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Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, welcome back mob left, that's FOD. My guest

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Speaker 1: today is a longtime friend Michael McCartin, who was the

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Speaker 1: chief Membership and Business Development officer her SO Camp. Michael,

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Speaker 1: how are you okay? So explain what's so canny is?

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Speaker 1: So can is simplistically the Canadian version of ask CAPPA

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Speaker 1: and bm I. So it's the performing rights organization in Canada. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's also now involved in mechanical rights. But that's it's

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Speaker 1: it's origin. And it was formed from the merger of

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Speaker 1: KAPPAC and pro can which predecessors and they were literally

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Speaker 1: asked Captain B and my Canada. Okay, a little bit slower.

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Speaker 1: So the acronym stands for I'm not even sure, to

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Speaker 1: be honest with you, it isn't a society, a society

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Speaker 1: of Canadian authors, uh, composers and music publishers, but it's

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Speaker 1: not really an acronymicist. Okay. So the word two yeah,

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Speaker 1: and how well, how long ago do they merge into one?

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Speaker 1: Something like that? And we'll caused that. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: it's just a realization that, um, it was inefficient to

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Speaker 1: have two different organizations. You know, the US is an

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Speaker 1: anomaly in the world. Right there there aren't many countries

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Speaker 1: in the world that have more than one p R.

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Speaker 1: Oh so, uh it was inefficient and uh so I

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Speaker 1: mean needed scale and uh and get rid of duplication

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Speaker 1: of efforts. So they emerged and it's been a very

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Speaker 1: successful thing. Okay, So, since we're talking about a worldwide

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Speaker 1: business today, can you think of any other country that

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Speaker 1: has more than one performing rights organizations? I think Brazil

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Speaker 1: uh legendarily has about ten. Oh really, of course the

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Speaker 1: US now has four or five exactly we'll get into that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: what is the genesis of performing rights organizations? Were they

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Speaker 1: in lockstep with the developments in the US because the

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Speaker 1: law is not identical, but what is the development? Well, really,

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Speaker 1: another another substitute term was collective right. So really they've

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Speaker 1: started as collectives by uh for the rights owners typically

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Speaker 1: writers and publishers, and uh they knew that they needed

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Speaker 1: to aggregate their rights together to blanket licensed radio and

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Speaker 1: and other licensees. So it's really, you know, uh, parallel

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Speaker 1: to the development of radio and technology that they started. Okay, Now,

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Speaker 1: the big difference between the US and the rest of

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Speaker 1: the country is neighboring rights. Correct, Can you explain that

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Speaker 1: from my audience. Neighboring rights really is the existence of

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Speaker 1: the performing right in the master recording. So that means

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Speaker 1: when the master recording, when the recording is aired, broadcast, stream, whatever,

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Speaker 1: it earns royalties too because it's got its own copyright. UM. Neighboring.

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Speaker 1: The nuances of why it's called neighboring rights, it's a

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Speaker 1: European term, but we don't have to get into but

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Speaker 1: that's basically what it is. We'll get into it if

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Speaker 1: you know it well. I don't know it that well.

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Speaker 1: So you stepped in the hole. Let's if you can

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Speaker 1: climb out of it. So basically the philosophy is the

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Speaker 1: prime right is the copyright of the song of the composition.

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Speaker 1: Uh and uh, and neighboring neighboring right was refers to

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Speaker 1: sort of a secondary right or it's it's it's a

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Speaker 1: neighbor of it. I did not know that. I thought

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Speaker 1: it was neighboring right because the country to country they

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Speaker 1: were neighbors. I don't think so. Okay. So what we're

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Speaker 1: basically saying is when the record is played, a payment

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Speaker 1: goes to the copyright holder of the record right, and

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Speaker 1: it's so can you collect that correct. We we collected

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Speaker 1: for the composition, not the not the recording recording, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the sound exchange in the US, right, Uh, Canada RESOUND

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Speaker 1: which is a collection of other organizations and PPL in

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Speaker 1: the UK, etcetera. And um. Uh so it's all it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's a paralleled system that's very similar to the

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Speaker 1: to the copy I thought that in some countries they

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Speaker 1: were unified, but they they may be, but not. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So actually sorry, we just formed a joint venture with

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Speaker 1: RESOUND to jointly licensed. Uh. What we call general licensing,

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Speaker 1: um is the bars, restaurants, hotels, that kind of thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: So that's called in tandem. And so now you in

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Speaker 1: Canada you get one license if you own one of

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Speaker 1: those establishments, instead of having two parties coming at you. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's assume I'm paying. How do you guys with up

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Speaker 1: the money? Uh, it's in relation to what what the

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Speaker 1: license fees or the tariffs are. Okay. Now this is

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Speaker 1: all controlled by the government in Canada. The government. Uh well,

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Speaker 1: the government plays a serious role obviously creating the Copyright

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Speaker 1: Act in the first place. Um. Canada has the Copyright Board,

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Speaker 1: which is a quasi judicial body that regulates copyright realty

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Speaker 1: rates and secondary terms. Um. It used to be that

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Speaker 1: all of our license fees were based on those those

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Speaker 1: we call them tariffs. It's you know, it's a court case.

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Speaker 1: You file it and you have hearings and evidence, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: But since the digital age particularly, we've tried to um

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Speaker 1: negotiate as many licenses license deals as we possibly can,

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Speaker 1: rather go to the court of the rateboard, the copyright board,

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Speaker 1: because it's very long, time consuming, very expensive for everybody. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but are there terrorists that are established in case you

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Speaker 1: can't make a deal. Okay, we're there terrorists established for

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Speaker 1: streaming music services. There are tariffs, yeah, um, but again,

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Speaker 1: virtually all of our licensee arrangements are are negotiated and

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Speaker 1: negotiated with the tariff in mind. But there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of elements that the tariff doesn't talk about, which which

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Speaker 1: are important to us, are important to the licensees. So

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Speaker 1: there's incentive to uh to uh to negotiate it. Not

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Speaker 1: the least of which is it sometimes takes so long

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Speaker 1: to get a tariff ruled on that the technology is

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Speaker 1: dead by the time the tariff is settled. So okay,

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Speaker 1: But just so I understand, they do establish standards. It's

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Speaker 1: just if you want to argue with those standards, you

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Speaker 1: would then go to court. Yeah, and increasingly it used

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Speaker 1: to be that we would go to go to the

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Speaker 1: Copyright Board file for a tariff, they would make a

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Speaker 1: decision and that would be it. Then then the next

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Speaker 1: phase was we have had existing tariffs, we'd say to

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Speaker 1: the parts, hey, let's instead of US file a revised

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Speaker 1: tariff or a new tariff, why don't we sit down

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Speaker 1: and negotiate it. And then most lately a lot of

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Speaker 1: times we don't even go to the board initially. We

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Speaker 1: just start the negotiations. The boards always a fallback if

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Speaker 1: we don't like the way the negotiations are going. Okay,

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Speaker 1: why don't you explain, because you're the expert, why there's

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Speaker 1: so many performing rights organizations in the United States? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think you need somebody who knows more about the

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Speaker 1: US environment than me. But my understanding is, um, it

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Speaker 1: all started when ASCAP was declared UH a monopoly and

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Speaker 1: anti trust in the was authorities, I guess, and you

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Speaker 1: know my understanding of that is, um, basically, they went

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Speaker 1: on strike. They didn't like the rates at radio. They

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Speaker 1: pull the licenses. Radio didn't have the right to play

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Speaker 1: music anymore. So, uh, they push some buttons in the government.

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Speaker 1: The government declared them in the monopoly and put them

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Speaker 1: on antitrust consent decree, and radio said, um, never again

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Speaker 1: will we rely on one source of repertoire, and so

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Speaker 1: they start a B M I okay, But recently this

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Speaker 1: has been a growing area. We have global we have

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Speaker 1: se sack Okay, what do you think accounts for let's

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Speaker 1: say I'm an act okay, other than as off company

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Speaker 1: which will say for a second, which only has a

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Speaker 1: lead acts signed to it, But to go to ce

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Speaker 1: SAC or another p r O, what do you think

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Speaker 1: the motivation would be? Well, look, the the downside of

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Speaker 1: having so many pierros in the US is that, um uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's so there's it's it's kind of a

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Speaker 1: dog's breakfast in some ways, and there's and there's a

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Speaker 1: it's a complexity and a lot of duplication, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: The upside is this competition. And of course, you know

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Speaker 1: America is the land of competition. So if you look

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Speaker 1: at it as a glass half full, um, it gives

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Speaker 1: writers there's competition for writer's business and each one of

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Speaker 1: the p r os has their different pitch as to

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Speaker 1: why they think they're the best, and they make the

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Speaker 1: pitch and sometimes it's really a lot of times it's relationships. Sometimes,

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Speaker 1: Uh you know, there's a business side of the pitch.

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Speaker 1: Um it's uh, you know, I don't I just want

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Speaker 1: to speak for them, so I don't want to give

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Speaker 1: their individual pitches. But they've all got compelling pitches, and

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Speaker 1: they've all got great organizations and great people. Okay, would

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Speaker 1: be part of the pitch being that I can collect

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Speaker 1: better than the other people. You know, I've I've seen

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Speaker 1: every every element played, you know. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: they all believe that they're they're the best collectors. They're

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Speaker 1: all believed that they do at the cleanest, the most

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Speaker 1: thorough they all believe that they have the best staff.

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Speaker 1: It can help your career. Um, and um, you know

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Speaker 1: that's the that's the pitch. And and they're they're great organizations.

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Speaker 1: I mean you just think how how big they are

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Speaker 1: and how much money goes through them. Uh, they're you know,

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Speaker 1: basically the biggest piros in the world. And uh, we

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Speaker 1: have great relationship with them all. Or what are the

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Speaker 1: main things that I was brought into so CAN. To

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Speaker 1: do is to um reverse the situation where over the

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Speaker 1: years are some of our members had a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of our high earning members had drifted away

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Speaker 1: and become members of ASKAP and b M I more

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Speaker 1: than any of them. And uh, you know, we set

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Speaker 1: out to reverse that because we want Canadians to be

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Speaker 1: members of so CAN. Uh. The reason I came to

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Speaker 1: so CAN was I thought it was a great opportunity

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Speaker 1: to be one of the two or three people with

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Speaker 1: my hand on the rudder of an organization. I thought

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Speaker 1: it was extremely important to the ecosystem in Canada, and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I could see where the future was going,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to try and help make sure that

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Speaker 1: the institutions thrived and survived. And uh one of the

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Speaker 1: main ways to do that was to get our members

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Speaker 1: back and make sure that new new Canadian artists and

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Speaker 1: writers were we're members of so CAN and wanted to

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Speaker 1: join so CAN. And it's done a pretty good job

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Speaker 1: so far, because you know, as you know, Canada's killing

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Speaker 1: it in music. Um To Toronto arguably is the hottest

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Speaker 1: music city in the world, and we have almost every

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Speaker 1: single person coming out of Canada. Now, okay, so what's

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Speaker 1: your pitch. Our pitch is um, just what we said earlier,

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Speaker 1: which is, I think we think we're great collectors. We

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Speaker 1: think we have um, great opportunities when you're at least

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Speaker 1: started your career to help you connect the dots and

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Speaker 1: help connect you into the ecosystem. And we're complimentary to

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Speaker 1: publishers and labels and managers and agents. Okay, let's slow down.

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Speaker 1: Let's let's just take the top level. I'm a big act,

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Speaker 1: I'm Canadian act. I'm with b M I R as GAP.

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Speaker 1: What's your pitch to them? Uh? What I just said,

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Speaker 1: plus um, you make more money with us, all else

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Speaker 1: being equal, because we don't charge um for foreign income.

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Speaker 1: So are all the money coming from outside of Canada?

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Speaker 1: We don't commission Uh and okay, so b am I

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Speaker 1: and ask they all commission that? Yeah, okay, And well

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Speaker 1: how can SO can't get away without commissioning it. It's

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Speaker 1: just a decision that they made quite a while ago

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Speaker 1: as an attempt to try and convince people not to leave.

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Speaker 1: And they said, you know, look at stay here and

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Speaker 1: we won't commission the money. So just the cost of

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Speaker 1: it is embedded in the costs of running, so can

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Speaker 1: we're one of the most efficient p r os in

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Speaker 1: the world and um, it's it's it's a lot less

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Speaker 1: costly to administer the foreign royalties and it is the

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Speaker 1: domestic one. So um and that is because well because um,

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Speaker 1: uh the foreign p r O of all, we have

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Speaker 1: already done a lot of the work matching the you know,

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Speaker 1: the repertoire and so that you know, we get statements

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Speaker 1: from them and it's it's easier to go through those

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Speaker 1: than to do all the original matching ourself. I mean,

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Speaker 1: don't forget. I mean these days, an organization like ours

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Speaker 1: is we're tracking like two million performances a day now,

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Speaker 1: so it's pretty it's pretty daunting. And so we think

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Speaker 1: that we're one of the most advanced in the world.

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Speaker 1: And in doing all that and that, um, we have

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Speaker 1: high touch service. We have a whole team of people

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Speaker 1: who are assigned to UH two members and they have

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Speaker 1: a personal relationship with them. When we hear quite often

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Speaker 1: that people really appreciate that. And even if you're a

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Speaker 1: big star, your business manager really appreciates it. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: let's say you're collecting in Canada. People always say this,

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Speaker 1: Oh my record was played whatever, I didn't get paid?

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Speaker 1: How much is it digitized and accurate to what actually

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Speaker 1: is being played? So I tell you a funny story. Um,

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Speaker 1: I was on the board of so CAN for twenties. Wait,

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Speaker 1: so canon is own by who? It's a it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a for profit collective owned by its members, and

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Speaker 1: members are writers and publishers. Even though it's not for profit,

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Speaker 1: we we try and adopt a for profit mentality in

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Speaker 1: terms of, you know, not being a stay bureaucracy and

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Speaker 1: feeling like we have competition, et cetera. But so for

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Speaker 1: when when when BDS came along? A number of bds

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Speaker 1: is a service from Nielsen that listens to radio stations.

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Speaker 1: The computers listen to radio stations that identify the recordings

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Speaker 1: audio finger putting lections, AM and UM. So when that

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Speaker 1: first came along, a number of number of from the

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Speaker 1: board said, hey, so CAN should adopt this because you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the main complaints you used to hear in

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Speaker 1: the from about PRS back then wherever whatever country or

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Speaker 1: that with everybody uses a survey system to figure out

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Speaker 1: what's being played in radio and how could that possibly

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Speaker 1: be accurate? So? Um, several years of discussion went on,

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Speaker 1: and investigations and and finally and there was nothing. There

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Speaker 1: was no obvious argument why we should do it because

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Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna make any more money. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: gonna change the license fees coming from radio. It's gonna

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Speaker 1: cost a lot more money than the survey. It's going

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Speaker 1: to create a lot more data to handle. And the

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Speaker 1: only question was whether it was more accurate or not.

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Speaker 1: And intuitively we all fet I thought it has to

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Speaker 1: be more accurate. So, um, we hired somebody to study

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Speaker 1: our survey. And this is back in the Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: hired somebody to study the survey, and um, they said

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Speaker 1: your survey is the most accurate in the world amongst

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Speaker 1: p r o s and that it's accurate within someone

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Speaker 1: you know that the statistics of it, and um, and

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Speaker 1: uh so the management is so kind at the time

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Speaker 1: said see, there's no reason to to the ghost. So

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Speaker 1: but a number of us, sort of the kind of

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Speaker 1: younger ones, said, you know what, this is the digital era.

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Speaker 1: The reason why we have to do it is because

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Speaker 1: it's stupid not to do it. And that's we said, Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's gonna think on BDS. And then for a year,

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Speaker 1: they ran BDS in parallel to the old survey, and

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Speaker 1: the number one thing they learned by doing that was

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Speaker 1: that the survey was incredibly accurate. Um now does it

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Speaker 1: miss onesies and twosies wants? Well, yeah, the surveys do.

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Speaker 1: So the there is there's no question that the that

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Speaker 1: UM BDS and and that kind of type of audio

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Speaker 1: fingerprint technology and digital monitoring is more accurate. Um. But

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Speaker 1: it's really the long, super long tail. Okay, but it's

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Speaker 1: cheaper to do and and it also need the startup

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Speaker 1: costs were heavier. But actually to do it, it's yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the number one thing that it did for so

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Speaker 1: CAN was they had to think about how to handle

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Speaker 1: the orders of magnitude greater amounts of data. So they

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Speaker 1: set up processes and technology to do that. That when

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Speaker 1: the digital era came along and you look around the

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Speaker 1: corner and oh my god, there's a tsunami of data coming.

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Speaker 1: So can hat was already set up to handle it,

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Speaker 1: so unlike some of its peers around the world, So

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Speaker 1: that that was really the number one benefit of doing

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Speaker 1: that was unintentionally preparing let's go a little bit slower.

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Speaker 1: I'm a person, I have a song is played on radio?

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Speaker 1: Once is that tracked A I get to get paid?

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Speaker 1: It's uh yeah, it's track now get paid and I

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Speaker 1: will get paid, although one one place won't. We probably

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Speaker 1: isn't even a penny. Well on radio, no, it's approximately

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Speaker 1: a dollar. Let's let's let's say it's a dollar. Wait,

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Speaker 1: one play is a dollar on radio? Yeah, it's really yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's probably less than like seventy eight cents or something

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Speaker 1: like that, but it's yeah, okay. How do you then

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Speaker 1: extrapolate or do in terms of as you say, restaurants, cafes, etcetera. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well those are those are harder, so you know, um

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Speaker 1: various um. That goes back to the sort of survey mentality, right,

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Speaker 1: so it's rough justice, it's approximations, and we we try

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Speaker 1: and figure out um uh well actually these days, some

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Speaker 1: of the music services that serve those places, they have

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Speaker 1: the data. Um, they know what's being performed, so we

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Speaker 1: get that data. In the cases where we don't have

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Speaker 1: the data, we try and figure out, Okay, this money

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Speaker 1: that we collect from those licensees has to be paid

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Speaker 1: out as fairly as possible, as accurately as possible. We

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Speaker 1: have no data, so let's um, what data can we get.

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Speaker 1: We can figure out, well, you know, most of them

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Speaker 1: play popular music, so we'll take that music without their

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Speaker 1: license fees and we'll put them in the popular music

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Speaker 1: pools so that people who have music that's likely being

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Speaker 1: paid played get paid. But increasingly we're doing things like

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Speaker 1: um experimenting with putting uh you know Shazam BDS type

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Speaker 1: listening posts into into clubs. Uh. The d M world

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Speaker 1: and the DJ world are very concerned about accuracy, and

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Speaker 1: so we're working with them. We have what we uh

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Speaker 1: working with Pioneer, where their further Cubo service where they

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Speaker 1: have a they can produce a data stream of the

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Speaker 1: titles that would be that the DJ's playing. So Pioneer,

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Speaker 1: what was pioneers motivation? UM? I think they created a

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Speaker 1: thing called Cubo. I believe it was a social media platform,

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Speaker 1: and they wanted to know what was being played, say

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Speaker 1: in Lisbon, so that people dancing in London could see

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Speaker 1: on their phone what their friends were dancing to and

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Speaker 1: maybe requested that kind of thing. So they needed that

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Speaker 1: data stream. So we're really working really really hard to

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Speaker 1: try and make sure that there's data every single place

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Speaker 1: music is used we have a lot of big plans

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Speaker 1: in live because one of our biggest problems in the

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Speaker 1: same as all the pr os, is getting accurate set

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Speaker 1: lists from concerts, getting the artists to to to get

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Speaker 1: them to us. Some places in Europe the promoter is

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Speaker 1: required by law to produce the set list or not

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Speaker 1: in North America, so we have to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to get that set list. So, um, we're we have

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Speaker 1: a were first pr O in the world to have

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Speaker 1: a PI platform. So API is Application programming interface, so

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Speaker 1: it's basically how one platform talks to another and computers

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Speaker 1: talk and um. So we have a PI s basically

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Speaker 1: for every capability of our platform, including sending us your

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Speaker 1: concert stuff. So there's a We built up the APIs

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Speaker 1: and thinking that would be a third party marketplace would

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Speaker 1: spring up, that people would have services that they need

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Speaker 1: to connect with our platform. And sure enough a company

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Speaker 1: in Calgary came along called Mazuka and they what they

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Speaker 1: do is they connect all the parties in the live

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Speaker 1: music ecosystem managers uh to agents, UM, venues, promoters, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: And they share digital assets about a tour, videos, posters,

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Speaker 1: uh whatever, the information on the tour and one of

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Speaker 1: the byproducts, of course, is everything we need to know

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Speaker 1: to pay a concert, except for the set list. So

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Speaker 1: they use our A p I s so that you

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Speaker 1: can using their at Mazooka app. You're an artist or manager, whatever,

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Speaker 1: you can dial up your catalog out of our of

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Speaker 1: our database, create a set list and push a button

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Speaker 1: and send all the concert information to us, including the

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Speaker 1: set list. And that's really revolutionizing. How how we deal

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Speaker 1: with the live concerts and successful okay, and venue? Well,

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Speaker 1: how do they How is that fee established percentage? Well,

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Speaker 1: unconscious percentage of the box office? Box office is three

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Speaker 1: in Canada. It's a lot harder than that in some

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Speaker 1: of European territories and a lot lower than that in

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Speaker 1: the US. And right, so it's not a flat fee

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Speaker 1: in the US. Well, you know, of course, in our world,

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Speaker 1: as you start to peel back layers, it gets more

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Speaker 1: and more complex. And part of the reason for that

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Speaker 1: is that, especially in the Copyright Board era, every single

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Speaker 1: licensee thought that they're different and the rules shouldn't apply

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Speaker 1: to them. So they would go to the copyright Board,

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Speaker 1: and the Copyright Board said, okay, we'll make an exception

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Speaker 1: for you, and and then it just becomes very complex,

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Speaker 1: but very simplistically, if you have a hard ticket, it's

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Speaker 1: three percent of the box office. Okay, let's assume I

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Speaker 1: sell my catalog like Mark is is buying up catalogs.

