Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: All the major forms of current pop music came out
Speaker 2: of the South, country, blues, rock, jazz. What happens here
Speaker 2: travels well, but it always doesn't get the understanding of
Speaker 2: the depth of how important it is and the true
Speaker 2: artistic value of the artists involved.
Speaker 3: I am Bob Pittman and welcome to Math and Magic.
Speaker 3: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Today. We're going to
Speaker 3: explore some entrepreneurship and specifically about the modern music business
Speaker 3: and how country has evolved to be the biggest music format.
Speaker 3: Our guest is the founder, president and CEO of the
Speaker 3: Big Machine label group and also the founder of Big
Speaker 3: Machine Distillery. Scott is a Southern California kid of the
Speaker 3: sixties and seventies bicycle, motocross and skateboarding and empty pools.
Speaker 3: By the way, he's still a racer. Will dig it
Speaker 3: that more later. His dad was in the music business,
Speaker 3: so he grew up with the big stars of those
Speaker 3: days stopping by his house. He has been there at
Speaker 3: the beginning for artists and assigned deals with Tim McGraw,
Speaker 3: Jewel Lady, a, Zach Brownband, Thomas Rhett Florida, Georgia, Lyne
Speaker 3: and many more. He was also a mentor on American Idol.
Speaker 3: He is a strategic and flexible thinker who runs a
Speaker 3: tight ship. He gets things done. It's not just about ideas,
Speaker 3: it's about execution. Best of all, he's a good guy
Speaker 3: and good friend. Scott.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Thank you, Bob. It's great to do this.
Speaker 3: Now, before we jump into the meaty topics, I'd like
Speaker 3: to do you in sixty seconds. Ready, let's rock. Do
Speaker 3: you prefer Nashville or La Nashville, Early Riser or night Eye?
Speaker 3: Both listening to music or playing music? Now it's listening dogs,
Speaker 3: are cats, Dougs, mountains or beach beach? Vinyl or streaming, streaming,
Speaker 3: cooking or ordering in country or rock.
Speaker 4: Depends on the mood. I'm gonna say both.
Speaker 3: Watching car races or racing cars.
Speaker 4: For me, racing Okay, it's.
Speaker 3: About to get harder. What was your first.
Speaker 2: Job working at a bicycle motocross store building bikes?
Speaker 3: Favored radio station from.
Speaker 4: Your youth k me et Tweedledee.
Speaker 3: When do you do your best thinking?
Speaker 2: It's shutting the door in my office and getting into
Speaker 2: my own groove.
Speaker 3: What was the first record you ever bought stuck in
Speaker 3: the middle with you? What was your first concert?
Speaker 2: It would be Kiss at the Fabulous Forum in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six.
Speaker 3: Final one. If you could be anybody else, who would
Speaker 3: you be?
Speaker 4: Mick Dagger?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's jump out big topic, country music. Why does
Speaker 3: it not get the attention or respect it deserves? Biggest
Speaker 3: radio music format, huge artists, sold out tours in the
Speaker 3: middle of the culture of this country. But when I
Speaker 3: look at what the media covers or what marketing references
Speaker 3: is in they're advertising, it doesn't even come close to
Speaker 3: reflecting that. Why is that?
Speaker 2: You know, you really touched on it. It's what the
Speaker 2: culture of the middle of the country is all about.
Speaker 2: It's not really very often, if ever, the shiny, sparkly thing.
Speaker 2: It's something that's consistent. It's telling the stories of blue
Speaker 2: collar predominantly and based in southern culture. We're not on
Speaker 2: the West coast, we're not on the East coast as
Speaker 2: far as our headquarters. When you match that up to
Speaker 2: the national buyers of advertising, etc. We're not there, unfortunately
Speaker 2: in a meaningful way as often as we need to be.
Speaker 4: And we're a little bit older.
Speaker 2: Demographic for a business that's going to go after a
Speaker 2: younger demographic. We're predominantly not going to be the first one.
Speaker 2: But it's always great when my friends from both coasts
Speaker 2: come to visit, hang out a little bit, do some
Speaker 2: business with us. They're always blown away at how great
Speaker 2: the Nashville system is. Everything here in Nashville is connected.
