this new Okay, but if you started
Speaker 1: who's who? Just who's you had a part I had
Speaker 1: partners at the time, Okay, but you didn't start with partners.
Speaker 1: I started with partners, and so you sold it was
Speaker 1: lucrative or was just something I was getting a great
Speaker 1: new offer, and and the Chain Smokers came with me.
Speaker 1: So so only the Chain Smokers only. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: start the label. How long after you signed with Universal
Speaker 1: with the Chain Smokers, do you start disruptor not long.
Speaker 1: It's months a few and you start and you sign
Speaker 1: how many acts? Uh? Um I signed? It wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot I was signed. I signed like two, you know.
Speaker 1: And um, you know there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: a disconnect because I was signing acts at Sony, but
Speaker 1: I managed an act that was at Universal. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, the thing about Selfie is it was never
Speaker 1: the you know, the path selected by chain smokers. You know,
Speaker 1: they were making very cool, uh progressive house remixes of
Speaker 1: indie bands, and they thought that they weren't even ready
Speaker 1: to make their own songs, you know. And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this novelty record happened, which was meant to
Speaker 1: be a Facebook joke, and you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people thought this is the type of music that they
Speaker 1: wanted to make, but it never was. You know, they
Speaker 1: hadn't even gotten to the point where they were ready
Speaker 1: to decide what what and when they thought that they
Speaker 1: had to earn the right to make original music, and
Speaker 1: they didn't. They weren't even thinking about that at this point,
Speaker 1: and then they were thrust into this situation. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, Selfie did make them globally famous, and we
Speaker 1: had built a kind of small, very small cult following
Speaker 1: just from the remixes and from them deejaying, But now
Speaker 1: their fan base was a million times as big, and
Speaker 1: of those fans were selfie fans, not chain smokers fans.
Speaker 1: And so what I was testing, what we three of
Speaker 1: us kind of were tesked with for the for the
Speaker 1: few years after that, was converting selfie fans into chain
Speaker 1: smokers fans. Um. But eventually what happened was, Um, Republic
Speaker 1: let them go, and I brought them over and signed
Speaker 1: them to my late Okay, a little bit slower. Did
Speaker 1: you negotiate them away or did they let them go? Um,
Speaker 1: we had a conversation, had a conversation, but based on
Speaker 1: prior conversation, you were not thrilled with the job Republic
Speaker 1: was doing with your act. I will talk, okay. Is
Speaker 1: that Monty is specializes in this and picking up records,
Speaker 1: which he actually learned from Doug, and that was successful.
Speaker 1: But you did not have another successful track at Universal.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go there. I don't think we
Speaker 1: got to that point. I just you know, they signed
Speaker 1: a novelty record, and they got a novelty record. Um,
Speaker 1: that's not what that band was meant to do or
Speaker 1: wanted to do. Okay, did they ever put out an album? Now? Okay,
Speaker 1: they just put out how many tracks? We put out?
Speaker 1: Three songs? Okay. And it was amicable with Republicans. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're bringing him over to the Disruptor, yes, um, yes,
Speaker 1: so it was definitely amicable. And Monty is still a
Speaker 1: good friend and mentor to me to this day. Um. So,
Speaker 1: you know, they really didn't have any choices because they
Speaker 1: were the guys that had a novelty record, so you know,
Speaker 1: they uh, you know, luckily I had this labeled to
Speaker 1: give them a um an outlet to put out music.
Speaker 1: And so we brought them over to my label and
Speaker 1: they had made all this music. Um um. They had
Speaker 1: made about ten songs over this period that they hadn't
Speaker 1: been able to release. And so I said to them,
Speaker 1: you know, let's just release a song every month and
Speaker 1: we will feed our core fans that really care about
Speaker 1: us and will continue to tour, and we'll just build
Speaker 1: it organically, and our fans will love us because they
Speaker 1: love chain smokers and if we deliver them a chain
Speaker 1: Smoker song every month, it's better than that. And hopefully
Speaker 1: every time we released one of those songs will make
Speaker 1: a few new fans. And so UM none of the
Speaker 1: other labels at Sony UM, because my joint venture, I
Speaker 1: can go through any of the labels at Sony. None
Speaker 1: of them wanted to work with the Chain Smokers because
Speaker 1: they were the guys who and chose and who chose Universal,
Speaker 1: And so I was on my own. And so we
Speaker 1: started putting out UM a song a month, and you know,
Speaker 1: three or four months go by, three or four songs
Speaker 1: come out, and I'm looking at the data and you know,
Speaker 1: one of the amazing things about Doug Um is that,
Speaker 1: you know, he really mentored me and like taught me
Speaker 1: how to read records, UM the way we don't, a
Speaker 1: different way than we read records today. UM. But I
Speaker 1: would look at UM, you know, numbers by city, downloads
Speaker 1: by city, UM, and I noticed that this one song,
Speaker 1: which was the second song we put out, was selling
Speaker 1: and streaming double what the other songs were doing. And
Speaker 1: then I was like, something's going on here this record.
Speaker 1: Why is this record doing more than our normal and UM,
Speaker 1: I H I started looking at Shazam and I found
Speaker 1: that it was Shazam ing in UM Houston and San
Speaker 1: Francisco and I brought it to Doug and UM. When
Speaker 1: I walked into his office, Rob Stringer was in his
Speaker 1: office and I said, Doug, Doug, this record jasaming in
Speaker 1: Houston and San Francisco, like, I think I got something here,
Speaker 1: and Rob was like, what, Yeah, you should probably show
Speaker 1: this at some of the team at Columbia. And so
Speaker 1: I showed it to the guys at Columbia and actually
Speaker 1: that's not true. I called UM in A and R
Speaker 1: Columbia and got his message that he was on his honeymoon.
Speaker 1: And I left him a message, figuring I'll never hear
Speaker 1: back from them. And UM. About three days later, I
Speaker 1: got a call from a different guy saying, hey, so
Speaker 1: and so told me to check his voicemail and I
Speaker 1: got your message and I just looked at this record
Speaker 1: and I think you got something here. And UM. By
Speaker 1: that time I had already started going to radio myself.