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Speaker 1: How does that affect my soul? Can I saw Mark

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Speaker 1: last night? Actually? By the way, UM, it doesn't affect

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Speaker 1: it at all. We're do we pay whoever the owner

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Speaker 1: and uh an and or administrator is so um uh

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Speaker 1: if catalog changes hands, we just take the hose out

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Speaker 1: of one plug and put into another. So a writer

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Speaker 1: can sell hes rights. Uh, great question. So can is

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Speaker 1: historically um? Uh not allowed that? In the last few

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Speaker 1: year years, Um, we've liberalized that a lot because realized

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Speaker 1: that it's a different world now. Um, there's more information

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Speaker 1: that people have. It was sort of to protect writers from,

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Speaker 1: you know, bad deals. I guess that would be the

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Speaker 1: mentality that it was, And now I think it's a

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Speaker 1: much more sophisticated world. There's more information out there, there's

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Speaker 1: more advice you can get, there are more people wanting

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Speaker 1: to buy writers share, and so we have situations where

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Speaker 1: where we allow it some Every bureau around the world

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Speaker 1: has kind of a different mixture of of rules around that.

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Speaker 1: Let's go back to an earlier comment, why is Toronto

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Speaker 1: such an epicenter of music creativity? Great question. Um, Canada

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Speaker 1: has always produced a lot of talent. Um, as you know.

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Speaker 1: And and uh, I think that the sort of perfect

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Speaker 1: storm that's happening in Toronto right now is a is

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Speaker 1: a functional a lot of things. I think that, UM,

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Speaker 1: the the support for Canadian culture that the government introduced

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Speaker 1: the number of years ago. In fact, this is the

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Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the Canadian Content Regulations on radio um

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Speaker 1: profound effect on the ecosie them uh and uh, nowadays

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Speaker 1: we've got um uh if you look at the people

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Speaker 1: from Toronto are kind of killing it. So we've got Drake,

403
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Speaker 1: the Weekend, Lessia, karash On, Mendez, et cetera. Um, those

404
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:14,960
Speaker 1: are the above the waterline. Part of the iceberg below

405
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Speaker 1: the waterline is actually to me a bigger story, and

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Speaker 1: that is all the producers, beat makers, co writers that

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Speaker 1: work with them, Like we have eighty members in the

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Speaker 1: greater Toronto area that are co writers and Drake and

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Speaker 1: Weekend Records not including Drake in the Weekend. And um

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Speaker 1: uh the reasons for that are, um, if you look

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Speaker 1: at all these people killing it. There's there's a number

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Speaker 1: of things that are have in common. One, they're disproportionately multicultural.

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Speaker 1: They are disproportionately immigrants or first generation children of immigrants.

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Speaker 1: It's a specifically in Canada, Toronto, Toronto. Yeah, uh, this

415
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Speaker 1: is well, as you know, Canada is a very multicultural

416
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Speaker 1: country exactly, but the real big clusters of that are

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Speaker 1: Toronto and Vancouver. Right, Well, don't I I had a

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Speaker 1: cab driver once in Toronto said there are more more ethnicities,

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Speaker 1: more cultures represented in Toronto than any other city in

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Speaker 1: the world. Yeah. I think there's like a hundred and

421
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 1: three languages or something. And and so these kids, Um uh,

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Speaker 1: so there's that. There's that. Um like, look the Weekend

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Speaker 1: for instance, a great example. He's an Ethiopian Canadian. He's

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Speaker 1: born in Canada as a mother, wasn't He's managed by

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Speaker 1: a Lebanese Canadian born in Lebanon and an Iranian Canadian

426
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 1: born in Iran. And uh, there's no better example in that.

427
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 1: Um we did, uh my my head of a and R.

428
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:28,160
Speaker 1: Rodney Murphy and i Ax years ago did a made

429
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 1: a word cloud of the artists were talking about and

430
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 1: the beatmaker, co writer, producers and you put it up

431
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 1: in the screen, and um, it's remarkable how multicultural it is.

432
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 1: It's just it's really the okay, it is multicultural. Why

433
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:46,720
Speaker 1: does the multiculturalism uh in gender's success. Um well, I

434
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 1: think that all the usual reasons why immigrant communities, you know,

435
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 1: have the drive, et cetera. But I think in this

436
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: case also part of it. One of the reasons for

437
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: the direction of the music, which is a big part

438
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:57,920
Speaker 1: of why it's so successful, the direction being a course

439
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: hip hop, pop and and related music is because these

440
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: kids they grew up um uh, they want to reject

441
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 1: their parents music. Um. Their their their household is not

442
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 1: connected to the historic thread of Canadian culture, so rock

443
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: folk whatever that they're not getting that at home. Uh.

444
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:16,639
Speaker 1: And so they get exposed to the music of the

445
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,440
Speaker 1: world coming through the major media through the and that's

446
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,440
Speaker 1: generally American music, and it's generally hip hop. So they

447
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: kind of grew up in a in a more hip hop,

448
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:29,359
Speaker 1: urban music centric environment than than the people they're if

449
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 1: their friends were and their neighbors were. Um. And then

450
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,880
Speaker 1: another uh common thing is that they all make music

451
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 1: in the box. Of course that's on the in the computer. Um.

452
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: Live instruments play very little bit. Why is that, uh,

453
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 1: an advantage that Toronto has compared to the rest of

454
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: the world. I don't think it's advantage compared to the

455
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: rest of the world. But there's a huge beatmaking community

456
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: in Toronto, I think arguably I say two things that

457
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: are kind of bold that you know, maybe there's a

458
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 1: slightly exaggeration, but I don't really think so. UM Toronto

459
00:23:57,320 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 1: in many ways controls the sound of popular music in

460
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:01,120
Speaker 1: the world today because of all the people were talking

461
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: about and success they have, UM and its indisputably the

462
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: beat making capital of the world, I think. And one

463
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: of the reasons for that is community. And it's a

464
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: community amongst the kids that are from these uh immigrant

465
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: families and they go and they live in those neighborhoods

466
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: or they live in the neighborhoods where um uh you know,

467
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 1: they're passing around mixed tapes and you know, in the

468
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: previous generation UM and UH. There's actually a guy named

469
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 1: rich Kid who UH was one of the early doctors

470
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: of what was then called Fruity Loops, which is a

471
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:35,120
Speaker 1: digital platform to make music and now called fl Studios.

472
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: And and he was a real leader in getting other

473
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: kids on the platform and teaching them how to use it.

474
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: There's been a couple of organizations, one called the Beat

475
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: Toronto Beat Academy, which was started by two women who

476
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: saw these young kids around them that we're really talented,

477
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: but they might get lost in the street. And it's

478
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, people in the neighborhood starting a

479
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:57,399
Speaker 1: soccer team or something. They started this thing called the

480
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 1: Toronto Beat Academy and they had beat battles. That was

481
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 1: the primary activity, and but it became a community where

482
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 1: they all shared. Probably ten years ago, so maybe maybe

483
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: a bit a bit longer and fat um uh. One

484
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: of the founders of it um was in the press

485
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: about three or four years ago, uh, and the headlines

486
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: were from homeless to Harvard. At one point she was

487
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 1: homeless and she ended up crowd funding herself to Harvard

488
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: and UM. So the way the Beat Academy got these

489
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:26,920
Speaker 1: kids into international beat battles that gave them confidence um uh,

490
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: you know, connecting to each other, some sort of structure. Uh.

491
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: They taught each other tricks, they won most of the

492
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: beat battles they entered. UM. And there was another organization

493
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: called the Remix Project, which is a project in the

494
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: Region Park area in Toronto, which is a challenging area

495
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,719
Speaker 1: for kids, and it was intended to keep kids off

496
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: the street. And one of the programs there was was

497
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: a music program and actually some of Drake's people uh

498
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: early on started teaching there and so this became both

499
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 1: these things became farm teams for beat makers and arguably

500
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: not to be clear, they get any government support. Um.

501
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 1: The Remix Project might have. Um, we've so candids helps

502
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: support these organizations with uh, you know, helping fly people

503
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: to beat battles and and that kind of thing, um,

504
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: but largely no, but um, we'll give me back to

505
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: the government support connection a little while. Um. Anyway, So

506
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why it's it's so huge.

507
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 1: So we got you know, Frank Duke's boy one Noah

508
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 1: shebib uh murder beats uh. Dr McKinney, uh Wonda Girl,

509
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 1: one of the greatest female beat makers in the world.

510
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: She came from the Beat Academy. And you know it's

511
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: just because academy just like an after school program or

512
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: is it something where there's actually courses. No, No, it's

513
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: kind of like an informal after school program. Yeah. Yeah,

514
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,719
Speaker 1: and uh. Um, so so you got that aspect. So

515
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: that so you know, modern beat making became a really

516
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: big thing in Toronto. And of course you know, all

517
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: nothing happened if it wasn't for Drake, But I'll get

518
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: to that in a second. So you've got their disproportionately.

519
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: Immigrants are children. Immigrants make music in the box. Live

520
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:08,679
Speaker 1: instruments play virtually no role in making the records, and

521
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: live they play like sort of a proper role. Um

522
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: and uh. They all made it through the internet, either

523
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 1: they became popular with the public first and then got

524
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: signed to a deal or vice versa. But the Internet

525
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: played an incredibly important role. Don't forget the last two people.

526
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: In fact, I think the two biggest music success stories

527
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: on fine where Sean Mendez and Ruth b and um uh.

528
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: You know, so that's an indicator of how I don't

529
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: know why it happened in Canada, not nowhere else, but

530
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: it did. Um and uh. Then one of the most

531
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: important things is that this is one of the most

532
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: mind blowing things to me and had a profound effect

533
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: on how I think about the industry now. When I

534
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 1: realized this about five years ago, I was talking again

535
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: to Rodney Murphy, my head of an arm. We're analyzing this,

536
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: this group of people, and then I realized not a

537
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:56,959
Speaker 1: single one of them played a gig before they were famous.

538
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: And you know, especially a country like Canada where the

539
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,479
Speaker 1: live you know, grinding out in the clubs and bars

540
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: was such a big part of of having a career

541
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: and it just blew my mind when I realized that.

542
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: And when when when we first started saying this to

543
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 1: people in the business, you have to wait, ripe the

544
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: brain matter off the wall and uh. But anyway, so

545
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: that those are all common characteristics, right, and um there

546
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: was a incredible um uh sort of boiling pot of

547
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: water of talent in hip hop and R and B

548
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: that was that was kind of bursting at the seams

549
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: in Canada for probably ten years that couldn't get out

550
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: of the country because, um, the American industry would not

551
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 1: take that Canadian playing that music. Seriously. I spent a

552
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: lot of money in my publishing trying to develop that

553
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: scene and uh lost most of it. Um and had

554
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: a lot of support from my New York and l

555
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: A compatriots, but they just didn't think that Canadian could

556
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: ever do it. And then that manifests itself in a

557
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: million million different ways. Either they said, well it's good,

558
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: but it's Canadian, or it's not good, or but what

559
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: it really was. It's kind of like Nashville, you know that. Uh,

560
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: it's hard for nash people, Nashville people to imagine something

561
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: from outside of Nashville working in Nashville. Um. And in

562
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: spite this is in spite of the fact that you know,

563
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: the Brian Adams of the world and the guests who's

564
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: the b t O s and the Rushes had broken

565
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: through that barrier in rock music. But the barrier existed,

566
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: It really did. And then so somebody had to break

567
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: through in hip hop and R and B. So, um,

568
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: Drake existed. I think Drake exists because A he's make

569
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: a talented and incredibly smart guy, but b because of

570
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: the TV show Degrassi. Uh and uh. That's a really

571
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: good example of the Canadian support system because there's Canaan

572
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: content regulations in television as well. There's a grants just

573
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: explain with Canadian content in radio and television. You have

574
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: to play a minimum percentage of of your air time

575
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: has to be Canadian content. Okay, let's just stop for

576
00:29:53,480 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: one second. In the era of the internet. How important

577
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: is that still on radio? Great question, because um, we're

578
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: that's okayn, We're really concerned about this because not so

579
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: much about radio, because that's long settled in UM. But

580
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: it really in many ways this regulation saved Canadian culture

581
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: because um, in the you know media eras in the fifties, fifties,

582
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: early sixties, UM, Canadians were swamped with American media and

583
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: it was very difficult for Canadian voice to be heard

584
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: unless you moved to United States and got a record

585
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: deal and became famous like a Gordon Lightfoot or nearly

586
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: Young or something like that. And UM, so they created

587
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: the legislation and fact at that point, UM, Canada was

588
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: not a very confident country in terms of its own

589
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: identity and um uh, Canadian radio would not play you

590
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: because you were Canadian. The guests Who was called the

591
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: Guests Who because they tried to put out an independent

592
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: record and when the the independent label realized that if

593
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: anybody guess their Canadian, they wouldn't play the record. So

594
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: they wrote guests Who questioned Mark on the label to

595
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: get the discocist the question to to guess it. Make

596
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: it turn into a contest and they thought that was

597
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: the name of the band, so they had to change

598
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: their name of the guest suit. That's how bad it was. Um.

599
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: And so uh, you know, you fast forward to now

600
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: and and we have all this incredibly healthy ecosystem, very

601
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: much partly because of that Canaan content regulations. UM. But

602
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: um it's we think there's a real discover ability problem

603
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: in the digital area. So I'll get to that, back

604
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: that in the second. But with Degrassi, so there was

605
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: conconading content regulations on television as let's talk about the

606
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: development of Degrassi and how that happened with the government, etcetera. Yeah,

607
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: So um it was created by um uh Lenna Skis

608
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: Skyler and her husband Steven Stone, who was a well

609
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: known music attorney, and um, they wanted to create a

610
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: television show that um was uh positive role uh for

611
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: kids and not the usual entertainment bs and talked about

612
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: real issues the kids really wanted to know about and

613
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: talked about at school and and and counter to school.

614
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: So um, there's a very healthy grant system to make

615
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: television programs in Canada. So they got some grants and

616
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 1: they just just just because I live in the US, obviously,

617
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: you have these grant systems, you're supported by the government.

618
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: How does the average Canadian feel about paying taxes to

619
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: support that? Um, I don't see or hear anybody's talking

620
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: about that. I mean, certainly, when when the legislation first

621
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: came in, the content legislation first came in, and then

622
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: when the grant systems propped up popped up shortly after that,

623
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: there was a lot of people saying that. But they

624
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: take it for granted now that that that's what the

625
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: system is. And and it's been a very just because

626
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: we live in the United States, this is being need about.

627
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: What is the top tax rate in Canada right now?

628
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: Income tax? Well, I'm not an accountant, but it's more

629
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: than it is more than. And also although Trudeau was

630
00:32:55,040 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: just re elected, Uh, there is some conservative pushback and Canada,

631
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: what do you think that temperature of the country is

632
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: right now? Well, you know, we obviously see what goes

633
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: on in US and UK, etcetera. And um, there's Uh,

634
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 1: there was a sort of a more conservative movement, as

635
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: you said, but and it resulted in in Justin Trudeau

636
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: having minority government. Um, so they didn't they didn't. It

637
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: wasn't a change in government, So you're probably with every

638
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: minority government, you're gonna see probably more governing from the middle.

639
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: So there probably will be a swing towards more towards

640
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: the middle of Canada. But don't forget the left right

641
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: in middle in Canada totally different than the US. Um.

642
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: The US generally is I think a much more conservative

643
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: country and and uh um, you know, some of our

644
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: more left winging went left wing. Uh political leaders over

645
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,239
Speaker 1: the generations might have been considered communists if they were

646
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: in the United States, and some of the more right

647
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: wing people would have considered being considered middle of the road,

648
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But that's that's just a general just

649
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: just before we get back to the grassy. The fact

650
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: that Canada is such a cultural impact around the world,

651
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: has that ultimately affected the feeling that, uh or not

652
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: that Canada is a second class environment? Right? So good question,

653
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 1: So I can I can trace it certainly in my life. Um.

654
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: I traced the rise of of positive self identity and

655
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: Canadians and national pride with the after Canaan content regulations

656
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: came in. Before that, there was very few if no,

657
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 1: there wasn't no music industry and there were very few

658
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: artists that you could look up to as Canadians. There

659
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: were role models or that talked about Canadian things or whatever.

660
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 1: And again the ones that you you were aware of

661
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 1: moved to the US and and came through the U

662
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: S system. And um, the existence of groups like the

663
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: Tragically Hip, I think are is in incredible success story.

664
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: Even though they never really had a lot of success

665
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: outside of Canada, this level of success that had had

666
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: inside the country was absolutely unprecedented. And really it doesn't

667
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: matter that they weren't that successful anywhere else, because um,

668
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: I don't want to underplay the success they did have,

669
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: but they weren't as nearly as anywhere else. And that's

670
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: that's an amazing thing because look at any other healthy

671
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: music ecosystem around the world, like Britain. We always talked

672
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: about all these great stars coming out of Britain, all

673
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: the great music. Well if you actually live there for

674
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:18,959
Speaker 1: a little while to see all the stuff that doesn't

675
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: get out right, and like the madness the syndrome right

676
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: from you know, decades ago, and you talk to Britain,

677
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: what do you mean you've never heard of madness? You know?

678
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: So same thing. And so I think that the existence

679
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: of that kind of thing is as an indication of

680
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: a healthy music ecosystem, and Canada nerve used to have that. Okay,

681
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: one more thing used to be if someone made it.

682
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: You mentioned you know Neil Young, There's Joni Mitchell, Bryan Adams.

683
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: They would basically base themselves in the United States. Do

684
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: you think that's changing? Yeah, although I think you go,

685
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 1: you go, rid of your business needs you to go. Um.

686
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,439
Speaker 1: And so you look at Drake. You know, he's got

687
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: homes here, He's got homes you know, in in Toronto

688
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 1: still and a lot of them, you know, it's the

689
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: Canada is their emotional home now more than it ever

690
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: was before. And you look at Drake, how proud he

691
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: is a Toronto and he's been multibillion dollars worth of

692
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: ambassador branding for the for the city. Um. And that

693
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 1: never used to happen before either, you know, I mean

694
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: people were before Canadian content sometimes in some way Canadians

695
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: were kind of embarrassed to be Canadians. And then the

696
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,240
Speaker 1: first wave was they weren't embarrassed anymore. But they're quietly proud,

697
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: and now they're very loudly proud. And that's been an

698
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: incredible development. And and it's absolutely guarantee you very much

699
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: driven by by Canadian artists emerging. Okay, so go back

700
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: to the Grass. So the Grassy starts up, Drake's on it.

701
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, how many years is the Grassy run? Oh,

702
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's got to be fifteen. Anyway, Drake

703
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: wasn't on from the beginning. I'm not sure. I don't.