Speaker 2: The Country Music Hall of Fame remains completely relevant, as
Speaker 2: does the Grand Ole Opry because it's all centered here,
Speaker 2: and the younger artists really have a great knowledge and
Speaker 2: respect for that connective tissue.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting the most populated part of the
Speaker 3: United States is now the South, and I'm not sure
Speaker 3: people have turned their focus to it. Do you think
Speaker 3: that this feeling we have about country music is sort
Speaker 3: of respect issue or do you think it's just lack
Speaker 3: of knowledge.
Speaker 2: All the major forms of current pop music came out
Speaker 2: of the South, country, blues, rock, jazz. What happens here
Speaker 2: travels well, but it always doesn't get the understanding of
Speaker 2: the depth of how important it is and the true
Speaker 2: artistic value of the artists involved.
Speaker 4: You know a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Still say this, and I've been hearing this for forty years.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, I don't really like country music, but
Speaker 2: I like that. It's like, well, Morgan Wallin is country music.
Speaker 2: So it's almost a guilty pleasure in some places. In
Speaker 2: some circles, it's just not cool to like country music.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that stigma is. If you look
Speaker 2: at some of those southern inflections and the stereotypical aspect
Speaker 2: of that, you could point it's like, well, people think
Speaker 2: it's cheesy or that it's phony, and that was the
Speaker 2: entertainment part of it. But you know, the people who
Speaker 2: think that haven't gone past the cover of the book
Speaker 2: to see what an amazing, fluid and important music this
Speaker 2: is not to just North America but to many parts.
Speaker 4: Of the world.
Speaker 3: So what's the biggest barrier to elevating country music to
Speaker 3: its rightful place?
Speaker 4: Continued exposures.
Speaker 2: There's always a star that starts to shine, So that
Speaker 2: gets what my job is, like, Okay, what's on the periphery.
Speaker 2: Who's that one artist or two artists that are it's
Speaker 2: going to be so strong and it's going to pull
Speaker 2: the mainstream to them. We've become arguably the best place
Speaker 2: in the world for young musicians to come and be
Speaker 2: able to work playing music. That's what Nashville has become.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean, Well, that means the next
Speaker 2: one's coming. It's right under our nose.
Speaker 3: So let's jump a little bit. In the mid nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: you worked for Mary Tyler Moor's record label. Much of
Speaker 3: the nineties, you were at MCA Records Nashville. You were
Speaker 3: by the way at that point, on a mission to
Speaker 3: make it number one, and you did. MCA was label
Speaker 3: of the Year every year you were there, even Label
Speaker 3: of the Decade, and so first question is how did
Speaker 3: you do that.
Speaker 2: I was playing in rock bands when I moved to Nashville,
Speaker 2: and so rock's a big part of my DNA. So
Speaker 2: when I came here and discovered Whyland and Willie, that's
Speaker 2: what brought me into country. And then once I got
Speaker 2: into the game and doing promotion at Mary Tyler Moore,
Speaker 2: I was one of just two promotion people and we
Speaker 2: were slaying the major label dragons, just the two of
Speaker 2: us working with indies, and so I was able to
Speaker 2: envision how to win this at a very young age.
Speaker 2: And then I went independent in nineteen eighty nine and
Speaker 2: I became the number one independent promotion guy in Nashville.
Speaker 4: Pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: I was part of breaking the Kentucky Headhunters and Dwight
Speaker 2: Yoakum and Carlene Carter, and then I started looking at, Okay,
Speaker 2: what is my next move? And at that time my
Speaker 2: two favorite artist rosters were MCA and Warner Brothers, and
Speaker 2: so I went to MCA in January of nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: and it was one of those things walking in like, Okay.
Speaker 2: I always joke that when you're an Indy you learn
Speaker 2: how to turn water into wine. So I walk into MCA,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't have to turn water into wine.
Speaker 2: You guys have wine.
Speaker 4: We could go.
Speaker 2: So walking in coming from nothing as far as leverage
Speaker 2: and tools to George Straight and Reba McIntyre and Vince
Speaker 2: Gill and Whyonah Judd, It's like, can I this toolbox
Speaker 2: over in the corner. I don't see you guys going
Speaker 2: over that. Can I use those tools and like run
Speaker 2: like hell? And so what I did is very specifically.
