Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left That's Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guess today is the Fat Rat. There's number one
Speaker 1: gaming music. He's got five and a half million YouTube
Speaker 1: prescribers and billions of streams and twenty one thousand Discord members.
Speaker 1: Mr Fat Rat, glad to have you here. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me Bob Okay, you know a lot of people
Speaker 1: listening this are gonna be unfamiliar with you and your music.
Speaker 1: So let's start from the beginning. Why the Fat Rat.
Speaker 1: What's that name about? It's a typical like online name
Speaker 1: that I used for gaming. Um, it's from my nickname
Speaker 1: in school. So I was really small at school and
Speaker 1: I was doing kung food to defend myself, and then
Speaker 1: first people called me after the after Splinter, which is
Speaker 1: the master of the teenage mutant Ninja chattles. Then day,
Speaker 1: after a week or two, they found this was way
Speaker 1: too friendly as a nickname, so they simply called me
Speaker 1: Rat and German Ratta. Yeah, that name sticked with me
Speaker 1: for years, and so when I started playing online games,
Speaker 1: I simply picked that up and called myself the Fat
Speaker 1: Red and online games for about ten years and then
Speaker 1: when I started putting out my own music. I was
Speaker 1: a music producer a long time before, but when I
Speaker 1: started putting up my own music, just put it on SoundCloud.
Speaker 1: I used my online name, which I used in like
Speaker 1: online games, and now I'm still stuck with it. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's a good name, but the rat in terms of fat,
Speaker 1: You're not fat in the least. Why the fat rat?
Speaker 1: Just because it sounded good when I chose the online name,
Speaker 1: like you know, like you choose an online gaming name,
Speaker 1: it's not you don't think about it that later on
Speaker 1: you might have like ten million followers who might like
Speaker 1: ask you about why did you pick the names? Just
Speaker 1: you know, it just sounds good and you just pick it. Okay,
Speaker 1: getting some other basics down, I'm not sure. I'm sure
Speaker 1: to get the pronunciation wrong. You're in good again. Where
Speaker 1: are you in Germany right now? Oh? Yeah, in gutting In. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in the very middle of Germany, which is pretty
Speaker 1: much in the middle of nowhere because all the big
Speaker 1: cities like Hamburg's in the north, Berlin is the northeast,
Speaker 1: and Munix in the south. And yeah, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like in the s where everything most stuff happens
Speaker 1: on the coats you know, and the very middle there's
Speaker 1: not that much going on. I mean, at least in Germany,
Speaker 1: maybe still way more in the U s um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you have very much in the middle of
Speaker 1: no there, like all the big cities are few hours
Speaker 1: drives away. How many people living good? Again? Okay, and
Speaker 1: you grew up there, Yes, I grew up there, and
Speaker 1: my wife also grew up here. And that's the reason
Speaker 1: why we're here because we have all our parents are here.
Speaker 1: So we have a daughter and her grandparents just has
Speaker 1: all the grandparents very close here. That's pretty cool. Okay.
Speaker 1: How old are you today? Forty two? Okay, So what
Speaker 1: was the environment in music and life with for you
Speaker 1: growing up? It wasn't It wasn't really challenging because my
Speaker 1: mom had a music school and I had some talent
Speaker 1: in music. But I was really quickly the best in
Speaker 1: the music school. Um, because you know, when I was
Speaker 1: like fourteen fifteen years old, whenever there was a concert,
Speaker 1: I was the last act to perform because I was
Speaker 1: the person there who was the longest there, and I
Speaker 1: was like the best player. But then when I moved
Speaker 1: to Munich later on, when I was starting to study,
Speaker 1: I learned that I wasn't half as good as I
Speaker 1: thought I was, because then I had some actual competition. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, the average person in America has not been anywhere.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit more about Germany because
Speaker 1: you spend time in the stage. What's the difference between
Speaker 1: Germany and the States from your viewpoint? It's a really
Speaker 1: good question. It's a really good question. That the funny
Speaker 1: thing is whenever, like the grass always greener on the
Speaker 1: other side. Right. Um So, when I moved to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: where I lived for three years, I've realized what was
Speaker 1: it good about Germany? Now when you ask me the question,
Speaker 1: everything that comes to mind is how awesome the U.
Speaker 1: S A Is and what are the problems here? Um
Speaker 1: So Germany, please forgive me when I'm like a little
Speaker 1: bit negative. But um what I love about the US
Speaker 1: is that people are way more into doing things and
Speaker 1: acting and lesson to planning everything to death, which, at
Speaker 1: least in the which is probably great when you're in engineering,
Speaker 1: like when you're building planes or you're building big structures
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's great when you have zero tolerance to failure.
