Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask, what if, why not?
Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything. For years, Scooter
Speaker 1: Braun was known as the man in music with the
Speaker 1: mightas touch, launching and steering the careers of artists like
Speaker 1: Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Jay Balvin. His name became
Speaker 1: synonymous with strategy, influence, disruption, with making the impossible happen.
Speaker 1: His company, as b Project, became known for closing the
Speaker 1: big deals. But there was another side of it too.
Speaker 1: The tour model they pioneered built philanthropy into the business.
Speaker 1: Under Brawn, tour models became platforms for impact. Here are
Speaker 1: some examples. Justin Bieber's tours funded global education with pencils
Speaker 1: of Promise and launched Justice and Action, connecting fans to
Speaker 1: causes like climate change and criminal justice.
Speaker 2: Reform.
Speaker 1: Ariana Grande's concerts raised over twenty three million dollars for
Speaker 1: victims after the Manchester bombing and registered thousands of young
Speaker 1: voters through Headcount. Demi Levado's tour offered free on site
Speaker 1: therapy sessions in partnership with Cast Centers. SB projects also
Speaker 1: contributed to movements like March for Our Lives, We Are
Speaker 1: the World, twenty five for Haiti, and organizations including Make
Speaker 1: a Wish, City of Hope, and the Enough Project. And
Speaker 1: that's just what's public. There's likely more we'll never see
Speaker 1: in the headlines. That was a part of Scooter's image too,
Speaker 1: someone who, whether strategically or sincerely or both, placed a
Speaker 1: value on contributing. There's this scene in the Justin Bieber
Speaker 1: documentary where Scooter is running around a stadium handing out
Speaker 1: tickets to fans who couldn't afford them. Suddenly kindness was cool,
Speaker 1: Philanthropy wasn't optional, it was expected. If you weren't giving back,
Speaker 1: it looked out of touch, and other pop stars and
Speaker 1: celebrities he didn't manage started to follow suit. And then
Speaker 1: Scooter bought Taylor Swift's Masters and everything changed overnight.
Speaker 3: Everything I had done before didn't matter. What surprised me
Speaker 3: is how before that I was known for helping people
Speaker 3: and philanthropy and success and all these different things, and
Speaker 3: the next day all of that was out the window.
Speaker 3: You were defined by this one moment.
Speaker 1: He had done hundreds of business deals, but that deal
Speaker 1: cracked his world open. His name became shorthand for a
Speaker 1: much larger conversation, one about ownership, power, and loyalty in music.
Speaker 1: The Internet flattened him into a villain. But while the
Speaker 1: world debated intent, Scooter was facing something far more personal.
Speaker 1: His marriage was ending, his relationship to work was disentangling,
Speaker 1: and beneath it all, he was staring down a question
Speaker 1: that had quietly driven him for years. Am I enough?
Speaker 1: In the time since, it seems like he's been trying
Speaker 1: to stitch things back together, not just his career, but
Speaker 1: his identity, his family, and his understanding of who he
Speaker 1: really is. After twenty three years in music, Scooter Braun
Speaker 1: walked away from management altogether. He's never fully talked about
Speaker 1: why until now. This interview was recorded in April, and
Speaker 1: even since then a lot has changed. Taylor now owns
Speaker 1: her Masters. I reached out to Scooter for comment, and
Speaker 1: he told me he's genuinely happy for her. He's also
Speaker 1: stepped down as CEO of HIBE and is thinking seriously
Speaker 1: about what comes next. And maybe he already sensed it
Speaker 1: back in April when we recorded, because when I asked
Speaker 1: him about the future, it was clear he had a
Speaker 1: direction in mind. But what struck me most in this
Speaker 1: interview wasn't the business arc or even the drama. It
Speaker 1: was how tightly he had wrapped his self worth around work,
Speaker 1: the unraveling that came when that identity no longer held,
Speaker 1: and the rebuilding that he's doing now in his spiritual life,
Speaker 1: in his parenting, in the kind of man he wants
Speaker 1: to be. This conversation isn't a defense. It's not a
Speaker 1: puff piece, and it's not an expose. It's something in between.
Speaker 1: I asked about Taylor about the rumors in her lyrics,
Speaker 1: whether he's talked to his kids about it. I asked
Speaker 1: about Kanye about justin about the weight of being responsible
Speaker 1: for other people's careers. It's all in there, But so
Speaker 1: is the other story, the one we don't always leave
Speaker 1: room for, the one about worth, unraveling and repair. We
Speaker 1: often want people to be one thing or the other
Speaker 1: hero or villain, right or wrong? But what if we
Speaker 1: allowed people to be whole? What if we made space
Speaker 1: for contradiction, for change, for complexity. Scooter is known for
Speaker 1: getting the deal done. So the question we're circling today
Speaker 1: is what if the most important deal you make is
Speaker 1: with yourself? This is his answer. It's time to question
Speaker 1: everything with Scooter bron Scooter. There are documentaries and headlines
Speaker 1: and Reddit threads, fan theories all written about you. I
Speaker 1: think we as the public get quotes here or there,
Speaker 1: but we never get your full story from you. A
Speaker 1: lot has changed in your life. You've stepped away from
Speaker 1: managing artists. Before we get into what the future holds,
Speaker 1: which I am really curious about for you, I feel
Speaker 1: like we have to go back a little bit. And
Speaker 1: the one word that keeps coming up and all your
Speaker 1: interviews is ambitious. And I feel like your ambition could
Speaker 1: have been pointed in a few different directions, but you
Speaker 1: pointed it towards music. When did you fall in love
Speaker 1: with music?
Speaker 3: I think I've always been in love with music. My
Speaker 3: first job in entertainment was a dancer. I was a
Speaker 3: dancer at bar Mitzo's and weddings. I was discovered at
Speaker 3: a teen club with my friend Dale back in the day.
Speaker 3: It was actually a teen club and I think it
Speaker 3: was Mount.
Speaker 2: Vernon in New York.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've always I DJ'ed. I was dancing.
Speaker 3: Then I started throwing parties when I was in college.
Speaker 3: But music is something that always no matter what in
Speaker 3: my life. It was like music and basketball were the
Speaker 3: two things that could take me out of the thought
Speaker 3: process of life and keep me in the moment and
Speaker 3: give me just joy in the moment. When I was nineteen,
Speaker 3: I was in my freshman dorm room and I read
Speaker 3: a book.
Speaker 2: Called The Operator about David.
Speaker 3: Geffen, and he is not a fan of the book,
Speaker 3: but I saw it as someone who is flawed who
Speaker 3: became extraordinary and I'm flawed. Were all flawed, and it
Speaker 3: made me think like maybe I can do this. And
Speaker 3: I remember there's actually one distinct moment I'm in my
Speaker 3: dorm room and I'm reading and I can't split this
Speaker 3: book down, and it's talking about David trying to sign
Speaker 3: John Lennon's solo career, and I start literally screaming in
Speaker 3: my bed, like just go to Yogano. I know everybody's
Speaker 3: being hard on her, but she has his ear go
Speaker 3: to Yogono. And I turned the page and David was
Speaker 3: the only one to go to Yogono and he signed
Speaker 3: a solo career and it made me think I can
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 2: I think this way.
Speaker 3: I was in Atlanta. I think the way David thought,
Speaker 3: you know, think, you know, to think outside the box
Speaker 3: would seem natural to me is never really what the
Speaker 3: way everyone else thinks. And I was in Atlanta, Georgia
Speaker 3: in two thousand. It was just an epic place to
Speaker 3: be for music. You had Dallas Austin, Jermain Dupree, outcast,
Speaker 3: Ti Ludacris coming up, like Jazzy Faye was a guy
Speaker 3: on the radio who had this young girl seventeen sixteen
Speaker 3: Sierra that he was, you know, put out the song
Speaker 3: one two Step like it was all happening in that
Speaker 3: era of the early two thousands, and Usher is you know, usher,
Speaker 3: and like it was exciting. And I got to be
Speaker 3: in the streets of Atlanta coming up with these people.
Speaker 1: I heard you were driving a purple Mercedes.
Speaker 3: I bought a purple Benz on eBay cash so I
Speaker 3: could fake it till I make it at the clubs.
Speaker 1: Did it work?
Speaker 3: It got me in the door with a lot of people,
Speaker 3: and people still talk about that Benz. And when I
Speaker 3: was twenty years old, I'd done some stuff for this
Speaker 3: this guy Chris love Alava on the radio. He had
Speaker 3: a manager named Shaka Zulu and Jeff, two brothers. Shaka
Speaker 3: was the program director at Hot ninety seven. Chris was
Speaker 3: the big morning show, Chris love Alova, and he had
Speaker 3: a rap named Ludacris and he was coming up as
Speaker 3: a rapper and he had this song, you know, fantasy,
Speaker 3: and and I was throwing parties for them, and kind
Speaker 3: of like people knew me for.
Speaker 2: Throwing my parties.
Speaker 3: And then this guy Jermaine Duprie, it was like you
Speaker 3: got more potential than parties. And within six months I
Speaker 3: was running marketing for So So deaf and I was
Speaker 3: twenty years old.
Speaker 1: What made you good at marketing? In other interviews you
Speaker 1: talk about how you were getting on a plane with
Speaker 1: your main dupre like presenting marketing plans to him.
Speaker 3: The reason I was good at marketing, the reason I
Speaker 3: was if I was good, you know, but the reason
Speaker 3: I thought you were listen, the reason I had a
Speaker 3: successful career with marketing, and also A and R and
Speaker 3: making records is because my belief that I am not extraordinary.
Speaker 2: It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 3: I believe extraordinary people know how to speak to a
Speaker 3: small amount of extraordinary people.
Speaker 2: I'm ordinary as hell.
Speaker 3: I like, you know, what makes me move usually makes
Speaker 3: millions of other people move. What makes me tick usually
Speaker 3: makes millions of other people tick. So my gift was
Speaker 3: just what my parents gave me, which was stupid confidence
Speaker 3: that what I like maybe other people liked. I think
Speaker 3: that's the difference. Most people have the gift of being
Speaker 3: able to speak to the masses, they're just afraid to
Speaker 3: find out. I think the way my parents raised me
Speaker 3: and my siblings, they were like, if there's no leader
Speaker 3: in the room, be a.
Speaker 2: Leader, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think that is how I was able to
Speaker 3: kind of put my ideas forward. And I also was
Speaker 3: in a unique place where, like the Internet was really
Speaker 3: taken off and social media was taking off, and.
Speaker 2: I was native to that.
Speaker 3: I was that age where like first on Facebook, first
Speaker 3: on MySpace, you know, first to use YouTube, like that generation.
Speaker 3: So you know, having that love of music, having you know,
Speaker 3: being native to the new technology. It was just a
Speaker 3: perfect storm. And being in the city of Atlanta, where
Speaker 3: you were close to the culture.
Speaker 1: But kudos to you for being willing to adapt it
Speaker 1: because a lot of people just shied away from the
Speaker 1: Internet and didn't want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 3: I saw it as a way to reach a lot
Speaker 3: of people, and I saw it as a way to
Speaker 3: convey a message to a lot of people. And that's,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the hardest things in marketing. You
Speaker 3: could have a really good idea, but how do you
Speaker 3: get it out to the masses and how do you
Speaker 3: expand it and grow it?
Speaker 2: And I was.
Speaker 3: So afraid of failure at that point in my life.
Speaker 3: I was leaning into all these things and it really
Speaker 3: was And I think when you're younger.
Speaker 2: You think you're manifesting everything.
Speaker 3: You think like, I'm going to make this happen, make
Speaker 3: this happen. And as you get older, you start to
Speaker 3: realize how lucky you are to be in the position
Speaker 3: you're in that yes, there's a little bit of manifestation,
Speaker 3: but there's also a lot of you know, the universe
Speaker 3: and God putting you in a position to do that stuff.
Speaker 3: And I think that's where you understand like, as you
Speaker 3: get older, it's not you necessary as doing You're kind
Speaker 3: of a custodian of that energy, you know. And I
Speaker 3: think if you get blessed enough to be a custodia
Speaker 3: that energy, you have to treat it as such.
Speaker 1: You're like a vessel, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: You said earlier when you read the Operator you felt
Speaker 1: like somebody flawed could make it and could do it.
Speaker 1: Did you feel flawed when you were in college?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think so. Well.
Speaker 3: I think we're all flawed. I think we're all perfectly flawed,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if everyone's aware of that in college,
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to me.
Speaker 2: That you, yes, they are. They might not say it.
Speaker 3: I don't think I was saying it that way when
Speaker 3: I was younger. The truth is is what drives you
Speaker 3: as an entrepreneur is sometimes the thing that makes you
Speaker 3: not great at intimacy, you know, like what makes you
Speaker 3: good at business is not always best in intimacy. When
Speaker 3: you're great at business, sometimes you're always thinking about the
Speaker 3: next move, You're always thinking about the next day.
Speaker 2: Because you're so afraid of losing.
Speaker 3: You're so afraid of something coming and gets you don't
Speaker 3: know how to be present right and at that age,
Speaker 3: I didn't feel enough. I didn't feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: I was worthy of anything. I felt like I needed
Speaker 3: to earn being worthy. I didn't think That's probably why
Speaker 3: I went by Scooter since I was eighteen years old.
Speaker 3: It was like a nickname when I was younger, right,
Speaker 3: and almost like I took it on because I didn't
Speaker 3: think Scott was enough.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting to me because you had this dichotomy
Speaker 1: where you're saying you didn't feel like you were enough,
Speaker 1: and yet there was something inside you that was willing
Speaker 1: to bet on yourself and say I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: like in Atlanta, and then when you found Justine.