Speaker 2: Aristo was our big competition at that point, and so
Speaker 2: I was scheduling all the singles, and so I would go, Okay,
Speaker 2: George Straight for Alan Jackson, Vince Gale for Brooks and Dunn,
Speaker 2: We're gonna match them Superstar for Superstar. Where we're going
Speaker 2: to win is breaking new artists. So I had a
Speaker 2: huge focus on breaking Marty Stewart. I'm breaking David Lee Murphy,
Speaker 2: I'm breaking why Nona Judd as a solo artist, I'm
Speaker 2: breaking Trisha Yearwood. I made sure that our front line
Speaker 2: was throwing smoke at all times, and then building up
Speaker 2: that next bench and that next strength. You couldn't catch us.
Speaker 3: You left MCA and then you started DreamWorks Nashville with
Speaker 3: Randy Travis. As you're first signing, you were hot right
Speaker 3: out of the box. Now, the ironic twist is in
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, MCA bought DreamWorks and you were
Speaker 3: back at MCA, and by then I think they'd gone cold.
Speaker 3: You brought them back again as the head of promotion
Speaker 3: and artist development. And what I think is more interesting
Speaker 3: is you were on fire, but for some reason you
Speaker 3: had this spark that that was the moment that you
Speaker 3: wanted your own label. Why what ignited.
Speaker 4: That, Well, it really started at DreamWorks.
Speaker 2: At that point, there weren't a lot of new labels
Speaker 2: in the business, and so at dream Works, you know
Speaker 2: having the ability, you know, looking at the landscape looking
Speaker 2: at the assets that we had. We're full entertainment company.
Speaker 2: So I used every weapon that the movie company had
Speaker 2: with premieres and all that stuff, and brought that show
Speaker 2: business to radio like one of my heroes, Bob Pittman does.
Speaker 2: And so we came out of the box smoking. We
Speaker 2: took over one of the biggest hotels at the time,
Speaker 2: the Hermitage Hotel, and re christened at the DreamWorks Hotel,
Speaker 2: to the point where we had flags made up and
Speaker 2: we're flying DreamWorks flags at the hotel, and we had
Speaker 2: all the pds and mds stay with us.
Speaker 4: We launched like a nuclear bomb.
Speaker 2: And so James Stroud, who was the president of the label,
Speaker 2: he was more of a producer than he really was
Speaker 2: a label heead And what was great about that is
Speaker 2: he did the things he wanted to do and really
Speaker 2: didn't love the day to day of operations, and so
Speaker 2: I would take a little bit more of that every day.
Speaker 2: It's like, James, I got that, man, if you're good
Speaker 2: with this, you keep doing your thing and I'm going
Speaker 2: to learn the rest of this. So being at DreamWorks
Speaker 2: and James Stroud giving me so much rope to learn,
Speaker 2: not only promotion, which we had mastered, but learned the
Speaker 2: next level of marketing, next level of sales, distribution, publicity,
Speaker 2: all those things that it's like, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 2: acquire all these skills and knowledge because at some point
Speaker 2: I'm going to grab this by the neck and lead it.
Speaker 4: And so that leads to.
Speaker 2: January of two thousand and four, they come in and
Speaker 2: say we're being purchased by Universal and MCA and Universal
Speaker 2: were ice cold. This is April now, two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: Riba had not had a number one single since I
Speaker 2: left in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 4: It was painful for me to watch.
Speaker 2: Not only was she one of my dear friends, but
Speaker 2: we had achieved incredible success and something that a lot
Speaker 2: of major labels still do is they take their superstars
Speaker 2: for granted.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, you know what.
Speaker 2: It's time for us to return Riba to number one.
Speaker 2: We put together the plan. To this day, it's historic
Speaker 2: because we had the biggest ever spin increase in the
Speaker 2: history of the Billboard chart, and that's when it was
Speaker 2: done by spins, and we jumped from I think number
Speaker 2: six to number one and we knocked out Tim Murgrau
Speaker 2: lived like you were dying which was the biggest song
Speaker 2: of the two thousands. We turned that place on its head.