Speaker 1: But in the entertainment industry you have to do stuff
Speaker 1: and simply try and failure is an option, and that's
Speaker 1: something let's say, failure is an option. I think that's
Speaker 1: a big part of the US. People just do things,
Speaker 1: they try stuff, they move forward. And in Germany everybody
Speaker 1: is always afraid to make a mistake, and people do
Speaker 1: rather nothing than making a mistakes. So I think that's
Speaker 1: a huge difference in the mentality. Okay, from our viewpoint,
Speaker 1: it appears that Germany, maybe with France, certainly runs the
Speaker 1: European Union. What is the mindset of Germans today? You know,
Speaker 1: we can talk about I don't want to start labeling
Speaker 1: different countries whatever, but somehow are seen as more lazy,
Speaker 1: some is more economic, lee forward, and we think the
Speaker 1: perception in the US is that Germans are very precise
Speaker 1: and at the bleeding edge of technology and engineering. That's
Speaker 1: where the BMW's come from, the Mercedes, the Porsche's. You know,
Speaker 1: the average person, if you're a slacker in Germany, can
Speaker 1: you get away with it because you know, or what
Speaker 1: is the general person in Germany? Like yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so first of all, uh don't be afraid to hit
Speaker 1: me with like uh stereotypes, So it's totally no problem.
Speaker 1: So speak freely. Um. Uh, I think you can get
Speaker 1: very pretty good as so Germany. Germans are not about
Speaker 1: hard work. I wouldn't say that, it's more about precision.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a good point, um, because uh yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said before, I think it's this being afraid
Speaker 1: of making failure being very very accurate. That's the good
Speaker 1: side of it. The bad side is that it often
Speaker 1: slows down things a lot. Right, So when you want
Speaker 1: to do something in the years, you say, hey, let's
Speaker 1: do this, and everybody's cool, let's try it. And in
Speaker 1: Germany everybody's oh yeah, but what could go wrong. Let's
Speaker 1: let's figure out everything that could go wrong and make
Speaker 1: sure nothing goes wrong. And um, if we're afraid. There's
Speaker 1: actually a very good specific example I can give you
Speaker 1: in the music industry because I'm like, most of my
Speaker 1: business contacts are still in the US. So when I
Speaker 1: for example, when I worked with the management in the US,
Speaker 1: we had a call, how we want to do the
Speaker 1: deal right? And he said, Okay, this is how we're
Speaker 1: gonna work, and then we started right. We didn't even
Speaker 1: signed agreement. And this was about like thousands, thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars from the start but when I signed a small
Speaker 1: a capella group in Germany and we wanted to release something,
Speaker 1: they insisted on written agreements that we would send back
Speaker 1: via mail, like not email, but physical mail. So otherwise
Speaker 1: it's not because otherwise it's not safe, um legally right,
Speaker 1: So you have to send like the letter agreements all
Speaker 1: of the world. And my business partner in the US
Speaker 1: was still involved, so we had to send it from
Speaker 1: Germany to the US and then back to Germany and
Speaker 1: then to everybody to sign it. It was like no
Speaker 1: almost no money in all, but they were so scared
Speaker 1: that something could go wrong. And this is I think
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good example how the mentality is different Germans.
Speaker 1: Very everything has to be done right. It's like the
Speaker 1: typical image that people are standing at night at the
Speaker 1: green at the red traffic light right the where the
Speaker 1: pedestrians crossed, and its red lights. So they stand for
Speaker 1: a minute and wait till the light turns green and
Speaker 1: there's no car around, nobody's around whatsoever, but they're still
Speaker 1: going to stand at the red light. That's I think
Speaker 1: that that's German. It is okay, not everybody does it,
Speaker 1: but that's how people are here. I'm older than you are.
Speaker 1: And I remember when Europe most of the radio stations
Speaker 1: were state controlled, so at this point, and certainly electronic music,
Speaker 1: many people believe, started in the Midwest of the United States,
Speaker 1: but really took hold in Europe. So the average person
Speaker 1: and it's hard in today's digital era, and you're old
Speaker 1: enough to know have seen the transition in Germany? Is
Speaker 1: music consumption driven by the radio or other ways or
Speaker 1: has there been a transition in your lifetime? And what
Speaker 1: kind of music do people listen to? Honestly, I don't
Speaker 1: even know that much about it because I have my
Speaker 1: very own space. Um I think it's very like big influence.