Speaker 2: Incredible driver insecurity.
Speaker 3: Insecurity is an amazing driver for business because when you're
Speaker 3: insecure that you're not enough, what do you do?
Speaker 2: You build to be enough.
Speaker 3: You build a life for yourself that other people can respect,
Speaker 3: because deep down you don't know if you're worthy.
Speaker 2: And I was going through that as a.
Speaker 3: Young person of I thought, well, the only thing that
Speaker 3: makes me worthy of anything is building and building and building.
Speaker 3: And at that point in my life, I was very
Speaker 3: I was working from a competitive mind of like I
Speaker 3: have to achieve otherwise I'm a loser, and you know,
Speaker 3: being older. Now, I'm in a place now where, like
Speaker 3: I move from a creative mind where there is no end,
Speaker 3: there's no winning.
Speaker 2: There's no losing.
Speaker 3: I just get to create because I've gotten to a
Speaker 3: good place here, which I'm sure we'll talk about, because
Speaker 3: there was a lot of trials and tribulations and being
Speaker 3: misunderstood and hard times. And it's never the success that
Speaker 3: teaches you how to love this. It's being misunderstood, it's
Speaker 3: being ridiculed, it's sitting in your place and just being like,
Speaker 3: this feels unfair, and then you have to actually look
Speaker 3: inward and realize the only thing that's actually going to
Speaker 3: overcome it all is like looking inside and being good.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said word misunderstood, because that's a
Speaker 1: word that kept coming back for me as I was
Speaker 1: preparing for this interview. So I want to get to it.
Speaker 1: But there was something that your friend Jay Williams said
Speaker 1: in an NPR interview and you touched on it a
Speaker 1: little bit. He said, you can spot talent with an
Speaker 1: X ray like precision. Is it a feeling you get?
Speaker 1: I'm interested in that.
Speaker 3: It's like falling in love. Say more, you can make
Speaker 3: a plan to fall in love. You can say I'm
Speaker 3: going to meet the love of my life this year,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get married, I'm gonna have two point five
Speaker 3: kids in a pick e fence. Life does not work
Speaker 3: that way, right, And for me finding talent, finding stars,
Speaker 3: it was like it's like a It's like that. It's
Speaker 3: like you meet someone and you just know.
Speaker 1: So it's this feeling. It's like where do you feel
Speaker 1: it in your body?
Speaker 3: It's just it's almost like a download. It's almost like
Speaker 3: a cheat code sometimes where you know. Sometimes I'm like
Speaker 3: wanting to figure it out, but sometimes it's like, hey,
Speaker 3: just letting you know this is it has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with you. I'm just giving you the heads up
Speaker 3: because you know what to do. Like as I said,
Speaker 3: you're almost like a custodian of this energy. It almost
Speaker 3: feels like it's not even coming from me. It's like
Speaker 3: someone giving me the heads up. And then I feel
Speaker 3: this certainty and it almost like I get a downloaded.
Speaker 3: I could see everything that's to come and I know
Speaker 3: where to go. And I think sometimes that can be
Speaker 3: with a talent.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that could be with a company, Sometimes that could
Speaker 2: be with entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: It would be nice that happened, you know, in my
Speaker 3: love life again. But like I said, you can't make
Speaker 3: plans for it. It shows up when it's supposed to.
Speaker 3: I was just very fortunate that, for some reason I
Speaker 3: was placed to see it a bunch of different times.
Speaker 1: There's an interview magazine article where Donald Glover interviews himself
Speaker 1: and he said, are you ever worried about staying relevant?
Speaker 1: Donald asked himself and his answer was, I'm never worried
Speaker 1: about relevance because I have vision. That's a big word.
Speaker 3: I think things change as you get older and you
Speaker 3: have different experiences. And I was with two great entrepreneurs
Speaker 3: yesterday morning and young people building a really great company
Speaker 3: not in entertainment, and we were having a very interesting
Speaker 3: conversation and we talked about this place of self work
Speaker 3: that I've gone the last five six years.
Speaker 2: And one of them said that he was nervous.
Speaker 3: He wants to do this self work, but what if
Speaker 3: it takes away the dog in him?
Speaker 2: What it takes away that energy?
Speaker 3: And I kind of smiled because I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you'll do it when you're supposed to, because you won't
Speaker 3: care about that when you have new priorities and I
Speaker 3: promise you, if that's supposed to be there, it will
Speaker 3: be there, and all you're doing is delaying it, and
Speaker 3: eventually in the universe smacks you around the way it
Speaker 3: did with me to.
Speaker 2: Like it's time.
Speaker 1: Did it take the dog away?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. It just gave me an opportunity to enjoy
Speaker 3: being here.
Speaker 2: You know. It taught me how to be present.
Speaker 3: It taught me I had to lose for me to
Speaker 3: understand what I have and for me to find myself again.
Speaker 3: And I wouldn't I wish other people would figure it
Speaker 3: out fast. I needed to slap in the face a
Speaker 3: little bit. But when you talk about this idea of
Speaker 3: it or relevance, I think you just show up every
Speaker 3: single day and you can make long term plans and
Speaker 3: then the universe makes its own plans and you just
Speaker 3: try to be on the journey. Like my favorite poem Ithaca,
Speaker 3: it's this concept.
Speaker 2: Of like traveling. It's by Cafafi.
Speaker 3: It's this idea of traveling to the island of Ithaca
Speaker 3: and the Greek islands and all the things that you're
Speaker 3: going to see and experience along the way, and when
Speaker 3: you finally reach your destination Ithaca, if you find her poor.
Speaker 3: She did not fool you because it was never about
Speaker 3: getting to Ithaca. It was always about the journey. And
Speaker 3: then you understand what ethica means. And I think it's
Speaker 3: a metaphor for life, like this idea of vision early
Speaker 3: at least it's cool experiences, school stories has what you
Speaker 3: know has me sitting here with you, and all the
Speaker 3: questions you're gonna ask that are gonna make me comfortable
Speaker 3: and uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling so far?
Speaker 2: I'm fine. At the end of the day.
Speaker 3: The only thing that really matters is how you see
Speaker 3: yourself and how you see your relationship with the people
Speaker 3: that really love you.
Speaker 2: And it's you know, the question I ask myself is like,
Speaker 2: why would I even do this?
Speaker 3: Like, you know, it's going to be speaking to a
Speaker 3: lot of people who don't know me.
Speaker 2: And you know, what I've learned over.
Speaker 3: The years is both the praise I received and many
Speaker 3: points in my career and they hate I received the
Speaker 3: man in my career, neither of them were deserved. The
Speaker 3: people praising me didn't know me, yeah, and the people
Speaker 3: hating me didn't know me.
Speaker 1: So a lot of music managers operate behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and you were a really public figure. Was that purposeful?
Speaker 1: Was that a business decision?
Speaker 2: Yes, it actually is because of Outcast.
Speaker 3: Outcasts had a manager and they won the album for
Speaker 3: Album of the Year. It was the first hip hop
Speaker 3: group to ever went out of the Year. And that
Speaker 3: year there was a big party in Atlanta, and their
Speaker 3: manager was on the bill of the party with another executive.
Speaker 3: And the following year Outcast broke up and that executive
Speaker 3: came back and he did a party, but the manager
Speaker 3: wasn't on the party ever again. And I realized, too
Speaker 3: much of his career I was nineteen twenty years old
Speaker 3: in this too much of his career was correlated to
Speaker 3: the decision making and the success or failure of someone else.
Speaker 3: So I decided that while I wanted to build up acts,
Speaker 3: I wanted to build up myself so that I could
Speaker 3: maintain and keep going. And I have things that have
Speaker 3: been great about that, because you know, when acts of
Speaker 3: mine have gone through really hard times, I've been able
Speaker 3: to mate a power base to maintain them.
Speaker 2: And help them and build other acts.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I also, as you know,
Speaker 3: became a very easy target because in this business, you know,
Speaker 3: it became the big, bad executive.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy the recognition?
Speaker 2: Ever when it was productive.
Speaker 3: I'm much more of a homebody than people realize. Like
Speaker 3: I can go and have a good time, but I
Speaker 3: like watching movies and hanging out with my kids and
Speaker 3: like just being home, and I still hang out with
Speaker 3: my best friends.
Speaker 2: I was eleven years old for the most part.
Speaker 3: So yes, I liked it because any human being, like
Speaker 3: when you're being praised or people appreciate what you do,
Speaker 3: that feeds the ego, It feeds the soul, and it
Speaker 3: feels really nice. So I can't say I did not.
Speaker 3: I did enjoy that. But at the same time, I
Speaker 3: liked it when you could give away tickets, you know,
Speaker 3: when when the power was used for like the most
Speaker 3: influential things in my life with that were being able
Speaker 3: to like, you know, respond with Arianna to the Manchester attack,
Speaker 3: to help the kids from Parkland with March for Our Lives,
Speaker 3: to you know, help my friend Bumbee with a you know,
Speaker 3: a fundraiser and a telethon for the hurricane victims of
Speaker 3: Florida and Texas, or to simply you know, join a board.
Speaker 2: Of a charity and like helps make a wish.
Speaker 3: You know, It's like there are perks that come with it,
Speaker 3: and then there are negatives. But in my opinion, if
Speaker 3: you use it properly, the perks far outweigh the.
Speaker 1: Negative, so you never wish you could undo that.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were definitely times where I was like,
Speaker 2: this ain't fun.
Speaker 3: You know, you got to you gotta be strong for
Speaker 3: some of the stuff that comes when you're in the
Speaker 3: public eye, some of it, like I don't want for
Speaker 3: my kids. But I also don't think I'm like a
Speaker 3: well known celebrity, you know. I think there's people who
Speaker 3: know what I've done. There's people who don't know what
Speaker 3: I've done and assume they know. I think that it
Speaker 3: served me well for the things that I want to achieve,
Speaker 3: but I don't necessarily need it anymore.
Speaker 1: Would you be sad if it went away?
Speaker 2: Not at all. I mean, as long as I got
Speaker 2: my kids and my friends, I'm good.
Speaker 1: What does it take to be a really good manager?
Speaker 1: I was looking up like David Geffen's model, which is
Speaker 1: very similar to your model. It's more of like an
Speaker 1: equity model, irving asof did like a touring model. More so,
Speaker 1: everybody had a different vibe. You were the first one
Speaker 1: to do this equity model plus be a public figure.
Speaker 2: We were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, we were very successful and the acts that
Speaker 3: we worked with were incredibly successful. Yeah, and everyone did
Speaker 3: incredibly well across the board.
Speaker 2: And I'm really proud of the work that we did.
Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes it's hard because you know when
Speaker 3: you leave, you know there's people from the outside they
Speaker 3: wone have re vision. It says you this that. But
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I got in love
Speaker 3: for everybody I worked with and nothing to say negative.
Speaker 3: I'm very appreciative of those twenty three years. And I
Speaker 3: wrote about it like I did a post and wrote
Speaker 3: all the explanations why I stopped managing. It was hard
Speaker 3: because there was a year where legally I wasn't allowed
Speaker 3: to say why I stopped managing, and everyone had all
Speaker 3: their assumptions and stories and this person left in this
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I lost forty three clients in one day,
Speaker 3: but legally I couldn't until we resolve certain things. And
Speaker 3: then when I finally could, it just felt nice to
Speaker 3: do it, not so much for everyone else, But once
Speaker 3: I said it publicly, I held myself accountable that I
Speaker 3: wouldn't go back because I knew I didn't want to.
Speaker 3: I think when you're asking me, like what it takes
Speaker 3: to be a good manager, I think it differs. I
Speaker 3: think some managers aren't amazing at torry. Luckily I had
Speaker 3: people on my team who were. Some managers are amazing
Speaker 3: at croudding the deals. Some are you know, amazing at marketing, you.
Speaker 2: Know, building a little sitt for you though.
Speaker 3: I think we were really good at marketing. We had
Speaker 3: a really good sporting team. I was one manager who
Speaker 3: built an amazing team. You know, I stood on the
Speaker 3: shoulders of a lot of people. You know, Jules is
Speaker 3: one of the best branding people brand deals out there.
Speaker 3: Alison is you know, was amazing at like dot in
Speaker 3: the eyes, crossing the t's and like you know, running
Speaker 3: the touring.
Speaker 1: Jam me it was more like EQ or IQ.
Speaker 2: I think it was a combination.
Speaker 3: I think like I could cut deals and we would
Speaker 3: do deals and no one had ever done before. But
Speaker 3: also it was a lot of building relationships, being there
Speaker 3: in the trenches, having understanding and being empathetic to what
Speaker 3: they were going through. And many times I've heard other
Speaker 3: managers tell me you got too close, you know, you
Speaker 3: had too close of a relationship like that was you know,
Speaker 3: you know, something you shouldn't have done. But I don't
Speaker 3: have regrets, you know, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: relationships ebb and flow, family ebbs and flows, and those
Speaker 3: people always be family.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I think what was interesting is not what made
Speaker 3: me a good manager, but in the end what made
Speaker 3: me a bad manager. When I finally did the self work,
Speaker 3: I knew my time as a manager was coming to
Speaker 3: an end. What made me a great manager for twenty
Speaker 3: years was my incessant need for them to tell me
Speaker 3: that I was enough for them to tell me, like,
Speaker 3: you're doing.
Speaker 2: A good job.