704
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 1: I don't think he was whatever. But um, so fast

705
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 1: forward to he leaves the show. It's my it's early, myself,

706
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: let's stop it because it's important. It's like Trump. The

707
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,240
Speaker 1: Grassy was not only popular in Canada, was distributed certainly

708
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: in the United States, right, and nobody in Canada other

709
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: than people in the television business knew that it was

710
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: a success in the US. And um was it also

711
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: aired elsewhere? Oh yeah, all over the lot of countries

712
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: around the world. Yeah, but it was on Nickelodeon here.

713
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: I think that's so funny story when um uh, shortly

714
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: after Drake broke as an art music artist. Um, my

715
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: wife and family and I were in l A visiting

716
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: with some people I used to work with here and

717
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: to two women that hadded families and they used to

718
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: work within their sisters and uh um uh. Their kids

719
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: were younger than ours. And we're all sitting in this

720
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: big family restaurant, big long table. Are my family on

721
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: one side, there is on the other side. And the

722
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: kids were really quiet. They were not talking at all,

723
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: and they were just staring at us. And after a

724
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: few minutes it got kind of uncomfortable. And and then

725
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 1: the bravest one spoke up and said, you guys don't

726
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 1: sound Canadian. And we said, what do you mean. They said,

727
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: you don't sound like those people in the grass And

728
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: I said, oh, you watched a grassy and Selene their

729
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: mothers said, my friend Selene that their mother said, are

730
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: you nuts? This is the biggest thing amongst the teens

731
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: and tweens down here, and nobody in the Canadian music

732
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 1: industry anyway knew that. And that's one of the reasons

733
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: why Drake was overlooked by the Canaan music business. Certainly,

734
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made in my

735
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 1: career was I could never, I can never. I'll never

736
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:23,919
Speaker 1: forget every week for a year in early my Space days,

737
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: Barb Seten, who worked for me, you know very well,

738
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: in Tanya Coglan and Mike Fox and UH, my staff

739
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: and my publish in Canada would sit around and we'd

740
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: have an a R meeting and we would filter the

741
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: MySpace charts for Canada and Drake was number one and

742
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: number two for a year and UM, but we didn't

743
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: know why this was. I mean, listen to the music

744
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: with that was pretty good, and you know, and and

745
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 1: but we just didn understand the entire picture because we

746
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 1: had no idea that he would had, you know, hundreds

747
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 1: of thousands of fans in America. So basically, his mixtapes

748
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: are blowing up in America and we didn't know that.

749
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: And people who follow that stuff in the US, the

750
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 1: little Waynes and then the people in the industry saw

751
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: the happening and that was the That was the moment

752
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 1: when everything became possible for Canadian music because they didn't

753
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 1: care where he's from, because the American public was had spoken.

754
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: And so from that point on it has not only

755
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: has it not mattered that you're Canadian in those those genres,

756
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 1: but now it's cool to be Canadian. UM. A couple

757
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,280
Speaker 1: of years ago, UH, one of my publisher members, UM

758
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: who's runs a multinational in Toronto, the Toronto office the

759
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: multinationalist sent we were talking about this very issue, and

760
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, so and so the you know, the

761
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: head of the us AT us off Creative Stuff just

762
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 1: called last week and said, we're signing this girl in

763
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: l A. Um looking at her bio material, turns out

764
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: she was raised in l A but born in Toronto.

765
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,880
Speaker 1: Would you mind if we said she's from Toronto? That

766
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: is really a switch. Let's mind blowing to Canadians, right

767
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: to think that that anybody would ever think it's cooler

768
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: to be from from Toronto than l a. But in

769
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: many ways it's true now, you know, at least, I

770
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 1: mean what it is is is that Canadians, don't they

771
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 1: people growing up admiring Drake will now take it for

772
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: granted that you can conquer the world and you can

773
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:06,720
Speaker 1: do it from Toronto, and you can do it proudly

774
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: and there, and that you know, there's kids coming to

775
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: Toronto as tourists that want to stand in the street

776
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: corner that he talks about in his songs, just like

777
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: you know, used to happen to Canadians listening to American

778
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: songs right come in l A Okay before the Toronto.

779
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: See not that there always hasn't been a Toronto scene.

780
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 1: The big scene was in Montreal. Broken social scene. What

781
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,959
Speaker 1: do you think cause that well, broken social scenes partly

782
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: from Montreal. Well, I mean did Montreal see I don't

783
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: want to make it about broken social Yeah, well Montreal's

784
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: tray will be vibrant city. That's one of the greatest

785
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 1: um places in the world to go to school, for instance,

786
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: and so and and you know it's it's a very

787
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: European culture. That's the uh work to live culture more

788
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: than the work they live to work culture. So you know,

789
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: they take art seriously. Um, they take culture seriously. And um,

790
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 1: there's there would used to be a lot of clubs

791
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: and and and it's a big call ug town so

792
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:03,919
Speaker 1: you get that that melting pot as well, and get

793
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: arcade fire out of their for instance, right, um and um.

794
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,439
Speaker 1: You know it's also kind of the Quebec music scene

795
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: is kind of her metrically sealed. It's sort of like

796
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: almost like Nashville where um, or even in England in

797
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:17,760
Speaker 1: a way like I I look at those music scenes

798
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 1: as places where you look at it as a sport.

799
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: You're in the stadium and the game is unfolding on

800
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 1: the field in front of it. You can understand the game.

801
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: You can see the prep with the ends of the box. Right,

802
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: So cabecs like that and US and and uh it's

803
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: um it's got a star system and um uh and

804
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's never easy to get careers reving,

805
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: but it's probably easier there than some other places. To

806
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: what degree do you believe Canadian social safety net boost

807
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: music development? What's huge? Because um uh you know of

808
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:53,839
Speaker 1: Canadian content and the government grant supports and other other

809
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,399
Speaker 1: other encouragement of the arts. Um and uh, that's all

810
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: tied to the same mentality, right, and you know your

811
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: Canadian musician doesn't have to worry about going to the

812
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 1: hospital and if it's going to bankrupt them. Uh, you

813
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: know which is you know a huge thing. Let's say

814
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a twenty two year old person making

815
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: beats in Canada. Can I get money from the government

816
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: just to live? Uh, They'll give you a check to live,

817
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: but um, you can You've got organizations like factor forgetting

818
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 1: music organizations. I'm not even in the music business. To

819
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: what degree you know you don't get paid by the governments.

820
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: That's what squee is their welfare well, it's like welfare

821
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: like there is anywhere. But our musicians living on welfare

822
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: these days not so much now because there's a lot

823
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: of employment. You know, it's it's a healthy economy people have.

824
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: It's a gig economy. So people they'll have a day

825
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 1: gig and you know, and they uh spend their evenings

826
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: and weekends banging away at their at their art and

827
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: eventually I could give up the day gig if they're lucky. Okay,

828
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:58,879
Speaker 1: Vancouver was historically a rock town. Is that still true Vancouver? Um,

829
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,760
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people talked about the Vancouver music scene. UM.

830
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: In some ways people say it's dead. Um, certainly the

831
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: rock side of it because the club scene has disappeared

832
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: a lot. UM. But you know, we had so canon

833
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:15,440
Speaker 1: in our in our staff. We truly believe that, UM,

834
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: Vancouver could be the next biggest place because again you

835
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: talk about multicultural it's amazing and we just think that

836
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 1: people aren't fishing in the right ponds and we're making

837
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: big strides and making connections in the you know, South

838
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: Asian communities and uh places where you know there's somebody

839
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: in their bedroom that's making something incredible, and UM, we

840
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: just got it. They're not connected to the business because

841
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: they're growing up not knowing. Right, Okay, the story and

842
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: you were part of it. The story twenty years ago,

843
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: years ago was how publishers were starting acts and then

844
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: they graduated to the labels. To what degree is so

845
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 1: can involve in development and what place in the game.

846
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: So twenty three years ago, if you set out to

847
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: be a creator, music, creator, artist, writer, um, one of

848
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: the first two or three thoughts that came into your

849
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: brain was, oh, I gotta joined so can or if

850
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: the America asked CAMP B M I or pr S

851
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: in England. One of the reasons for that you see

852
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: it on record credits and you wouldn't necessarily know what

853
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: it is, but you see it relationships in relationship to

854
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: being a pro. So I got to join that. And

855
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: just to be clear, if I'm an American, can I

856
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: join so can? Uh? There's no rules, but we we

857
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 1: do not We don't want our members to leave and

858
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: become members of the U s p r os and

859
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:26,799
Speaker 1: so therefore, and we don't want to sign people that

860
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: the U s p r O S would want to

861
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 1: sign in their own countries. So and I could do

862
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:32,919
Speaker 1: it if I wanted to. There's no law that says

863
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: you can't. Um, but we we we respect their Okay,

864
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: So I go back to your point. Yeah, so, um,

865
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: what was my point? You're talking about Vancouver, right, Yeah,

866
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 1: so you're talking about development of acts, right, so me

867
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: thirty years ago we left it right, So when you

868
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 1: first started out years ago, you thought of joining. So

869
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,959
Speaker 1: I can ask my whatever, um we're trying to do now,

870
00:44:57,560 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: is trying to get that little logo back in the

871
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: brain of somebody who was sitting in their bedroom and

872
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: they're fourteen years old and saying I think I want

873
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: to make music because there's a lawful lot of other

874
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 1: logos crowding it out. Okay, in the digital era, how

875
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: do you get that logo? See? Yeah, so um uh,

876
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: we want to treat We want to implant the thought

877
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: that your career starts here. Right. So, um, we have

878
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: what we call the new member value gap, which we

879
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: identified which is okay, if I joined, so can uh,

880
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 1: what what do I get? And well, you get royalties? Yeah,

881
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 1: but I don't have any music ding royalties yet? Right,

882
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 1: So so you get joined, so can even though you

883
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: don't have a record out? Yeah, yeah, we have five

884
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:34,800
Speaker 1: or six thousand people you're joining. We have about a

885
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty thousand members and UM, so we try

886
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 1: and create programs to UM. We look at as it's

887
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: like ecosystem. It's a pond. We want to be the

888
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: sunshine in the pond. We want to you know, there

889
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: to be more planked than you know, more guppies and

890
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And so uh, it's it's a

891
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,439
Speaker 1: less targeted than a than a publishing company or record

892
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 1: label would do it. UM. You know, we have program

893
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: we have it. For instance, we have an educational program

894
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: called Cooking Beats where we have a famous beat maker

895
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,240
Speaker 1: will set on the stage and it's like the motif

896
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: of a cooking show on TV. Instead of the cameras

897
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: and the ceiling looking down in the stove, we have

898
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 1: their laptop, laptop hooked up to a giant screen and

899
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: they tear apart one of their famous beats and then

900
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: we'll trought to set a community music week or conferences

901
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: like that, and and they're very very popular. Kids love it. Uh,

902
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: you know that gets the brand own, it gets it

903
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 1: educates people. We have song camps. Now, how about literally

904
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: giving an act money to develop or literally trying to

905
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: make in roads in a label or a publisher. So, um,

906
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: you know, again we're complimentary to what the publishers and

907
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: labels do. We think we're at the stage pre when,

908
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: prior to when people are ready for them. So if

909
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: we can do something to keep somebody alive for another year,

910
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: get them to a showcase, uh, get into a song camp,

911
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: get some craft development, and get them some confidence. When

912
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: we have a song camp, the number one thing that

913
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 1: comes out of it is self confidence. Yeah. You know,

914
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 1: every camp usually yields one song that gets cut or something,

915
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 1: but it's kind of they're always sequestered and people are

916
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: living together for a week and they come out of

917
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: it feeling like they just had a week's worth of

918
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:08,879
Speaker 1: incredible group therapy. You know that they did make them

919
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 1: make the right choice in their life and they and

920
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: they have now a group of people that that they

921
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 1: know that think like them and et cetera. And so

922
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: just the boost of self confidence, um, keeps them alive

923
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: and and and and and working at their craft for

924
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,399
Speaker 1: another year and then they're ready to get a record

925
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: deal or a publishing deal. Okay, So people thought hip

926
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: hop would die and today they would say it's like

927
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 1: rock and roll it's forever, but rock and roll seems

928
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: to have died. So as someone who's a big observer

929
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 1: of the scene certainly where it's happening, you know, what

930
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 1: is the runway, what is the roadmap into the future. Well,

931
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: it's somewhat controversial when I say this, and I don't

932
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: say it because I wanted to be this way, but

933
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: this is my own personal opinion of what the future holds.

934
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: Is that I think that the guitar is dead and

935
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: rock is dead. Uh, And then that's an exaggeration. They're

936
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: not dead, they're never going away, but they're never going

937
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: to be the primary yeah, like jazz um. And one

938
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,319
Speaker 1: of the reasons for that is that's the unstoppable march

939
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 1: of technology, in the unstoppable march of the democratization of music,

940
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: the democratization of the making and music. So look back,

941
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: say um electric guitar wasn't was a great example itself

942
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: of of incredible democratization the creation of music. And so

943
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:31,320
Speaker 1: before that you had big band era. You had to

944
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: bus loads full of really sophisticated people could read music,

945
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: write music, and we're well trained their instruments, and they

946
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: can only record if they went into a thing called

947
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 1: a studio owned by a record label, and um, that

948
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: was a very elite, closed group of people. Uh. Then

949
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: an electric guitar comes along and say, Buddy Holly's hands right,

950
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: three chords, just not doesn't know how to play his

951
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: guitar like a you know, famous traumpa player of Benny

952
00:48:57,600 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: Goodman knew how to play his clarinet or whatever. He

953
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 1: wasn't trying. He just knew three chords. And he recorded

954
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: in a garage, which is also democratization of recording. Where

955
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 1: is you know, um, what's his name, Norma Petty? Yeah, yeah,

956
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: this producer probably bought used gear from one of those

957
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: big New York studios that you couldn't get into anymore

958
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: and and put it in his garage and and that

959
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: was you didn't they didn't need permission from anybody, And

960
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: they went toured with three guys at the station wagon,

961
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 1: hugely forward, you know, sampling, same thing, right. So I

962
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 1: think that, um, that march of technology that democratizes creation

963
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 1: of music is unstoppable, and and it puts creation of

964
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:35,240
Speaker 1: music in the hands of people who don't have any training,

965
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: and every generation, people who are most interested in making

966
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:41,720
Speaker 1: music pick up the tools of their generation, which today

967
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: is a laptop or a phone. Um and uh, and

968
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: starts to make music with those tools, and the very

969
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: best of them, in the most motivated and driven, you know,

970
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: end up becoming successful and make a difference, and that

971
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 1: becomes their generations music. That's what's happening now. And I

972
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: think personally the next wave of the democratization of the

973
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,360
Speaker 1: creation of music is artificial intelligence, because I think I

974
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: think the the future of creation of music will be

975
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: how people humans create art by mucking with the technology

976
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:18,720
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper. So some examples. UM I started

977
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: as a recording engineer and UM, I watched the introduction

978
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: of the drum machine, and uh. First of all, drummers,

979
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: of course were horrified, and they had every excuse in

980
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 1: the world. Why was no good, It didn't feel like

981
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 1: a human blah blah blah. And of course people try

982
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: to use it to make it sound real. And and

983
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 1: then the smart drummers said, well, they bought one and

984
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: they became a percussion solutionist instead of a drummer, and

985
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: they still had the same producers would hire them, and

986
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: now they hire them to make that drum machine thing.

987
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: And then um, eventually people started using a drum machine,

988
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: uh in ways that people couldn't play drums, to take

989
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,319
Speaker 1: a high hat and go you know that kind of thing,

990
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 1: and and so that's what it got its real value

991
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: because it's doing something in the person can't do. Then

992
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 1: I watched the sampler come in the fair Light, was

993
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 1: the first commercial digital sampler, and um, I remember the

994
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: very first reaction people was always, although now we don't

995
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: have to hire a cello player, I can sample a

996
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 1: cello and played on the keyboard. And then I attributed

997
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: to may not be true, but I personally in my

998
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:20,879
Speaker 1: life attribute the breakthrough commercial breakthrough of the art of

999
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: using a sampler was owner of Lonely Heart by Yes,

1000
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: Trevor Horne produced it. And I remember where I was

1001
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 1: when I first heard. I was driving along the freeway

1002
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: in Toronto and I had to pull over because I

1003
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:35,479
Speaker 1: couldn't believe what I was hearing. I'd never heard anything

1004
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: like it. And of course what he did instead of

1005
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 1: trying to emulate something real, he said, gee, I won

1006
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: if we put the entire Lenon Symphia orchestra on on

1007
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:46,919
Speaker 1: each key and then went, you know, but right, and

1008
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: he created something that humans couldn't do, so I think

1009
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: that that's the same thing with artificial intelligence. Another example

1010
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: of technology like that would be the auto tune. So

1011
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 1: the guy invented auto tune, I've read interviews with him.

1012
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 1: He invented auto tune to tune vocals um And yet

1013
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,800
Speaker 1: you know, the breakthrough for auto tune was the share

1014
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: record and I believe and the guys were in the

1015
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 1: studio I'm sure with her and they said, oh, it's

1016
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 1: she's slightly out of tune. How what do we do.

1017
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:15,360
Speaker 1: I've heard this new thing called auto tune. Let's go

1018
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,279
Speaker 1: rent it. They rented it, They plug it in, and

1019
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:18,319
Speaker 1: what do you do when you plug it in a

1020
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: piece of gear For the first time, you turn it

1021
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:21,399
Speaker 1: all the way left and then all the way right.

1022
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:22,759
Speaker 1: And when they turned it all the way right, it

1023
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 1: went and invented that over auto tune sound. And then

1024
00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: the next wave of music I remember seeing was I

1025
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: think we might have been Farrell or one of those producers,

1026
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 1: and maybe a timble in Farrell. When the height of

1027
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: when auto tune first came in widely, they said, even

1028
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:39,839
Speaker 1: if it's in tune, I auto tune it because that's

1029
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: the sound of music today. And now You've got kids

1030
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:45,400
Speaker 1: growing up who were one of us to be singers,

1031
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: and they're listening to auto tune records and they naturally

1032
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: sound like their auto tune. So all you look at

1033
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 1: all those kind of developments, and then I think it's

1034
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: really easy to look at artificial intelligence. Okay, that's certainly

1035
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: democratizes creating music because anybody un initiated describe what artificial

1036
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: intelligence is and how it would apply in the music business.

1037
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: I'm not intelligent enough to aren't describe artificial intelligence, but

1038
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:15,760
Speaker 1: you know, it's you program the computer to the point

1039
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:19,319
Speaker 1: where it can imitate human behavior and then hopefully go

1040
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 1: a little step. Well yeah, and uh and some machine

1041
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,560
Speaker 1: learning is another another term for it. So there's already

1042
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: platforms out there that make music that um that either

1043
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: have no intervention from a person or you you interact

1044
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: with it in different ways like you type in purple

1045
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 1: or something and um uh, so that I think that's

1046
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: the future right now. Way, just to be clear, because

1047
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 1: based on all your things, you've said, there's a technology

1048
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:51,360
Speaker 1: and the human plays with the technology. Do you believe

1049
00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: that ultimately AI will create its own music or what

1050
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: the human will do with the tools of a the

1051
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: letter so well. First of all, AI is making music

1052
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: right now. But again, just like those examples I gave, um,

1053
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: they're using people are expecting regular sounding music to come

1054
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 1: out of it, and people are saying, well, it's not

1055
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: very good, or it's not you know, it's there's no

1056
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 1: soul or whatever. But I think what's gonna happen is

1057
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 1: that somebody will interact with it and come up with

1058
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 1: something the equivalent of taking the high hat and going

1059
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,240
Speaker 1: They'll do that with words, they'll do with melodies, they'll combine,

1060
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: you know, um, different strains of music that people have

1061
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:33,319
Speaker 1: never done before. They'll do it in a way you

1062
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: can't before, and they'll do it without any knowledge of

1063
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 1: how to do that because they're just interacting computer. Okay,

1064
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 1: how comes certain sounds have their window and faith Like

1065
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 1: in the late seventies it was the syndrome, right, but

1066
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 1: the fake hand clap of the t R O eight

1067
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 1: O eight lives on. Why do you think that is?