Speaker 1: UM and Columbia came in and up streamed it, and
Speaker 1: we continue to put out a song every month. They
Speaker 1: let me keep doing what I was doing. UM, but
Speaker 1: it was really unheard of at the time to put
Speaker 1: out records when you're working a record at radio. But
Speaker 1: my attitude was I'm delivering to the fan. The fan
Speaker 1: has been listening to this record already for a really
Speaker 1: long time. You go play it for the masters on
Speaker 1: the radio, and I'm going to keep delivering to my
Speaker 1: fan because I want my artists to keep being able
Speaker 1: to tour. And they just let me do it. And
Speaker 1: it worked. But everyone people didn't understand it. Radio didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. Even streaming services didn't really understand why I
Speaker 1: was doing it. Um, And you know what ended up
Speaker 1: happening is we just started having hit after hit after
Speaker 1: hit after hit, and because there were different singers on
Speaker 1: the songs, we got to a point where we could
Speaker 1: have multiple songs on the radio at the same time.
Speaker 1: And you know, and then we just went on a
Speaker 1: on a crazy run. Um. And you know now they've
Speaker 1: and and you know since then, um, you know, Drew
Speaker 1: became a singer, Alex became a piano player, and they
Speaker 1: really evolved and now this DJ act is a full band. Okay,
Speaker 1: just stopping there for a second. How many acts are
Speaker 1: signed to Disruptor right now? Eight eight on the label
Speaker 1: five that we manage? Okay, so how's the if you
Speaker 1: have a management deal? That's all about the money. But
Speaker 1: how's the money split up? Um, if you're both signed
Speaker 1: to label and manage from me. UM. So if you're
Speaker 1: signed to label and managed by me, UM, the label
Speaker 1: does not take UM three sixty rights because you're already
Speaker 1: paying commission and we don't commission your record royalties because
Speaker 1: you're signed to our label. So it's actually from a
Speaker 1: financial level, really really beneficial, UM, because we don't double
Speaker 1: dip obviously. And who other than the Chain Smokers has
Speaker 1: been successful on your label? UM? Well them the most
Speaker 1: by far. UM. The next biggest artist I would say,
Speaker 1: UM that that we've had for a while is lost Kings. UM.
Speaker 1: But I just recently signed signed this dis these star
Speaker 1: named Dove Cameron, who I'm super excited about. Okay. So
Speaker 1: of the acts that are signed, how many your electronic
Speaker 1: music acts? Three? Okay? So it is all types of
Speaker 1: all types. I sign what I like. That's it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the Chain Smokers, let's play that out. So where
Speaker 1: where the Chain Smokers at today? Um? They are full bands.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, UM, they write and sing all the
Speaker 1: and play the instruments on all their own songs. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they write with other people, but you know
Speaker 1: they're the main songwriter, UM for the most part. And
Speaker 1: you know they do arenas. UM. They have a residency
Speaker 1: in Vegas which is still djaying. UM. They have a
Speaker 1: lot of other businesses that are involved that they're involved in. Um.
Speaker 1: We have a film and television production company. We have
Speaker 1: a tequila we have a ticketing company that we found it. UM.
Speaker 1: We do a lot of different things, and of those
Speaker 1: other things profitable. Uh answer okay, And the acts where
Speaker 1: you're not the manager, those are three sixty deals. Uh, yes,
Speaker 1: they are so. Like I said, we're the type of
Speaker 1: label that actually helps in the areas where we take
Speaker 1: three sixty. We don't just take three sixty and not
Speaker 1: do the work. How many people work for Disruptor right now? Um?
Speaker 1: Full time seven Um. But the great thing about the
Speaker 1: joint venture setup is that you get to use all
Speaker 1: the departments at Sony. How do you motivate them to
Speaker 1: work for you? I don't think I need to. I
Speaker 1: think everyone's super motivated and wants to work. But they
Speaker 1: only work if the record is upstreamed. No. UM, you
Speaker 1: mean the individual labels, Yes they do, but we you know,
Speaker 1: we use other Sony resources like legal and graphic design, okay,
Speaker 1: and you're not charged back for that stuff. Okay, But
Speaker 1: Doug ultimately leaves. How does that? Where does that leave you? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: by that time, you know, we were doing great and UM,
Speaker 1: I got super lucky because the best next person for
Speaker 1: me to get the job was Rob and Rob and
Speaker 1: I had just gone on this historic run at Columbia
Speaker 1: with the chain smokers, um, and he was far and away.
Speaker 1: There was no other choice for that job. He was
Speaker 1: the best for it, and I couldn't have asked. Okay,
Speaker 1: so who your mentors today? Oh goodness, it's a long list.
Speaker 1: I mean Rob number one, Doug Um, there's so many Um,
Speaker 1: Rob Light, Um, Marty bandar Um. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: lucky to work with a lot of great Okay, So
Speaker 1: what is your style? You're the guy who actually jumps
Speaker 1: on the phone or do an email guy? What kind
Speaker 1: of how do you operate? Um? I do everything I work.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of email, but I I don't
Speaker 1: email a second time. If if I don't get the
Speaker 1: email back, I don't get the email response I want,
Speaker 1: then I'm on the phone right away. I hate when
Speaker 1: somebody who works for me says, oh so I haven't
Speaker 1: heard from so and some call. Um. You know that
Speaker 1: things always get worked out if you pick up the phone.
Speaker 1: And about how many phone calls do you make a day?
Speaker 1: I never counted. I think I get I think I get, um,
Speaker 1: six thousand emails a day. But how do you decide
Speaker 1: what to read? I read every single email, six thousand emails.
Speaker 1: I get a lot of email. That's you know, your
Speaker 1: your brain goes into a fog after a certain number.
Speaker 1: I'm a different generation. I'm not sure that's true. Okay, boom,
Speaker 1: But so I asked my wife. Okay, we're looking at
Speaker 1: the business. We're along this uh and in this timeline,
Speaker 1: do you meet your wife? My wife three years ago?