Speaker 3: So I had self worth. And when I stepped out
Speaker 3: and was in a tough place in my personal life
Speaker 3: and everything else, and I chose to step away, And
Speaker 3: that was the first step, no phone, no email for
Speaker 3: the first time in twenty five years, and really go
Speaker 3: back into my childhood and dig deep into who I
Speaker 3: actually am. When I went to that place, I never
Speaker 3: ever let anyone call me Scott.
Speaker 2: I was only Scooter.
Speaker 3: I never felt like a Scott when I got out.
Speaker 3: I loved my name Scott. I appreciated Scooter, but I
Speaker 3: knew Scott had actually made him and that little boy
Speaker 3: was back in charge.
Speaker 1: But I can imagine your clients needed you to tell
Speaker 1: them that they were great, Like it was a codependent
Speaker 1: relationship undred percent.
Speaker 3: But when I got out, I wanted to be there
Speaker 3: for myself for the first time, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: be there for my kids, and so much of my
Speaker 3: life for twenty years was dedicated to them. And when
Speaker 3: I got out, I just wasn't a good manager the
Speaker 3: way I was before. And and I know that in fact,
Speaker 3: you know, at the end, Ariana actually said it to me.
Speaker 2: She was like, you know, you haven't really been the.
Speaker 3: Manager you were for the last couple of years. And
Speaker 3: she was right, you know, and she deserved better at
Speaker 3: that point. And you know, my friend Brandon Creed is
Speaker 3: her manager now and he's crushing it and she's happy
Speaker 3: and she's crushing it, and I'm so happy for both
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 2: Like, honestly, were you burnt out? I think it wasn't
Speaker 2: part of being burnt out.
Speaker 3: But I also think the course of all the relationships,
Speaker 3: like it wasn't like just me, it's they could see
Speaker 3: it too, and their needs, like they deserve to have
Speaker 3: someone that's the job.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to be there for them.
Speaker 3: And when I wasn't, you know, in that position, if
Speaker 3: my soul wasn't in it the same way. So I
Speaker 3: think it was a mutual thing in the end of
Speaker 3: like an understanding like this is.
Speaker 2: And I've talked about it.
Speaker 3: We talked about twenty three years in the post and
Speaker 3: I spoke about it all. But I think nothing makes
Speaker 3: me happier than to see each one of them continue
Speaker 3: to succeed.
Speaker 1: Right. I've heard you say you like seeing everybody win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like seeing everybody wins. Then everybody can pay
Speaker 3: for their own vacation. I call my vacation theory. But
Speaker 3: the other reason I like seeing everybody win is no
Speaker 3: matter what it's like, it's what me and my ex
Speaker 3: wife talk about, Like we have three amazing kids and
Speaker 3: we're tied to each other forever. That's family, and I
Speaker 3: want to see her do well because that's my family.
Speaker 3: No matter what, whether we're a couple or not, we're
Speaker 3: still co parents. We're still family forever. And that's the
Speaker 3: way I feel about the acts. It's like there's gonna
Speaker 3: be an ebbs and flows, and you know, you look
Speaker 3: back at history and certain people feel this and other
Speaker 3: people come in different people's years and say all kinds
Speaker 3: of things. But at the end of the day, for
Speaker 3: me at least, it's all love.
Speaker 2: It's no matter what.
Speaker 3: We did that, and we did that together and no
Speaker 3: one can take that away, So you know, why not?
Speaker 3: Like Dave Little Dicky, he and I had a dinner
Speaker 3: and he was talking to me about a relationship with
Speaker 3: someone else from his past in his career and I
Speaker 3: managed him for a while and he was frustrated, and
Speaker 3: I said, listen, does that person want to be your
Speaker 3: business life anymore?
Speaker 2: He said no. I was like, do you want them
Speaker 2: in your life anymore? He goes no.
Speaker 3: I was like, then, why can't you just celebrate who
Speaker 3: you were once to each other and let the rest go?
Speaker 3: And he did that, and I think that's what I
Speaker 3: try to do with all these people in my life.
Speaker 3: It's like there's so much noise out there in the
Speaker 3: world that we're in, especially in this town, in this business,
Speaker 3: everyone seems to have an opinion. I'm just going to
Speaker 3: celebrate who we awre to each other always.
Speaker 1: I like that. I want to talk about your first client,
Speaker 1: justin Biebert. You guys had such a ride together. I
Speaker 1: don't think Asher Roth was my first that's a great call.
Speaker 1: Was Justin your second Yes, Okay, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about actually.
Speaker 3: Know I had one called Cato, and I know them
Speaker 3: called the Bama Boys. You just know the ones that
Speaker 3: worked really big.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your biggest clients.
Speaker 2: Okay. I Love College. That was my first hit and
Speaker 2: that was the first success. And then Justin.
Speaker 1: I was in college partying to I Love College.
Speaker 3: You know, Justin was in the studio when we cut it,
Speaker 3: in the makeshift studio behind in the basement because Asher,
Speaker 3: you used to literally babysit Justine me sometimes because Justin
Speaker 3: was so young, and he would go hang out at
Speaker 3: Asher's house and they'd like play you know, Mario Kart
Speaker 3: and like watch Justin hilarious.
Speaker 2: I mean it's crazy.
Speaker 3: Like I have a picture of like all of us
Speaker 3: on the stoop of the Greenhouse where like we recorded
Speaker 3: Asher stuff and I put them up to live and
Speaker 3: right down the street in the townhouse is where I
Speaker 3: put Justin and his mom and.
Speaker 2: It was like this makeshift crew of like us trying
Speaker 2: to make it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm sorry it was my mistake.
Speaker 2: You're right, I will forgive you.
Speaker 1: Justin was not your first client, but I want to
Speaker 1: talk about your ride with him. I don't think we've
Speaker 1: seen fandom like that since the Beatles. That was really wild.
Speaker 1: Why are you laughing?
Speaker 3: I'm laughing because the Paul McCartney, Yeah, I think it
Speaker 3: was like the first or second Grammys we ever went to.
Speaker 2: He like saw me in the hallway.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget this, and he goes, you're Scooter right,
Speaker 3: and I was like yeah, and he goes, I'm one
Speaker 3: of the only people in the world who knows what
Speaker 3: you're going through it And for me.
Speaker 2: I was so excited because I share a birthday with
Speaker 2: Paul McCartney. And when I got to tell him we
Speaker 2: share a birthday.
Speaker 3: For me, that's incredibly exciting to share a birthday with pumccartney.
Speaker 2: Turns out didn't really excite him that he shared a
Speaker 2: birthday with me.
Speaker 1: He kind of was like, that's nice.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's walking around like I want to
Speaker 2: tellim scoter we share a birthday. So I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess the other way. It's not really as exciting,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 1: Think that's great because that was your second Grammy, so
Speaker 1: it was still all new and exciting to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, by the wait As long as I'm seeing it
Speaker 3: through the eyes as someone who's experiencing it the first time,
Speaker 3: it's always fun for me.
Speaker 1: There's videos all over the internet of you guys running
Speaker 1: around giving out tickets to people who either couldn't get
Speaker 1: tickets couldn't afford tickets, and you hand them front row seats.
Speaker 1: They're crying. You guys donated a dollar from every ticket
Speaker 1: sold on Justin's Believe Tour to support Pencils of Promise.
Speaker 1: During the Justice World Tour, Bieber launched the Justice and
Speaker 1: Action Initiative. He's the talk recording artist for granting wishes
Speaker 1: for Make a Wish. Sure, when I think of philanthropic musicians,
Speaker 1: I always think of Dolly Parton, but I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I've seen a young person do it on that scale.
Speaker 1: What about the give back was so important to you guys.
Speaker 3: I don't think you get the rest without it. You know,
Speaker 3: my grandparents say, if your cup is being filled with
Speaker 3: water by God, you better start pouring in and other
Speaker 3: cups before it just makes a mess and spills all
Speaker 3: over the place. If we keep getting that energy, we
Speaker 3: have to share it. And that was always something important
Speaker 3: to my mother. It was important with In my culture.
Speaker 3: It's called sedaka just giving and charity, and it's biblical,
Speaker 3: like it literally says, you know, in the Torah, in
Speaker 3: the Bible, it literally says, when getting your crops, you're
Speaker 3: supposed to leave the field at the end untouched so
Speaker 3: people can come in and get some of the.
Speaker 2: Crops, right. And I'm a very firm believer in that.
Speaker 3: And I'm very grateful that Justin and Ariana and Demi
Speaker 3: and all these artists, Jay Balvin, all these artists I've
Speaker 3: gotten to work with over the years, all them said yes.
Speaker 3: And we brought in SHAWNA Nepp, who now runs our
Speaker 3: family foundation, but she's always run philanthropic and still does
Speaker 3: for most of the artists I've worked with and these
Speaker 3: you know, families, and she's just absolutely amazing. And you know,
Speaker 3: our job is to make it and her job is
Speaker 3: to give it a and that's just something really amazing.
Speaker 3: So I'm really grateful to all of the artists who
Speaker 3: signed up to do those in credit Blacks. I'm grateful
Speaker 3: to Justin for how many wishes he made over those
Speaker 3: tours and how many kids he made happy. And you know, now,
Speaker 3: like I'm very fortunate I get to serve on the
Speaker 3: national board to make a wish, and whenever I go
Speaker 3: to a board meeting, Leslie, our CEO, who is incredible,
Speaker 3: I always tell her these board meetings I benefit more
Speaker 3: than it, you know, than the kids, because getting to
Speaker 3: hear the stories, getting to witness these wishes fills me up.
Speaker 2: And the greatest thing you can.
Speaker 3: Do is give, because it's like I promise you, you make
Speaker 3: another dollar, you're going to be looking for more and
Speaker 3: trying to find out how to be happy.
Speaker 2: You give something, you're going to get closer to that happiness.
Speaker 1: I think now you see Chance theor rapper, he gave
Speaker 1: a million dollars to the Chicago Public school system. Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift would like give people their college education, their tuition.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's fair to say that you guys
Speaker 1: changed the culture of pop stardom and geared it a
Speaker 1: little bit more towards philanthropy.
Speaker 3: Look, that's a really beautiful thing to say, But I
Speaker 3: think the Civil rights movement was paid for by Sidney
Speaker 3: Poitier and people like him. I think that artists throughout
Speaker 3: history have stepped up to help others. I don't think
Speaker 3: that started with us.
Speaker 2: I think we were inspired by the people before us.
Speaker 1: You've had time away from that part of your life,
Speaker 1: what do you look back on and feel the most
Speaker 1: joy about.
Speaker 2: Well, I also didn't know an adult life was like this.
Speaker 3: I've been managing since I was nineteen, and like full
Speaker 3: time since I was nineteen, like two phones, answering every
Speaker 3: phone calling it. Yeah, so like the last two and
Speaker 3: a half years not managing because I announced it was
Speaker 3: I guess a year and a half ago, the twenty
Speaker 3: three years, but it's really been two and a half
Speaker 3: years since I made this decision.
Speaker 2: I didn't know you could have like a weekend.
Speaker 3: I didn't know you could actually like binge watch an
Speaker 3: entire series on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's epic.
Speaker 3: Like I'm loving it, and I'm still like I got
Speaker 3: the hunger again to go do other stuff.
Speaker 2: But it's been really nice.
Speaker 3: To be so present with my children and be so
Speaker 3: present with my friends.
Speaker 2: And my friends talk to me about it.
Speaker 3: They're like, you use some of these skills to like
Speaker 3: make sure we're all good at stagecoach or if we
Speaker 3: go to Coachell or something like that, But like used
Speaker 3: to use these skills in other ways, and it's kind
Speaker 3: of fun for you to use them.
Speaker 2: For us, and it's been really nice.
Speaker 3: When I look back at the career, it's a less
Speaker 3: small moments and then really big philanthropic moments. It's like
Speaker 3: a little moment on a road trip or being in
Speaker 3: a restaurant in you know, Europe on a promo trip
Speaker 3: when we were first starting and having laughs with the
Speaker 3: original crew. It's you know, watching Marcus Mumford come out
Speaker 3: at the Manchester Show and do the moment of silence
Speaker 3: and seeing sixty five thousand people completely silent, you know,
Speaker 3: when you didn't even know if they were going to
Speaker 3: show up because of you know, acts of terror. It's
Speaker 3: it's little things like backyard concerts that no one will
Speaker 3: ever see, you know, with a guitar being a passed
Speaker 3: around a fire pit. It's it's all the things that
Speaker 3: made all the nonsense worth it, you know, all the
Speaker 3: things that make me happy when I look back, I
Speaker 3: would have done for free. And being able to tell
Speaker 3: the stories in private settings when people ask or sometimes
Speaker 3: that's the best moment because you take it for granted.
Speaker 3: You almost act like, you know, you're feeling the injuries
Speaker 3: of it sometimes and you don't realize how many great
Speaker 3: things came from it. And how many beautiful moments and
Speaker 3: how many experiences, and honestly, it's just a lot of love.
Speaker 3: Like you're looking backly even like being on the road
Speaker 3: in the beginning, and like pulling into Walmart's at two
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning, and the things that you'll see
Speaker 3: in a Walmart at two o'clock in the morning in
Speaker 3: the middle of America epic epic?
Speaker 1: Do you have any regrets about that time?
Speaker 2: I think everything happens exactly the way it should.
Speaker 3: However, I don't want to use mental health as a
Speaker 3: crutch because I think too many times people do that.
Speaker 3: I think people say, oh, mental health, mental health. It's
Speaker 3: almost like they don't want any adversity in their life.