1068
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 1: I have no idea, I mean doing what I hear that,

1069
00:54:56,600 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 1: I go remember that two. So it immediately makes it

1070
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 1: me feel like these people are not testing the limits,

1071
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: which brings me to the next question. Irrelevant of what

1072
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,880
Speaker 1: instruments or how this music is created right now, A

1073
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 1: lot of the popular music's lacks melody. Do you believe

1074
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:18,279
Speaker 1: melody will come back? Well, I don't even say it.

1075
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 1: I don't even think it lacks melody today. I think that, Um,

1076
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:24,879
Speaker 1: you know, it's really easy to say, oh, today's music

1077
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,839
Speaker 1: sucks in whatever way, either that sucks generally or that

1078
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:29,719
Speaker 1: has no melody or whatever, and I think that we

1079
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 1: have no perspective on it. I think that every generation

1080
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:35,799
Speaker 1: has always said that about the following generation's music. Um,

1081
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 1: I hear lots of melody cooks on record. Generally there

1082
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:41,719
Speaker 1: are somebody a featured singer and a rap record or there,

1083
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,439
Speaker 1: or there are an instrumental part. But I hear lots

1084
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: of melodies. There's no question that records today, the production

1085
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: it forms more of the of the core of the

1086
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:54,239
Speaker 1: of the record than in the in the past. But

1087
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:56,839
Speaker 1: again that that's just a um, the march of time.

1088
00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: That's progress. I mean that there's more technology involved with

1089
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:01,239
Speaker 1: making a Well, I would say a lot of the

1090
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 1: be driven records, melody is secondary, tertiary or there at all.

1091
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 1: So just like the same thing. You know, there's a

1092
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: steampunk movement which drives me nuts, but one would anticipate

1093
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 1: it somewhere down the line. There's gonna just like with vinyl,

1094
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:21,279
Speaker 1: which is really amplified beyond the reality. Don't get me

1095
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: started exactly, We're on the same page, it sounds like.

1096
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: But the UM there will be people who would probably

1097
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 1: return to acoustic instruments just as a reaction. Yeah, there's

1098
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: no question the pendulum always swings. But I think that

1099
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:43,279
Speaker 1: the real instrument backlash will be upward peaks of downward curve. Okay,

1100
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: so do you anticipate any changes imminently? I think that,

1101
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 1: you know, the next few years, whether it's two, three, five,

1102
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 1: we're gonna see UM great records come out that have

1103
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 1: astonishing things about them. They are there because of the

1104
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: AI and have with the way the person screw with it. Again,

1105
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 1: I can't, you know, I'm not smart enough to involved

1106
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:07,399
Speaker 1: in enough to imagine exactly what it is. But very simplistically,

1107
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:10,760
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna get somebody who takes Bob Dylan

1108
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 1: a lyric program and turns Bob Dylan to ten, takes

1109
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: a melody program and turns you know, McCartney to minus

1110
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 1: five and hooks up the digital of delay in a

1111
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 1: phaser between them or something. You know, that's a very

1112
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: uber simplistic way of describe. You believe that's within the

1113
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,680
Speaker 1: next two or three years. I think two to five years. Okay,

1114
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: let's talk. Spotify is the dominant player in streaming music,

1115
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:36,040
Speaker 1: even eclipses YouTube at this point. Uh. But if you

1116
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 1: look at the Spotify Top fifty, unlike if people who

1117
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: grew up in the air of Top forty radio, it

1118
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 1: is pretty monochronistic, if that's even a word, monochrome, and

1119
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: then it's all basically hip hop, maybe a little pop

1120
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:53,520
Speaker 1: thrown in. This is a unique thing because there used

1121
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 1: to always be a filter saying no, we're gonna put

1122
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,120
Speaker 1: in these other elements. And to agree there's radio radio

1123
00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:02,600
Speaker 1: to a great degree replicates that. To what degree is

1124
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 1: that evidence of what people really want? Or do we

1125
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 1: need an opportunity for other styles of music. That's a

1126
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: great question. And I sort of alluded to it earlier

1127
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:16,439
Speaker 1: that we're concerned about that when it comes to say

1128
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:20,440
Speaker 1: the existence of Canadian content, right, UM are very early

1129
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:22,479
Speaker 1: on in our studies. We're going to refine our data,

1130
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:26,040
Speaker 1: but our data is showing that, um, the consumption of

1131
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 1: Canadian music by Canadians is disturbingly low in the in

1132
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: the digital space compared to the traditional broadcast media. And

1133
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 1: if that's the case, um our next thinking is that

1134
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 1: it must be a discover ability issue, because there's no

1135
00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 1: availability issue. Everybody's got the music on those platforms. And

1136
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: an example of and so basically they're unintentionally biased, perhaps

1137
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 1: in favor of of cultures from large countries or large populations,

1138
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:58,480
Speaker 1: or you know, certain genres of music or whatever. It's

1139
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:02,360
Speaker 1: it's an unintentional and biased and um a good example

1140
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 1: that would be you know, the it was that Martina

1141
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 1: McBride into last year since she tried to create an

1142
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: automated playlist and she seated it with a Rebend McEntire

1143
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 1: track or something like that, and then uh, nineteen of

1144
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 1: the other tracks that were automatically generated for we're all men.

1145
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 1: Uh you know so, and these aren't There's nothing evil

1146
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,360
Speaker 1: about all this stuff. These are an unintended consequences of

1147
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 1: the mecha describing mechanisms. And I think these these platforms

1148
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: genuinely a want to make music as discoverable as possible

1149
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:34,360
Speaker 1: and and and please the customer that way, and be

1150
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 1: they want to localize their products for different territories and

1151
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,480
Speaker 1: different cultures. I just think that we're not there yet

1152
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:43,160
Speaker 1: to the point where it's done done well enough. And

1153
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:45,200
Speaker 1: uh so that's a concern of ours in terms of

1154
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:48,200
Speaker 1: Canadian content. But if you could insert any subgenre or

1155
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:51,520
Speaker 1: small genre or of music there that I think everybody

1156
00:59:51,560 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: should be as concerned. Uh, because um of what you're saying. Okay,

1157
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:05,920
Speaker 1: you started out as a drummer. Okay, drummer. When did

1158
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: you start playing drums? It was about five. My dad

1159
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 1: was an amateur drummer and he your father, and so

1160
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: it's in the family. Yeah. He was a big jazz fan.

1161
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:18,200
Speaker 1: Uh and um uh. He would played in little jazz

1162
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 1: combos and um. And he actually taught me how to

1163
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:24,280
Speaker 1: listen to records. We'd sit around on a Saturday afternoon

1164
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: and you'd have a beer and from in front of

1165
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:28,400
Speaker 1: the big gold console stereo that's as big as a couch,

1166
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:30,800
Speaker 1: and he'd be listening to you know, Benny Goodman and

1167
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: Count Basie and all those people, and uh, he'd say,

1168
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:36,200
Speaker 1: listen to this, listen that secks, so listen to how

1169
01:00:36,240 --> 01:00:38,960
Speaker 1: that got drummer did this? And uh so that really

1170
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:41,919
Speaker 1: got me both intrigued and and interested and be able

1171
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 1: to listen, right and uh. And then I played in

1172
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 1: a town marching band that my dad was involved with

1173
01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 1: to keep the kids off the street. We had no

1174
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 1: music in schools. But I was the youngest kid ever

1175
01:00:50,600 --> 01:00:53,120
Speaker 1: in the band. And I would we'd be on the

1176
01:00:53,200 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 1: march and I'd be playing the symbols and um, I

1177
01:00:56,160 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: would hit them so hard that they they'd stick like

1178
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:02,439
Speaker 1: a suction cup, but to go clang, clank. And then

1179
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,280
Speaker 1: so the leader of the band would mark time and

1180
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:06,400
Speaker 1: make for the band to catch up, and he'd take

1181
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: them out of my hands and unstick them and hand

1182
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:11,720
Speaker 1: them back to me. And then we also played uh.

1183
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 1: Concert was a concert band to like forty kids, right.

1184
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,880
Speaker 1: You know, I was probably ten when I joined, but

1185
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 1: there was maybe the oldest seventeen eighteen. And um, the

1186
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 1: leader of the band, his name is Frank Banks, was

1187
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: really a progressive guy and he and he was trying

1188
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 1: to keep the kids interested in and this is the

1189
01:01:26,520 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: air at rock era. So he did an arrangement of

1190
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 1: Tommy's overture that we were playing in this you know

1191
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 1: forty person Bank. Yeah, and then and then he let

1192
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 1: myself and the other drummer bring our drum kids in

1193
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: and we did dueling in a god at avita solos

1194
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:45,800
Speaker 1: in the middle of this you know, horn orchestra, um. Yeah,

1195
01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: and then you know bands and everything. But I wanted

1196
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:51,200
Speaker 1: to be um. I didn't think you could you could.

1197
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:53,000
Speaker 1: I didn't think you could be from my town and

1198
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: and and and be successful in me it's just to

1199
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:58,360
Speaker 1: be from my audience. Where was your it's called Lindsay

1200
01:01:58,400 --> 01:01:59,840
Speaker 1: was about an hour and a half from northeast to

1201
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 1: tron On and uh and in the entire existence of

1202
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:05,920
Speaker 1: the town, nobody ever made anything out of being a

1203
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: music career. And talk about Canadian content impact um uh.

1204
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 1: At our work show that's coming up in the end

1205
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 1: of March, um, we're probably there's probably half a dozen

1206
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:21,080
Speaker 1: or more awards going to people from the area of

1207
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:24,200
Speaker 1: my town. Okay, so you're growing up, Are you like

1208
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 1: a music fanatic, buying the records, listening to the radio

1209
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 1: or is just one thing that you do? No? No,

1210
01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: I was fanatical about it, and I was fanatical about records.

1211
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: I was. I just mesmerized by what I called my

1212
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 1: magic records. And everybody's got them in their life. There's

1213
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,640
Speaker 1: those records that you know when your girlfriend leaves your

1214
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:44,000
Speaker 1: something that saves your life by listening to it, or

1215
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 1: just takes you to another world transport you and I

1216
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:48,920
Speaker 1: had records like that, and and what would you remember

1217
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: a couple of those records? Um, well, certainly Dark Side

1218
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 1: of the Moon uh. And in fact that record um

1219
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: and the guests who I get that the minute, but

1220
01:02:58,520 --> 01:02:59,880
Speaker 1: they guess who to me are the big bang a

1221
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:03,439
Speaker 1: Canadian music and and and before them you didn't think

1222
01:03:03,440 --> 01:03:05,000
Speaker 1: that you could be Canadian and you could do this.

1223
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: And after them, they made people realize that you could

1224
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: be Canadian, you could have world success and and and

1225
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:13,520
Speaker 1: not have to move to the US. And even in

1226
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: my life, bigger story was behind the scenes, you could

1227
01:03:16,840 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 1: do that. And Jack Ridgards and the guy who discovered

1228
01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 1: and produced them, became sort of my hero. And I

1229
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: wanted to Uh. I wanted to find him because I

1230
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:25,920
Speaker 1: wanted to find what the secret of making a magic

1231
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:28,840
Speaker 1: record was. And so I was in the technology and

1232
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 1: electronics and and when you know, you're the era of

1233
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd and all the flying echoes and things like that,

1234
01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, it's technology that's the secret to

1235
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:39,640
Speaker 1: making a magic record. And so I wanted to become

1236
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:42,280
Speaker 1: a recording engineer, and um, I wanted to thought you

1237
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: could must be a school for it, because you look

1238
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: at a picture of a recording console, it was a

1239
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 1: thousand knobs on it. And there wasn't any schools in

1240
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 1: the world. And I looked for two years and finally

1241
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: the first world's first credited chorus for recording engineering record

1242
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: record production sprung up in London, Ontario, Canada, called Music

1243
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: Industry Arts at Fanshaw College, and I found it. It

1244
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 1: was amazing moment in my life when I realized there

1245
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:06,040
Speaker 1: is a school and my goal was to find the school,

1246
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 1: get into school, graduate, find Jack Richardson and go work

1247
01:04:09,120 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: for him. And that's exactly what happened. Okay, how long

1248
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:13,720
Speaker 1: were we in the school? Three years? How did you

1249
01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:16,560
Speaker 1: find Jack Richardson? Um? He came down to the guest

1250
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 1: lecture one day because his son, Garth was a new

1251
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:21,040
Speaker 1: student in the first year and I was in my

1252
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:23,480
Speaker 1: third year, and I thought, this is it. My heroes

1253
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: come I this is my day. And I basically falled

1254
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:29,080
Speaker 1: him around like a puppy dog and basically hung onto

1255
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,000
Speaker 1: his ankle, wouldn't let go all day, and finally at

1256
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:32,680
Speaker 1: the end of the day, he turned his son and

1257
01:04:32,680 --> 01:04:36,240
Speaker 1: he said, who's that kid? And uh Karth said, well,

1258
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 1: he's actually the number one student in the school. And

1259
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:43,000
Speaker 1: he said and and he said, he's not crazy, he

1260
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:46,080
Speaker 1: just thinks he's said you're just his hero. So Jack

1261
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 1: turned him and say, if you're ever in Toronto sometime,

1262
01:04:49,400 --> 01:04:54,360
Speaker 1: give me a call and come into the studio. Yeah, exactly.

1263
01:04:54,600 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 1: And they basically never left. And I graduated and he

1264
01:04:57,280 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 1: got an internship. Didn't call it that then, but he

1265
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:02,440
Speaker 1: and he's hired me for the summer. And when I graduated,

1266
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:06,400
Speaker 1: and the very very first day, my other hero was

1267
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: bob Ezman and the very very first day was bob

1268
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:12,600
Speaker 1: Ezman session. So it was like, what was your role

1269
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 1: was in turn? Okay? And you remember what the session was? Uh?

1270
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:21,680
Speaker 1: Tim Curry her picture Schaces first solo record. Okay, So

1271
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: how did you graduate? Up the ladder in the studio?

1272
01:05:24,760 --> 01:05:27,200
Speaker 1: Because I had been to school and and I was

1273
01:05:27,240 --> 01:05:29,280
Speaker 1: in the first generation of people had been to school,

1274
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:33,640
Speaker 1: nobody knew what I knew and U uh. One day

1275
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:37,080
Speaker 1: Jack was producing a vocal and the head engineer UM

1276
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 1: couldn't for some reason, couldn't get sound working and Jack

1277
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:42,600
Speaker 1: and the and the singer got up pretty upset of

1278
01:05:42,640 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: chorus after about five minutes of no sound, and uh

1279
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:48,320
Speaker 1: singer said, I'm going to get a coffee and and

1280
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 1: Jack turned to the engineer said I'm gonna get a

1281
01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: coffee too, And if when I come back, if it's

1282
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:55,520
Speaker 1: not happening, you're done that kind of thing, right, So

1283
01:05:55,600 --> 01:05:58,360
Speaker 1: he was just shaking, right. And because I knew how

1284
01:05:58,360 --> 01:05:59,640
Speaker 1: to work the board. I knew how to work the

1285
01:05:59,640 --> 01:06:02,200
Speaker 1: board because when I was hanging out there before they

1286
01:06:02,240 --> 01:06:04,360
Speaker 1: hired me, I would talk to the maintenance guy and

1287
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:06,800
Speaker 1: he would give me a photocopy of the schematic of

1288
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 1: the board and then a photocopy of the front page

1289
01:06:09,160 --> 01:06:11,800
Speaker 1: of the manual. So I built a life size cardboard

1290
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:14,120
Speaker 1: cutout of the board when I was in school, and

1291
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 1: I used to pretend to work it was sitting in bed.

1292
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:18,960
Speaker 1: So by time I started there as a gopher, I

1293
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:20,600
Speaker 1: knew how to work the board, eve though I've never

1294
01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:22,360
Speaker 1: touched it. What kind of board did they have? There's

1295
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:26,320
Speaker 1: a highly modified auditronics And what was the name of

1296
01:06:26,320 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: the studio then Nimbus nine. Yeah, so um, anyway, so

1297
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:32,200
Speaker 1: they I knew what was I knew why the guy

1298
01:06:32,200 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 1: would couldn't get the sound, but I didn't want to

1299
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:35,200
Speaker 1: embarrass them in front of Jack. And so as soon

1300
01:06:35,240 --> 01:06:37,000
Speaker 1: as Jack left the control and I said, Jim, try

1301
01:06:37,040 --> 01:06:38,560
Speaker 1: the red button over there, and he looked at me like,

1302
01:06:38,640 --> 01:06:39,840
Speaker 1: who do you? Who are you? What do you know?

1303
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 1: And uh, Finally, just before Jack came in, and he

1304
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:44,640
Speaker 1: knew he had nothing else to lose, so he tried

1305
01:06:44,640 --> 01:06:46,480
Speaker 1: the red button in the sound came on right. So

1306
01:06:46,800 --> 01:06:49,680
Speaker 1: from that moment on, they trusted me to do things.

1307
01:06:49,720 --> 01:06:53,920
Speaker 1: And then I happened to be lucky enough to be

1308
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: asked to engineer a demo for a band called the

1309
01:06:57,680 --> 01:07:01,480
Speaker 1: Kings because they're managers. Life was a receptionist in the

1310
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:04,240
Speaker 1: studio and she talked Jack into give him the band downtime,

1311
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:06,240
Speaker 1: free time, but he said, only if you can get

1312
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 1: one of the guys to engineer it. And nobody wanted

1313
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 1: to do it, and again I said I'll do it,

1314
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:12,240
Speaker 1: and they looked at me. He said, you you don't

1315
01:07:12,280 --> 01:07:13,640
Speaker 1: know how to do anything, and I said no, I

1316
01:07:13,640 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: went to school, remember, And they had no choice. They

1317
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 1: had how long have you been working there at that?

1318
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,040
Speaker 1: Three or four months? Maybe six months? And um, and

1319
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:22,640
Speaker 1: so they said, well, I. I I guess it's the only

1320
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:24,320
Speaker 1: the only choice. So they let me go in that

1321
01:07:24,400 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 1: weekend and I worked with this band and and they

1322
01:07:27,160 --> 01:07:29,120
Speaker 1: went off to try and get a record deal. And

1323
01:07:29,160 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 1: about six nine months later they couldn't get a record deal,

1324
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:33,840
Speaker 1: but they came to the father they got guitar player's

1325
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,040
Speaker 1: father had died left him a lot of money, so

1326
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:38,480
Speaker 1: they said, we want to make an independent record and uh,

1327
01:07:38,520 --> 01:07:40,480
Speaker 1: we would have blockbooked the studio for a month. We

1328
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:42,840
Speaker 1: want Mike to engineer and produce it, and they said,

1329
01:07:42,840 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 1: but he's only ever done your demo. And then we

1330
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:49,440
Speaker 1: also said, um, nobody's ever had any success with independent records.

1331
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 1: This is nineteen eighty let's say anyone and m and

1332
01:07:53,320 --> 01:07:55,919
Speaker 1: we tried to talk about of it, and they finally said, look,

1333
01:07:55,920 --> 01:07:57,600
Speaker 1: we're trying to block book your studio for a month.

1334
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 1: Do you want the business or not? So they said, yeah,

1335
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:01,560
Speaker 1: you can do it, but Mike has to work with

1336
01:08:01,720 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 1: the other engineer named Ringo Ringo Hersina, who was how

1337
01:08:04,560 --> 01:08:06,880
Speaker 1: many rooms were there in the studio just one, but

1338
01:08:06,960 --> 01:08:09,360
Speaker 1: actually that factors into the rest of the story. So

1339
01:08:09,440 --> 01:08:11,800
Speaker 1: we we so Ringo and I the next day started

1340
01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: making this record with this band called the Kings, and uh,

1341
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:17,000
Speaker 1: you know, thirty days go by and we make the record,

1342
01:08:17,160 --> 01:08:19,360
Speaker 1: and we're starting to do rough mixes and and and

1343
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:21,559
Speaker 1: they had a new song was actually two songs and

1344
01:08:21,560 --> 01:08:24,639
Speaker 1: one it's called this beat goes on and switch right

1345
01:08:25,080 --> 01:08:27,960
Speaker 1: and and they had. But but in our really triumphant

1346
01:08:28,040 --> 01:08:30,160
Speaker 1: moment during the making the record was figuring how to

1347
01:08:30,160 --> 01:08:33,599
Speaker 1: connect the two songs because it recorded separately, right, and

1348
01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:36,280
Speaker 1: they were so much Why did you decide to connect them? Well?