Speaker 1: She was in the studio when they were recording Paris. Okay,
Speaker 1: she was there? Why? Uh? Because the studio was around
Speaker 1: the corner from our from our apartment at the time. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, why was how you met her there? No? No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's that's the point in my career
Speaker 1: where the Chain Smokers that that she we met. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: was that really the time you met? Yeah? Like I mean,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about just in a lifespan of the
Speaker 1: Chain Smokers. Okay, So just how did you literally meet
Speaker 1: A friend introduced us. A friend told me about her
Speaker 1: and that he wanted to set me up with her,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get set up with her. And
Speaker 1: he had tried to get her to come out to
Speaker 1: a social gathering, out one night to a bar restaurant,
Speaker 1: and she always said no. Um. I think she had
Speaker 1: a fear of dating anyone in the music business. I
Speaker 1: don't really know why. Um. So strategically, what I did
Speaker 1: was on my friend's birthday, I got him four tickets
Speaker 1: to Kanye West at Madison Square Garden. Um. This was
Speaker 1: the tour three years ago when he was on the stage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I said, here's four tickets to Kanye, bring
Speaker 1: your girlfriend me and asked Ashley if she wants to go.
Speaker 1: So I kind of set up a double date um
Speaker 1: on purpose, using my friend, and he did and she came.
Speaker 1: And so that was kind of like the first night
Speaker 1: we met. Was that cokay, and you were since you'd
Speaker 1: never met her, she was so appealing to you because
Speaker 1: I thought she was cute, okay, and how long you're
Speaker 1: instant you go to Kanye you're smitten? Is she smitten?
Speaker 1: I was? She definitely was not smitten at that. So
Speaker 1: how did your closer, um convinced her to come out
Speaker 1: with me another night? And and then I closed there? Okay?
Speaker 1: And what was she doing for work at the time? Um?
Speaker 1: She was a model? She is a model. So she
Speaker 1: continues to work as a model. Yes, Well, they say
Speaker 1: that rock stars and models work because they understand the
Speaker 1: same schedule and that you know you wake up late,
Speaker 1: you work night, you know you work heavily certain days.
Speaker 1: Does she understand your schedule? Absolutely? And she's fine with
Speaker 1: you working seven? That's debatable. And you have how many kids?
Speaker 1: One on the way, one on the way. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you haven't hit that threshold? No, when is that coming February? Okay?
Speaker 1: So is that something you wanted to do at this point? Okay?
Speaker 1: So how many kids do you want? Well? I think
Speaker 1: probably three, but my attitude is let's start with one
Speaker 1: and see how that goes. Yeah, okay, so you're doing
Speaker 1: this now? So how much are you traveling now? Um?
Speaker 1: A lot? I travel a lot. I mean I'm definitely
Speaker 1: I'm in l a four or five days a week.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, four or five days a month. Um, And
Speaker 1: I go to shows and festivals and meetings when when
Speaker 1: I have to be there. Okay, so what's the dream?
Speaker 1: Not if you're not living great now? Um, there's nothing
Speaker 1: more satisfying to me than breaking artists, you know. So
Speaker 1: for me, first and foremost, it's about breaking as many
Speaker 1: artists as I can and building disruptor the label, UM
Speaker 1: to be the biggest it can be. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm entrepreneurial, and I'm really interested in tech and
Speaker 1: how it can help music business and you know, film
Speaker 1: and television and other aspects of the entertainment industry. Um.
Speaker 1: Like I said, we have the film and television production company. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, building a label breaking artists number one. Does
Speaker 1: anyone try to poach you do a different job as
Speaker 1: opposed to working your joint venture? Absolutely? And what your
Speaker 1: what do you tell them now? I'm good, no matter
Speaker 1: how much do they throw on the table. Uh. It
Speaker 1: never gets to that point. So one thing we were
Speaker 1: talking about the last time, we were talking about the
Speaker 1: way you constructed album on Spotify. Oh yes, so can
Speaker 1: you tell my audience about that? Yeah? So you know
Speaker 1: in those days when the Chain Smokers and I were
Speaker 1: putting out a song a month, nobody was doing that
Speaker 1: like that. That was tell us what you were doing.
Speaker 1: At that time, we were just putting out a single
Speaker 1: every four weeks on the dot and UM, nobody was
Speaker 1: doing that and UM. So so we just kept on
Speaker 1: doing that. And each year what we would do is
Speaker 1: we would just at the end, we were just wrap
Speaker 1: it into an EP. UM. And so we had two
Speaker 1: you know, eventually we had two EPs. And by that
Speaker 1: point we had had like four or five global hits. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, Closer, which was one of the biggest songs
Speaker 1: of the decade. UM. And so they said, you know,
Speaker 1: we really want to do an album because we've never
Speaker 1: done it before, and we want to make a body
Speaker 1: of work and we want to see what that's like
Speaker 1: and we want to experience that and and and at
Speaker 1: that time, you know, we had all felt like we deserved,
Speaker 1: we had earned the right to put out an album. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we had we had UM. I think by
Speaker 1: that time we were there was a there was a
Speaker 1: time where we had we were in uh the billboard
Speaker 1: top ten for sixty one weeks in a row or
Speaker 1: something like that. UM, and we had just had three
Speaker 1: songs in the top ten on billboards. Like we really
Speaker 1: felt like we had earned the right to put out
Speaker 1: an album, and so they did it. They made an
Speaker 1: album and and and making that album was one of
Speaker 1: the hardest That first album, UM, Memories Do Not Open
Speaker 1: was probably one of the hardest things that I was
Speaker 1: ever involved in. It was just so much work and
Speaker 1: we did uh the traditional single single album rollout, and
Speaker 1: the album came out UM. I want to say in
Speaker 1: like March or April, I don't remember exactly, but what
Speaker 1: happened was, even though we had two big hits and
Speaker 1: they were all over the radio, after they put the
Speaker 1: album out, they couldn't put music out for six or
Speaker 1: eight months, and it destroyed them. They didn't know that
Speaker 1: they had never experienced what it felt like to not
Speaker 1: put music all the time. Even though they were super
Speaker 1: proud of this album, they were like, when can we
Speaker 1: put out another song? When can we put another another song?