Speaker 3: And I don't think unless you take responsibility for your life,
Speaker 3: you actually learn or grow. But I do think the
Speaker 3: regret I have is not understanding taking self work time
Speaker 3: for both myself and encouraging it for the people I
Speaker 3: work with. I think we all could have awaited a
Speaker 3: lot of pain. I think we were so young, and
Speaker 3: we all moved so fast that we didn't know you know,
Speaker 3: and by I didn't.
Speaker 2: Figure that part out.
Speaker 3: You're moving so fast and you're having all this success
Speaker 3: and you're not realizing that toll it could take on
Speaker 3: you long term of not being present completely to the
Speaker 3: moment of all the pressures that come with it that
Speaker 3: you're not prepared for when they finally hit. And I
Speaker 3: think understanding now at this age the importance of one
Speaker 3: to two weeks year where you really take the time
Speaker 3: to go inward and build a foundation for yourself so
Speaker 3: when those waves come you can swim through them. I
Speaker 3: didn't understand that lesson until I was older and I
Speaker 3: had to deal with hard things, and I wish I
Speaker 3: knew it earlier and I would have been able to
Speaker 3: encourage it for everyone I was working with as well.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. So you pluck someone from Canada off
Speaker 1: of YouTube, you guys have this insane ride together, and
Speaker 1: then the working relationship has since come to an end.
Speaker 1: When did you guys know it was the end of
Speaker 1: that relationship, Because to me, it must sort of be
Speaker 1: like an intimate partner, like you just wake up one
Speaker 1: day and feel it like it's over or was it
Speaker 1: a slow role?
Speaker 3: I just think, listen, a lot of things happened, and
Speaker 3: I think over time, each one of us is making
Speaker 3: decisions for our own personal life. And sometimes you drift.
Speaker 3: Sometimes a lot of people get in between. Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 3: I think the story's not not in a working relationship,
Speaker 3: but I think that's what happens with relationships like that.
Speaker 3: They ebb and they flow, and they go up and down,
Speaker 3: and sometimes they go into one direction, sometimes they go another,
Speaker 3: but you always keep your heart open to the fact
Speaker 3: that that's family and it goes up and down and
Speaker 3: you have each other's back in the end. And I
Speaker 3: think that you know, for me, my life went a
Speaker 3: certain direction where I was done managing and I wanted
Speaker 3: something else for my life. And I think his life
Speaker 3: when a certain direction where he was ready to really
Speaker 3: control his own destiny. And I think both are appropriate
Speaker 3: and I respect completely. You know that he is his
Speaker 3: own man now and that that you know, he wants
Speaker 3: to build his career moving forward the way he sees fit,
Speaker 3: and he should same way. I respect the fact that
Speaker 3: I want to build my life a certain way moving forward,
Speaker 3: and I think you do so with love and respect,
Speaker 3: and you don't really Sometimes you it's you know, with
Speaker 3: other people it was like, Okay, this is the day,
Speaker 3: and you point to it, and other times you really
Speaker 3: it just gets there. One day, and I think you
Speaker 3: treat both with respect.
Speaker 1: Was it tough.
Speaker 3: At times, but like I said, I feel like everything
Speaker 3: happens in the timing it should. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 3: stuff that I was dealing with in my personal life
Speaker 3: was much tougher, you know, divorced with kids. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: wish on your worst enemy, even with someone like my ex.
Speaker 2: Who we did so we did it with such respect
Speaker 2: for each other. But I don't think stories like end
Speaker 2: the way you're describing. I think.
Speaker 3: Their chapters, you know, and real relationships, you know, it's
Speaker 3: just you're in a different chapter. You're each in a
Speaker 3: different point in your life, and sometimes it comes together.
Speaker 3: It's like a good friend, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like sometimes you could be ah, other times you could
Speaker 3: be like, I'm talking to you in years you pick
Speaker 3: it up like that, you know.
Speaker 2: It's just I don't I don't think.
Speaker 3: I think the only thing that's definitively ending is a lifetime,
Speaker 3: you know, So the rest of it is you never
Speaker 3: never know.
Speaker 1: Well, the way you're describing it makes it seem like
Speaker 1: you're hopeful that it'll come back together.
Speaker 3: Is not the business way, right, I said, I'm hopeful
Speaker 3: in the fact of like, he's not done and I'm
Speaker 3: not done cheering for him.
Speaker 1: You guys created such a strong fan base, and recently
Speaker 1: his fans have been concerned about his health. People are
Speaker 1: speculating USA Today said Justin Bieber's crashing out. There's videos
Speaker 1: of him at Coachella where fans raised concerned about his appearance.
Speaker 1: What goes through your mind when you hear me say
Speaker 1: that or see those videos that.
Speaker 3: People should if they really respect him, they should leave
Speaker 3: him and his family alone.
Speaker 2: I think he has a newborn child. I think he's married.
Speaker 3: I think that that life is not easy, and if
Speaker 3: they really did care, they would give him an opportunity
Speaker 3: to be a human being.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a moment. We talked about this a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier, but there was a moment when you yourself
Speaker 1: made headlines last year. We repeatedly saw these headlines and
Speaker 1: it made it seemed like things were leaking. We're either
Speaker 1: an artist on your roster was coming out or leaking
Speaker 1: that they were leaving your management company, and it seemed
Speaker 1: as though you were just taking hit after hit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did it feel at that point because you mentioned
Speaker 1: you were under NDA, so you couldn't say.
Speaker 3: Anything, Well, I also had a dream, so I couldn't
Speaker 3: say anything. I could I was under nda. But my
Speaker 3: publicists could have, like for our company, could have said, hey,
Speaker 3: that's not true.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't let her why because I had a dream.
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a dream?
Speaker 1: Can you share?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I one of I'm not going to go into names.
Speaker 3: One of my biggest clients came to me and said
Speaker 3: that they wanted to spread their wings and do something different.
Speaker 3: But I also knew that that was appropriate at the
Speaker 3: time because I felt the same way quite some time,
Speaker 3: but I was too afraid to say it out loud
Speaker 3: because I was too afraid of who am I without them? Okay,
Speaker 3: So when this happened, it was almost a catalyst for
Speaker 3: me realizing, like it's now and I was on a
Speaker 3: vacation with my best friends who really in my divorce
Speaker 3: picked me up, and I had never done like a
Speaker 3: boy's trip in my entire life, my entire adult life,
Speaker 3: Like this was the first one. And I took all
Speaker 3: of them and like we went to Europe and I
Speaker 3: took them on a trip and like I'm talking, he's
Speaker 3: gonna love this because I'm stand in the pocket, Like
Speaker 3: I got a buddy Paul Brown from Bridgeport. He loves
Speaker 3: when I say his name, and you know, Mike and
Speaker 3: Jay and Buk and like, you know, all these guys
Speaker 3: who like came to the trip. Dave Usher joined because
Speaker 3: we've adopted him into the childhood group.
Speaker 2: But some of these guys had never been to.
Speaker 3: Europe, and like I was like, I'm taking you guys
Speaker 3: because you were there for me and I want to
Speaker 3: do something for you. And it was one of the
Speaker 3: greatest trips in my life other than being with my children.
Speaker 1: Mm hm.
Speaker 3: And during this trip, this artist said this to me
Speaker 3: that maybe we should change something, and I realized, I'm like, actually,
Speaker 3: they're right, Like I've been avoiding this for quite some time.
Speaker 3: And I went and I actually took a nap and
Speaker 3: I had a very vivid dream and I have a
Speaker 3: tattoo on the back of my arm about this dream.
Speaker 1: What does the tattoos say?
Speaker 2: It's not what it says.
Speaker 3: It is a man standing in a giant flame and
Speaker 3: the flame cannot touch him, and inside of him.
Speaker 2: Is the full universe.
Speaker 3: And basically what the dream said to me is you
Speaker 3: are trying to navigate the perfect ending, and if you
Speaker 3: do that, you're gonna get slapped in the face because
Speaker 3: that's not what we want for you. You have to pull
Speaker 3: the band aid. You have to stop managing and do
Speaker 3: what you know you should have done for quite some time,
Speaker 3: and then you have to go silent. If you do that,
Speaker 3: I will let you have the rest of this ten
Speaker 3: day vacation. No one will interrupt, which has never happened
Speaker 3: in my entire career, and you will have the best
Speaker 3: time in your life, and it will show you what
Speaker 3: your life could be on the other side. But on
Speaker 3: the final day, all hell is going to break loose
Speaker 3: and everyone's gonna say they all left you, and people
Speaker 3: are going to completely misunderstand this whole thing. So I
Speaker 3: wake up it's vivid, and I tell my best friend
Speaker 3: Jay Williams, who's on the.
Speaker 2: Trip, And Jay's like, dude, no one cares.
Speaker 3: Your manager's not gonna happen like that, And I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, so we the rest of the trip
Speaker 3: is amazing. No one bothers. I make the calls that day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm no longer managing. It's done. All the clients know.
Speaker 3: I've like had the phone. I spend a whole day
Speaker 3: making call. The trip is incredible, best trip of my life,
Speaker 3: loved by my friends, loving on my friends. It was
Speaker 3: a beautiful, beautiful trip. It's one of the greatest trips
Speaker 3: all of us joke.
Speaker 2: Around, will ever have.
Speaker 3: Okay, the final day, we're flying home and my phone
Speaker 3: just starts to go and literally all hell is breaking loose.
Speaker 3: The press is saying every client's leaving me. People are
Speaker 3: making t shirts over her to La. I was managed
Speaker 3: by Scooter Braun and I left him like it was crazy.
Speaker 2: And the publicist is calling me and being like, we
Speaker 2: gotta respond.
Speaker 3: We got and I said you can't because if I do,
Speaker 3: then I'm gonna get more trouble.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get slapped. I had this dream and they're like,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about. I'm like, you have to
Speaker 2: let it go.
Speaker 3: It's gonna last for a week or two and then
Speaker 3: it's going to disappear. And they're like, no, we need
Speaker 3: to say something.
Speaker 2: We need to say something.
Speaker 3: And sure enough I stood in the fire. It didn't
Speaker 3: touch me. It all burned down around me. All my
Speaker 3: worst fears of what would happen if I stopped managing
Speaker 3: took place. And then after two weeks and went away
Speaker 3: and it wasn't that bad and the dream was real
Speaker 3: and it sounds crazy and I've actually never told that
Speaker 3: story publicly, but that's why I didn't respond.
Speaker 2: It wasn't any about in India.
Speaker 3: I couldn't write twenty three years for another year because
Speaker 3: we had to finish a lot of the contracts because
Speaker 3: like lots of different reasons, right, but responding, hey, this
Speaker 3: isn't true, I just couldn't because of this dream.
Speaker 2: And then I went and got the tattoo because of it.
Speaker 1: And have you ever listened to a dream before? Or
Speaker 1: this was the first you have?
Speaker 3: Yeah, dreams have guided me in my life a bunch
Speaker 3: of time.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, when they're that vivid, yeah, I think I think. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think they should since you were a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes there are daydreams sometimes of this, but that
Speaker 3: was really really vivid, and it sucked because it was
Speaker 3: against everything I wanted to do and it was like
Speaker 3: it was hard and it wasn't fun, and it wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're going to you know, this is going to be
Speaker 3: an easy dream for you. We're asking you to do
Speaker 3: something completely out of your character. You have to let go.
Speaker 3: You're not allowed to manipulate this. You're not allowed to
Speaker 3: try and control this. You have to let go and
Speaker 3: let it burn. And that was really difficult. But the
Speaker 3: crazier it got and the more people talked, the more
Speaker 3: conviction I had that the dream was true. So it
Speaker 3: was like the more people said, and the more ou
Speaker 3: to hand. I mean, they were like Carlie ray Jepson
Speaker 3: left Scooter Brown. I didn't manage Carly in like five years.
Speaker 3: Carly's called me, like, what am I having to do
Speaker 3: with this? I'm like, I don't know, Like like you know,
Speaker 3: Dina Menzel, I'm like, it was starting to get crazy
Speaker 3: people I hadn't managed recently, and and the crazier got
Speaker 3: the more I was like, God is good and it
Speaker 3: is real.
Speaker 2: And like trust.
Speaker 1: So for the record, your clients did not leave you.
Speaker 1: One did, but the rest didn't. You left your clients.
Speaker 2: No, not that I left my clients.
Speaker 3: We had an honest conversation about really where I had
Speaker 3: been for quite some time, and some were like what
Speaker 3: does this mean? And will you still help? And this
Speaker 3: that and the other. But you know, for the record,
Speaker 3: I don't ever want to disch. I didn't leave anybody.
Speaker 3: We left each other.
Speaker 2: It was time.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a wild dream, did you.
Speaker 3: I think. I think the reason is also crazy because
Speaker 3: no one could imagine that like I would want that,
Speaker 3: you know, like no one imagined like when you're in
Speaker 3: that position, that you actually.
Speaker 2: Don't want to do that job anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you know who wasn't surprised.
Speaker 3: Every one of my close friends, Okay, they no one
Speaker 3: checked on me because when they saw it, they've known
Speaker 3: for years how I felt.
Speaker 2: So they understood. But I didn't leave anybody.
Speaker 3: Those are the greatest people to work with in the world,
Speaker 3: like the most talented people in the world.
Speaker 2: It was just time.
Speaker 1: Did you ever feel betrayed by a client?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm sure they felt betrayed by me. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 3: I think it's easy to point fingers at someone else
Speaker 3: and say you did me dirty.
Speaker 2: You know. People hurt people hurt people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I'm sure like when people have
Speaker 3: heard things over the years and misconstrued or someone gets
Speaker 3: in their ear, you know, they can feel, oh, he
Speaker 3: did this or he did that shit the internet think
Speaker 3: so I'm like all powerful, like and I can do
Speaker 3: all kinds of things I have nothing to do with.