Speaker 2: We had the number one on every all three imprints
Speaker 2: within the first sixty days, and you know, just breaking
Speaker 2: sugar Land and Gary Allen for turning Terry Clark to.
Speaker 4: A number one.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, we had that place just on fire.
Speaker 2: And I started thinking about, Okay, now's my next move.
Speaker 4: Because I was looking what everybody was doing.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what, I've got no place where
Speaker 2: I feel I can compete with all of these guys.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of them are any smarter or
Speaker 2: any more wise. It's time for me to jump into
Speaker 2: the driver's seat. And so I started putting together a prospectus,
Speaker 2: and I started having meetings with investors, and while I
Speaker 2: was doing it on the QT, I wasn't hiding it
Speaker 2: because I was in the last year of my deal.
Speaker 2: And so we get to January of five, and so
Speaker 2: I was meeting with the two co presidents of Universal
Speaker 2: Nashville and they said, hey, you know, we know you
Speaker 2: want to run your own label, but we'd like you
Speaker 2: to stay where you are and give you a bunch
Speaker 2: more money. And I'm like, I appreciate that, but I'm
Speaker 2: not going to do that, and so we pretty much
Speaker 2: defined my exit at that point.
Speaker 3: So let's jump to you officially start Big Machine and
Speaker 3: just put it in perspective for again, for people that
Speaker 3: don't know the music business. You've sold almost two hundred
Speaker 3: million albums worldwide, I think, and you've had over one
Speaker 3: hundred singles at the top of the charts. So let's
Speaker 3: start with the name big Machine. Where did that come from?
Speaker 4: So it comes from two places.
Speaker 2: At that time, I was racing in the NASCAR Weekly
Speaker 2: Series and I was a three time NASCAR Weekly Series champion,
Speaker 2: and so when the car was really good, we say,
Speaker 2: hey man, we got a hot ride.
Speaker 4: We got a big machine.
Speaker 2: And then the other thing that kind of took the
Speaker 2: scales was that great song by Velvet Revolver Big Machine,
Speaker 2: just this big, powerful rock anthem. And I'm like, you
Speaker 2: know what, let's just declare ourselves a big machine, all
Speaker 2: thirteen of us. I always joked that I never told
Speaker 2: the staff at that point.
Speaker 4: That we weren't a big machine. It's like, we are
Speaker 4: a big machine, go forth and conquer.
Speaker 3: So how did you operate differently from other music companies.
Speaker 2: One of the things I think about in that moment
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands, is just the waste, you know,
Speaker 2: and waste of physical product of all the junk, and
Speaker 2: just looking at how the spending wasn't lined aligned properly.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the leaders of the business
Speaker 2: in that moment, they didn't see streaming coming. It was
Speaker 2: a very polar moment for me because every week at
Speaker 2: DreamWorks we would be on with the entire company and
Speaker 2: the Napster conversation came up. So I said, hey, have
Speaker 2: you guys been on this? This is amazing. They didn't
Speaker 2: give it a chance to be a flower or a weed.
Speaker 2: They just said kill it, Scott. If that's on your computer,
Speaker 2: you get it off your computer right now and do
Speaker 2: not put it back on. And I'm like, this Genie's
Speaker 2: out of the bottle man.
Speaker 4: And so that was.
Speaker 2: A big, big cast flag to me. I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: they do not see where it's going, and it has
Speaker 2: officially passed our current leaders by I can't go down
Speaker 2: with this ship because physical distribution was turning into not
Speaker 2: a joke but a joke in certain ways. So it's like,
Speaker 2: this is the future. We better figure this out.
Speaker 3: I was at MTV. When someone brought in some CD
Speaker 3: players from Japan, we had to actually have a power
Speaker 3: transformer to play them on our electricity to show us
Speaker 3: what it was. We all got one and it was interesting.
Speaker 3: The lawyers at that moment said we have to kill
Speaker 3: it because this master quality recording will be good enough
Speaker 3: that the pirates can steal everything. And a couple of
Speaker 3: people said, it is coming. We can't fight it. We
Speaker 3: should embrace it. It'll be good for us. And as
Speaker 3: you know, the nineties were the go go years of
Speaker 3: the record business because everybody bought a CD and I
Speaker 3: don't think they had ever had anything quite like that.