1349
01:08:36,400 --> 01:08:39,000
Speaker 1: That they did that was that was the bands and

1350
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 1: and there and one of the managers was I thought

1351
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:43,519
Speaker 1: was an r and our genius. They had decided to

1352
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:45,320
Speaker 1: do this, and they had they had realized by playing

1353
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:47,920
Speaker 1: it live that they didn't work very well independentalty. But

1354
01:08:47,960 --> 01:08:50,120
Speaker 1: you put them two together. And that was one of

1355
01:08:50,120 --> 01:08:53,760
Speaker 1: the biggest lessons I learned about hit songs was from this,

1356
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:55,920
Speaker 1: because I asked the manager, I said, why did you

1357
01:08:55,920 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: guys know that this was the only way it works?

1358
01:08:57,520 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 1: You said, very simple. Hit records are rhythm melody hooks.

1359
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:02,240
Speaker 1: One of them's got the melody hook, the other has

1360
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 1: got the rhythm hook, you know, and that kind of thing. Right. So, anyway,

1361
01:09:05,280 --> 01:09:08,519
Speaker 1: we were had the rough mixes together and Bob, I

1362
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:10,160
Speaker 1: know he got the credit on the record. I bought

1363
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:13,200
Speaker 1: the record. Yeah, well he so he came around, uh,

1364
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: trying to measure. He was thinking of buying the place,

1365
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:18,000
Speaker 1: and he was measuring one of the rooms to see

1366
01:09:18,040 --> 01:09:20,720
Speaker 1: if you could build a second room, second studio. And

1367
01:09:20,720 --> 01:09:22,519
Speaker 1: when the band heard the Bob was there, they said, oh,

1368
01:09:22,520 --> 01:09:24,080
Speaker 1: you got to bring him in and hear the stuff,

1369
01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:26,240
Speaker 1: and and Ringo and I said, on, I don't know,

1370
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:28,240
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't probably want to hear this stuff.

1371
01:09:28,240 --> 01:09:30,080
Speaker 1: And Ringoes and said, you know, he hasn't worked with

1372
01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:32,439
Speaker 1: an unknown band since Alice Cooper. And we've tried all

1373
01:09:32,439 --> 01:09:34,719
Speaker 1: these excuses. We didn't want to bother Bob. And finally

1374
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:38,200
Speaker 1: the manager said, inter just me to him. So okay,

1375
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:39,880
Speaker 1: so we go introduced them and then they talked for

1376
01:09:39,920 --> 01:09:41,840
Speaker 1: a while and and he brings Bob back in the

1377
01:09:41,840 --> 01:09:44,240
Speaker 1: control room. Bob says, let me hear it. So he pressed.

1378
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:46,120
Speaker 1: We pressed playing on the tape, and the first thing

1379
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:47,920
Speaker 1: he hears is this. He goes on switching the guide.

1380
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:49,840
Speaker 1: He stops it at the end and he says, there's

1381
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:51,800
Speaker 1: a hit record. I'm gonna get you guys a record deal.

1382
01:09:52,960 --> 01:09:55,400
Speaker 1: Seven days later, he had them to deal with Electric Records,

1383
01:09:55,720 --> 01:09:58,720
Speaker 1: and he came in the in the studio waving a

1384
01:09:58,880 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 1: telex or something and uh saying, great news. You know,

1385
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:04,400
Speaker 1: We've got the record deal, and I'm gonna produce and

1386
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:07,400
Speaker 1: reproduce the record. And Ringo and I sat during it,

1387
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:10,879
Speaker 1: where does that leave us? And Bob looked at us like, oh,

1388
01:10:10,960 --> 01:10:14,600
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna engineer an associate produce. We said, okay, fantastic,

1389
01:10:14,680 --> 01:10:16,679
Speaker 1: and so we just the next day we started remaking

1390
01:10:16,720 --> 01:10:19,680
Speaker 1: the same album. Did he remake it from scratch? Oh? Yeah?

1391
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:22,440
Speaker 1: And and and and you know, it was an incredible

1392
01:10:22,600 --> 01:10:28,080
Speaker 1: example of Bob's genius because he made some subtle changes that,

1393
01:10:28,479 --> 01:10:31,080
Speaker 1: in my opinion, made a huge, huge difference and and

1394
01:10:31,360 --> 01:10:34,640
Speaker 1: um uh so it was good. But although that was

1395
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:38,840
Speaker 1: the punk era and um, and the band was not

1396
01:10:38,920 --> 01:10:41,439
Speaker 1: really a punk band, but they were trying to adopt

1397
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:43,920
Speaker 1: a few the ethics of punk, and Bob was really

1398
01:10:43,920 --> 01:10:46,720
Speaker 1: into punk, and and he decided that he didn't want

1399
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,680
Speaker 1: to uh spend any time making getting the sounds, so

1400
01:10:50,439 --> 01:10:52,800
Speaker 1: um it was basically, you know, put the microphones up

1401
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:54,479
Speaker 1: in a roll tape kind of thing. And and to

1402
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:56,200
Speaker 1: this day I figured I might have still been an

1403
01:10:56,200 --> 01:10:58,200
Speaker 1: engineer if they would have given us time to get

1404
01:10:58,240 --> 01:11:01,200
Speaker 1: better sounds. But I don't know that record was a hit,

1405
01:11:01,200 --> 01:11:03,720
Speaker 1: at least in Los Angeles. How come they could never

1406
01:11:03,800 --> 01:11:06,760
Speaker 1: follow it up? Why? Why do most people not follow

1407
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:09,200
Speaker 1: it up? Because it's lightning, you know? I guess they

1408
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:11,720
Speaker 1: Also they kicked the manager out of the out of

1409
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:14,320
Speaker 1: the whole situation, and UM and I really felt that

1410
01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:18,000
Speaker 1: he was an incredibly important part of the of the

1411
01:11:18,040 --> 01:11:21,240
Speaker 1: creative dynamic of the band. And so after I left

1412
01:11:21,439 --> 01:11:24,960
Speaker 1: working for Jack Richardson and then left after we left

1413
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:27,960
Speaker 1: working for Bob too, UM, I went back and found

1414
01:11:27,960 --> 01:11:29,760
Speaker 1: that guy and we started our own company. We called

1415
01:11:29,760 --> 01:11:35,080
Speaker 1: ourselves the Producers. Uh. Inspired by the movie and UM

1416
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:37,360
Speaker 1: went around finding bands, take him a studio and make

1417
01:11:37,400 --> 01:11:40,599
Speaker 1: records and UM UH did a lot of great stuff,

1418
01:11:40,640 --> 01:11:44,760
Speaker 1: but couldn't get arrested. And eventually, UH Frank Davies was

1419
01:11:44,840 --> 01:11:48,160
Speaker 1: running a TV Canada offered me a job as created

1420
01:11:48,160 --> 01:11:51,920
Speaker 1: person there. Okay, let's go back. So what was your

1421
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:54,799
Speaker 1: How long were you an engineer after that King's record?

1422
01:11:55,240 --> 01:11:57,360
Speaker 1: A couple of years, I guess. And you worked with

1423
01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:00,360
Speaker 1: Bob Yeah, yeah, I worked with him on the next

1424
01:12:00,479 --> 01:12:04,240
Speaker 1: King's record and then Kiss record the elder. So you

1425
01:12:04,280 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 1: were Bob's guy, one of them. Yeah, right, how did

1426
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,760
Speaker 1: it end for you? Um? So you know, when you're

1427
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:15,519
Speaker 1: working a studio, it's twenty four hours a day, seven

1428
01:12:15,560 --> 01:12:18,120
Speaker 1: days a week, thirty days a month, right, And UM,

1429
01:12:18,520 --> 01:12:20,880
Speaker 1: I had treated my schooling that way. So three years

1430
01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:25,600
Speaker 1: of seven school, uh, probably three years seven in the

1431
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:28,479
Speaker 1: studio and I was about at the end of my

1432
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:31,559
Speaker 1: rope and I didn't really realize it. And um, and

1433
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:35,479
Speaker 1: Bob had taken for some reason, I guess with the

1434
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 1: timing of the Kings or the or the Kiss was

1435
01:12:38,360 --> 01:12:39,640
Speaker 1: working out the way it was supposed to be, and

1436
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:41,880
Speaker 1: we had to do both records at once basically, so

1437
01:12:41,920 --> 01:12:43,960
Speaker 1: he had we do two weeks with Kiss, two weeks

1438
01:12:43,960 --> 01:12:46,360
Speaker 1: with Kings too. Was Kissed Kings and it was just

1439
01:12:46,439 --> 01:12:49,880
Speaker 1: driving me crazy. And finally, uh, um, one day Bob

1440
01:12:49,960 --> 01:12:52,920
Speaker 1: was really late for the studio and UM, we got

1441
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:55,320
Speaker 1: tired of waiting for him because we had decided that

1442
01:12:55,360 --> 01:12:57,519
Speaker 1: if we had worked ahead, he might not like it,

1443
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:00,679
Speaker 1: and uh, we be working for nothing and if and

1444
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:03,160
Speaker 1: so W do W that we decided not to decided

1445
01:13:03,280 --> 01:13:06,719
Speaker 1: to go out to dinner and uh, soon after we left,

1446
01:13:06,800 --> 01:13:09,880
Speaker 1: he arrived and uh he was upset that we weren't there,

1447
01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:12,599
Speaker 1: and so we got back to the studio. He said, Okay,

1448
01:13:12,640 --> 01:13:14,800
Speaker 1: just because you guys have done this, we're gonna have

1449
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:16,280
Speaker 1: to work the weekend. And that was gonna be the

1450
01:13:16,280 --> 01:13:19,320
Speaker 1: first weekend I'd had off in months. And somebody said

1451
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:22,280
Speaker 1: work the weekend. It literally heard of spring my brain

1452
01:13:22,320 --> 01:13:25,920
Speaker 1: go boing. I turned around and walked out the door. Uh.

1453
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:28,360
Speaker 1: The studio was the edge of in the edge of Toronto. Um.

1454
01:13:28,400 --> 01:13:30,720
Speaker 1: I walked in the countryside for probably two hours. Bob

1455
01:13:30,760 --> 01:13:32,840
Speaker 1: and his wife and it was just getting dark. They

1456
01:13:32,880 --> 01:13:36,200
Speaker 1: came in looking for me. People thought I'd like jumped

1457
01:13:36,200 --> 01:13:39,559
Speaker 1: in the river or something, and uh uh I turned

1458
01:13:39,560 --> 01:13:41,320
Speaker 1: down the offer to drive me back to the studio.

1459
01:13:41,400 --> 01:13:43,240
Speaker 1: I got back to the studio, I went in and

1460
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:45,559
Speaker 1: tacked up a sign on the wall said gone fishing.

1461
01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:48,719
Speaker 1: And a friend of mine worked for a wholesale travel agency,

1462
01:13:48,720 --> 01:13:50,080
Speaker 1: and I said, caled her and said get me on

1463
01:13:50,080 --> 01:13:52,240
Speaker 1: the beach tomorrow. So I went to the Bahamas for

1464
01:13:52,240 --> 01:13:54,120
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks and two or three weeks and

1465
01:13:54,439 --> 01:13:56,920
Speaker 1: sat of the beach, just staring at the beach. During

1466
01:13:56,960 --> 01:14:00,280
Speaker 1: an that was the end. No, what happened was I

1467
01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:03,120
Speaker 1: met a Rastafarian. Uh, this is a true story. I

1468
01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:05,960
Speaker 1: met a Rastafarian on the beach and u and started

1469
01:14:05,960 --> 01:14:08,200
Speaker 1: smoking joints with him, and he said, uh, you know

1470
01:14:08,200 --> 01:14:11,320
Speaker 1: what your problem is. I don't want to take the accent,

1471
01:14:11,360 --> 01:14:13,599
Speaker 1: but he said, your problem is you've spent too much

1472
01:14:13,720 --> 01:14:18,280
Speaker 1: time working on your career and basically, give you've atrophied

1473
01:14:18,320 --> 01:14:21,200
Speaker 1: as a person, like a three legged stool. You know,

1474
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:24,160
Speaker 1: you've got the physical mental and uh and and and

1475
01:14:24,200 --> 01:14:27,800
Speaker 1: spiritual legs and a couple of have fallen are short,

1476
01:14:27,840 --> 01:14:30,720
Speaker 1: you've fallen over. So I thought that's a great thing.

1477
01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:32,280
Speaker 1: So I came back and I didn't care about my

1478
01:14:32,320 --> 01:14:35,200
Speaker 1: career for a while. And uh then kind of stuff

1479
01:14:35,280 --> 01:14:37,760
Speaker 1: started to happen, and I found got the partner with

1480
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:40,280
Speaker 1: that producer with the Manka. But when you came back,

1481
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:43,400
Speaker 1: you didn't work in the studio anymore. Did nothing for

1482
01:14:43,439 --> 01:14:45,000
Speaker 1: a while. And then and found my partner and we

1483
01:14:45,040 --> 01:14:47,400
Speaker 1: found and we started, um, you know, finding gods in

1484
01:14:47,439 --> 01:14:50,680
Speaker 1: the studio. But when you walked for good, they were

1485
01:14:50,720 --> 01:14:53,360
Speaker 1: cool with that. Today the people are lining up to work. Yeah,

1486
01:14:53,880 --> 01:14:56,360
Speaker 1: Bob was incredibly understanding about it. I mean, you know,

1487
01:14:56,439 --> 01:14:58,360
Speaker 1: he knows the pressures of all that stuff, and and

1488
01:14:58,600 --> 01:15:01,839
Speaker 1: so you know, I I learned more about balancing myself.

1489
01:15:01,880 --> 01:15:03,760
Speaker 1: I think, you know, with that and and it's I

1490
01:15:03,800 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 1: think that's a good, good lesson for anybody's life. You know.

1491
01:15:06,040 --> 01:15:09,519
Speaker 1: So you go to work for a TV publisher, how

1492
01:15:09,560 --> 01:15:12,280
Speaker 1: do you end up running E M my music Publishing Canada?

1493
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:15,040
Speaker 1: I was so I was really lucky that. Um Uh.

1494
01:15:15,080 --> 01:15:17,800
Speaker 1: Shortly after I got there, um I met with one

1495
01:15:17,840 --> 01:15:20,639
Speaker 1: of the writers of a band called Toronto that had

1496
01:15:20,680 --> 01:15:24,160
Speaker 1: been signed there and at a TV Canada and it

1497
01:15:24,200 --> 01:15:27,480
Speaker 1: was it was the biggest outlet for Canadian talent. Um.

1498
01:15:27,760 --> 01:15:30,600
Speaker 1: They had Aldo Nova, they had Eddie Schwartzer wrote me

1499
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:33,320
Speaker 1: Hip Hippie with your best shot. Um they had a

1500
01:15:33,360 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 1: big had chili whack um a lot of success. And

1501
01:15:38,320 --> 01:15:40,320
Speaker 1: they had this band called Toronto that was on Solid

1502
01:15:40,360 --> 01:15:44,280
Speaker 1: Gold Records and Neil Dixon's label, and um uh, the

1503
01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:47,040
Speaker 1: good Brian Allen, the guitar player me and writer called

1504
01:15:47,080 --> 01:15:49,040
Speaker 1: me up and he said, you know, our deal is

1505
01:15:49,120 --> 01:15:51,160
Speaker 1: up with you guys, and you only published the stuff

1506
01:15:51,160 --> 01:15:52,799
Speaker 1: that was on our records, and I have some stuff

1507
01:15:52,800 --> 01:15:54,240
Speaker 1: that wasn't on the record. I don't know if you

1508
01:15:54,280 --> 01:15:55,920
Speaker 1: want to hear it? I said yeah, sure. So he

1509
01:15:56,000 --> 01:15:57,680
Speaker 1: came in and played me a bunch of demos and

1510
01:15:57,720 --> 01:15:59,400
Speaker 1: one of them was a song called what About Love

1511
01:15:59,439 --> 01:16:02,200
Speaker 1: and it was a little cassette port of studio demo

1512
01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:04,880
Speaker 1: and I said, wow, that's a great song. I've only

1513
01:16:04,920 --> 01:16:07,080
Speaker 1: been on the job for about a month. I already

1514
01:16:07,080 --> 01:16:09,000
Speaker 1: know that I can't sell that song with with that

1515
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:12,519
Speaker 1: bat of a demo. And uh, then he called me

1516
01:16:12,560 --> 01:16:15,559
Speaker 1: a week later, so I found Uh. We actually tried

1517
01:16:15,600 --> 01:16:17,920
Speaker 1: to record it on the album the Jim Valence produced

1518
01:16:18,040 --> 01:16:20,640
Speaker 1: for us, and Jim Valence co wrote it and I

1519
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:22,200
Speaker 1: got left off the last minute, so I have a

1520
01:16:22,240 --> 01:16:25,200
Speaker 1: rough mix of the produced version one it here. I said, yeah, sure,

1521
01:16:25,240 --> 01:16:26,559
Speaker 1: so I brought it in. It was just I thought

1522
01:16:26,560 --> 01:16:28,960
Speaker 1: it was a total smash. Got it to Don Gerson,

1523
01:16:28,960 --> 01:16:31,200
Speaker 1: who was ahead of in our capitol, who wanted songs

1524
01:16:31,200 --> 01:16:34,320
Speaker 1: for Heart, and UM he picked it for Heart and

1525
01:16:34,400 --> 01:16:36,599
Speaker 1: they had a giant hit with it and basically resurrected

1526
01:16:36,640 --> 01:16:39,559
Speaker 1: a career, and um gave me a career in music

1527
01:16:39,560 --> 01:16:41,400
Speaker 1: publishing because all of a sudden, now I had I

1528
01:16:41,439 --> 01:16:43,760
Speaker 1: scored a big goal, right And that was right before

1529
01:16:43,760 --> 01:16:47,760
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson bought the company. Just stop there that the

1530
01:16:47,800 --> 01:16:51,040
Speaker 1: original rough mix. How close was that to the finished

1531
01:16:51,080 --> 01:16:54,560
Speaker 1: hard version? Unbelievably close. It was my first lesson in

1532
01:16:54,600 --> 01:16:57,240
Speaker 1: that almost every nine times out of ten, when somebody

1533
01:16:57,479 --> 01:16:59,880
Speaker 1: uh gets a demo and and and and cuts a

1534
01:17:00,040 --> 01:17:02,720
Speaker 1: record of it, it's it's just like the demo. And

1535
01:17:02,800 --> 01:17:05,320
Speaker 1: that's a big lesson for me and publishing in some

1536
01:17:05,400 --> 01:17:08,920
Speaker 1: song plugging is that nobody has any imagination, right, Okay,

1537
01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:12,240
Speaker 1: So Michael Jackson then buys the label, but he buys

1538
01:17:12,240 --> 01:17:15,559
Speaker 1: it to get the get the songs and fires everybody

1539
01:17:15,600 --> 01:17:18,880
Speaker 1: in the world. Um. And just as we're turning out

1540
01:17:18,880 --> 01:17:21,800
Speaker 1: the lights, I got a call from a journalist music

1541
01:17:21,840 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 1: journalist named Nick Cruen who worked for a Maga trick

1542
01:17:24,600 --> 01:17:28,160
Speaker 1: Natie mag trade magazine called the record David Farrell and

1543
01:17:28,479 --> 01:17:30,760
Speaker 1: David now has f y I music, which you've probously seen,

1544
01:17:31,360 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 1: remember the record and uh, And he had assigned Nick

1545
01:17:34,400 --> 01:17:36,320
Speaker 1: the job of trying to get somebody in a TV

1546
01:17:36,680 --> 01:17:39,040
Speaker 1: to talk about the fact that everybody's losing their jobs.

1547
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:40,960
Speaker 1: And he called me up and he said, you're my

1548
01:17:41,040 --> 01:17:42,760
Speaker 1: last chance. You're the lowest guy in the poll in

1549
01:17:42,760 --> 01:17:45,240
Speaker 1: the world. And I've tried to get everybody talking, nobody

1550
01:17:45,280 --> 01:17:47,880
Speaker 1: will and so I had this vision that if I

1551
01:17:47,920 --> 01:17:49,000
Speaker 1: was going to go down, I might as well go

1552
01:17:49,040 --> 01:17:51,599
Speaker 1: down in flames. And I thought, well, I'll just be honest,

1553
01:17:51,760 --> 01:17:54,240
Speaker 1: and that I actually honest to God. Had a vision

1554
01:17:54,240 --> 01:17:57,040
Speaker 1: of a Star Trek episode where um, they were lost

1555
01:17:57,040 --> 01:17:59,160
Speaker 1: in space and they and they couldn't get a hold

1556
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:01,559
Speaker 1: of anybody, and there was a ship passing a few

1557
01:18:01,640 --> 01:18:04,519
Speaker 1: light years away, so to get its attention, Spock jettison

1558
01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:06,519
Speaker 1: to the last bit of anti matter and blew it up.