Speaker 1: I think it's still TV. But then there are those
Speaker 1: subcultures like German rap became a big thing in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, just like you know in the
Speaker 1: U S as well, like the rappers there was like
Speaker 1: huge come back sort of thing after all the E
Speaker 1: d M stuff, and that the same thing happened in Germany.
Speaker 1: But I don't even know exactly where that came from
Speaker 1: because I have, like like I said, I have my
Speaker 1: very own almost the bubble where I live in where
Speaker 1: I have like my music world. Um, I listened to
Speaker 1: the radio. HEO sometimes, Um, but I'm not so familiar
Speaker 1: with the audience in Germany. What's important is my audience
Speaker 1: is two percent German, It's nine percent is the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. So it's artists wise. I'm not German.
Speaker 1: I mean I live here and I'm from here. But
Speaker 1: like my as an artist, I have as much to
Speaker 1: do with Germany as as I have to do, even
Speaker 1: more a way less to do with Germany than I
Speaker 1: have to do with Vietnam, China, USA, in Mexico. Okay,
Speaker 1: when you were growing up, rave culture started to be
Speaker 1: something in the US and the nineties. Was that something
Speaker 1: that was happening in Germany when you were growing up,
Speaker 1: and were you a participant? Yes? Absolutely so. We had
Speaker 1: Love Parade in Berlin where they were like over million
Speaker 1: people coming to Berlin to join. The Love Parade, for
Speaker 1: those who don't know, was like trucks with sound systems
Speaker 1: on it and making a huge parade, and the trucks
Speaker 1: were so loud that whenever you was you were like
Speaker 1: somewhat close to one truck, you could only hear that
Speaker 1: one truck. Uh yeah, so yeah, And I went to
Speaker 1: a couple of those parades that was. Those were the
Speaker 1: raves back then. It's not not so much of the festival,
Speaker 1: but it was a lot of those parades and was
Speaker 1: a ton of fun. I was like eighteen years old
Speaker 1: at the time, really drunk, and yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: lot of Okay, you call yourself the number one gaming
Speaker 1: music artists, what exactly does that mean? Well, the gaming
Speaker 1: music is simply the term that helps people to find
Speaker 1: music that's similar to mine. In the very beginning, I
Speaker 1: have people asking me, Hey, what's the like the music,
Speaker 1: what you're making? What is it? I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's not really E d M. You
Speaker 1: cannot call it d M. E d M is like
Speaker 1: a certain you know, sound, a certain culture and everything.
Speaker 1: It's kind of close to that, it's not really that.
Speaker 1: But then I stumbled upon gaming music mix tapes on
Speaker 1: YouTube and I found, okay, this is like the kind
Speaker 1: of music that I'm making. And also my music is
Speaker 1: all over those mix tapes, right, They often started with
Speaker 1: my song. They still do. If you bring up gaming
Speaker 1: music mix on YouTube, it's often the first song. It's
Speaker 1: the Fat Rah. Yeah, so that's where I'm okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Then that's kind of the niche or the genre that
Speaker 1: describes my music, that simply describes it best in which
Speaker 1: the most functioning note for people to understand kind of
Speaker 1: what it is because it's music. It's not music from
Speaker 1: video games. It's simply music that grew out of the
Speaker 1: video game video game culture. And it's also yeah, it's
Speaker 1: also the term where you can find music that is
Speaker 1: somewhat similar to what I'm doing. Okay, So what is
Speaker 1: different in terms of sound between gaming music and id
Speaker 1: um um gaming music? It's kind of more like electronic huts,
Speaker 1: not so much made for dancing, right. The gaming music
Speaker 1: always has I mean e d M always has to
Speaker 1: be danceable, right, because you played on festivals, you played
Speaker 1: in clubs. That's what it's made for. And gaming music
Speaker 1: it's more for listening because what people do with it,
Speaker 1: they played in the background, especially when they're playing like
Speaker 1: competitive games like Dota two or League of Lets or
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Okay, As I say, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are not that experienced in this world. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about music in actual games that people play multiplayer
Speaker 1: online or they buy discs or whatever. Do you license
Speaker 1: your music to those commercial games? Yeah? I do that
Speaker 1: as well, but that's not my primary primary thing that
Speaker 1: I'm doing. That happened because my music became so big
Speaker 1: in the space. So a couple of those big, big
Speaker 1: games reached out to me and said, hey, I want
Speaker 1: to we want to have your music in our games.