Speaker 3: So the business people won, not the lawyers. And I
Speaker 3: remember when Napster came, it was sort of the same thing,
Speaker 3: that no, we can't do this because basically coming from
Speaker 3: a legal point of view. And what was interesting was
Speaker 3: at that moment the lawyers won, not the business people.
Speaker 3: And as you know, the music business probably stunted for
Speaker 3: five to ten years because they missed that moment and
Speaker 3: had to catch up a little bit more Mathet magic
Speaker 3: right after this quick break, Welcome back to Math the Magic.
Speaker 3: Let's hear more from my conversation with Scott Boshadow, I
Speaker 3: want to go back in time a little bit to
Speaker 3: your youth, just to get some context. You were born
Speaker 3: in southern California in the California Heyday sixties and seventies,
Speaker 3: and you actually got us start in racing at that time,
Speaker 3: racing BMX bikes and then went on the quarter midget cars.
Speaker 3: Describe that time and place for us.
Speaker 2: Going back to those southern California years, we just lived outside,
Speaker 2: you know, we were on our motocross bikes all the time.
Speaker 2: And once we got into skateboarding, what happened is we
Speaker 2: would hear about a pool in the valley somewhere and
Speaker 2: there was this group of us like, okay, let's meet
Speaker 2: there at three o'clock, and you know, whether it was
Speaker 2: an abandoned home and we'd clean the pool out and
Speaker 2: skate in it, or if there was a pool that
Speaker 2: was empty or that it was dirty, had been swimming
Speaker 2: and whatever. And so then we'd go back around to
Speaker 2: the front door, knock on the door. Person comes to
Speaker 2: the doors, and we would hustle them basically said hey,
Speaker 2: if you'll let us skate in your pool for a week,
Speaker 2: we will clean it. So it was always like Okay,
Speaker 2: where's the next one. It's like finding the next great
Speaker 2: concrete wave. Just being Southern California kids. You know, you
Speaker 2: don't realize it when you're doing it, but we were
Speaker 2: real culture leaders with all that, going from BMX to
Speaker 2: skateboard culture to the music culture, which we were just
Speaker 2: surrounded by it. You know, what was happening with punk rock,
Speaker 2: and then what happened when Motley Crue took over LA
Speaker 2: and going to Guns n' Roses, and so it was
Speaker 2: always there. And once I got old enough, we were
Speaker 2: in Hollywood all the time, three or four nights a week,
Speaker 2: whether going to the Starwood or the Whiskey, or Gazaries
Speaker 2: or the Rainbow Roxy, all those clubs down there. You know,
Speaker 2: I can go right back there. I mean I could
Speaker 2: feel the sunshine on my facetop.
Speaker 3: So you quoted as saying you had good grades but
Speaker 3: were an angry, rebellious kid who was kind of anti everything.
Speaker 3: You dropped out of college, by the way, a trait
Speaker 3: we see often on the Entrepreneurs here on Mathem Magic.
Speaker 3: You started playing bass in a new way bands, country
Speaker 3: punk bands. What was the peak of your career as
Speaker 3: a musician and why did you stop doing that.
Speaker 2: The reason I left LA in nineteen eighty one is
Speaker 2: that I felt like I knew what was going on there,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to see what else was going on.
Speaker 2: And my intent was to come to Nashville for the summer,
Speaker 2: where my dad had moved in nineteen seventy nine. And
Speaker 2: so I was here in Nashville for a few weeks
Speaker 2: and one of the independent artists that my dad was
Speaker 2: working needed a bass player. And I'm like, it's a
Speaker 2: country I don't know because they're on tour. I'm like,
Speaker 2: they're on tour, nineteen years old.
Speaker 4: Game on.
Speaker 2: So I went in auditioned, got the gig, and bob.