1559
01:18:06,560 --> 01:18:08,720
Speaker 1: In of course, the explosion caused the ship to come

1560
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:10,559
Speaker 1: and find them and save them. So I thought, I'm

1561
01:18:10,560 --> 01:18:15,040
Speaker 1: gonna create an explosion, So I I said, you know that,

1562
01:18:15,120 --> 01:18:16,880
Speaker 1: how I talked about how important a TV had been

1563
01:18:16,920 --> 01:18:19,479
Speaker 1: to h to Canadian talent and getting an outlet to

1564
01:18:19,520 --> 01:18:21,800
Speaker 1: the world, And um, Michael Jackson was just going to

1565
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:24,920
Speaker 1: mothball the whole thing. And he presents an image of

1566
01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:27,040
Speaker 1: being a caring religious person. He just turns out to

1567
01:18:27,040 --> 01:18:30,040
Speaker 1: be another ruthless muggul. So he printed it and everything

1568
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:32,280
Speaker 1: and never thought anything else of it, And um went

1569
01:18:32,320 --> 01:18:34,040
Speaker 1: off of my were Mary Wade and I actually got

1570
01:18:34,040 --> 01:18:37,920
Speaker 1: a job at Attic Records, uh Elamaire's company doing A

1571
01:18:38,000 --> 01:18:41,800
Speaker 1: and R and UM. Unbeknownst to me, this got picked

1572
01:18:41,840 --> 01:18:43,599
Speaker 1: up by an American wire service, and I was being

1573
01:18:43,680 --> 01:18:46,519
Speaker 1: quoted on radio stations and newspapers, calling Michael Jackson and

1574
01:18:46,560 --> 01:18:51,040
Speaker 1: Ruthless Mugu and also unbeknownst to me, he was reading

1575
01:18:51,040 --> 01:18:52,760
Speaker 1: all this should be making a commitment to all these

1576
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:55,360
Speaker 1: writers and things, and and they go, okay, what do

1577
01:18:55,400 --> 01:18:58,200
Speaker 1: you want to do? And what Branco told me was

1578
01:18:58,240 --> 01:19:01,240
Speaker 1: that he said find this guy and how room. So

1579
01:19:01,640 --> 01:19:04,160
Speaker 1: I'm working for Almayer and I get a call from

1580
01:19:04,160 --> 01:19:07,599
Speaker 1: the head of CBS Songs in Canada because CBS Songs

1581
01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:10,320
Speaker 1: had had the adminised administration of it, and he said,

1582
01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:12,120
Speaker 1: there's an airport. There's a plane ticket at the airport

1583
01:19:12,160 --> 01:19:14,360
Speaker 1: for you're going to New York to talk to the

1584
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:17,040
Speaker 1: head of CBS Songs. I said, okay, So I went

1585
01:19:17,080 --> 01:19:20,320
Speaker 1: to the airport and got it picked up by a

1586
01:19:20,320 --> 01:19:22,639
Speaker 1: car at Lagority and they took me to see Mike's

1587
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:27,080
Speaker 1: Stewart and Harvey Shapiro iran CBS Songs and and they

1588
01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:31,439
Speaker 1: said Michael Jackson's read your comments and then just stared

1589
01:19:31,479 --> 01:19:33,760
Speaker 1: at me. And I thought I was getting up with

1590
01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:37,000
Speaker 1: the Hudson River. And finally I just I looked up,

1591
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:38,680
Speaker 1: I looked down and left right, and I just you know,

1592
01:19:38,720 --> 01:19:41,519
Speaker 1: it was really really awkward. And so finally Mike Stewart goes,

1593
01:19:41,840 --> 01:19:43,439
Speaker 1: he wants to give you a chance to put up

1594
01:19:43,439 --> 01:19:48,320
Speaker 1: a shut up and uh, he said, So I said okay,

1595
01:19:48,360 --> 01:19:50,599
Speaker 1: And he said, all right, so go back to Canada

1596
01:19:50,880 --> 01:19:54,080
Speaker 1: and uh work for CBS songs. So that was that

1597
01:19:54,120 --> 01:19:56,519
Speaker 1: was the negotiation that I went back to downstairs, got

1598
01:19:56,560 --> 01:19:58,000
Speaker 1: in the car that was waiting for me, went back

1599
01:19:58,000 --> 01:20:03,080
Speaker 1: to the airport, and and what did you tell Al Mayor? Um?

1600
01:20:03,120 --> 01:20:06,280
Speaker 1: I don want to embarrass him, so uh, but but

1601
01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:10,360
Speaker 1: I'll h had actually said to me, I don't want

1602
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:12,280
Speaker 1: you to take this job, just waiting for a job

1603
01:20:12,320 --> 01:20:15,240
Speaker 1: from Major to come along, right, And and there was

1604
01:20:16,240 --> 01:20:18,240
Speaker 1: some things about the job that I didn't think we're

1605
01:20:18,960 --> 01:20:22,360
Speaker 1: as advertised and and and um, so I didn't feel

1606
01:20:22,360 --> 01:20:25,080
Speaker 1: so bad about it other than I did feel bad

1607
01:20:25,120 --> 01:20:26,960
Speaker 1: about it, but I felt like it wasn't what I

1608
01:20:26,960 --> 01:20:30,240
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be. Right, And and so I said, well,

1609
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:31,519
Speaker 1: you don't have to you don't have to pay me

1610
01:20:31,560 --> 01:20:35,439
Speaker 1: for the week I've been here. And he said Okay, okay,

1611
01:20:35,439 --> 01:20:37,960
Speaker 1: so you gotta work for CBS. How does that morph

1612
01:20:37,960 --> 01:20:41,480
Speaker 1: in the E M R sp K bought it? And um,

1613
01:20:41,600 --> 01:20:43,880
Speaker 1: by this time, you know, I'm doing pretty well as

1614
01:20:43,880 --> 01:20:46,639
Speaker 1: a song plugger. I'm getting songs and Joe Cocker records

1615
01:20:46,680 --> 01:20:50,120
Speaker 1: and things like that. And uh um, I guess Marty Bander,

1616
01:20:50,240 --> 01:20:53,680
Speaker 1: Charles Koppelman and Steven swid were doing their due diligence

1617
01:20:53,720 --> 01:20:56,120
Speaker 1: on the office and they had me condend to New

1618
01:20:56,200 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 1: York and meet them, and I think I gave a

1619
01:20:58,439 --> 01:21:02,519
Speaker 1: pretty passionate pitch about Canadian music and and how the

1620
01:21:03,360 --> 01:21:06,160
Speaker 1: how the future could be and how um you know

1621
01:21:06,200 --> 01:21:08,520
Speaker 1: this government support and all this kind of thing, and

1622
01:21:08,520 --> 01:21:10,720
Speaker 1: and they so they seemed to like me, and they

1623
01:21:10,720 --> 01:21:14,280
Speaker 1: empowered me, and and then actually moved me to l A.

1624
01:21:14,439 --> 01:21:17,800
Speaker 1: So mid eighties, UM, my wife Sam and I and

1625
01:21:17,880 --> 01:21:20,600
Speaker 1: my oldest, my then only child, t J packed up

1626
01:21:20,600 --> 01:21:24,360
Speaker 1: and moved to l A and worked for EM Despicat

1627
01:21:24,400 --> 01:21:26,280
Speaker 1: down here initially, and then they sold the E M.

1628
01:21:26,320 --> 01:21:29,640
Speaker 1: I became M I and uh um. While that was

1629
01:21:29,680 --> 01:21:32,120
Speaker 1: down here. Um, one of the things that did was

1630
01:21:32,479 --> 01:21:35,160
Speaker 1: he introduced me to Charles Koppleman and Marty Bander and

1631
01:21:35,160 --> 01:21:38,519
Speaker 1: induced me to Artie Mogul. You must know, Artie the biggest,

1632
01:21:38,760 --> 01:21:41,880
Speaker 1: most unforgettable character I've ever met in my life inside

1633
01:21:41,960 --> 01:21:46,879
Speaker 1: or outside the business. Brooklyn Street hustler, you know, gambling addiction.

1634
01:21:47,479 --> 01:21:50,599
Speaker 1: Uh he was the Forest Gump of the music business

1635
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:54,160
Speaker 1: right where almost anybody you wanted to name that was huge.

1636
01:21:54,200 --> 01:21:56,240
Speaker 1: He had some sort of association with them or the

1637
01:21:56,280 --> 01:22:00,720
Speaker 1: deal or whatever. Right And um so he said, Uh, okay, kid,

1638
01:22:00,720 --> 01:22:03,400
Speaker 1: who do you want to meet? And I said Richard Perry,

1639
01:22:03,640 --> 01:22:06,759
Speaker 1: as I was fascinated by producers, and uh so he

1640
01:22:06,520 --> 01:22:09,280
Speaker 1: he literally picked up the phone and dialed his number

1641
01:22:09,280 --> 01:22:13,479
Speaker 1: from memory and Richard answered and already said Richard, already

1642
01:22:13,600 --> 01:22:16,639
Speaker 1: lunch the Dome tomorrow and then hung up and uh

1643
01:22:17,120 --> 01:22:19,360
Speaker 1: dome was right next to our offices. And uh so

1644
01:22:19,400 --> 01:22:21,000
Speaker 1: the next day we're walking over there, and he said,

1645
01:22:21,360 --> 01:22:23,200
Speaker 1: we have to think of some excuse when we're meeting

1646
01:22:23,320 --> 01:22:24,960
Speaker 1: Richard Perry. He doesn't want to meet you're you're just

1647
01:22:24,960 --> 01:22:27,920
Speaker 1: a schmuck from Canada. And so he said. At this time,

1648
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:29,760
Speaker 1: we was right after we had Tracy Chapman was a

1649
01:22:29,800 --> 01:22:32,519
Speaker 1: big case of success story, and all the labels wanted

1650
01:22:32,560 --> 01:22:34,559
Speaker 1: to have a production deal with That's b k so

1651
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:37,600
Speaker 1: he said, um, we'll we'll tell him we need some

1652
01:22:37,640 --> 01:22:40,519
Speaker 1: acts for the production company. So we sit down and

1653
01:22:40,640 --> 01:22:42,360
Speaker 1: having lunch and he's telling us the different things he's

1654
01:22:42,360 --> 01:22:44,200
Speaker 1: working on, and none of them seemed that interesting. And

1655
01:22:44,200 --> 01:22:47,080
Speaker 1: then he could tell he wasn't getting a spark from us,

1656
01:22:47,080 --> 01:22:49,280
Speaker 1: and so he kind of like reached down into the

1657
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:52,439
Speaker 1: bottom of his mental bag and said, well, it's one

1658
01:22:52,479 --> 01:22:54,519
Speaker 1: of the things that when working on it's the Daughters

1659
01:22:54,560 --> 01:22:58,960
Speaker 1: of Wilson of but beach boys and mamas and papas as.

1660
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:00,200
Speaker 1: So as he said that, he could tell all they

1661
01:23:00,200 --> 01:23:02,280
Speaker 1: got a big rise from. Marty and I were looking

1662
01:23:02,320 --> 01:23:05,479
Speaker 1: each other eyes bugging out, and so he switches in

1663
01:23:05,560 --> 01:23:10,240
Speaker 1: the uber sales pitch mode. So already slammed the table

1664
01:23:10,720 --> 01:23:12,800
Speaker 1: and he said, we want them. And then the entire

1665
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:14,800
Speaker 1: restaurant went silent, like you see in the movies, right,

1666
01:23:14,800 --> 01:23:17,479
Speaker 1: and everybody's staring at us. And I said, Alartiy shouldn't

1667
01:23:17,479 --> 01:23:21,120
Speaker 1: listen to some music first. He said, no, we want them,

1668
01:23:21,160 --> 01:23:23,200
Speaker 1: and I said already, and we gotta listen to some music,

1669
01:23:23,240 --> 01:23:25,240
Speaker 1: and he's all right, sending over some music. So we

1670
01:23:25,280 --> 01:23:27,160
Speaker 1: go back to the office. An hour later, a messenger

1671
01:23:27,320 --> 01:23:29,040
Speaker 1: rise at the cassette. We put it in. The very

1672
01:23:29,040 --> 01:23:31,400
Speaker 1: first song of the cassette is hold On, and we

1673
01:23:31,439 --> 01:23:33,040
Speaker 1: look at each other we go, I can't believe it.

1674
01:23:35,320 --> 01:23:38,160
Speaker 1: So we said it to Charles Coppelman and the next

1675
01:23:38,200 --> 01:23:39,760
Speaker 1: morning he calls from his car on the way and

1676
01:23:39,760 --> 01:23:42,080
Speaker 1: he said, this is amazing. I'm going to sign them.

1677
01:23:42,200 --> 01:23:44,840
Speaker 1: So again, we had all these output deals, right, had

1678
01:23:44,920 --> 01:23:47,479
Speaker 1: production deals with all the different labels, and we had

1679
01:23:47,520 --> 01:23:49,400
Speaker 1: to hand them. We had to pitch them certain number

1680
01:23:49,400 --> 01:23:51,559
Speaker 1: of acts a year. So Arty says, watch this kid,

1681
01:23:51,560 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get the biggest record deal for a new

1682
01:23:53,520 --> 01:23:56,200
Speaker 1: artist the history of mankind. So we've got to go

1683
01:23:56,360 --> 01:23:58,360
Speaker 1: to dinner with all the heads of all the labels

1684
01:23:58,439 --> 01:24:01,600
Speaker 1: and and uh, and we'll Phillips and uh watched the

1685
01:24:01,720 --> 01:24:04,040
Speaker 1: wind up and he wound it up to six hundred

1686
01:24:04,080 --> 01:24:08,000
Speaker 1: fifty dollars for the first record. And then bang, SPK

1687
01:24:08,240 --> 01:24:13,439
Speaker 1: is sold and now it's SPK Records, and uh, Charles,

1688
01:24:13,520 --> 01:24:16,160
Speaker 1: I'm in already's office when day Charles called and he said,

1689
01:24:16,280 --> 01:24:18,559
Speaker 1: I got good news and bad news. The good news

1690
01:24:18,600 --> 01:24:20,760
Speaker 1: is we want the girls for SPK Records. The bad

1691
01:24:20,800 --> 01:24:22,920
Speaker 1: news is we're not paying them six hundred fifty grand

1692
01:24:22,920 --> 01:24:25,559
Speaker 1: and you have to tell them. He said, watch this, kid,

1693
01:24:25,600 --> 01:24:30,280
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wind it down. Only already could have done this,

1694
01:24:30,720 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 1: and and but what he did was promised them that

1695
01:24:33,320 --> 01:24:36,080
Speaker 1: SPK will stop at nothing to make the record successful.

1696
01:24:36,080 --> 01:24:37,920
Speaker 1: And of course that's what was the case. Now were

1697
01:24:37,920 --> 01:24:40,360
Speaker 1: you at the first SPK convention in the desert when

1698
01:24:40,360 --> 01:24:47,320
Speaker 1: they debuted? Yeah, I was there with Hysteric and Michelle Phillips, etcetera. Okay,

1699
01:24:47,479 --> 01:24:50,240
Speaker 1: how come Glenn Ballard ended up producing the record because

1700
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:54,720
Speaker 1: um uh Richard to develop the group had brought in

1701
01:24:54,800 --> 01:24:56,560
Speaker 1: Glenn to do the demos, and so Glenn and co

1702
01:24:56,720 --> 01:24:59,599
Speaker 1: written everything and produced the demos. The demo hold On

1703
01:24:59,760 --> 01:25:03,840
Speaker 1: was phenomenal, you know. Okay, so it ends with an

1704
01:25:03,880 --> 01:25:07,760
Speaker 1: E M. I. Ultimately when there's another corporate transition and

1705
01:25:07,800 --> 01:25:10,080
Speaker 1: then you go to work for only and now you're

1706
01:25:10,080 --> 01:25:12,599
Speaker 1: so kept. Who are you? Are you as a drummer,

1707
01:25:12,800 --> 01:25:18,040
Speaker 1: a recording engineer, a publisher, a guy on performing end

1708
01:25:18,040 --> 01:25:20,760
Speaker 1: of it performance rights. I'm a guy who was a

1709
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:23,320
Speaker 1: whole career was in search of the secret of making

1710
01:25:23,320 --> 01:25:25,679
Speaker 1: a magic record, and one day I found I figured

1711
01:25:25,720 --> 01:25:28,880
Speaker 1: it out and it wasn't um anything. The technology was

1712
01:25:28,960 --> 01:25:32,559
Speaker 1: doing it wasn't anything about guiding the performance. It was

1713
01:25:32,600 --> 01:25:35,400
Speaker 1: about what they were singing. It was the song that's

1714
01:25:35,520 --> 01:25:38,559
Speaker 1: secret to making a magic record. And so I'm a

1715
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:42,680
Speaker 1: song person and I had a incredibly fortunate to to

1716
01:25:42,880 --> 01:25:46,160
Speaker 1: exercise that love of song and songwriting as a publisher,

1717
01:25:46,200 --> 01:25:48,519
Speaker 1: and now I'm doing that as a as a you know,

1718
01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:53,320
Speaker 1: chief membership officer at so can UM. We're protecting writers,

1719
01:25:53,360 --> 01:25:57,840
Speaker 1: protecting their rights, getting them paid, We're stimulating their creativity.

1720
01:25:58,200 --> 01:26:00,840
Speaker 1: It's all the stuff that i've i've already has ever done. Okay,

1721
01:26:00,920 --> 01:26:04,599
Speaker 1: are you as excited about music today as you were

1722
01:26:04,640 --> 01:26:07,400
Speaker 1: back then? Yeah? I think I think that, Like I

1723
01:26:07,400 --> 01:26:09,559
Speaker 1: said earlier, I think every generation picks up the tools

1724
01:26:09,560 --> 01:26:11,559
Speaker 1: of a generation and starts making music. But one can

1725
01:26:11,720 --> 01:26:15,280
Speaker 1: argue that certainly in the sixties and seventies music drove

1726
01:26:15,320 --> 01:26:18,000
Speaker 1: the culture. There was music and radio. Certainly, for the

1727
01:26:18,040 --> 01:26:22,040
Speaker 1: last twenty five years there's been technology, and as big

1728
01:26:22,080 --> 01:26:25,200
Speaker 1: as music is, I will argue that technology drove the culture.

1729
01:26:25,880 --> 01:26:29,320
Speaker 1: What is music's place going forward? Well, you know, you know,

1730
01:26:29,360 --> 01:26:32,160
Speaker 1: of course, I've I've seen you. You're right that a lot,

1731
01:26:32,200 --> 01:26:34,200
Speaker 1: and I agree to a large degree. Although, by the

1732
01:26:34,200 --> 01:26:36,080
Speaker 1: way I said to Dug the engineer. When I came

1733
01:26:36,080 --> 01:26:37,800
Speaker 1: here today, I feel like I'm in the Abbey Road

1734
01:26:37,840 --> 01:26:41,880
Speaker 1: of podcasting because you know, to me, this is not

1735
01:26:41,960 --> 01:26:44,439
Speaker 1: about me, this is about you, because I'm so inspired

1736
01:26:44,439 --> 01:26:46,599
Speaker 1: by everything you're right, and and I listened to every

1737
01:26:46,600 --> 01:26:54,559
Speaker 1: one of your podcasts. But okay, okay, but um, you know, yes,

1738
01:26:54,600 --> 01:26:57,200
Speaker 1: I think that more kids grow up today idolizing tech

1739
01:26:57,320 --> 01:27:01,160
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and want to be an tech entrepreneur. Probably then idolize,

1740
01:27:01,280 --> 01:27:03,720
Speaker 1: you know, so called rock stars and want to be

1741
01:27:03,840 --> 01:27:06,720
Speaker 1: so called rock stars. But I also think that you know,

1742
01:27:07,160 --> 01:27:12,120
Speaker 1: the historically, the people of our generation, uh and and

1743
01:27:12,400 --> 01:27:15,120
Speaker 1: the music that we're we're into. It's easy for us

1744
01:27:15,200 --> 01:27:17,679
Speaker 1: to say that music is not driving the culture anymore.