Speaker 2: But I think.
Speaker 3: I try to have empathy in every situation because I
Speaker 3: felt betrayed before. I try to imagine if they're acting
Speaker 3: that way, probably they're feeling the same way somehow, And
Speaker 3: I think it's just easier to not hold onto that energy.
Speaker 1: You manage Kanye West for instant.
Speaker 2: And a little while. How long it was like two
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 1: So your grandparents are Holocaust survivors. You stand up for
Speaker 1: Jewish people around the world, and Kanye West is now
Speaker 1: an anti Semite and self proclaimed Nazi. I'm curious what
Speaker 1: it feels like to have tried to help guide someone
Speaker 1: who now stands in opposition of so many of your
Speaker 1: deepest values.
Speaker 3: You know, the last time he spoke about me, he
Speaker 3: actually like he did a Charlottage interview and there's like
Speaker 3: a clip of it, and he talked about the relationship
Speaker 3: we had where I helped him, and he actually says, like,
Speaker 3: this Jewish man helped me because two of my brothers
Speaker 3: are black, and he was talking about my relationship. My
Speaker 3: brothers allowed me to have an understanding on how to
Speaker 3: talk to a black man because I have family that's black,
Speaker 3: and he was saying how I helped.
Speaker 2: Him over the years.
Speaker 3: And then three four years later, the narrative that you're
Speaker 3: discussing started. I don't know him anymore, and I think
Speaker 3: the person that I knew wasn't someone who says those things.
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes the hardest thing to do with
Speaker 3: someone you care about is more in them while they're
Speaker 3: still here. And for me, the person that I knew
Speaker 3: is not the person that I'm seeing, So I don't
Speaker 3: have a relationship anymore.
Speaker 2: And I'd rather.
Speaker 3: Stand proudly and who I am and who my people
Speaker 3: are and be gracious and kind to all people, then
Speaker 3: be a part of that.
Speaker 2: So I don't have any ill will.
Speaker 3: I have no interest in turning into the monster that
Speaker 3: people you know with anti Semitism or hate want you
Speaker 3: to be. I'd rather be someone who is focused on
Speaker 3: positivity and being damn proud of who I am and
Speaker 3: who my grandparents were and who my people are, and
Speaker 3: not fall for this narrative that I'm seeing all two
Speaker 3: prevalence October seventh, And that's why I'm not scared or
Speaker 3: interested in talking about anti Semitism as much as I
Speaker 3: am in talking about what a beautiful, kind and loving
Speaker 3: people we are and it is to be a Jewish
Speaker 3: person of Jewish faith and Jewish culture, and I'd rather
Speaker 3: I tell someone instead of like, don't say that about me.
Speaker 2: I'd rather say, come to Shabbat and see who we are.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think he can be reached, though.
Speaker 3: I don't know and I don't know him, and I
Speaker 3: think right now I have three beautiful kids that need
Speaker 3: a dad to focus on them and make sure they're
Speaker 3: prepared and strong in this world, and.
Speaker 2: That's going to be my focus.
Speaker 1: Does any part of you ever wish that you didn't
Speaker 1: manage any of these people?
Speaker 3: No, I love I love my life, and I think
Speaker 3: my life has been like almost like this weird Forest
Speaker 3: Gump journey.
Speaker 2: Of like how the hell did I get in that situation?
Speaker 3: I mean I got to like travel the world with Justin,
Speaker 3: with Arianna, but also with like side doing Gangnam Style
Speaker 3: and like Harley Racing called me maybe, and the wanted
Speaker 3: doing Glad you came and seeing Tory Kelly sing at
Speaker 3: a coffee shop, to winning Grammys to you know, Dan
Speaker 3: and Shay like and then all the different things, so
Speaker 3: many different wild stories and artists and tech company like
Speaker 3: it's just all these weird situations I found myself in
Speaker 3: over the years and still find myself in and I
Speaker 3: always say, like, when you say, do you not.
Speaker 2: Wish you manage him?
Speaker 3: I always think of do you remember Carl Lewis, He
Speaker 3: won the gold medal for the US. He was like
Speaker 3: the fastest man in the world. And we were kids,
Speaker 3: me and my brother Adam. We were in an airport
Speaker 3: when we were probably like seven and five or like
Speaker 3: eight and six, and Carl Lewis had just won the
Speaker 3: gold medal. He was in the airport and my dad
Speaker 3: pointed it out and me and my brother kept walking
Speaker 3: and then running past him and then letting him pass us.
Speaker 2: And then we'd run past him and we were like,
Speaker 2: we're the fastest guy in the world.
Speaker 3: And there was one time where he kind of like
Speaker 3: looked at us and he made a move to like sprint,
Speaker 3: and we like all giggled. I'm forty three years old.
Speaker 3: I have never forgot that moment. And I said to Chris,
Speaker 3: Paul was an amazing point guard and an amazing friend.
Speaker 3: I said to him one time, I said, you know what, Chris,
Speaker 3: the coolest part about our lives now is that our
Speaker 3: every day is someone else's forever, you know, and that
Speaker 3: things that happened to us on a daily basis. Is
Speaker 3: that story that little kid remembered at forty three years old,
Speaker 3: And as long as I don't take that for granted,
Speaker 3: how cool is that? And like that job afforded me
Speaker 3: all those memories, so I love it.
Speaker 1: If you had to throw like one fish back into
Speaker 1: the ocean, though.
Speaker 3: One fish back into the ocean, this is gonna be fun.
Speaker 3: If I had to throw one fish back into the ocean,
Speaker 3: you're saying.
Speaker 1: Like one client, Yeah, like one client.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I have never even thought of this, but actually,
Speaker 3: like every experience was worth it.
Speaker 1: So if people didn't know you from your work with
Speaker 1: all these artists like Bieber and Ariana, they definitely know
Speaker 1: you from the Taylor Swift saga started back in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and I think we quotes here and there around the internet,
Speaker 1: but we never really get the full story from you
Speaker 1: from your perspective what happened.
Speaker 2: Look for me, it was six years ago.
Speaker 3: I think, like going backwards and like revisiting this is
Speaker 3: a waste of time.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: That I just assume you know, since then there have
Speaker 3: been more deep dives, but I think people cared less
Speaker 3: and less than the years, So I think a lot
Speaker 3: of the facts are out there now if people actually
Speaker 3: choose to go look at them. But I always choose
Speaker 3: to think like, the only thing I didn't appreciate is
Speaker 3: it was so public without an understanding of actually what
Speaker 3: was going on. But I think once you do that,
Speaker 3: it's hard to put it back in the box. But
Speaker 3: I also think that, you know, like when Taylor says
Speaker 3: that she wasn't offered the Masters, the reason I was
Speaker 3: under NBA was because we were in negotiations to sell.
Speaker 2: It back to her.
Speaker 3: I just choose to believe her that maybe they didn't
Speaker 3: tell her her team, like maybe her team didn't tell
Speaker 3: her didn't understand the negotiation. But the thing, you know,
Speaker 3: for me, the only thing that I really regret is
Speaker 3: that it's easy to have a monster if you never
Speaker 3: meet them. And Taylor and I have only met three
Speaker 3: times in our life, and I think at that point
Speaker 3: we hadn't seen each other in two three years. I
Speaker 3: was managing people she wasn't a fan of, and she
Speaker 3: probably saw my name come up and was like, I
Speaker 3: don't like those people, so I don't like him. But
Speaker 3: you know, we never had an opportunity to sit in
Speaker 3: front of each other and actually have a conversation to
Speaker 3: this day, and I think that you know, most of
Speaker 3: the time, when people actually sit in front of each other,
Speaker 3: the monster isn't real, that there's an understanding, that there's
Speaker 3: a healing, you know that you know people kind of
Speaker 3: a conversation. And because when I was asking for that,
Speaker 3: it just never happened. It really awry, and I chose
Speaker 3: to not say much. But the cool part is if
Speaker 3: you actually pay attention, everybody in the end won.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: Well, yes, she could have bought them back and that
Speaker 3: could have been part of the victory, but I choose
Speaker 3: to think of a team. Maybe he didn't tell her,
Speaker 3: but like we ended up when they turned it down,
Speaker 3: we ended up selling it to someone else because she
Speaker 3: didn't want us to have it.
Speaker 2: We did very well in that.
Speaker 3: Sale because we bought it at at a really great price,
Speaker 3: and the value Masters went up. And the thesis when
Speaker 3: I sold it was she had announced she was going
Speaker 3: to do rerecords and I, if you understand music, the
Speaker 3: value went up for Masters because Spotify and streamers created
Speaker 3: a longer decay than buying just CDs, so like people
Speaker 3: would listen to them more so there's a longer decay,
Speaker 3: but it's still decaying. But when she records, all ships
Speaker 3: rise in a world of streaming, so people were going
Speaker 3: on and they were a being them.
Speaker 2: They were listening to see how much they sounded like.
Speaker 3: So she did incredibly well and basically had the biggest
Speaker 3: moment of her career, reinvigorating her career.
Speaker 2: With each one. It was brilliant on her part.
Speaker 3: But also each time she released one, you saw a
Speaker 3: spike in the original catalog, and that's how we were
Speaker 3: able to tell, Okay, if she doesn't want them, this
Speaker 3: is still a really great asset. And we actually created
Speaker 3: an e n out. We did every one of our
Speaker 3: earn outs and we were right. So funny enough everyone
Speaker 3: involved in the Sofa from a business standpoint one, she's
Speaker 3: the biggest she's ever been, biggest artist of all time.
Speaker 2: We did really well with the asset. The people who
Speaker 2: bought the asset did really well because of those spikes.
Speaker 3: The only thing that I'm sad about is that's a
Speaker 3: great example where everybody all ships can rise and there
Speaker 3: doesn't need to be an enemy. There doesn't need to
Speaker 3: be and and in that if her team, you know,
Speaker 3: she could have bought them back, but like, even with
Speaker 3: not doing that right, I wish kids and people out
Speaker 3: there understood that, like there are scenarios in life where
Speaker 3: there doesn't need to be an oppressor and oppressed. There
Speaker 3: are scenarios in life where it's a misunderstanding yet everyone
Speaker 3: can succeed. And the whole reason I did that deal
Speaker 3: was not only because I believed in Big Machine and
Speaker 3: Scott and Thomas Rhett and you know Florida, George I
Speaker 3: and all the amazing acts they had on Big Machine.
Speaker 3: But you don't make a deal at that level unless
Speaker 3: you believe in her. Yeah, you know, so I believed
Speaker 3: that she was going to become exactly who she's remained
Speaker 3: to be. And you know, the narrative since then, you
Speaker 3: know me even talking about this, now there's gonna be
Speaker 3: Hello Swifties. They're gonna be yelling and screaming and you
Speaker 3: know this, that and the other. You can't say anything right,
Speaker 3: and it is what it is. And you know my
Speaker 3: response to that is they made the horrible, you know,
Speaker 3: miscalculation that I care. You know, My thing is that
Speaker 3: i'd you know, I just I don't know those people
Speaker 3: out there, and if I met them in person and
Speaker 3: they needed my help.
Speaker 2: As a stranger, I would help.
Speaker 3: Them, and I've seen that on a human level, and
Speaker 3: I think people forget that when you have a fan
Speaker 3: base that big. If ten thousand people are yelling at you,
Speaker 3: it feels like the world is ending. But that's less
Speaker 3: than one percent of a fan base that big. I
Speaker 3: think most people are dealing with their own problems. I
Speaker 3: think most people are dealing with their own insecurities the
Speaker 3: same way I am, the same way you know, every
Speaker 3: artist and every human being is. And I think that
Speaker 3: it's just a more productive use of your time to
Speaker 3: not get stuck in the craziness of celebrity fodder and
Speaker 3: focus more on being kind to people.
Speaker 1: Interesting to hear that everybody won Like netnet, you made money,
Speaker 1: she made money. The thing that she told Time that
Speaker 1: I am curious about is she said, with the scooter thing,
Speaker 1: my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted
Speaker 1: them for nefarious reasons. In my opinion, what do you
Speaker 1: think she's referring to.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't have any nefarious reasons. You don't.
Speaker 2: That was a major risk for me at the time
Speaker 2: to buy that company.
Speaker 3: I couldn't afford to do it for nefarious reasons to go, Like,
Speaker 3: just from a financial standpoint, that doesn't.
Speaker 2: Make any sense.
Speaker 3: I needed her to be successful for me to take
Speaker 3: that risk. There's nothing nefarious about it, there's nothing. I
Speaker 3: don't know what she was told, but the monster if
Speaker 3: she ever wanted to sit in front of me, the
Speaker 3: monster doesn't exist, and she'd.
Speaker 2: Be met with kindness.
Speaker 3: I just wish that it didn't take such a toll
Speaker 3: on my family, with all the people that were activated
Speaker 3: by that stuff, because there were.
Speaker 2: It was a very tough time for us.
Speaker 3: Because there's a lot of people out there that don't
Speaker 3: understand and they hear this stuff and they take it
Speaker 3: to a level that's really not okay, and I think
Speaker 3: that's dangerous. You said earlier that she helps pay for
Speaker 3: people's college tuition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good on her.
Speaker 3: I'd rather talk about her doing that than talk about
Speaker 3: her nefarious.
Speaker 2: Reasons with me.