Speaker 1: So they got super frustrated. UM. And the way we
Speaker 1: defined success of that album was based on the consumption
Speaker 1: of the songs that weren't singles. And you know, it
Speaker 1: was the number one album and it went platinum. But
Speaker 1: the thing I think for us that was the most
Speaker 1: satisfying is that the non singles were all consumed in
Speaker 1: equal amount, which meant people were actually consuming this album.
Speaker 1: So we had kind of checked that box and UM
Speaker 1: after that, they were like, no, we can't do like this,
Speaker 1: this doesn't work for us. So so we came up
Speaker 1: this way to kind of marry the two strategies where
Speaker 1: we can make a body of work, put out an
Speaker 1: album but also released music regularly. UM and so we
Speaker 1: came up with this strategy called the building album, whereby
Speaker 1: essentially we release a song every month or two, and
Speaker 1: instead of making it a single on streaming platforms, we
Speaker 1: add it to the records that have come out before it.
Speaker 1: So the first song comes out, and the second song
Speaker 1: comes out and it's a two song album. Then when
Speaker 1: the third song comes out, it's a three song album.
Speaker 1: And what we would do is deliver these products and
Speaker 1: revoke the product before it. UM. People who work at
Speaker 1: labels know what I mean when I'm saying that, But basically,
Speaker 1: you deliver a four song album and the three song
Speaker 1: album that was there before you take down. But you
Speaker 1: can still stream it. It's just not an album. It's
Speaker 1: a four song album. But okay, what would you saw
Speaker 1: on the fourth on the fourth month when the fourth
Speaker 1: song comes out? We put out a four song album
Speaker 1: which has one new song and the three songs that
Speaker 1: have come out prior. But the month before we had
Speaker 1: put out a three song album. So when the fourth
Speaker 1: song album comes out, we take down the product that
Speaker 1: was the three song album that we had released a
Speaker 1: month prior. And so it's an album that increases by
Speaker 1: one song every time we release a song. And what
Speaker 1: that does is it keeps our album as the most
Speaker 1: real as the um most recent release. Let's go slowly
Speaker 1: because the audience may not be able to visualize. It
Speaker 1: may not be able to visualize at this point in time. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's one ever evolving Jamee Smoker's album. Yes, and how
Speaker 1: many songs in maximum ten? I mean twelve months? It
Speaker 1: should be twelve songs, but life it's not perfect, so
Speaker 1: it's about tens. Okay, So if there are twelve songs
Speaker 1: in the album, every month a song is added and
Speaker 1: a song is dropped. No, every month a song is added,
Speaker 1: but um, the album that was put out the before
Speaker 1: is short a song. It's a different product every time
Speaker 1: you deliver the album. It's a different product on streaming services,
Speaker 1: so you would see, let's say we're in month four.
Speaker 1: When we deliver, you see a four song album, but
Speaker 1: there's also on their page the three song album that
Speaker 1: was released the month before. So we take down the
Speaker 1: three song album, which those three songs are still on
Speaker 1: the four song album, but the four song album is
Speaker 1: the current form because it has the one new song. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go to the month after that, a five song
Speaker 1: album gets released with one new song and the four
Speaker 1: prior songs, and that four song album gets taken down. Okay,
Speaker 1: once you hit twelve songs, then you just keep it
Speaker 1: as twelve. Correct, So every month you add a track
Speaker 1: to the previous existing and you drop a track and
Speaker 1: delete that. You know, that album title. So if I
Speaker 1: went on streaming, if I want to Spotify, now, how
Speaker 1: many Chain Smoker's albums would I see? So there's two
Speaker 1: full albums and one album that's being built right now. Okay.
Speaker 1: One of those two one was obviously the album you
Speaker 1: were talking about the first The first one was Memories
Speaker 1: Doing It Open, and the second one was Sick Boy,
Speaker 1: which was last year, which was also done as a
Speaker 1: building album. Okay, so after twelve months you start a
Speaker 1: new album. Yeah, they make each year as a chapter.
Speaker 1: Each year is an okay, so tell us what the
Speaker 1: advantages of doing it this way are. So obviously there
Speaker 1: are um business advantages, but there are also artistic advantage.
Speaker 1: Start with, the business advantages are that every song gets
Speaker 1: its own campaign, Every song gets its own life, its
Speaker 1: own chance to be something, and the fans get the
Speaker 1: opportunity to decide if a song is if they love
Speaker 1: something so much that it should be a single. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, every song gets playlisted and saved and
Speaker 1: shared and a music video and thus there you know,
Speaker 1: blood sweat and tears that they put into each song
Speaker 1: is validated because each gets a shot. Where you know, nowadays,
Speaker 1: when you put out an album, the singles get all
Speaker 1: the shine and the album cuts only the hardcore fans
Speaker 1: listen to. And they but that artist spent months and
Speaker 1: years and money and blood, sweat and tears putting those
Speaker 1: other ten songs together. They don't deserve to get under
Speaker 1: listened to, basically, you know, and that that that was
Speaker 1: what we were hoping to avoid with our first album,
Speaker 1: and I think we did, but we just find so
Speaker 1: much more satisfaction when each song Traditionally, let's you know,
Speaker 1: there are many people they put on an album and
Speaker 1: the album. The album could be over in a day.