1745
01:27:17,760 --> 01:27:19,880
Speaker 1: But I don't know if you could say that if

1746
01:27:19,880 --> 01:27:22,519
Speaker 1: you're a hip hop fan, you know, and if you know,

1747
01:27:22,720 --> 01:27:25,479
Speaker 1: I would say, with hip hop, and this is not

1748
01:27:25,520 --> 01:27:28,360
Speaker 1: only about hip hop. To the people it's important to

1749
01:27:28,640 --> 01:27:32,760
Speaker 1: it's huge. But prior to the last fifteen years, last

1750
01:27:32,760 --> 01:27:36,520
Speaker 1: ten years, if you were as big as Drake, everybody

1751
01:27:36,520 --> 01:27:38,559
Speaker 1: in America knew Year's songs. This is not a reflection

1752
01:27:38,600 --> 01:27:41,240
Speaker 1: on Drake. It's just a reflection on society. And it's

1753
01:27:41,240 --> 01:27:43,960
Speaker 1: not only music, it's hard to get that level of

1754
01:27:44,000 --> 01:27:47,080
Speaker 1: mind share, and I don't believe the business is adjusted.

1755
01:27:47,479 --> 01:27:49,919
Speaker 1: And what I also believe is the result of that. However,

1756
01:27:50,439 --> 01:27:53,400
Speaker 1: much of the mind share of music hip hop gets.

1757
01:27:54,439 --> 01:27:56,880
Speaker 1: The press and the major labels are focusing only on

1758
01:27:56,920 --> 01:27:59,280
Speaker 1: that as if it were the last century, when all

1759
01:27:59,320 --> 01:28:02,280
Speaker 1: these other things who that may never graduate to that

1760
01:28:02,400 --> 01:28:05,960
Speaker 1: level have a greater impact, impact or more self sustaining

1761
01:28:06,000 --> 01:28:08,200
Speaker 1: than ever. No, I don't disagree with that. I mean,

1762
01:28:08,240 --> 01:28:10,479
Speaker 1: the amount of noise out there is incredible and and

1763
01:28:10,520 --> 01:28:12,360
Speaker 1: as you say, if you're inside the bubble, you think

1764
01:28:12,400 --> 01:28:14,920
Speaker 1: that something everybody knows about something and they and they

1765
01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:17,519
Speaker 1: don't really right. But in terms of the influence, mean,

1766
01:28:17,520 --> 01:28:20,680
Speaker 1: look at the influence of hip hop's head on fashion. Absolutely,

1767
01:28:20,680 --> 01:28:22,640
Speaker 1: but it's a language, yeah, but a little long in

1768
01:28:22,680 --> 01:28:26,479
Speaker 1: the tooth, yeah, for sure. You look at the opinion

1769
01:28:26,520 --> 01:28:28,120
Speaker 1: of always swings and that there's going to be something

1770
01:28:28,160 --> 01:28:31,760
Speaker 1: that that that replaces the So the interesting thing is twofold.

1771
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:34,640
Speaker 1: We we lived through so many ears. Let's just call

1772
01:28:34,640 --> 01:28:37,000
Speaker 1: it the MTV era, and it was to a degree

1773
01:28:37,120 --> 01:28:40,400
Speaker 1: driven by MTV, where they promote one thing and then

1774
01:28:40,400 --> 01:28:43,080
Speaker 1: that would be over. The sound would change completely and

1775
01:28:43,160 --> 01:28:46,000
Speaker 1: certainly since the beginning of the century, the sound has

1776
01:28:46,040 --> 01:28:49,599
Speaker 1: been hip hop. Okay, not that it hasn't evolved. So

1777
01:28:49,720 --> 01:28:52,200
Speaker 1: for those of us who lived through the previous decades,

1778
01:28:52,960 --> 01:28:55,960
Speaker 1: we constantly expected something to else to come along, and

1779
01:28:56,000 --> 01:28:59,280
Speaker 1: it has not happened. Not granted, hip hop embrace the

1780
01:28:59,280 --> 01:29:01,840
Speaker 1: Internet long but for every other genre, if the other

1781
01:29:01,840 --> 01:29:05,040
Speaker 1: genres have, you've been embraced there. But speaking of hip hop,

1782
01:29:05,200 --> 01:29:08,400
Speaker 1: one thing you've maintained, and we've talked a lot about,

1783
01:29:08,680 --> 01:29:12,360
Speaker 1: is you believe with songwritings. Yesen's but you also believe

1784
01:29:12,400 --> 01:29:16,320
Speaker 1: it's about collaboration. Okay, and certainly that's what hip hop is.

1785
01:29:16,600 --> 01:29:19,960
Speaker 1: Why don't you tell my audience your beliefs about collaboration. Well,

1786
01:29:20,000 --> 01:29:23,080
Speaker 1: I always I always write your nasty note every time

1787
01:29:23,080 --> 01:29:26,920
Speaker 1: you should on collaboration. Uh, you know the the the

1788
01:29:27,120 --> 01:29:30,920
Speaker 1: knock on collaboration is it's committee songwriting, right. Well, that well,

1789
01:29:31,280 --> 01:29:32,920
Speaker 1: it's one thing to have too songwriters, the other thing

1790
01:29:32,960 --> 01:29:36,479
Speaker 1: to have nineteen Yeah. Well, look that that could be overboard.

1791
01:29:36,479 --> 01:29:39,120
Speaker 1: But often sometimes that's because there's there's samples in corporate

1792
01:29:39,240 --> 01:29:42,080
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about how many people are in the room. Well,

1793
01:29:42,360 --> 01:29:44,800
Speaker 1: like I think about this a lot and for one thing,

1794
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:47,320
Speaker 1: and maybe they go overboard. Now. I mean, there's a

1795
01:29:47,360 --> 01:29:49,120
Speaker 1: joke that people say, if you deliver pizza to the

1796
01:29:49,120 --> 01:29:52,559
Speaker 1: session and you get to UM. But on the other hand,

1797
01:29:52,840 --> 01:29:56,560
Speaker 1: if you take the Motown era, right, which you know,

1798
01:29:57,000 --> 01:30:00,679
Speaker 1: my one of my mentors, but Marty Bander, used to say,

1799
01:30:01,160 --> 01:30:04,320
Speaker 1: arguably was the greatest era, uh you know, or the

1800
01:30:04,320 --> 01:30:08,040
Speaker 1: greatest the most successful UM creative music scene in history.

1801
01:30:08,120 --> 01:30:10,960
Speaker 1: And there's a lot to be said about that. Um.

1802
01:30:11,000 --> 01:30:13,920
Speaker 1: You know, you had great records where UM would ended

1803
01:30:14,000 --> 01:30:15,800
Speaker 1: up being the biggest hook in the record was a

1804
01:30:15,840 --> 01:30:17,800
Speaker 1: guitar part that the guitar player made up in the

1805
01:30:17,800 --> 01:30:20,479
Speaker 1: studio as they're recording it. And a lot of times

1806
01:30:20,479 --> 01:30:23,160
Speaker 1: they never got in your writing credit, right, So you know,

1807
01:30:23,200 --> 01:30:25,120
Speaker 1: maybe the pendulum was too far that way. Maybe it's

1808
01:30:25,160 --> 01:30:26,600
Speaker 1: gone too far the other way. But at least there

1809
01:30:26,640 --> 01:30:29,720
Speaker 1: are people are being inclusive as to people, you know,

1810
01:30:29,840 --> 01:30:34,320
Speaker 1: who's important in the making of the record. UM. But

1811
01:30:34,439 --> 01:30:36,680
Speaker 1: I will I will stop there though. But the differences,

1812
01:30:37,000 --> 01:30:40,920
Speaker 1: especially those records, they were essentially cut live, whereas today

1813
01:30:41,160 --> 01:30:43,080
Speaker 1: many of the hit records are. We worked and we

1814
01:30:43,160 --> 01:30:46,000
Speaker 1: worked every other people polishing it to try to make

1815
01:30:46,040 --> 01:30:48,920
Speaker 1: it a hit record. Well, I think that, Well, look,

1816
01:30:48,960 --> 01:30:51,320
Speaker 1: who knows what goes through the minds of everybody when

1817
01:30:51,360 --> 01:30:54,320
Speaker 1: they're doing this. I think it's there's always the gamut

1818
01:30:54,320 --> 01:30:57,320
Speaker 1: from people sitting down to make a hit record for

1819
01:30:57,400 --> 01:30:58,960
Speaker 1: all the way from that to people are sitting down

1820
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:01,000
Speaker 1: to make great music and it happens to be a hit.

1821
01:31:01,080 --> 01:31:03,840
Speaker 1: So whichever way, I think that people are just trying

1822
01:31:03,840 --> 01:31:06,200
Speaker 1: to have be great, and they're trying to make great music,

1823
01:31:06,200 --> 01:31:07,320
Speaker 1: and they're trying to make a lot of money at

1824
01:31:07,320 --> 01:31:11,599
Speaker 1: the same time. Um, most great music, to me has

1825
01:31:11,640 --> 01:31:14,120
Speaker 1: been the result of collaboration of one sort of another,

1826
01:31:14,600 --> 01:31:16,479
Speaker 1: whether it's co writing or not writing. Look The Who,

1827
01:31:16,520 --> 01:31:19,560
Speaker 1: for instance, probably a great example, right. I can't imagine

1828
01:31:19,600 --> 01:31:22,959
Speaker 1: Pete Townsend having a successful career as a singer songwriter

1829
01:31:23,040 --> 01:31:25,840
Speaker 1: if he hadn't been in The Who. Can't imagine Roger

1830
01:31:25,920 --> 01:31:28,519
Speaker 1: Dalter having a successful career as an artist if he

1831
01:31:28,560 --> 01:31:31,479
Speaker 1: wasn't in The Who. And back in those days, um,

1832
01:31:31,520 --> 01:31:33,720
Speaker 1: the first rung in the ladder was so high that

1833
01:31:33,800 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 1: you couldn't get to it. You had to try to

1834
01:31:36,080 --> 01:31:38,599
Speaker 1: scheme how to get to that first rung. And so

1835
01:31:38,760 --> 01:31:41,040
Speaker 1: you know, the visual metaphor would be well, one of

1836
01:31:41,320 --> 01:31:43,560
Speaker 1: this group of people get down in all fours and

1837
01:31:43,600 --> 01:31:46,120
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stand on their back, and then somebody can

1838
01:31:46,160 --> 01:31:48,559
Speaker 1: stand on my shoulders and they can grab the first rung.

1839
01:31:49,000 --> 01:31:52,800
Speaker 1: And so they coalesced into self organized groups of people

1840
01:31:52,840 --> 01:31:54,720
Speaker 1: to make something that was better than any one of

1841
01:31:54,720 --> 01:31:56,800
Speaker 1: them could do. The whole was great than some of

1842
01:31:56,840 --> 01:31:59,720
Speaker 1: the parts. And that's what I think all collaborations are. So,

1843
01:31:59,720 --> 01:32:02,960
Speaker 1: whether so whether it's songwriting, whether it's uh, you know, okay,

1844
01:32:03,120 --> 01:32:05,559
Speaker 1: well we haven't discussed it quite this deep before, or

1845
01:32:05,560 --> 01:32:08,559
Speaker 1: maybe I haven't gotten it, And I certainly agree with

1846
01:32:08,600 --> 01:32:13,439
Speaker 1: that overall philosophy. Let's just say the song now, let's

1847
01:32:14,000 --> 01:32:16,400
Speaker 1: of course the point being was the lick part of

1848
01:32:16,400 --> 01:32:19,439
Speaker 1: the song? Whatever? But literally, as a publisher, I guess

1849
01:32:19,439 --> 01:32:21,439
Speaker 1: they're coming in with demonos. They come in with a song.

1850
01:32:22,200 --> 01:32:25,599
Speaker 1: Do you believe that there are multiple people in the room,

1851
01:32:25,680 --> 01:32:28,800
Speaker 1: let's just say even two or three, it's better than

1852
01:32:28,840 --> 01:32:31,760
Speaker 1: having one. Well, if it's the right dynamic, sure, you

1853
01:32:31,760 --> 01:32:33,719
Speaker 1: know you have you can't have somebody who's a bullying

1854
01:32:33,800 --> 01:32:35,000
Speaker 1: you can't have. You have to have. There has to

1855
01:32:35,040 --> 01:32:37,360
Speaker 1: be an OD tour, has to be an O tour.

1856
01:32:37,360 --> 01:32:39,639
Speaker 1: And then whether that's the artist themselves, which in case,

1857
01:32:39,720 --> 01:32:41,519
Speaker 1: in the case of most of these people were talking about,

1858
01:32:41,520 --> 01:32:45,440
Speaker 1: I think it's the artist that's the tour who's you know, um,

1859
01:32:45,439 --> 01:32:48,080
Speaker 1: But somebody has to be the creative brain. It's like

1860
01:32:48,120 --> 01:32:50,680
Speaker 1: a movie that movies have hundreds of people working on them,

1861
01:32:50,840 --> 01:32:52,599
Speaker 1: but you will go to see a Quentin Tarantino movie,

1862
01:32:52,600 --> 01:32:54,240
Speaker 1: you know whose movie it is, even though he's got

1863
01:32:54,280 --> 01:32:56,760
Speaker 1: a several hundred people working in the movie. Right. So

1864
01:32:56,800 --> 01:32:58,800
Speaker 1: I think the most all the great music out there

1865
01:32:58,840 --> 01:33:02,240
Speaker 1: has that person. And they're and if they're if they're

1866
01:33:02,240 --> 01:33:04,799
Speaker 1: doing their job right, they're bringing in ideas from everybody,

1867
01:33:04,840 --> 01:33:07,360
Speaker 1: and they're they're rejecting the shitty ones and they're accepting

1868
01:33:07,360 --> 01:33:08,880
Speaker 1: the great ones, or you're they're rejecting the ones that

1869
01:33:08,920 --> 01:33:11,559
Speaker 1: will fit their vision and they're and they're accepting the

1870
01:33:11,560 --> 01:33:14,120
Speaker 1: great ones. And uh um. So how could you have

1871
01:33:14,160 --> 01:33:16,080
Speaker 1: too many good ideas? I don't think you can. And

1872
01:33:16,120 --> 01:33:19,760
Speaker 1: I think it takes it's very very, very very rare.

1873
01:33:19,960 --> 01:33:22,639
Speaker 1: You have one human being who has enough great ideas

1874
01:33:23,080 --> 01:33:26,679
Speaker 1: and is a good enough I meanipulating all the elements

1875
01:33:26,680 --> 01:33:29,799
Speaker 1: of music themselves and can sing or wrap it themselves.

1876
01:33:29,920 --> 01:33:32,160
Speaker 1: How many human beings in the face of the earth.

1877
01:33:32,200 --> 01:33:33,759
Speaker 1: Are that good? They can do it all by themself,

1878
01:33:33,800 --> 01:33:37,519
Speaker 1: not not not many prints Todd Roun, Grant, etcetera. Okay,

1879
01:33:37,680 --> 01:33:41,400
Speaker 1: so here you are, You've had a storied career. What's

1880
01:33:41,439 --> 01:33:45,160
Speaker 1: your personal dream and your time left? I'm talking about

1881
01:33:45,160 --> 01:33:50,840
Speaker 1: business ones which may INTERESTCT with personal Um, yeah, that's

1882
01:33:50,840 --> 01:33:53,479
Speaker 1: a good question. UM, I just want to keep doing.

1883
01:33:53,520 --> 01:33:57,280
Speaker 1: What I'm doing was just to help inspire, help um

1884
01:33:57,640 --> 01:34:02,320
Speaker 1: protect uh and songwriters and and and have create environments

1885
01:34:02,320 --> 01:34:05,559
Speaker 1: where they can succeed. And I think, UM, I want

1886
01:34:05,560 --> 01:34:07,479
Speaker 1: to see so Can continue with the path it is,

1887
01:34:07,760 --> 01:34:10,559
Speaker 1: which is becoming a globally competitive p r oh because

1888
01:34:11,040 --> 01:34:12,800
Speaker 1: in the world, that's you know, going back to why

1889
01:34:12,800 --> 01:34:14,160
Speaker 1: did I go to so canus? Because I wanted to

1890
01:34:14,200 --> 01:34:17,519
Speaker 1: see it become globally competitive, because um, all the new

1891
01:34:17,560 --> 01:34:19,720
Speaker 1: licensees are the most powerful companies in the history of

1892
01:34:19,720 --> 01:34:23,200
Speaker 1: the world. And UM, sooner or later you're gonna get

1893
01:34:23,200 --> 01:34:25,120
Speaker 1: completely lost and nobody will talk to you if you're

1894
01:34:25,120 --> 01:34:27,960
Speaker 1: not of a certain size, not a certain body of

1895
01:34:27,960 --> 01:34:31,599
Speaker 1: repertoire that they need certain capability with the back office.

1896
01:34:31,960 --> 01:34:33,720
Speaker 1: So so Can's on that path, and I want to

1897
01:34:33,760 --> 01:34:36,439
Speaker 1: help it continue in that path. Um and UH. I

1898
01:34:36,479 --> 01:34:38,679
Speaker 1: just want to, you know, as I said, help people

1899
01:34:38,760 --> 01:34:41,000
Speaker 1: make get from pointing to point B. And I've always

1900
01:34:41,000 --> 01:34:43,880
Speaker 1: been most interested in working with people who had nothing

1901
01:34:43,920 --> 01:34:47,160
Speaker 1: going on career wise and helping them have a career.

1902
01:34:47,240 --> 01:34:49,519
Speaker 1: That I was interested in in finding people who had

1903
01:34:49,520 --> 01:34:51,040
Speaker 1: a career going on and helping them get to the

1904
01:34:51,040 --> 01:34:53,200
Speaker 1: next level. It's it's okay, who was someone you worked

1905
01:34:53,240 --> 01:34:57,160
Speaker 1: with well, you thought had it didn't make it? Um

1906
01:34:57,479 --> 01:35:00,360
Speaker 1: multiple depends on the definition that didn't make it was

1907
01:35:00,439 --> 01:35:03,040
Speaker 1: not did not turn out to be financially successful, have

1908
01:35:03,080 --> 01:35:06,040
Speaker 1: a sustained career, and the people paying attention didn't know

1909
01:35:06,040 --> 01:35:10,720
Speaker 1: who they were, um I was My answer is going

1910
01:35:10,800 --> 01:35:14,200
Speaker 1: to be not um not as dire straits as you're

1911
01:35:14,240 --> 01:35:17,719
Speaker 1: just described, but somebody who didn't get their due commercially

1912
01:35:17,720 --> 01:35:21,920
Speaker 1: would be a stero um. Those of you that that

1913
01:35:22,000 --> 01:35:24,000
Speaker 1: have I ever heard of her, No, how incredibly talented

1914
01:35:24,040 --> 01:35:25,840
Speaker 1: she is and she still still works in the business,

1915
01:35:25,840 --> 01:35:28,360
Speaker 1: and she's a great person and has um um you know,

1916
01:35:28,360 --> 01:35:30,280
Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff going on, but she should

1917
01:35:30,280 --> 01:35:33,600
Speaker 1: have been a super duperstar and uh um uh. And

1918
01:35:33,640 --> 01:35:34,920
Speaker 1: I think that's just one of the things. But the

1919
01:35:35,240 --> 01:35:39,000
Speaker 1: gods didn't let it happen. Her her original collaborator, DC

1920
01:35:39,080 --> 01:35:42,640
Speaker 1: McKinney has gone on to become uh one of the

1921
01:35:42,640 --> 01:35:46,040
Speaker 1: most important influential, you know, producers in the in the world.

1922
01:35:46,080 --> 01:35:48,040
Speaker 1: And he was a big part of the Weekend. Uh

1923
01:35:48,280 --> 01:35:50,920
Speaker 1: sound when the Weekend came out. Um, but she's just

1924
01:35:51,000 --> 01:35:54,439
Speaker 1: mega talented. Um. Look, I don't I don't know. Uh.