Speaker 1: Like it's a title song for the actual season. So
Speaker 1: for people who are not in the gaming space, like
Speaker 1: games today, it's not like it's not like a DVD
Speaker 1: that you buy, so you buy the thing one time,
Speaker 1: then you played through and then it's over. It's more
Speaker 1: the term games for games as a service, So a
Speaker 1: game is a continuously developing product or space. So it's
Speaker 1: is for example, so those games today they have seasons.
Speaker 1: It's like okay, every uh three months or every six
Speaker 1: months there's like new levels, new characters, and they also
Speaker 1: then have a new title song. So for example, the
Speaker 1: Rocketly for example, licensed my song as a title song
Speaker 1: for the new season, and then I think recently did
Speaker 1: it again, and then Doda too. I made a music
Speaker 1: pack that that was the only time where I made
Speaker 1: music specifically only for a game, which is then not
Speaker 1: I got didn't get paid for it directly, but it's
Speaker 1: an in game item that you can buy. So the
Speaker 1: game itself is for free, and the business model is
Speaker 1: that you can buy stuff in the game. And one
Speaker 1: of the items that you can buy in the game
Speaker 1: is my music pack. So the standard music that you
Speaker 1: that plays when you play the game gets exchanged by
Speaker 1: music that I made, and you pay I don't know,
Speaker 1: four dollars to get that, and then I get a
Speaker 1: share of those four dollars. Is that a real business
Speaker 1: or is that really small? I ain't my I can't
Speaker 1: talk numbers. So the first month I think was no,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm sure if I'm numbers, but it's a
Speaker 1: numbers no, no, no, no, I'm not sure if I'm
Speaker 1: allowed from the from valve side, from the g I
Speaker 1: just remembered, uh, nobody. It's a real business. That's a
Speaker 1: real business. I could I could, I could live in
Speaker 1: I could live a year from what I made in
Speaker 1: the first month. This is just from selling packs within
Speaker 1: the video game exactly. There's no license, okay, And like,
Speaker 1: what kind of deal if since they're not paying you
Speaker 1: up front and you were talking like four dollars for
Speaker 1: a pack, how many different songs would they get? Would
Speaker 1: they all be yours? And how would the four dollars
Speaker 1: be split. Uh once again, I'm not Harpers, and sure
Speaker 1: if I'm allowed to talk about that about the split.
Speaker 1: Um so they actually it's a standard standard deal. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just they have a lot of different creators. Um
Speaker 1: so not everybody can place his or her item in
Speaker 1: the game, but they do this quite a bit. So
Speaker 1: there there's a community or a lot of people who say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to play stuff in the game or sell
Speaker 1: stuff in within the game, and um, yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: a standard agreement, which and it's it's processed through their
Speaker 1: through Steam. So Steam is like iTunes for video games
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So it's a platform within that you
Speaker 1: can like you can buy games, you can download the games,
Speaker 1: and then you have a community aspect to it and
Speaker 1: all those things and it's done within that platform. So
Speaker 1: one of one of you the statements I opened Steam,
Speaker 1: which is actually the platform that I also used when
Speaker 1: I want to buy games. So it's all done within
Speaker 1: that platform. Okay, is Steam because you know, maybe I
Speaker 1: don't have it straight. Is Steam a platform or also
Speaker 1: technology or the game games written a specific language that
Speaker 1: Steam provides or Steam is just a hosting place. Um no,
Speaker 1: So tons of different games are um are are used
Speaker 1: in Steam and like um distributed through Steam, so I
Speaker 1: would I would call it like the distribution platform. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a software that you install, So you say, okay,
Speaker 1: I want to download Steam. Then you install the software
Speaker 1: on your PC, PC or your Mac, and then you
Speaker 1: create a user account and then you have like no
Speaker 1: games in your library, and then you buy some games
Speaker 1: or you download some free games. You're like, okay, I
Speaker 1: want to have this game in that game you downloaded,
Speaker 1: and then it keeps the game. So originally I think
Speaker 1: it was developed from Valve. They developed games themselves, so
Speaker 1: Valve owned Steam, but they also developed games, and they
Speaker 1: developed it originally just as an update client, so just
Speaker 1: so you do it within the platform and then it
Speaker 1: updates automatically whenever a game update happens. But then they
Speaker 1: started plugging in other games, so other people said, hey,
Speaker 1: can we maybe distribute our games through your platform for
Speaker 1: updates and stuff, and then they did this and I
Speaker 1: think by now what's funny is I think Valve is
Speaker 1: the company in the US that has the biggest profit
Speaker 1: per UH employee in the in the entire US. I
Speaker 1: think they have liked employees and they have like billions
Speaker 1: of profits. Okay. So your music pack which is sold
Speaker 1: on Steam, is it sold directly by Steam or does
Speaker 1: it go through the person who constructed the game that
Speaker 1: you gave the music to for free? Uh no, because
Speaker 1: Valve the owners of Steam, they also developed they are
Speaker 1: also the owners of Doda too, So it's one thing.