Speaker 1: At this point, they can see skip rates on Spotify
Speaker 1: and if they're in the albums, they may not have
Speaker 1: another album for years. Correct. Okay, So would you advise
Speaker 1: other acts to do this? Absolutely? I mean listen, there's well,
Speaker 1: why don't we get to the artistic Okay? Okay, I figured, okay,
Speaker 1: keep going. So the artistic points, and this is where
Speaker 1: Alexandrew really came up with it was that what what
Speaker 1: they learned when they put out the traditional album was
Speaker 1: that by the time it came out and in the
Speaker 1: months after the songs that they had written they were
Speaker 1: on that album, we're not how they felt anymore. So
Speaker 1: they were like, that's how I felt when I was
Speaker 1: writing this, but it's not how I feel right now
Speaker 1: and in in this world like with instant gratification, like
Speaker 1: they're like, we want to write a song and put
Speaker 1: it out. And so that's what the building album strategy allows.
Speaker 1: We don't finish ten songs and then put them out
Speaker 1: once a month. They finish it, then it's the next song.
Speaker 1: They finished, the next one, then the next. But if
Speaker 1: there's more than one per month, uh, you know, they're
Speaker 1: always working on a few at a time, and then
Speaker 1: they decide which one's next, and which one comes after that,
Speaker 1: which one comes out. It's kind of like they're finishing
Speaker 1: them and putting them out on a rolling basis essentially. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's so great for them because you know, if
Speaker 1: they're depressed, they write a depressing song, they put it out.
Speaker 1: If they're happy, they make a happy song, they put
Speaker 1: it out. So, you know, an album is supposed to
Speaker 1: be a body of work based on how the artist
Speaker 1: is feeling. This allows them to do that in real time. Okay,
Speaker 1: you put out a track, tell us how you work
Speaker 1: it in the marketplace. UM, we make a music video
Speaker 1: for every track, for every track with what kind of budget? UM,
Speaker 1: sometimes five dollars sometimes we they're were creative and we
Speaker 1: have a UM a lot of friends who do videos
Speaker 1: with us, UM that have been with us since day one.
Speaker 1: I mean we the Chain Smoker's team. Pretty much every
Speaker 1: person has been with us since day one, and if
Speaker 1: they haven't, we've never fired somebody ever. So like once
Speaker 1: you're in, you're in, UM. And so some of our
Speaker 1: video guys have been with us, you know, since they
Speaker 1: were following Alex and Drew to like nightclubs in New
Speaker 1: York City filming them, you know. UM. And so we
Speaker 1: we turned music videos around in a day. I mean
Speaker 1: the Closer the Closer lyric video UM has over a
Speaker 1: billion views. And our our buddy Rory, you know, rented
Speaker 1: a car and made it in a day. You know. UM.
Speaker 1: There's another recent video that we did a few months
Speaker 1: back for Hope that just like they did it in
Speaker 1: their house one night because I told them I needed
Speaker 1: the video by the next day and it cost me nothing.
Speaker 1: And I think it has like million views or something
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, so you have the video. How do
Speaker 1: you work at its streaming services? In radio? Um? It depends. UM. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we send streaming services the songs and we tell them
Speaker 1: about them and why they're important and what this one
Speaker 1: means and where it came from and who who they
Speaker 1: wrote it with and um and you know, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, we welcome their opinions. You know, if
Speaker 1: if if streaming service don't want to support one song
Speaker 1: more than the other, like I accept that, you know,
Speaker 1: like we would never for something that people didn't want
Speaker 1: to promote. You know, we put out a lot of songs,
Speaker 1: you know, UM, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they have such a big following. UM. You know, just
Speaker 1: on Spotify alone, they have I think thirty eight million
Speaker 1: monthly listeners. Like you're gonna get a read on a record,
Speaker 1: whether you have playlisting or not, you know, UM and
Speaker 1: radio it depends, you know. The way I prefer is
Speaker 1: for a record to raise its hand and then we
Speaker 1: go UM. But also there are records that we just
Speaker 1: happened to think are big and have big features, and
Speaker 1: so we set them up, as they say, and prepare
Speaker 1: to impact them and and make a planned uh campaign
Speaker 1: at radio. Okay, but radio comes last. It works very slowly.
Speaker 1: How does this affect your relative to your month track?
Speaker 1: A month release pattern? UM is difficult. It's difficult. We
Speaker 1: have to navigate it. There have been times where we've
Speaker 1: been working a record UM, and then the next record
Speaker 1: we put out raises its hand and we're like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: this one now, this one wants to go. We gotta
Speaker 1: we gotta shift, we gotta pivot to this song, or
Speaker 1: do we work both at the same time or so
Speaker 1: you know, we've we've definitely faced challenging situations. But we've
Speaker 1: also been in places where we had three songs on
Speaker 1: the chart at the same time. Okay, So what's the
Speaker 1: most important thing in driving success of a chain smoker's
Speaker 1: track driving success of a chain smoker's track the song itself. Okay,
Speaker 1: But then there's video, there's radio, there's uh streaming services,
Speaker 1: there's playlisting. If I said you have to choose one,
Speaker 1: what's the most important thing in terms of driving success
Speaker 1: word of mouth by the fans. Okay, So let's go back.
Speaker 1: You have a totally unique way of doing albums. What
Speaker 1: other things does the business at large do now that
Speaker 1: you think should be changed? Um, that's a tough question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't really have an answer for that.
Speaker 1: I think it's I just wish that, um, there were
Speaker 1: more distinct avenues for people, um, to get a chance
Speaker 1: to be heard amongst um the noise. That that's you know,
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges You're saying the acts themselves, the music,
Speaker 1: because there's so much cacophony. Okay, But do you find
Speaker 1: that the business, let's talk about the recorded business. Do
Speaker 1: you find that it's ruled by baby boomers to its detriment?
Speaker 1: Is it? Though? Well, I would say that the labels,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, the people who run them or baby boomers,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, the people below them make a lot
Speaker 1: less money, and the baby boomers who run them tend
Speaker 1: to be focused on radio. Radio is the number. It's
Speaker 1: like network TV. The ratings are worse than they've ever been,
Speaker 1: but that's where the largest audiences that I find. Like
Speaker 1: you're talking about social media, they could use that line,
Speaker 1: but they can't get down in the pit with the
Speaker 1: people doing stuff. I don't think that's necessarily true, bom.