Speaker 1: You think there's a difference between what actually happened and
Speaker 1: what people think happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3: So that's ninety nine percent of the things that people
Speaker 3: read on the internet. But at the same time, that's
Speaker 3: the whole lesson of self work. You can't define yourself
Speaker 3: by what everyone else thinks. Especially people that don't know you.
Speaker 3: That's the gift of being in the public eye, because
Speaker 3: when you're not in the public eye, you can maybe
Speaker 3: hide it a little bit more, But when you're in
Speaker 3: the public eye, it's so much easier to be misunderstood,
Speaker 3: and you better go deep inside yourself to figure that
Speaker 3: part out. But you're talking about someone who doesn't know me,
Speaker 3: and I don't know them, so why would I wish
Speaker 3: them ill?
Speaker 1: You helped make so many other people famous. What surprised
Speaker 1: you the most when your name was in the headlines
Speaker 1: surprised you about how you reacted.
Speaker 3: It was the first time that I had ever had
Speaker 3: any negative press. What surprised me is how overnight everything
Speaker 3: I had done before didn't matter. What surprised me is
Speaker 3: how before that I was known for helping people and
Speaker 3: philanthropy and success and all these different things. And what
Speaker 3: surprised me was like, the next day, all of that
Speaker 3: was out the window. You were defined by this one moment.
Speaker 3: That's what it felt like, and what a gift, best
Speaker 3: gift ever, because that was when I started the lesson
Speaker 3: of learning that all the praise that I thrived on before.
Speaker 2: Wasn't real either.
Speaker 3: That's why I told you earlier, the praise wasn't deserved
Speaker 3: and the hate wasn't deserved because none of these people
Speaker 3: knew me, and at that point in my life, I
Speaker 3: really didn't know myself. So the hate forced me between
Speaker 3: that and losing my marriage, which had completely nothing to
Speaker 3: do with that, something completely different, and there were rumors
Speaker 3: about that, but like that was just all of that
Speaker 3: led me to wanting to go to a deeper place.
Speaker 3: And it's the reason I'm doing a podcast with you. Like,
Speaker 3: I'm almost annoyed that we're talking about this. I think
Speaker 3: you can understand. I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: I understand you're doing your job.
Speaker 1: I do have two more.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 3: But what I can tell you, like as we joke
Speaker 3: about it, what I really hope comes out of this
Speaker 3: is that someone goes damn, like I'm gonna forget all
Speaker 3: that noise and maybe look in word. You know, That's
Speaker 3: what I really hope, I sik, somebody realizes that like
Speaker 3: everything you need is and self love. And I know
Speaker 3: that sounds cheesy and cliche, but it is so true.
Speaker 2: Now she's about to take me with two more.
Speaker 1: Have you talked to your kids about it?
Speaker 2: I had to at this point.
Speaker 3: My kids were really young then, but my oldest is
Speaker 3: ten and someone said something very mean to him at school.
Speaker 3: But the beautiful thing is I didn't have to talk
Speaker 3: that much because my kids know who their dad is.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a rumor about your marriage. There's been a
Speaker 1: lot of rumors with Taylor. There's lyrics in vigilante shit.
Speaker 1: I hate cursing, but in vigilante shit she writes and sings.
Speaker 1: She needed cold heart proof, so I gave her some.
Speaker 1: She had the envelope. Where do you think she got
Speaker 1: it from?
Speaker 2: Go ahead, keep going.
Speaker 1: Now she gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride.
Speaker 1: Picture me thick as thieves with your ex wife? Ex wife?
Speaker 1: Did you ever think these were about you?
Speaker 3: No, because I talk to el every day. My ex
Speaker 3: wife is one of my best friends. So me and
Speaker 3: my ex wife laugh about that stuff. We don't even
Speaker 3: call each other X. That's like my partner, you know.
Speaker 3: That's the mother of my children. That is my family
Speaker 3: for life. I have a tattoo on my finger that's
Speaker 3: the same team after my divorce because she and I
Speaker 3: are same team for life. It's what we say to
Speaker 3: each other. So no, I never thought that was about us.
Speaker 3: She never thought it was about us and everyone else.
Speaker 3: Kind of feeding into the fire.
Speaker 1: Great strategy move, but like, Nah, can we talk about
Speaker 1: your divorce?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, I'll decide if I want to answer.
Speaker 1: So you seem so fueled by success at least in
Speaker 1: your pre Hoffman life. Did you see divorce as a failure.
Speaker 2: At the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No one in my family had ever been divorced.
Speaker 3: And at that time I had built up this foundation
Speaker 3: of Scooter because I didn't think Scott was strong enough.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that yet.
Speaker 3: So having the perfect career, the perfect wife, the perfect life,
Speaker 3: the kids, the success, I thought.
Speaker 2: That made me worthy of love.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until our marriage came apart and I
Speaker 3: couldn't fix it. I felt like a failure because I
Speaker 3: didn't have a foundation. But it was the greatest thing
Speaker 3: that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2: Because the ups.
Speaker 3: And downs of artist's life, the tailor stuff, none of
Speaker 3: that actually affected me.
Speaker 2: Losing my marriage affected me.
Speaker 3: The idea of not being with my kids fifty percent
Speaker 3: of the time deeply affected me so much so that
Speaker 3: October twenty twenty, when I didn't really even understand what
Speaker 3: was going on.
Speaker 2: I had a suicidal thought at the height of my.
Speaker 3: Career for twenty minutes wow, because my marriage falling apart.
Speaker 2: No one really knew. I knew.
Speaker 3: I couldn't understand why, and I was like, man if
Speaker 3: I can't be the father to them and you know
Speaker 3: this life, I felt like I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 3: And after that twenty minutes went by, I was like,
Speaker 3: what the hell was that? That was really scary. I
Speaker 3: never want to feel like that ever again. And then
Speaker 3: the next day I actually opened up to a friend
Speaker 3: and he recommended Hoffmann and I went.
Speaker 2: Two weeks later.
Speaker 3: The same day, Arianna was releasing Dangerous Woman. But I
Speaker 3: just decided, you've done it this way for so long
Speaker 3: and look what it got you.
Speaker 2: You know, this deep depression. Now you've got to choose
Speaker 2: something else.
Speaker 3: And October twenty sixth I went into the Haffin process
Speaker 3: and started healing and got to this beautiful place where
Speaker 3: here I am six years later. Before, never divorced, no
Speaker 3: one ever said anything negative about me, and the press
Speaker 3: there was, everything online was very beautiful.
Speaker 2: There's nothing negative. Later I'm divorced.
Speaker 3: People talk about me constantly and I couldn't be happier.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't trade it in a million years, The relationship
Speaker 3: I have with my children, the relationship I have with
Speaker 3: my friends.
Speaker 2: Do I wish you know? Do you wish? Like you know?
Speaker 3: Certain things didn't happen because they were painful, absolutely, but
Speaker 3: they were so necessary.
Speaker 1: That must be weird though, when your insides don't match
Speaker 1: the outside.
Speaker 2: I didn't know because I didn't know how to be present.
Speaker 2: So I always kept moving because.
Speaker 3: I thought like, that's how other people, that's how I
Speaker 3: deserve love. And when I finally had to slow down
Speaker 3: because I couldn't control it anymore, I broke. I had
Speaker 3: no foundation, and that's when I had to put myself
Speaker 3: back together, and other people helped me. And Hoffin didn't
Speaker 3: fix me, but it started fixing me. And it started
Speaker 3: me on a journey to like study breathwork and study meditation,
Speaker 3: and do therapy and study stoicism and study kabbala and
Speaker 3: study all these different things that I'm still doing every
Speaker 3: single day today. You asked me about like being flawed,
Speaker 3: I'm still flawed. I'm still battling every single day.
Speaker 1: Do you battle?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: There's this book Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite books, and it's this idea of
Speaker 3: past lives, and one of the things.
Speaker 2: He talks about, you're life past life.
Speaker 3: It's more this idea that he says, you're here to learn,
Speaker 3: and usually when you go, it's because there's nothing more.
Speaker 2: For you to learn.
Speaker 3: The reason why I jump out of planes, like learning
Speaker 3: I jump learn how to jump solo for my forty
Speaker 3: second birthday, or like I'll go swim with sharks, it's
Speaker 3: because I know that I'm so screwed up and I'm
Speaker 3: still trying to learn every day that I really don't
Speaker 3: think it's my time to go because that book. So
Speaker 3: I believe I'm flawed like everyone else, because I still
Speaker 3: feel resistance. I still have moments where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: the ego wants to win, or I'm hurt, or I'm angry,
Speaker 3: or I'm disappointed or I'm like hurt by someone, and
Speaker 3: I'm always trying to go towards it because that's where
Speaker 3: the good stuff is. And as long as I keep
Speaker 3: having that resistance and keep having that hurt and keep
Speaker 3: having that struggle, I know I'm still in it.
Speaker 2: So I choose to it.
Speaker 1: When does that trigger come up randomly?
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a friend you know, is celebrating something and
Speaker 3: you see it online and you're like, was there a
Speaker 3: reason I wasn't, Like, like, you know, it's it could
Speaker 3: be on the other side of the country and you
Speaker 3: just feel like left out or something, or your insecurities
Speaker 3: make you think you have to do with something that
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 1: I'm more personal or professional for you.
Speaker 3: Personal, yeah, but it's also like the slightest thing of
Speaker 3: like sometimes it's an old thing that you think you
Speaker 3: were past and someone brings up an old wound and
Speaker 3: you were like, damn, I thought I was past that.
Speaker 2: But okay, I'm not. Let's keep working on this.
Speaker 3: And luckily I talked to a therapist once a week,
Speaker 3: which I never did when I was younger, and she
Speaker 3: keeps me extremely accountable. She calls me on my bullshit.
Speaker 3: She goes, no, you're dealing with that. I know you are,
Speaker 3: and I'm really grateful for her hit me with.
Speaker 2: The next time.
Speaker 1: No, there there's really none my I mean personally, I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to talk about this,
Speaker 1: but like Hive has since bought what is it called
Speaker 1: quality Control Music, so like you've since bought other people's Masters,
Speaker 1: and there's no headlines and no issues, so it didn't
Speaker 1: scare you away from it. Do you feel like there
Speaker 1: is like a legal moral way to do it that
Speaker 1: it doesn't work?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: I think on this side of my career, I think
Speaker 3: there's lots of things I realize about the laws of
Speaker 3: the music industry that don't make sense, you know, And
Speaker 3: I won't even talk from a master's point of view.
Speaker 3: I think masters is you get what you negotiate in
Speaker 3: the music business. It's kind of like the Wahwah West,
Speaker 3: and Masters is a way that major labels feel comfortable
Speaker 3: investing in artists because they don't participate in publishing. So
Speaker 3: by owning masters or participating in Masters, it gives them
Speaker 3: a reason to take a big risk and a chance
Speaker 3: on emerging artists and helping you break like that's the
Speaker 3: reward that they're.
Speaker 2: Signing up for.
Speaker 3: I'll give you an example though, on the publishing side
Speaker 3: that I disagree with and I actually wish it would change,
Speaker 3: and I've been a part of the problem in the past. Songwriters,
Speaker 3: I think that they're the most underpaid people in our industry.
Speaker 3: I think that they're for the melodies and the stories
Speaker 3: that we love. They're unseen and they're not rewarded the
Speaker 3: way they should. And I think that one of the
Speaker 3: problems when you're majing a major artist is unless that
Speaker 3: artist has a piece of the publishing, there's no way
Speaker 3: for the artists to protect their rights. So, for example,
Speaker 3: if an artist doesn't own a piece of the publishing,
Speaker 3: you can take the lyrics of their hit song and
Speaker 3: you can sell t shirts without.
Speaker 2: Them with any design you want because you own the publishing.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't protect the integrity of the artist's brand,
Speaker 3: or the design work, or all the thoughtfulness they went
Speaker 3: into creating their merch and protecting everything that they've worked
Speaker 3: hard on. But the only way to protect that artist
Speaker 3: is by demanding a piece of something that is a
Speaker 3: very small revenue stream that those songwriters need. I think
Speaker 3: that there should be a way to protect the performer
Speaker 3: and the rights of the performer while not taking away
Speaker 3: from the revenue stream of the songwriters. And that's something
Speaker 3: that I'd love to see happen and something that I
Speaker 3: realize now in this part of my career that while
Speaker 3: I was protecting my clients, I might not have always
Speaker 3: been doing the right thing by the songwriters because I
Speaker 3: was doing my job. But what I'd like to do
Speaker 3: on this side, if anyone want to advocate, I'd be
Speaker 3: right there with them, saying the laws need to be
Speaker 3: changed where you don't need to cut into someone's revenue
Speaker 3: stream to do the right thing by the performer.
Speaker 1: But even with labels, as much as it is true
Speaker 1: that they're taking all the risk, they're putting all the
Speaker 1: money up up front, they don't have anything without the artists.
Speaker 1: And all these young artists now like Chapel Rone just
Speaker 1: talked about it at the Grammys, they're like starting to
Speaker 1: wave their hands saying this isn't right, like the labels.
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to say it, but the
Speaker 1: labels like just have them.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 3: I think there's things about it that are wrong, and
Speaker 3: then there's things about it where, you know, how many
Speaker 3: artists who aren't successful are asking the label to keep
Speaker 3: investing millions of dollars in them when it's not worked yet, right,
Speaker 3: you know? So, I think there's always two sides of
Speaker 3: that coin. That sometimes the artist in their individual situation
Speaker 3: is spot on, But then what do you tell the
Speaker 3: other artists where you're saying, well, because they said this,
Speaker 3: I no longer have the revenue to take a chance
Speaker 3: to break your next favorite artist, you know. I think,
Speaker 3: like any business that needs to grow, it needs to change.