Speaker 2: It was so great because I had really never been
Speaker 2: out of southern California for very much, and it was
Speaker 2: seeing the rest of the country and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, I'm like, oh my god, it opened that
Speaker 2: aperture of my existence exponentially. I really didn't know my
Speaker 2: place yet, I knew, I was determined. I knew that
Speaker 2: I was not going to be poor. I hated growing
Speaker 2: up in southern California not having money, and so I
Speaker 2: did that for eight months. I traveled through thirty eight
Speaker 2: states in eight months, and when I came back to Nashville, like,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm home. And so I started building
Speaker 2: working for my dad. During the day, I still was
Speaker 2: playing in bands, rock bands.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: We had a couple fun moments where we had some
Speaker 2: great record company showcases. We opened up for Cheap Trick
Speaker 2: and a couple other big artists. We made some of
Speaker 2: our own independent records, but we never got signed. We
Speaker 2: never got that next break. And it's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be a rock star. I see it,
Speaker 2: I'm friends with it. That's not my strength. And I
Speaker 2: started allowing myself to follow the energy because I tried
Speaker 2: to stay out of the record business because my dad
Speaker 2: wasn't it and I didn't want to follow in his footsteps.
Speaker 4: And I wanted to be my own man.
Speaker 2: And when I stopped fighting, that is when my record
Speaker 2: career really just started to take off.
Speaker 3: So let's jump to some of your philosophies. Company culture.
Speaker 3: The first time I visited the Big Machine offices in Nashville,
Speaker 3: I was probably most struck by what a cohesive and
Speaker 3: passionate culture there was throughout the building and among everyone
Speaker 3: I met. How do you build a company culture?
Speaker 2: You know, it's a gut feel for me because it's
Speaker 2: not something for me personally that I can put a list.
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, you check all these boxes, You're going
Speaker 2: to fit perfectly. It's the same way with signing artists.
Speaker 2: I know most of the time within the first five
Speaker 2: ten minutes, is this somebody I want to work with?
Speaker 2: Is this an artist I want to sign? I like
Speaker 2: people who are very matter of fact and passionate about
Speaker 2: what we do.
Speaker 4: And also, I'm not.
Speaker 2: One who's out for credit on any day of any week.
Speaker 2: I'm truly It's not a cliche when I say it.
Speaker 2: I'm a team builder, and I am inclusive and I
Speaker 2: am transparent, and that is really kind of the foundation
Speaker 2: of the culture because when everybody knows what's going on,
Speaker 2: when the goals are as clear as can be and
Speaker 2: you've got the passion to execute, That's how I built
Speaker 2: all of my companies.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about creative artists. You obviously deal with
Speaker 3: them day in and day out. It's your job. What's
Speaker 3: the secret for people who don't deal with them but
Speaker 3: find themselves there? What advice can you give them?
Speaker 2: I always say, there's an artist's language, and you can
Speaker 2: learn it, but because I was around it from such
Speaker 2: a young age, you know, it came natural. So it's
Speaker 2: really talking to them about trying to look at things
Speaker 2: through their eyes, adding in creative thought. And it's never
Speaker 2: ever putting an artist in the corner saying you have
Speaker 2: to do this. If you don't do this, then it's
Speaker 2: never going to happen. It's like, here's the playing field,
Speaker 2: here are the options. I'm going to tell you right now.
Speaker 2: There's not a wrong decision. There's just a better decision.
Speaker 2: But whatever you decide, it's your name that's on the marquee.
Speaker 2: I'm here to help you try to make the best decision.
Speaker 3: So about fifteen years ago I started Costan Tregonez Tequila
Speaker 3: with my partner Vitta Gonzalez, and the one thing I
Speaker 3: learned is it's not for the faint of heart, So
Speaker 3: tell us why you have big machine distillery.
Speaker 2: So the idea to have our own Tennessee whiskey started
Speaker 2: from an activation we did with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Speaker 2: in twenty ten. We had been working with them wanting
Speaker 2: to do more. They had been back and forth with
Speaker 2: Crown Royal and they didn't get the deal done with Crown.
Speaker 2: This was further NASCAR race the Brickyard four hundred, and
Speaker 2: so we got the call it say, hey, this title
Speaker 2: sponsorship is open. What do you got I said, why not?
Speaker 4: Have you money?