Speaker 1: I I think that. I mean I work within a
Speaker 1: record label. Everybody he's working on everything and cares about
Speaker 1: every thing. Yes, radio is great, but I mean radio
Speaker 1: more and more is for playing hits. You know, um
Speaker 1: people understand that they have to get the help the
Speaker 1: hit get to the point where it can get up
Speaker 1: the radio chart. You know, it's almost impossible to force
Speaker 1: a song that's not a hit into the top of
Speaker 1: the radio chart. But there are also tracks that have
Speaker 1: been hits all around the world except in America. There
Speaker 1: have So the track raised its hand and radio said no, yes, so,
Speaker 1: but I would say it's an imperfect system them. I
Speaker 1: would not say the track was not good enough either,
Speaker 1: the label didn't work it right way. Or hard enough.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes you know, sometimes timing is a big factor.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, timing is a really big factor. I've
Speaker 1: definitely witnessed songs that should have been hits not be
Speaker 1: hits because of timing, timing, because the chain the lane
Speaker 1: is cluttered, or because what's going on in the world.
Speaker 1: The lane is cluttered. They went to radio too late
Speaker 1: and and the hype was dying out already. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many different reasons. Okay, now, Um, to what
Speaker 1: degree radio formats other than top forty matter? Um. Most
Speaker 1: of my experiences in top forty UM, So I wouldn't
Speaker 1: claim to be an expert at the other formats, but
Speaker 1: you know I have seen records um climb to the
Speaker 1: top of other formats charts, and that be the real
Speaker 1: launching pad for them being global smash hits. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me put it in different ways. Rock did. Now, So
Speaker 1: what's the future of rock? I think it will come
Speaker 1: back in different shapes and forms and sizes. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point, hip hop dominates the top, Yes, it does.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that is going to continue? That is
Speaker 1: going to change? You're a guy who signs things and
Speaker 1: you say that, you know they're all not the same time.
Speaker 1: I think that things are cyclical. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the aspects about hip hop music is that, um, it's
Speaker 1: very cultural, it's it's a lifestyle, it's not just the genre.
Speaker 1: And so I think that hip hop will always do well.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there will be a natural
Speaker 1: selection where it won't be as um dominant. Okay, but
Speaker 1: if we go on Spotify, where all the statistics are
Speaker 1: visible to everybody on the desktop version, generally speaking, it's
Speaker 1: hip hop that streams a certain amount of pop, then
Speaker 1: a certain untain well Latin Latin is its own thing,
Speaker 1: and a certain amount of country, and then rock down
Speaker 1: at the bottom. So is it just a matter of
Speaker 1: those audiences moving to the streaming services, or has the
Speaker 1: younger generation said this is a hip hop world, screw
Speaker 1: those other genres. I think they said this is a
Speaker 1: hip hop world. But I don't think they said screw
Speaker 1: those other genres. This is just what they're into right now.
Speaker 1: You know, when when the chain smokers started getting big,
Speaker 1: E d M, I mean used to write about this
Speaker 1: all the time, like E d M was crushing, you know,
Speaker 1: like they were like seventy five huge DJs that were
Speaker 1: taking over the world, you know, and that eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: kids were over it, and and and hip hop came
Speaker 1: in and became, you know, the dominant genre. I think
Speaker 1: that things are cyclical. I think rock will come back.
Speaker 1: I think that hip hop will always do well, but
Speaker 1: won't always necessarily do as well as it's doing right now.
Speaker 1: So you're an intelligent, worldly guard. What's the intersection of
Speaker 1: music with the political landscape, if there is any that's
Speaker 1: when I you know, obviously, I've also read your newsletters
Speaker 1: about this stuff. But I I you know, I'm curious why, Um,
Speaker 1: there haven't been as many artists and songs that have
Speaker 1: made an impact like in previous decades. Um. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know the obviously I use the Chain Smokers as an
Speaker 1: example for a lot of things. But past year they
Speaker 1: wrote a song called sick Boy that um really address this,
Speaker 1: and as big as they were, that that really didn't
Speaker 1: get No one really caught onto that, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So I don't know the answer. I do think that
Speaker 1: there will be an artist that kind of comes out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, um with a lot to say, and that
Speaker 1: people do rally around that artist, and you know, as
Speaker 1: far as politics goes, so obviously, with the change Smokers,
Speaker 1: you've broken the traditional release cycle. Do you believe acts
Speaker 1: today ultimately have a shorter term or a longer term
Speaker 1: in the marketplace. That's up to them. But I think
Speaker 1: songs have a shorter term because you know, kids, um,
Speaker 1: you know, teenagers and college kids um now are growing
Speaker 1: up thinking that forty new songs a day is normal.
Speaker 1: So they are used to burning a record out two
Speaker 1: in a week or two weeks and then being onto
Speaker 1: the next thing. So I think that it's harder and
Speaker 1: harder to have, you know, quadruple platinum hits because songs
Speaker 1: are getting used and like getting burned out super super
Speaker 1: quickly by kids. You know. When I was younger, I
Speaker 1: could listen to a song for on repaid for like
Speaker 1: six months a year, you know. And I think that
Speaker 1: the not that there aren't those songs now, but I
Speaker 1: think that they are. They're fewer and farther between. So
Speaker 1: I so, you know, the artists um lifespan is based
Speaker 1: on them continuing to put out great music and create
Speaker 1: continuing to build fan bases, But the songs themselves probably
Speaker 1: have shorter lifespans. Okay, using the change Wokers in his
Speaker 1: example just talk playing out some scenarios. If they had
Speaker 1: never had another radio hit, do you think there live
Speaker 1: business in their streaming would remain healthy? Yes, I mean
Speaker 1: their catalog is pretty big. Okay, so you believe, just
Speaker 1: like in the past, you have a catalog at lengthened
Speaker 1: your career. I mean, yes, I do think so. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what advice would you give a new act. It's
Speaker 1: all about fans. Just all you have to focus on
Speaker 1: is how to make fans and what your fans want
Speaker 1: and feeding them and how you get them to help
Speaker 1: you make new fans. I think you know, too many
Speaker 1: new artists think that if they just get on a
Speaker 1: playlist that they're good, you know, and I know you've
Speaker 1: said it and everyone says it, But like there are
Speaker 1: people that get millions of streams and can't sell a ticket,
Speaker 1: you know, and there are people that sell tickets and
Speaker 1: can't can't get millions of streams. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to have longevity and you want to be
Speaker 1: a real career artist like you have to have fans.