1925
01:35:54,600 --> 01:35:57,000
Speaker 1: Even though I've had a career where, you know, my

1926
01:35:57,080 --> 01:35:59,639
Speaker 1: job was the green light things, I really honestly don't

1927
01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:02,040
Speaker 1: really know how why some things work and why they

1928
01:36:02,080 --> 01:36:05,000
Speaker 1: don't right. Uh, I'm fascinated by it, like I always studied,

1929
01:36:05,040 --> 01:36:07,439
Speaker 1: tried to study green light stories and other industries to

1930
01:36:07,439 --> 01:36:09,880
Speaker 1: try and apply it to me, you know. But I mean,

1931
01:36:10,320 --> 01:36:12,080
Speaker 1: I think the two greatest green light stories in the

1932
01:36:12,120 --> 01:36:14,320
Speaker 1: history of the entertainment business for George Martin signing the

1933
01:36:14,320 --> 01:36:18,040
Speaker 1: Beatles and UH twenty century Fox Ellen Ladd Jr. Or

1934
01:36:18,080 --> 01:36:21,400
Speaker 1: Giving the green light to Star Wars, and they're both

1935
01:36:22,040 --> 01:36:25,120
Speaker 1: followed the exact same thing, which is they just had

1936
01:36:25,120 --> 01:36:26,960
Speaker 1: a gut feeling about the people and standing in front

1937
01:36:26,960 --> 01:36:31,040
Speaker 1: of them, and there was no science, no math, no data, um,

1938
01:36:31,200 --> 01:36:35,559
Speaker 1: no thinking, just uh. In the case of of Star Wars,

1939
01:36:35,600 --> 01:36:40,240
Speaker 1: alliad Jr. Uh after um um George Lucas has been

1940
01:36:40,240 --> 01:36:43,439
Speaker 1: turned down by every movie studio. And after he presented

1941
01:36:43,479 --> 01:36:47,160
Speaker 1: his treatment and his pitch to Ellen Jr. Ellen Jr. Said, Uh,

1942
01:36:47,479 --> 01:36:49,280
Speaker 1: I haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about,

1943
01:36:49,479 --> 01:36:51,519
Speaker 1: but you're the guy who made her made American graffiti

1944
01:36:51,520 --> 01:36:53,880
Speaker 1: and that's good enough for me. And I was lucky

1945
01:36:53,960 --> 01:36:56,519
Speaker 1: enough to meet George Martin a number of years before

1946
01:36:56,520 --> 01:36:58,799
Speaker 1: he died, and I asked him about, you know, the Beatles,

1947
01:36:58,800 --> 01:37:00,800
Speaker 1: and I said, look, I've read every single thing you've

1948
01:37:00,840 --> 01:37:03,160
Speaker 1: ever written, every interview you've ever done, but I gotta know,

1949
01:37:03,439 --> 01:37:05,160
Speaker 1: standing in front of you, what was going on in

1950
01:37:05,200 --> 01:37:07,160
Speaker 1: your in your head, your heart, and your gut. And

1951
01:37:07,200 --> 01:37:12,599
Speaker 1: you made that decision. And he said, uh, there's three things. Three.

1952
01:37:12,600 --> 01:37:14,960
Speaker 1: He had three reactions. His first reaction was that he

1953
01:37:15,000 --> 01:37:17,800
Speaker 1: thought they were pretty crappy band. His second reaction was

1954
01:37:17,840 --> 01:37:20,240
Speaker 1: there's no evidence they could write songs. But a third

1955
01:37:20,240 --> 01:37:22,760
Speaker 1: reaction was when they walked in the room together, they

1956
01:37:22,760 --> 01:37:25,360
Speaker 1: had so much overwhelming charisma that he felt like they

1957
01:37:25,439 --> 01:37:29,040
Speaker 1: changed the molecules in the room, right, And um, I

1958
01:37:29,040 --> 01:37:31,080
Speaker 1: think that's you know, that's sort of what it's about.

1959
01:37:31,120 --> 01:37:33,559
Speaker 1: And uh, that's a that's a fun part about what

1960
01:37:33,600 --> 01:37:35,080
Speaker 1: we do too is that you just never really know.

1961
01:37:35,160 --> 01:37:38,480
Speaker 1: And okay, who you most proud of being a midwife

1962
01:37:38,560 --> 01:37:41,680
Speaker 1: to success of Um, there'd be several some forty one

1963
01:37:41,720 --> 01:37:45,439
Speaker 1: would be one of them. Um uh we again in

1964
01:37:45,479 --> 01:37:47,240
Speaker 1: my publishing. We signed them when they were still in

1965
01:37:47,320 --> 01:37:51,200
Speaker 1: high school and they they were brought to our attention

1966
01:37:51,200 --> 01:37:53,880
Speaker 1: by getting Mark, guy named Marx Costanzo, who was from

1967
01:37:53,880 --> 01:37:55,960
Speaker 1: a group called Len and they had a hit with

1968
01:37:56,000 --> 01:37:59,559
Speaker 1: still My Sunshine Love that record. In fact, Mark would

1969
01:37:59,600 --> 01:38:02,040
Speaker 1: be another one because Mark was Lynn was a group

1970
01:38:02,080 --> 01:38:05,080
Speaker 1: that uh um, they had a um it was a

1971
01:38:05,080 --> 01:38:07,439
Speaker 1: brother and sister market Sharon and and and the number

1972
01:38:07,479 --> 01:38:09,600
Speaker 1: of other people, and they had this reputation but I

1973
01:38:09,600 --> 01:38:12,240
Speaker 1: didn't know they had a reputation of being impossible to

1974
01:38:12,280 --> 01:38:14,720
Speaker 1: deal with. And in fact, when I just when I

1975
01:38:14,720 --> 01:38:16,759
Speaker 1: signed them, I got calls from all the record people

1976
01:38:16,760 --> 01:38:19,240
Speaker 1: in Toronto who said, we heard you just signed Lynn.

1977
01:38:19,280 --> 01:38:21,360
Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, why and they said I kicked

1978
01:38:21,360 --> 01:38:24,200
Speaker 1: that guy out of my office, you know, and uh

1979
01:38:24,320 --> 01:38:26,519
Speaker 1: so to deal with them and then to help nurture

1980
01:38:26,600 --> 01:38:29,000
Speaker 1: that through um, okay, talk him. They could never follow

1981
01:38:29,000 --> 01:38:32,040
Speaker 1: that up. Uh it's lightning, you know how many how

1982
01:38:32,640 --> 01:38:35,719
Speaker 1: hit by lightning. I mean, uh, and where are they today,

1983
01:38:35,760 --> 01:38:38,519
Speaker 1: the brother and sister. Um, Well, Mark still is in

1984
01:38:38,560 --> 01:38:40,320
Speaker 1: the business and he's it spends a lot of time

1985
01:38:40,320 --> 01:38:43,000
Speaker 1: in Nashville developing a creative scene around him and down there.

1986
01:38:43,000 --> 01:38:45,639
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's going to break through with it very soon. Um. Still,

1987
01:38:45,720 --> 01:38:48,640
Speaker 1: my sunshine had half a dozen unbelievable sinks in the

1988
01:38:48,720 --> 01:38:50,680
Speaker 1: last couple of years. Uh, so I think he's doing

1989
01:38:50,680 --> 01:38:53,160
Speaker 1: pretty well off of it. Um. But some forty one

1990
01:38:53,200 --> 01:38:55,679
Speaker 1: was cool because so he kept saying to us, there's

1991
01:38:55,720 --> 01:38:59,000
Speaker 1: this group that his friend Greg Norri had befriended, and

1992
01:38:59,040 --> 01:39:00,880
Speaker 1: we got to hear them. When we say, okay, how

1993
01:39:00,880 --> 01:39:02,439
Speaker 1: do we hear them? Well, they don't play any gigs

1994
01:39:02,520 --> 01:39:05,439
Speaker 1: during Stone High School. Well did you have a demo? No,

1995
01:39:05,560 --> 01:39:07,720
Speaker 1: and have a demo. So, after a lot of back

1996
01:39:07,720 --> 01:39:09,720
Speaker 1: and forth, we dectarted to go to their basement in

1997
01:39:09,920 --> 01:39:13,160
Speaker 1: a suburb of Rontical a Jackson and Derek Wilby's basement

1998
01:39:13,240 --> 01:39:15,400
Speaker 1: and uh we went down and heard them played two

1999
01:39:15,479 --> 01:39:17,479
Speaker 1: or three songs and we said, this is amazing, you're

2000
01:39:17,520 --> 01:39:21,519
Speaker 1: signed and um. And then what happened was Greg Norri,

2001
01:39:21,600 --> 01:39:23,800
Speaker 1: who was from a band called Trouble Chargers was the

2002
01:39:23,840 --> 01:39:27,479
Speaker 1: connections between Mark and the band. Uh. Greg thought he

2003
01:39:27,520 --> 01:39:30,559
Speaker 1: was the manager and he came back off the road

2004
01:39:30,680 --> 01:39:35,280
Speaker 1: and found his band now had a publishing deal and

2005
01:39:34,760 --> 01:39:37,240
Speaker 1: um and uh he and Mark had a bit of

2006
01:39:37,280 --> 01:39:39,000
Speaker 1: an argument about it. So Mark left the scene. And

2007
01:39:39,040 --> 01:39:41,920
Speaker 1: then so we strategized with Greg what to do. We said, well,

2008
01:39:41,920 --> 01:39:44,320
Speaker 1: since they never really played any gigs, they need to

2009
01:39:44,320 --> 01:39:46,200
Speaker 1: play gigs in order to play gigs. Didn't meet an

2010
01:39:46,240 --> 01:39:48,439
Speaker 1: independent record, so let's make an independent record. So they

2011
01:39:48,479 --> 01:39:51,000
Speaker 1: got some factor money, one of support systems. We put

2012
01:39:51,000 --> 01:39:54,280
Speaker 1: in some money, made a record and which we liked

2013
01:39:54,320 --> 01:39:56,200
Speaker 1: it so much we decided to change the strategy a

2014
01:39:56,360 --> 01:39:58,439
Speaker 1: right to the shop a record deal for them, and

2015
01:39:58,560 --> 01:40:01,320
Speaker 1: everybody in North America turned them down except for an

2016
01:40:01,360 --> 01:40:04,960
Speaker 1: independent label from Montreal called Aquarius Records. They didn't want

2017
01:40:04,960 --> 01:40:07,080
Speaker 1: to sign to Aquarius for the world, so they kept

2018
01:40:07,120 --> 01:40:09,559
Speaker 1: that interested in the back pocket. And then we kind

2019
01:40:09,560 --> 01:40:11,479
Speaker 1: of just stumbled along for a long time, and we

2020
01:40:11,560 --> 01:40:14,559
Speaker 1: got all got really dejected, and finally the band came

2021
01:40:14,600 --> 01:40:16,000
Speaker 1: to us and said, we think we know what the

2022
01:40:16,040 --> 01:40:18,120
Speaker 1: problem is, and we said, what's the problem. They said,

2023
01:40:18,880 --> 01:40:20,680
Speaker 1: everybody just listens to our demo and they think we

2024
01:40:20,720 --> 01:40:23,439
Speaker 1: sound like Link one Nity two. They don't understand what

2025
01:40:23,560 --> 01:40:26,240
Speaker 1: characters we are, so we have to present that dimension.

2026
01:40:26,760 --> 01:40:28,519
Speaker 1: That's pretty smart. What do you want to do about that?

2027
01:40:28,560 --> 01:40:31,000
Speaker 1: While we want to make an independent ePK. And they

2028
01:40:31,080 --> 01:40:35,200
Speaker 1: used to uh yeah, they were the kind of kids

2029
01:40:35,200 --> 01:40:37,000
Speaker 1: that had at those days of camcorders. They had a

2030
01:40:37,000 --> 01:40:40,040
Speaker 1: camcorder welded to their forehead wherever they went. They made

2031
01:40:40,040 --> 01:40:42,360
Speaker 1: all this footage we would now called jackass type footage,

2032
01:40:42,360 --> 01:40:44,439
Speaker 1: but it didn't exist in and and these guys would

2033
01:40:44,439 --> 01:40:47,679
Speaker 1: have been monsters on YouTube if if it had existed

2034
01:40:47,720 --> 01:40:49,880
Speaker 1: them And so anyway, they took all that jackass type

2035
01:40:49,880 --> 01:40:52,479
Speaker 1: footage they added together in a seven minute masterpiece that

2036
01:40:52,600 --> 01:40:54,519
Speaker 1: was to this day probably the funniest thing I've ever

2037
01:40:54,520 --> 01:40:56,479
Speaker 1: seen in my entire life. So we got that to

2038
01:40:56,479 --> 01:40:59,720
Speaker 1: the labels and everybody changed turned around because of the

2039
01:40:59,720 --> 01:41:02,360
Speaker 1: rest in the band. They now understood that their characters.

2040
01:41:02,680 --> 01:41:06,360
Speaker 1: Remember one time, Lee Lust and our guy from Electro

2041
01:41:06,520 --> 01:41:09,760
Speaker 1: came today. So he was a great guy. So he

2042
01:41:09,800 --> 01:41:11,240
Speaker 1: came to Toronto. He was the first day and our

2043
01:41:11,280 --> 01:41:13,479
Speaker 1: guy that flew to the Toronto just to meet the band.

2044
01:41:13,479 --> 01:41:15,200
Speaker 1: And so I told them, I said, listen, guys, where

2045
01:41:15,280 --> 01:41:17,840
Speaker 1: this guy's coming in. We're gonna go to dinner selfishly.

2046
01:41:17,840 --> 01:41:20,719
Speaker 1: It's going to be near my house. It's an Italian restaurant.

2047
01:41:20,720 --> 01:41:22,800
Speaker 1: It's a little bit she she and I was just

2048
01:41:22,880 --> 01:41:25,040
Speaker 1: kind of beating around the bush and then they go,

2049
01:41:25,240 --> 01:41:27,240
Speaker 1: you mean you want us to not dress like slobs?

2050
01:41:27,280 --> 01:41:29,680
Speaker 1: And said, well, yeah, if you could, no problem. So

2051
01:41:29,720 --> 01:41:31,920
Speaker 1: the next day I picked Lee up the airport. We

2052
01:41:31,960 --> 01:41:34,439
Speaker 1: go to this restaurant, Italian restaurant, my neighborhood, and we're

2053
01:41:34,439 --> 01:41:36,400
Speaker 1: waiting and waiting, waiting and finding the band shows up.

2054
01:41:36,439 --> 01:41:37,880
Speaker 1: You could tell they showed up because it was a

2055
01:41:37,880 --> 01:41:40,160
Speaker 1: commotion at the front door. And they had gone to

2056
01:41:40,200 --> 01:41:42,760
Speaker 1: the good Will store and bought these like mafia don

2057
01:41:42,880 --> 01:41:46,360
Speaker 1: junior suits, pinstriped suits and that trench coats. And they

2058
01:41:46,400 --> 01:41:49,200
Speaker 1: walk into this Italian restaurant that dressed like mafia dons

2059
01:41:49,520 --> 01:41:52,200
Speaker 1: with the trench coats hanging off their shoulders, and the

2060
01:41:52,720 --> 01:41:54,760
Speaker 1: everybody in the restaurant just stopped what they're doing to

2061
01:41:54,840 --> 01:41:57,639
Speaker 1: stare at them. They and there was a big commotion.

2062
01:41:57,760 --> 01:42:00,240
Speaker 1: Then the maitre d like took their jackets and them

2063
01:42:00,320 --> 01:42:02,000
Speaker 1: up and they sit down and then what do they do.

2064
01:42:02,040 --> 01:42:04,240
Speaker 1: They reached into their suit jackets and they pull out

2065
01:42:04,320 --> 01:42:07,640
Speaker 1: toy gun and put them on the table and the

2066
01:42:07,640 --> 01:42:11,360
Speaker 1: waiter almost dropped entirely a tray of drinks. It was

2067
01:42:11,400 --> 01:42:12,800
Speaker 1: the funniest thing I've ever seen, you know. And that's

2068
01:42:12,800 --> 01:42:15,519
Speaker 1: the kind of guys that that was pretty satisfying to see.

2069
01:42:15,560 --> 01:42:17,599
Speaker 1: That happened in the lens thing. And in three days, Grace,

2070
01:42:17,640 --> 01:42:20,479
Speaker 1: I suppose would be another one because they learned how

2071
01:42:20,479 --> 01:42:23,400
Speaker 1: to write songs in my office. Um. Gavin Brown was

2072
01:42:23,439 --> 01:42:25,840
Speaker 1: the writer producer that I had signed, and uh, we

2073
01:42:25,880 --> 01:42:27,599
Speaker 1: had a new studio that we built in the office

2074
01:42:27,640 --> 01:42:29,599
Speaker 1: and he said, like, found this band, there's nothing worth

2075
01:42:29,640 --> 01:42:31,600
Speaker 1: listening to him, I want to take them in to

2076
01:42:31,640 --> 01:42:33,200
Speaker 1: see what we come up with. That said okay, sure,

2077
01:42:33,280 --> 01:42:35,120
Speaker 1: So it took him in the studio and they had

2078
01:42:35,120 --> 01:42:36,559
Speaker 1: they had like a sound and a vibe, but they

2079
01:42:36,560 --> 01:42:38,800
Speaker 1: didn't really have a you know, great strong songs. And

2080
01:42:38,840 --> 01:42:41,560
Speaker 1: so every day they would emerge from the studio that

2081
01:42:41,640 --> 01:42:43,320
Speaker 1: come my office, play me the songs and I said

2082
01:42:43,439 --> 01:42:45,880
Speaker 1: it's okay, And they looked dejected. And they go back

2083
01:42:45,880 --> 01:42:47,240
Speaker 1: in the room with Gavin the next day and you

2084
01:42:47,240 --> 01:42:48,880
Speaker 1: can see the look in Gavin's face that he was

2085
01:42:48,920 --> 01:42:51,120
Speaker 1: trying to tell them they weren't ready yet either, And

2086
01:42:51,160 --> 01:42:53,599
Speaker 1: eventually it came in with something that was really good,

2087
01:42:53,640 --> 01:42:55,720
Speaker 1: and I said, wow, that chorus is amazing, and they

2088
01:42:55,720 --> 01:42:57,880
Speaker 1: started high fiving each other and I said it'd be

2089
01:42:57,880 --> 01:43:00,000
Speaker 1: good enough to be a verse and they said, well,

2090
01:43:00,000 --> 01:43:01,680
Speaker 1: what do you mean. I said, well, it's good enough

2091
01:43:01,720 --> 01:43:03,320
Speaker 1: to be a verse. Now you gotta write a great

2092
01:43:03,360 --> 01:43:05,960
Speaker 1: chorus that's even better than that. And they said it

2093
01:43:06,000 --> 01:43:10,360
Speaker 1: has to be that good and I said yeah, and Bob,

2094
01:43:10,720 --> 01:43:13,360
Speaker 1: I'll never ever forget this. You could see the lightning

2095
01:43:13,360 --> 01:43:16,160
Speaker 1: bolts go from between person to person, and from their

2096
01:43:16,200 --> 01:43:18,919
Speaker 1: eyes you could just feel the energy in the room

2097
01:43:18,960 --> 01:43:22,920
Speaker 1: that the switch had been flipped. The next day they

2098
01:43:22,920 --> 01:43:24,640
Speaker 1: went in the studio with Gavin and they wrote I

2099
01:43:24,720 --> 01:43:26,519
Speaker 1: Hate Everything about You, which is the deal that got

2100
01:43:26,560 --> 01:43:28,400
Speaker 1: them the record deal song and got them the record deal,

2101
01:43:28,640 --> 01:43:31,080
Speaker 1: made their career happen to this day. They just they

2102
01:43:31,120 --> 01:43:33,439
Speaker 1: broke last year. They broke the record of Val van

2103
01:43:33,520 --> 01:43:36,759
Speaker 1: Halen had I think fourteen number one rock records in America.

2104
01:43:36,800 --> 01:43:39,880
Speaker 1: They got sixteen now and it's all driven by the

2105
01:43:39,880 --> 01:43:43,839
Speaker 1: song because they got the whole songwriting thing right. Michael

2106
01:43:43,840 --> 01:43:47,120
Speaker 1: has has been wonderful. We got great insight into Canada

2107
01:43:47,200 --> 01:43:50,759
Speaker 1: your career. They more the plum, but for now we're done. Alright,

2108
01:43:50,760 --> 01:44:00,080
Speaker 1: well thanks, okay, until next time. This is Bob s