Speaker 3: There also needs to be stop fighting against technology and
Speaker 3: understanding technology can bring us new revenue streams that can
Speaker 3: change our business. I think people come really hard at
Speaker 3: Spotify and they're like, oh, they're not paying us correctly,
Speaker 3: But they also forget that if it wasn't for Daniel Leck,
Speaker 3: we wouldn't have the music industry value we have today.
Speaker 3: He saved a dying industry. He took a risk, and
Speaker 3: people are mad that he's done so well. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, if it wasn't for him and streaming
Speaker 3: and what Spotify did, we wouldn't be having in the
Speaker 3: revenue that we have right now. So it's always it's
Speaker 3: easy to kind of point fingers back and forth. I
Speaker 3: think it's better if we find ways to work together
Speaker 3: to create more more prosperity for everyone.
Speaker 1: Well, to your point, with streaming and so many independent labels,
Speaker 1: you artists need big labels anymore?
Speaker 2: I think it really depends on the case.
Speaker 3: I think sometimes a big a big label can use
Speaker 3: its power and its its strategy and boots on the
Speaker 3: ground around the world to actually make a difference for you.
Speaker 3: And sometimes you're able to break through using the internet
Speaker 3: and you can do you know, a distribution deal, And
Speaker 3: you know, I really think it depends on your needs.
Speaker 3: You know, some types of acts don't need a lot
Speaker 3: of money to tour or do things. Other acts need
Speaker 3: a tremendous amount of money to develop the music, videos,
Speaker 3: the strategy, the development every act is different.
Speaker 2: And I think that.
Speaker 3: You know, pointing fingers at each other while others make
Speaker 3: money off of all of us is not necessarily the
Speaker 3: most productive thing.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the TikTok isation of music?
Speaker 2: Too old? I mean, that's honestly the truth.
Speaker 3: I think when other people are coming on, they're like,
Speaker 3: what is this, and like, I'm getting to that age
Speaker 3: where I'm like, I don't understand the TikTok Like it's
Speaker 3: I'm too old, Like I'm not native to the technology anymore.
Speaker 3: So the same way my dad discovered vinyl, I discovered
Speaker 3: DJ Clu mixtapes. And you know, some kids today is
Speaker 3: discovering on TikTok. The one thing that has remained constant
Speaker 3: is the love of discovery of music. So I'm not
Speaker 3: going to bad mouth how a kid discovers music today
Speaker 3: because that's their generation.
Speaker 1: But artists are making music for TikTok. Do you remember
Speaker 1: in the Instagram era, everybody thought that Drake would make
Speaker 1: these songs just so we would all have Instagram captions.
Speaker 1: And whether that's true or not, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think all artists make songs for TikTok. I
Speaker 3: think artists, like art, take different mediums and date different
Speaker 3: types of art. So what I mean by that is
Speaker 3: there are some artists who are still making albums, there
Speaker 3: are other artists who are focused on singles, then there
Speaker 3: are artists who are focusing on TikTok. I think people
Speaker 3: make art specifically for the art they want to make,
Speaker 3: and we seem to judge it based on who makes
Speaker 3: the most revenue. That's been the biggest issue for me,
Speaker 3: not just with music.
Speaker 2: Across the board.
Speaker 3: Why are bachelor and bachelorette lists based on network and
Speaker 3: not kindness or you know, not even like if the
Speaker 3: person's a try active anymore. It's just like, seriously, it's
Speaker 3: like how much how rich are they?
Speaker 2: You know? And I think, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Bachelor and bachelorette.
Speaker 3: Lists Like when we look at them, like when you
Speaker 3: see the most eligible bachelors in the world, Oh, okay,
Speaker 3: you know they'll be like showing their net worth.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think that we've gotten women's beauty.
Speaker 3: It's like women's It's.
Speaker 2: So to me.
Speaker 3: What's interesting about AI if it really does take away
Speaker 3: a lot of.
Speaker 2: Jobs and does replace a lot of things.
Speaker 3: We've been a generation, the generation before us that's defined
Speaker 3: by what we do.
Speaker 2: The next generation might need to be defined by who
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 1: Interesting because if you get a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have more time on their hands, there's possibly like an
Speaker 1: artistic renaissance.
Speaker 3: Either artistic renaissance or we're gonna have to deal with
Speaker 3: ourselves and not just be defined with what we do.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Shakespeare says idle hands are the devil's
Speaker 1: play things.
Speaker 2: We're gonna find out.
Speaker 1: Okay, at the height of it, how many calls.
Speaker 3: I hope it's an artistic renaissance, like you said, and
Speaker 3: not idle hands.
Speaker 1: I hope so too. I think if AI, we don't
Speaker 1: have a great track record in America, but if AI
Speaker 1: gets into the right hands.
Speaker 3: Well, it seems to be in all our hands, especially
Speaker 3: with all the open source and everything that's happening. But look,
Speaker 3: the world's going to change drastically in the next couple
Speaker 3: of years, and we always seem a way of.
Speaker 2: Figuring it out and going on a new journey. And
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 3: There's going to be a lot of opportunity for experience
Speaker 3: and art and it's going to be an interesting world in.
Speaker 2: The next ten to fifteen years, if not sooner.
Speaker 1: At the height of your managerial career, how many calls
Speaker 1: were you making a day?
Speaker 3: Oh, it is all day emails, calls all day, like
Speaker 3: more than three hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably like over a thousand emails in texta day.
Speaker 1: And were you a zero in box guy?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How did you do it at nighttime?
Speaker 3: It was funny my assistant with jokereg in like two
Speaker 3: three in the morning. It was just like, this is
Speaker 3: just because I'd be answering everything.
Speaker 1: Wow, a scooter. What's it been like to work this hard?
Speaker 2: I've never been asked that. I don't think I knew
Speaker 2: any other way.
Speaker 3: For a really long time, the more interesting question has
Speaker 3: been what is it like to work different? The last
Speaker 3: couple of years learning how to be present, it's less
Speaker 3: a question of what to feel like to work that hard,
Speaker 3: and how nice it is now to be here. I
Speaker 3: don't think I knew how to be here. I think
Speaker 3: I knew how to live in the future. I think
Speaker 3: I knew how to prepare, pare for every single moment.
Speaker 3: I knew how to always be on getting ready, getting ready,
Speaker 3: getting ready, And that made me really good at business.
Speaker 1: But you took a breath when I said that. Tailed
Speaker 1: why because.
Speaker 3: I've learned how to exhale. That's the reason.
Speaker 2: It's when you're working so hard before, you.
Speaker 3: Don't know how to breathe. You don't know how to
Speaker 3: take a moment. You don't know how to not look
Speaker 3: at your phone. You're so afraid of what you're building,
Speaker 3: not working. It's like my grandparents' Holocaust survivors. Like you said,
Speaker 3: it was a lot of Holocaust trauma. Like tomorrow they're
Speaker 3: gonna come and.
Speaker 2: Take it all away. Yeah, And the last couple of years,
Speaker 2: the pain of the last.
Speaker 3: Couple of years forced me to learn how to be
Speaker 3: here and learn how to take a breath. And that
Speaker 3: has been really nice because the closest thing I can
Speaker 3: relate to that is being a kid.
Speaker 2: Is like being a kid.
Speaker 3: Who's riding a bike around his neighborhood, a kid who
Speaker 3: liked the ThunderCats and was silly and had fun and
Speaker 3: didn't have a phone yet. And it was a lot
Speaker 3: more joyous than I was in my adult years. And
Speaker 3: I've got that back then you.
Speaker 1: Had the playfulness though, like I mean, maybe it was
Speaker 1: just on Instagram, but.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I did.
Speaker 3: But I was afraid of tomorrow. I didn't know how
Speaker 3: to be here today. And so my friends feel like
Speaker 3: you haven't changed where They're like, now you're back. I
Speaker 3: didn't know how to be vulnerable. I didn't know how
Speaker 3: to like tell that, you know, what was really happening
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: I was protecting all the time, and now I'm a mess,
Speaker 3: just like you. It's fine.
Speaker 1: Did you shed people?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think that happens naturally. I don't really
Speaker 3: like shedding anybody, Like I'm just not built. They my
Speaker 3: friends actually say it's a problem, but I just think
Speaker 3: you get to a point where you realize it's okay.
Speaker 3: Like and I changed in a week, so I actually,
Speaker 3: at the same time shed people, I also know that
Speaker 3: they can change in a week and we could be
Speaker 3: friends all over it again, you know. So I give
Speaker 3: people the benefit it out the same way I'd want them.
Speaker 2: To do for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I was reading an article you and there
Speaker 1: was a blind quote and they said he's a good
Speaker 1: guy and can be ruthless in business. What's it like
Speaker 1: to hear me say.
Speaker 2: That that's their opinion?
Speaker 1: Is it true?
Speaker 2: I think that in my opinion, everyone who's ever.
Speaker 3: Done a deal with me has made a multiple I've
Speaker 3: never lost money for anyone.
Speaker 2: I've never screwed anybody.
Speaker 3: I take a lot of pride in the fact that,
Speaker 3: especially in his town, there are not many people that
Speaker 3: can say that every investor they had did well, every
Speaker 3: partner we had did well.
Speaker 2: That I'm still doing deals with those partners.
Speaker 3: I'll never apologize for fighting for our worth and some
Speaker 3: people might have found that that be a tough negotiator,
Speaker 3: but I always believe both sides can win, and in
Speaker 3: the end we got there and being great an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos says, you better expect to be misunderstood, and
Speaker 3: I'm okay with that. So when I hear it, I
Speaker 3: don't take any offense to it because that might have
Speaker 3: been their experience. But you know what they said, The
Speaker 3: most important thing I thought, I was good guy. So
Speaker 3: that's sweet, that's nice to them.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't ignore that part at at all.
Speaker 1: So someone you've done a few deals with said to me,
Speaker 1: Scooters able to determine what people want in a situation
Speaker 1: more than anyone. You wrote on Instagram that you like
Speaker 1: in meetings to ask people what their greed is? What
Speaker 1: do they want? Are you always cognizant of people's desires
Speaker 1: in your interactions with them?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: And it also makes things easier because people misunderstand the
Speaker 3: word greed. They think you know it's a dirty word
Speaker 3: because it's usually the thing that you feel shameful to say.
Speaker 3: But it's usually the thing I need to know to
Speaker 3: make the right deal. Sometimes greed is money. Sometimes greed
Speaker 3: is fame. Sometimes greed is I want to spend more
Speaker 3: time with my kids. Sometimes greed is I want to
Speaker 3: be seen for who I am. Sometimes greed is I
Speaker 3: want to make sure this charity I love makes money.
Speaker 2: You never know what the greed is, but if.
Speaker 3: Someone can just say it and stop hiding it, you
Speaker 3: can build a deal that works for everybody you know.
Speaker 3: And so for me, I try to push people to
Speaker 3: feel comfortable enough to say what they actually want, so.
Speaker 2: We can make a deal that works for everybody.
Speaker 1: And it served you. Yeah, you said, you asked Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos that what did he say?
Speaker 2: Asked him what what his greed was? I never asked
Speaker 2: him that. I probably should.
Speaker 3: I asked him what he wanted. I didn't ask the
Speaker 3: greed question, but I said, what do you want?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I here, I was looking at someone who I admired,
Speaker 3: who is misunderstood. You know, someone who has provided more
Speaker 3: jobs for this country than any person alive today. Someone
Speaker 3: who provided more jobs in covid than anybody. Someone who
Speaker 3: changed the minimum wage at the corporate level when the
Speaker 3: federal government wouldn't. He did, and other companies followed and
Speaker 3: changed into fifteen dollars because he said, we can actually
Speaker 3: do this. Someone who's built made trillions of dollars of
Speaker 3: wealth for other people, not just himself, but also as
Speaker 3: one of the most commercially successful people individually in the world.
Speaker 3: And I got to ask him, you know, what do
Speaker 3: you want? And he looked at me and he said,
Speaker 3: I want to evolve. I want to be more vulnerable.
Speaker 3: I want to be a better partner, I want to
Speaker 3: be a better father, I want to be a better friend,
Speaker 3: and I thought to myself, I don't need two hundred
Speaker 3: billion dollars to start that, and I felt like it
Speaker 3: was a cheat code. And I'm the reason I don't
Speaker 3: like to tell stories about certain people in my life.
Speaker 2: But I feel proud to tell that.
Speaker 3: Story about him because I hope more people hear it,
Speaker 3: because no one needs that level of wealth to start
Speaker 3: that journey.
Speaker 1: You seem really passionate about people doing self work. Is
Speaker 1: it because you feel so much better now?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: And I don't want them to be in the place
Speaker 3: that I was to start it. I had plenty of
Speaker 3: people who loved me trying to tell me to start
Speaker 3: self work, and I just didn't turn off the rat race.
Speaker 2: I said, I don't need that. Look at the whole
Speaker 2: world is telling.
Speaker 3: Me I'm great, So I'm great, and I refuse to
Speaker 3: hear that little voice inside of me that was like,
Speaker 3: come get me, we should start this.
Speaker 2: And I only started when I was in deep pain.
Speaker 3: So I talk about it a lot now because I
Speaker 3: don't wish that pain on anybody. And it's such an
Speaker 3: easy thing to start, and you don't have to be
Speaker 3: in pain to do so, so I kind of wish
Speaker 3: people start it before they get to.
Speaker 2: The place I was in.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you were in so much pain, you know what.
Speaker 2: I'm here now, so it's all good.