Speaker 1: That's what the streaming services are looking for. They're not
Speaker 1: just looking at how your songs are performing on their playlists.
Speaker 1: They want to see that people care. So if you're
Speaker 1: starting from zero, what's the best way to build a
Speaker 1: fan base. I mean it's it's everything and anything. It's
Speaker 1: you know, everything from playing an open mic night. You know.
Speaker 1: I always tell like, you know, I signed artists very early.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a joint venture so we do artist development.
Speaker 1: So I have to sign artists before the majors are
Speaker 1: going to sign them, before they have things going on,
Speaker 1: and really help them build from nothing. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's some are some artists that I'm working with that
Speaker 1: it's like, go play in this bar. I don't care
Speaker 1: if there's ten people there. If you walk away with
Speaker 1: three new fans, it was worth it. If three of
Speaker 1: those people will go home and say I saw this
Speaker 1: act last night and they were amazing. To their friend,
Speaker 1: it was worth it. And you just build it like that,
Speaker 1: just organically, and you just grind it out and you know,
Speaker 1: just like like I was saying before, like Alex with
Speaker 1: the blogs like the kids, spent ten hours writing a
Speaker 1: thousand emails to every single blog, Like you have to
Speaker 1: put in the work, um, and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously I see these things like people like paying to
Speaker 1: get on playlists and like that's not the way to
Speaker 1: do it. You really got you know, you really got
Speaker 1: to do it. And if people like, if people believe
Speaker 1: in you and they love your music and they believe
Speaker 1: in what you have to say, like, it will grow,
Speaker 1: it will. Okay. So once you've made it, which the change,
Speaker 1: certain change workers most definitely have, how do you deal
Speaker 1: with the fans? What's the best thing? I mean, you
Speaker 1: wif letters whatever, you wouldn't do that now because you
Speaker 1: already have an established base. To what degree do you
Speaker 1: have to feed this fan base other than putting out
Speaker 1: a track every month, playing two fifty shows a year
Speaker 1: for seven years? Okay? And what about Instagram and and
Speaker 1: snapchat and stories, etcetera? Amazing compelling content on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, every artists different. Alex and Drew
Speaker 1: are fun, funny, smart, witty, like the things they say,
Speaker 1: the videos they make, the jokes they tell. Their fans
Speaker 1: love them for that stuff, and so that's why they
Speaker 1: feed them with it. Okay. So let's say someone came
Speaker 1: out with an incredible swat with if they didn't build
Speaker 1: a fan base, etcetera, it couldn't happen organically. I mean
Speaker 1: it did for us, with selfie. But you also say
Speaker 1: that was a novelty fan base. Uh, but we had
Speaker 1: to go on from that and make real fans and
Speaker 1: start putting out the real music that we wanted to make. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're obviously an educated, intelligent guy. We live in
Speaker 1: a world of incommittee quality. If someone wants to make
Speaker 1: a lot of money, there are people who make twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars a year at infiniteum at the banks, and
Speaker 1: people make four million dollars a year. Do you think
Speaker 1: the best and the brightest of your generation are going
Speaker 1: into this world? You think the music business attracts this
Speaker 1: caliber or the best of the price of going somewhere
Speaker 1: where there's more money and more opportunity. I I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's black and white like that. Just
Speaker 1: tell me. I know that you write about that too.
Speaker 1: I think I think that if you love music and
Speaker 1: you're passionate about music, and you are also brilliant, you
Speaker 1: still go into the music business. Okay, Well, I would
Speaker 1: just look at people. Obviously a different thing if they
Speaker 1: look at people David Geff been irving gays off whatever.
Speaker 1: Music was the thing that I like to think that
Speaker 1: I was a pretty smart guy. Growing up, I did
Speaker 1: not want to work at an investment bank and sleep
Speaker 1: under my desk every single day out of college. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that. I loved hospitality, I loved
Speaker 1: entertaining people, and I loved music like I I. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about this, but I've been a music
Speaker 1: lover my whole life. I mean, you know, being in nightclubs.
Speaker 1: You can't not be a music fan being in nightclubs,
Speaker 1: and what kind of music do you play if you're
Speaker 1: not conducting business? Um? So I am a die hard
Speaker 1: Dave Matthews band fan. Really, how many times you've seen
Speaker 1: the Dave Matthews And the best Dave Matthews work is album? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh boy. I have to say Crash just because of
Speaker 1: the number of favorites that I have on their But
Speaker 1: my number one favorite song is not even on that album.
Speaker 1: Your number one favorite song is it's called Recently? Okay,
Speaker 1: I would say Before these Crowded Streets because of Dreaming Tree,
Speaker 1: But okay, anybody else I love that answer because it's
Speaker 1: not a common answer. But there's no way that's their
Speaker 1: best album. I would know. I didn't say it was
Speaker 1: the best album for me. Maybe that's my favorite. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I know those are two different things. I agree,
Speaker 1: Other than the Dave Matthews being anybody now or when
Speaker 1: growing up? You're a fan Beatles? Yeah, my mom was
Speaker 1: a beatlemaniac. Yeah, she was one of those screaming girls.
Speaker 1: And you fell into the E d M thing. Are
Speaker 1: you a hip hop fan? Oh? Yeah? I was a
Speaker 1: biggie before I got into Dave Matthews. All I listened
Speaker 1: to is Biggie. How did you get into Dave Matthews then? Um,
Speaker 1: the real answer is I was in somebody's car and
Speaker 1: it was playing and it wasn't even a single. It
Speaker 1: was a song called Tripping Billy's and I was like,
Speaker 1: what is this and they were like, this is Dave Matthews.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is Dave Matthews because I
Speaker 1: knew their singles from the radio. And I went and
Speaker 1: got the album that day and I listened to it
Speaker 1: and repeat and I was like completely hooked. And then
Speaker 1: I just became a fanatic. Okay, they have a great manager.