Speaker 2: But what if I bring Rascal Flats and the Van
Speaker 2: Perry and Brandley, Gilbert and Thomas. Let me bring you
Speaker 2: a festival in exchange. They're like, you can do that,
Speaker 2: and we did it and it blew everybody away, and
Speaker 2: so that started the relationship. So Crown comes back the
Speaker 2: next year, so it's the Crown Royal Brickyard four hundred
Speaker 2: powered by Big Machine, and so we start this wonderful
Speaker 2: relationship with Crown and Diagio. So we're a few years
Speaker 2: in marketing. Medium said, hey, you know what, We're a
Speaker 2: Tennessee label. I'd love to have a Tennessee whiskey. We
Speaker 2: became aware of a distillery an hour south of Nashville.
Speaker 2: The products were fantastic. They didn't know a thing about marketing,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, wow, physical product that needs to be marketed.
Speaker 2: We don't get to market CDs or albums anymore. I
Speaker 2: got this. We purchase the distillery and everything that we do.
Speaker 2: The distillery and the spirits product and the racing. It
Speaker 2: all leads back to entertainment. It all leads back to
Speaker 2: an experience, and so in my mind, all of these
Speaker 2: things are connected, and so what we do with our
Speaker 2: Spirits brands. It also gives me the ability to sponsor
Speaker 2: the race team, So every dollar that goes to the
Speaker 2: race team is an expense marketing expense for the distillery.
Speaker 3: I love it. So let's move to racing for just
Speaker 3: a second. Racing is a huge part of your life.
Speaker 3: You're actually a serious driver yourself, you have a racing team.
Speaker 3: What about racing draws you in and what lessons have
Speaker 3: you learned from racing which you apply to other parts
Speaker 3: of your life.
Speaker 2: There's a certain freedom and liberation when you're it's maning
Speaker 2: machine and it's just you and the car. And when
Speaker 2: you're doing that and you're on the edge and you're
Speaker 2: performing at the highest level, there's no other feeling I've
Speaker 2: ever had. You know, maybe the biggest artists in the
Speaker 2: world when they're playing the fifty thousand people and they're
Speaker 2: all singing, maybe it's that same feeling and being competitive.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to win and it's finding out those ways
Speaker 2: to win. It's a chess game at you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty miles an hour.
Speaker 3: I rode motorcycles for a lot of years of my life,
Speaker 3: and I was a pilot for fifty years of planes
Speaker 3: and helicopters, So I get it. But I know we
Speaker 3: talk about racing and talk about the great things with racing,
Speaker 3: but you had a very serious accident. Talk to us
Speaker 3: a little bit about it and what got you through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We were at road Atlanta and it was March twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: and we're mid race.
Speaker 4: I start picking up the pace, my paces.
Speaker 2: As fast as the leaders. We're passing cars, We're moving up.
Speaker 2: So going into turn one at over one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty miles an hour, our brake zone because in road
Speaker 2: racing you break really hard, and so I go to
Speaker 2: the brakes at the three fifty foot mark, no brake,
Speaker 2: not a soft break, no break. The right brake caliber
Speaker 2: had exploded, and so all of a sudden I am
Speaker 2: in a heap load of trouble. They estimate that I
Speaker 2: hit the wall at one hundred and nine miles an
Speaker 2: hour and I.
Speaker 4: Was knocked out for a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's a longer story, but I was I call it
Speaker 2: my evil canevil list of injuries.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I broke both ankles, both.
Speaker 2: Tibias, cracked my pelvis in four places, four cracked vertebra,
Speaker 2: five broken ribs, some internal injury. I ripped my stomach open,
Speaker 2: and I almost died in the ambulance. Everything hurt. One
Speaker 2: of my meditations is counting backward from a thousand, and
Speaker 2: so in that moment, I just said, let go try
Speaker 2: to get to the next minute and start counting backwards
Speaker 2: from a thousand.
Speaker 4: So that was my mantra.
Speaker 2: Just I was counting and then get to the next minute.
Speaker 2: And so went into emergency.
Speaker 4: Well gut.
Speaker 2: My wife was there, several friends, several race friends. So
Speaker 2: from after everything went absolutely wrong, everything started to go right.