Speaker 1: What do you want moving forward? What's your agreed?
Speaker 3: I want people to stop asking me about past dramas.
Speaker 1: Maybe after this interview we can put it to bed.
Speaker 2: And maybe I would love that. Honestly, what do you
Speaker 2: really want?
Speaker 1: Like, no podcast answered, what do you actually want?
Speaker 3: I would like to build something that I could share
Speaker 3: with my children.
Speaker 2: Interesting, I'd like.
Speaker 3: To build something next that if they said, Dad, can
Speaker 3: we come do this with you? There's enough space for
Speaker 3: them to not only do it with me, but find
Speaker 3: themselves in it as well. And I could share my
Speaker 3: care creativity with them, Like if they wanted to do
Speaker 3: more of the business side, I could share that with them.
Speaker 2: Like I would like to do something that.
Speaker 3: If they choose to do their own thing, that's great,
Speaker 3: But if if there was an opportunity that they wanted
Speaker 3: to kind of do something with their dad.
Speaker 2: That would be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: You shared a lot of stories with me today about
Speaker 1: like a more Fati and Marcus Aurelius, and you seem
Speaker 1: to have these sort of like ASoP fables in you.
Speaker 1: You post some of them on Instagram. I'm wondering why
Speaker 1: being a storyteller is important to you or why stories
Speaker 1: matter to you.
Speaker 2: Does they have meaning?
Speaker 1: Is that how you learn?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 3: I think you learned from your own experiences, but I
Speaker 3: think you can learn a lot from stories. I think
Speaker 3: I loved always reading stories about great people to kind
Speaker 3: of like have cheat codes. Like the story Jeff gave me,
Speaker 3: that's a cheat code. Yeah, you know, here's someone who
Speaker 3: has all that and that's what they're looking for.
Speaker 2: That's a cheat code. Like great stories are a cheat code.
Speaker 3: Like my favorite story in the scripture was like two
Speaker 3: weeks ago in a parsha and like it's a cheat code,
Speaker 3: it's the story, Like do you.
Speaker 2: Know who actually parted the Red Sea? Who do you
Speaker 2: think Moses?
Speaker 3: People think Moses part of the Red Sea. Moses didn't
Speaker 3: part the Red Sea?
Speaker 2: Pharaoh, Nope. So the real story, I'm gonna go biblical
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 3: The real story is the Egyptians were coming and they're
Speaker 3: going to kill everybody, and everyone's freaking out, and Aaron
Speaker 3: and Moses are standing up there saying God says, trust him,
Speaker 3: go into the sea, and the sea is like choppy
Speaker 3: as hell. The current's crazy, like people go in, You're
Speaker 3: gonna die, and they're like Moses wants us to commit suicide,
Speaker 3: like this is We're not doing that. And Aaron's brother
Speaker 3: in law's name was not Sewan. He was the head
Speaker 3: of the tribe of Judah. He was this regular dude
Speaker 3: who was like the leader of his family. Something came
Speaker 3: over him and God said trust me and not shown
Speaker 3: not Moses walked into the sea and his family started
Speaker 3: screaming like, don't do this, You're gonna die, and it
Speaker 3: it wasn't until his mouth and his nose went under
Speaker 3: the water that God parted the sea. And it's like
Speaker 3: one of my favorite stories ever of this idea of
Speaker 3: trust and in life it's not until you go into
Speaker 3: a place that is unreasonable, into a place of danger.
Speaker 2: That shows up.
Speaker 3: And I love that story because that's like one of
Speaker 3: the greatest gifts. It's a cheat code of like that's life,
Speaker 3: you know, like success and failure live next door each other.
Speaker 3: You have to go into the resistance, you have to
Speaker 3: go into the fear, and it isn't until you put
Speaker 3: yourself into a place of unreasonable danger that usually the
Speaker 3: miracles happen, and I really like stories.
Speaker 1: That was a great one.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Oh it's not mine.
Speaker 1: I'm curious when you felt the closest to that fear
Speaker 1: and success. I mean, I've heard you talk about with
Speaker 1: Bieber like you were basically down in your last dollar
Speaker 1: at Asher and justin Yeah, but is there anything later
Speaker 1: in your career where it felt that way, Like were
Speaker 1: you really felt like you were taking a big risk?
Speaker 3: My life change after that where I'll admit it, like
Speaker 3: I have the luck of not being in that financial
Speaker 3: position ever again after that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Like I think, it's not just about finance.
Speaker 2: It's about all aspects of your life.
Speaker 3: It's about going towards When I did the self work
Speaker 3: for the first time, I was lost and I went
Speaker 3: in to do something that was so out of character,
Speaker 3: that was so surrender, which I never did before. And
Speaker 3: it wasn't until I put myself in surrender in a
Speaker 3: place of being vulnerable in front of strangers that I
Speaker 3: started to actually have the healing and the miracles take place.
Speaker 3: So I can talk about it from a business standpoint,
Speaker 3: but the most powerful in my life has actually been
Speaker 3: you know, understanding that I'm not completely in control and
Speaker 3: that I've actually been taking care of Most of us
Speaker 3: have been taking care of our whole lives. So, for example,
Speaker 3: if you mind I ask you a question. Sure, okay,
Speaker 3: what if you had a friend your entire life who
Speaker 3: every single time, every single time you've got in a
Speaker 3: bad position where you didn't think you were gonna make it,
Speaker 3: that friend showed up and said, I will take care
Speaker 3: of it. And now you're this age and you're back
Speaker 3: in that position where it's the worst it's ever been.
Speaker 3: You feel like it's the worst it's ever been, and
Speaker 3: like you cannot control it. It's gonna fall apart, You're screwed.
Speaker 3: And this friend comes to you and goes, Okay, listen,
Speaker 3: this one need you to do. I've earned this. I
Speaker 3: need you to completely trust me. You have no control
Speaker 3: of the situation. I need you completely surrender and I'll
Speaker 3: fix it. Could you do it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You really?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm proud of you because most people are going to
Speaker 3: be like complete control, like, yeah, the friend can help me,
Speaker 3: but like I'm talking, you're not even allowed to know.
Speaker 2: You have to just say I trust and fall back.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm really proud because you're an evolved person.
Speaker 1: In some ways to me, that's the universe.
Speaker 2: That's God.
Speaker 3: Like, how many times have all of us in our life.
Speaker 3: If you're at an age of like over twenty, over thirty,
Speaker 3: you've already had enough like experienced that There's been so
Speaker 3: many points in your life, Yeah, where you thought there's
Speaker 3: just no getting out of this, so many of them
Speaker 3: that you've forgotten at this point because they've been healed
Speaker 3: since where you thought it was the end of the
Speaker 3: world and it's far years later and you've removed.
Speaker 2: And every single time steps up.
Speaker 3: So now I got to a point in my life
Speaker 3: where it was like, okay, cool, you think you've been
Speaker 3: controlling this, but I've actually been the one helping you
Speaker 3: the whole time, So can you just fall back and
Speaker 3: let me help you? And I finally gone and got
Speaker 3: to the point and I work on that every day
Speaker 3: because you say, yeah, I'm still working on full surrender.
Speaker 2: I'm not there yet. You're better than me.
Speaker 1: No, not full. But the caveat is had I not been,
Speaker 1: had I not had those moments, I couldn't have said yes.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we've all had those moments, and I'm
Speaker 3: still not able to say fully yes.
Speaker 2: It's the thing I'm working on every day.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I'm shocked to hear.
Speaker 2: That I'm better at it, but like, because.
Speaker 1: You had to surrender your whole life.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I still struggle with it because it's scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so much better than it was. But it's
Speaker 2: scary every single time because what if they're not going
Speaker 2: to be there? But they've proven you know, God, universe
Speaker 2: has proven me a thousand times.
Speaker 3: It is Yeah, that's called faith, and I think I'm
Speaker 3: still working on that.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone in your life who has like, really
Speaker 1: really beautiful faith that you admire, that you look to.
Speaker 2: My mom does really believe in the goodness in people.
Speaker 3: Obviously it will change that they get older, but because
Speaker 3: of my kids are still kids, I get.
Speaker 2: To see it in them.
Speaker 1: You've been behind some of the most iconic careers of
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. When someone asks your eldest son
Speaker 1: what his father does, what do you.
Speaker 2: Hope he says, he's Jagger's dad.
Speaker 1: I have some rapid fire questions for you, something that
Speaker 1: really scares you whatever.
Speaker 2: The first that was health for my family.
Speaker 1: The biggest misconception about.
Speaker 2: You that I control everything and I'm a crazy man.
Speaker 1: Wish you knew when you started out in the music
Speaker 1: industry that I don't control shit. What's a risk you're
Speaker 1: glad you took even if it didn't work out.
Speaker 2: I tried.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: I just got out there and tried.
Speaker 1: Do you believe in karma?
Speaker 3: Yes, but in a way that it's teaching you, never
Speaker 3: hurting you say more.
Speaker 2: I think karma.
Speaker 3: I believe that like all of us are on our journey,
Speaker 3: and I think karma's there to give us corrections, never
Speaker 3: to hurt us.
Speaker 2: It's always to teach us. I like that.
Speaker 1: What's something everyone should try once?
Speaker 3: The first thing that came to mind with skydiving, But
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: I can't. If you were a tree, what kind of
Speaker 1: tree would you be?
Speaker 2: Oka and olive?
Speaker 1: Something that you've changed your mind about recently, or an.
Speaker 2: Orange tree i'd like to give people. Yeah, yeah, probably
Speaker 2: an orange.
Speaker 1: Tree, just like lasting fruit. Yeah, something you've changed your
Speaker 1: mind about recently.
Speaker 2: One thing I've changed my mind about recently.
Speaker 3: I was doing like a really healthy diet and yesterday
Speaker 3: I was like, screw this, I want that cookie. So
Speaker 3: I changed my mind about the diet yesterday and I
Speaker 3: ate the cookie.
Speaker 1: Okay, a book that changed your life, something you think
Speaker 1: everybody should read.
Speaker 2: Many Lives, Many Masters, that's a really good one.
Speaker 1: You grab the question Everything card game and pick a
Speaker 1: card which everyone speaks to you this is the one.
Speaker 2: Or you're okay. What's your superpower?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I think I try to see people. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: my superpower is I think sometimes superpowers can hurt you,
Speaker 3: and that's a good thing. So I think my superpower
Speaker 3: is deep down, I really just want everyone to be okay.
Speaker 3: That's my superpower. I get people to benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 3: I actually just want I don't like conflict with people
Speaker 3: like I. I want everyone to be okay. I want
Speaker 3: people to get along. And I think even when people
Speaker 3: are treating you know, even when my friends think I
Speaker 3: shouldn't be like that, I'd rather be that way.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because usually what we give people is what
Speaker 1: we need most.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: See, I just want to be okay and understood. Maybe
Speaker 3: this is a great therapy session.
Speaker 1: Music takes Okay, these are gonna be fun. An album
Speaker 1: you listen to No.
Speaker 3: Skips Lauren Hill Miseducational larn Hill Usher Confessions.
Speaker 2: Another one No Skips that's a good one too.
Speaker 1: Okay, Three albums to listen to for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 3: One I just named, well, I'll name other ones. Three
Speaker 3: albums the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: Tribe. God, that's so hard.
Speaker 3: I know, albums rest of your life just because you
Speaker 3: know named my kid after Sticky Fingers by the Stones
Speaker 3: and Born to Run or Springsteen.
Speaker 1: Obama would agree with you. AI good or bad for
Speaker 1: the music industry.
Speaker 2: I think things of all of them. When we fight them,
Speaker 2: we get in trouble.
Speaker 1: So could Spotify or Apple Music.
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of both companies, but I have been
Speaker 3: a long term supporter and shareholder of Spotify, and I
Speaker 3: think what Daniel.
Speaker 2: Did is remarkable.
Speaker 1: Who's an artist we should all have our eye on?
Speaker 1: Scarlet Opera first CD or tape? You ever bought?
Speaker 2: Kevin Campbell the single Round and Round.
Speaker 1: A song you wish you had discovered? Oh excuse me,
Speaker 1: a singer you wish you had discovered or managed?
Speaker 2: First? I mean alive or dead?
Speaker 1: And you're saying, yeah, an artist you wish you had managed.
Speaker 2: I don't ever want to manage again.
Speaker 1: But in the past, is there ever someone that you
Speaker 1: really wanted on your roster that you never got I'm good.
Speaker 2: I had a great run. I'm good.
Speaker 3: That's my answer to the question, like I don't have
Speaker 3: that wish anymore. I had an amazing run, I had
Speaker 3: an incredible management career. I'm good, and I think everyone
Speaker 3: was with the person they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, peace, love and happy endings. Okay, an artists, people
Speaker 1: would be surprised that you love George Benson a concert
Speaker 1: that blew your mind, Michael Jackson bad an artist that
Speaker 1: you think is still underrated even after all their success.
Speaker 2: Tory Kelly.
Speaker 1: I agree. I also put Mario in there, Miguel.
Speaker 2: But I just I'm saying Tori toy. I've worked with Tory.
Speaker 3: I think she's one of the most remarkable voices of
Speaker 3: all time. And you talk about underrated Tory.
Speaker 1: Kelly lyric that lives rent free in.
Speaker 3: Your head, cooler than a polar bear's toenails. Oh hell,
Speaker 3: there he goes again, talking that shit scooter, thank you
Speaker 3: or I'm from Jamaica, Queens where I beat you up
Speaker 3: and take your jeans.
Speaker 2: I always thought that was a funny line.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is, Today's a good day.
Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week,