Speaker 1: Corn capsule, Between were the manager, what would you advise
Speaker 1: them to do that they may not be doing. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't dare say that, But what I can say is
Speaker 1: that I used a lot of I used a lot
Speaker 1: of what I saw them do in building the Chain Smokers.
Speaker 1: There were lots of little things that they did UM
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousand's, and I
Speaker 1: completely copied it, you know, and used those strategies for
Speaker 1: the Chain Smokers. And how about the acts that made
Speaker 1: it in the pre Internet era? Of the classic acts?
Speaker 1: Actually they have any chance in today's world because generally speaking,
Speaker 1: their music is not successful commercially. Acts from the pre
Speaker 1: Internet erea era today, like give me an example, like
Speaker 1: you two, can they be successful today? It's all about
Speaker 1: the songs. So you think the songs they have just
Speaker 1: in general, if you have a great song, you could
Speaker 1: be a classic act. You could be sixty and the
Speaker 1: song could be successful. Yes. I think the reason why
Speaker 1: UM acts when they get much, very very successful over
Speaker 1: decades and they get older, why they don't have hits,
Speaker 1: new hits, is because I think it's very hard to
Speaker 1: write the same way you did when you were young
Speaker 1: and you weren't rich, and you didn't have the struggles
Speaker 1: and you know, and you weren't married and you were
Speaker 1: having relationships and you're heartbroken like you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have that material to write about anymore, you know, so
Speaker 1: I think that's that's the reason. I actually think it's
Speaker 1: they have a fantasy that if they become very successful,
Speaker 1: their lives will work. And when they reach the pinnacle
Speaker 1: and their lives don't work, they lose the motivation, which
Speaker 1: is not radically different from what you say. It depends
Speaker 1: on the artist, that's for sure. Adam, this has been fantastic.
Speaker 1: Thanks for all your insights. Can I can I give
Speaker 1: one anecdotes? It's about you so um so obviously I've
Speaker 1: been reading your newsletter for a long time. Um, you
Speaker 1: probably don't know. I don't know if I told you this,
Speaker 1: but the first time I met you was at Summit
Speaker 1: at Sea. Really yeah, So I was on summit at
Speaker 1: S and I went to your lecture and afterwards, Um,
Speaker 1: you waited around to answer questions from people and we
Speaker 1: chatted for like two minutes. And you know, you don't
Speaker 1: I don't because you were the guy who continued to
Speaker 1: talk when the other people went away. Maybe maybe that
Speaker 1: maybe that's true. And you said, yeah, email me And
Speaker 1: I said, oh, you answer emails and you said yeah,
Speaker 1: if I know you, I answered them and you know
Speaker 1: you didn't know anything about me, and uh, when I
Speaker 1: got home, I wrote you this long email about, um,
Speaker 1: how I did this showing a venture with Doug at
Speaker 1: Sony and I have a chain smokers and we have
Speaker 1: this really cool strategy and they're having their right now,
Speaker 1: having their first hit. It was the song Roses, their
Speaker 1: first real hit. And um, you didn't write back to me.
Speaker 1: And then you wrote a newsletter about trying to talk
Speaker 1: to Eric Schmidt from Google on someone at sea and
Speaker 1: he blew you off and you like destroyed him in
Speaker 1: this email. And you have the same experience with me. Okay.
Speaker 1: Then I got an email from you. Hold on, I
Speaker 1: get the email back from you, and you you know
Speaker 1: what you wrote? What good luck? And I And I
Speaker 1: was like, just because I have all my email, but
Speaker 1: in this particular case, what I tell everybody that I
Speaker 1: meet under those circumstances, say reference the fact that you
Speaker 1: met me. Of course I said that. Okay, then there
Speaker 1: was something in there was something. I guess what it was.
Speaker 1: I'd have to go back to the actual email. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me answer the question a little bit broader. I've
Speaker 1: gotten into a lot of trouble saying anything about the
Speaker 1: quality of material. I've had both good and bad experience.
Speaker 1: I say something mildly positive, all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: see an ad, it's got my name in it. Okay,
Speaker 1: say something negative. People call their followers out. Okay. In
Speaker 1: your particular case, you're an aggressive guy. I thought you
Speaker 1: were selling me. Now i'd have to go back to
Speaker 1: the email, the emails for you. That's think that's four
Speaker 1: years ago. Now, maybe I just fucked up. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's certainly possible. Okay. The other thing was it was
Speaker 1: you didn't It wasn't clear what you wanted from me.
Speaker 1: I guess at the time, I was hoping you said, wow,
Speaker 1: this sounds interesting, pretty cool. Let's talk like you did
Speaker 1: six years later. Okay. Well, obviously for whatever reason I didn't.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, it's like people at the point that
Speaker 1: I was trying to make the difference between a Schmidt
Speaker 1: and that was Eric Schmidt blew me off live. I
Speaker 1: didn't you blew you off? Okay, But your point, uh,
Speaker 1: you know this is so I was gonna write back
Speaker 1: what an Eric Schmidt type response? But I decided not to. Well,
Speaker 1: you could I get that type of email all day
Speaker 1: every time? I mean, I might not be sitting here
Speaker 1: if I had written that email. No, you know that's
Speaker 1: not you know, I don't know if I would have
Speaker 1: remembered it to be honest with you, but you have to.
Speaker 1: I mean, this gets into my life and it's really
Speaker 1: a podcast about you. But there's not enough time for
Speaker 1: me to do everything that I want to do, and
Speaker 1: how I use my time may not be the appropriate
Speaker 1: use of that particular time. But you certainly made it.
Speaker 1: I don't didn't sound like it needed my advice. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Okay, until next time. This is Bob,
Speaker 1: less sens