Speaker 2: We had the best lower extremity doctor in the world,
Speaker 2: and Bob, here I am nine months later, and I'm
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent yield. I'm so fortunate. I don't have
Speaker 2: a head injury or a spine injury. I'm walking normally.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't know it. So I've been really fortunate in
Speaker 2: my recovery. I've always felt like I was very good
Speaker 2: at being present and living in the moment, and I
Speaker 2: think that's been underlined and highlighted. You ask yourself, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm still here, what is the next big thing that
Speaker 2: I can do? Because I'm still here and I'm energized
Speaker 2: by it. I'm probably as energized in my life right
Speaker 2: now as ever coming out of this thing because I'm
Speaker 2: still here.
Speaker 3: Well, there are two through lines that we talk about here.
Speaker 3: Is you have one of the most can do positive
Speaker 3: outlooks in life of anyone I know. And two, you're
Speaker 3: lucky and thank goodness it continued there. Absolutely we always
Speaker 3: finish each episode of Math and Magic with a shout
Speaker 3: out to the great biz folks from both skill sets,
Speaker 3: the analytical, organized math type person and the charismatic, creative
Speaker 3: promotional the magic person who gets the shout outs for
Speaker 3: each from you.
Speaker 2: So the Math is my now COO Andrew Katz, who's
Speaker 2: been with me literally from day one. We're getting ready
Speaker 2: to touch on nineteen years together. He's always been my guy.
Speaker 2: I'm like, Andrew, I know we can figure this out,
Speaker 2: and he has to this day always found a way.
Speaker 2: And then the great creative marketing person is John Zarling,
Speaker 2: And ironically he was with me from the startup Big
Speaker 2: Machine as well, because as I was cleaning out my
Speaker 2: office at Universal. He came into my office and he goes,
Speaker 2: can I come with you? And even though I didn't
Speaker 2: physically do it, in my mind, I dropped to my
Speaker 2: knees and thank God. It's like, if John will come
Speaker 2: with me, this is the best gift I could get.
Speaker 2: And to this day, he and I are the ones
Speaker 2: who've always brainstormed and challenge each other for the biggest
Speaker 2: promotions we've ever done, taking over the Statue of Liberty
Speaker 2: with Florida, Georgia Lyne. You know, he's just he's my
Speaker 2: big thinker and he always delivers for me.
Speaker 3: Scott, You've had a magical life. You've pushed a lot
Speaker 3: of boundaries, still pushing them, You've taken a lot of risks,
Speaker 3: still taking them, and you have created so much. Thanks
Speaker 3: for sharing those lessons with us. There are a few
Speaker 3: things I picked up for my conversation with Scott. One
Speaker 3: follow the energy. Scott has a true passion for the
Speaker 3: music industry. For a while, following that passion, touring with
Speaker 3: rock bands, but eventually he realized his greatest strength wasn't
Speaker 3: playing guitar, it was how well he knew the business.
Speaker 3: It's important to know what interests you, but also to
Speaker 3: figure out where you excel. Let that momentum guide you
Speaker 3: to success. Two. Pull all the leavers you have. As
Speaker 3: an independent promoter, Scott says he had to learn how
Speaker 3: to turn water into wine. When he joined a major company,
Speaker 3: he realized not every tool was being used. Leverage every
Speaker 3: opportunity at your disposal, whether you're selling a product, creating
Speaker 3: an experience, or marketing talent. When Scott took on responsibilities
Speaker 3: that didn't interest his business partner, he gained new skills
Speaker 3: that he later used to start his own company. Three.
Speaker 3: Be competitive. Whether it's on the racetrack or the billboard charts.
Speaker 3: Scott doesn't shy away from competition. It energizes him. It's
Speaker 3: not a bad thing to compare yourself to those around you.
Speaker 3: It can be essential for gaining a leg off, and
Speaker 3: you may even realize you have what it takes to
Speaker 3: lead innovative new company. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
Speaker 1: to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
Speaker 1: show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney
Speaker 1: Rosenbluff for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is
Speaker 1: no small feat. Mathematics producers are Emily Meronov and Jessica Crimechitch.
Speaker 1: It is mixed and mastered by Baheied Fraser. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course,
Speaker 1: of big thanks to Gail Raoul, Eric Angel Noel and
Speaker 1: everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until
Speaker 1: next time