Speaker 1: It's one company in this case. Let me let me
Speaker 1: just put it in in a different way theoretic, Lie, could
Speaker 1: you independently put a music pack on Steam? Uh No?
Speaker 1: Not in Dota two. That wasn't That wouldn't be possible. Okay,
Speaker 1: And you know, uh in many walks of the music
Speaker 1: business other than the major label, certainly indie labels, it's
Speaker 1: a fifty fifty deal. Is that similar here? Is it better?
Speaker 1: Is it worse? That's a little worse, but it's close, okay,
Speaker 1: just because for this deep in how often do they
Speaker 1: account uh monthly? Monthly? Okay? So for okay, so that
Speaker 1: you know that and you feel you're getting an honest accounting, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, okay. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to this licensing thing. You give the
Speaker 1: music to the game like those two. Do you ever
Speaker 1: charge large to license? Yeah? Not? Uh not? Data too,
Speaker 1: because it's this model. Um, but I do a lot
Speaker 1: of are my company, and it's not me directly, but
Speaker 1: my wife who who manages me and runs all my
Speaker 1: business stuff, and my cousin. Actually it's very very family.
Speaker 1: They do a lot of licensing into mobile games, for example,
Speaker 1: that they use it for a year and they pay
Speaker 1: me a yearly fee to use the song. Okay, but
Speaker 1: from the beginning of your public life you talk about
Speaker 1: the ability to license. Now, let's use YouTube as a
Speaker 1: specific situation. Yes, if you want to use a major tune,
Speaker 1: legally you might jump through hoops. But what do we know?
Speaker 1: There's content idea on YouTube such that the creator ultimately
Speaker 1: gets paid. So what exactly is your model? It's just
Speaker 1: you don't have to ask me to record it. But
Speaker 1: I get paid by YouTube, right, don't get paid by YouTube?
Speaker 1: What's going on there on on YouTube? I have a
Speaker 1: different model which is kind of unique, which is that
Speaker 1: I it's free to use on YouTube for everybody. So
Speaker 1: you if you have YouTube channel, you can use my
Speaker 1: music there and monetize the video and keep percent of
Speaker 1: the revenue. I I'm not going to touch any of
Speaker 1: the revenue on YouTube. Wow, So your main avenues of
Speaker 1: revenue or what. Uh, it's my own YouTube channel which
Speaker 1: has around a million plays per day. Um, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm much the what's the net on a million players? Um?
Speaker 1: I have to think I think they think. I think, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's my much. You can't make a month from YouTube?
Speaker 1: From you, that's I think it's that's twenty five k
Speaker 1: around that a month. Yeah, so you have your own
Speaker 1: monetized YouTube channel. That's one stream of revenue. Anything else Yeah,
Speaker 1: then of course are the d piece right Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes,
Speaker 1: still sales and those things. That's the that's by far
Speaker 1: the biggest chunk because so so on youtu, I think
Speaker 1: it's roughly it's roughly one k for a million place
Speaker 1: around that. And on Spotify, my revenue is not that
Speaker 1: good because it's very international. So when your only base,
Speaker 1: when your place all comes from the U S, you
Speaker 1: make more per play than me, for example, makes a
Speaker 1: lot of place in Vietnam. You just don't make that
Speaker 1: much money in being non per play. Um. But there
Speaker 1: I roughly say, like over all these piece for me,
Speaker 1: it's a million places. On Spotify is around like five
Speaker 1: k per month. I know it's not per mount like
Speaker 1: million plays is around five k over all these pe Okay,
Speaker 1: so have YouTube and you have the das traditional music streamers,
Speaker 1: you have packs on Steam any other your avenues of revenue?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, licensing of course, like licensing into different games.
Speaker 1: So not only not only the packs, but a lot
Speaker 1: of mobile games are licensed into a lot of um
Speaker 1: mobile like tires hop, like jumping games and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Publishing on all the stuff. Um, then what's that? It's
Speaker 1: um uh, neighboring rights. Those are the big, the big ones. Okay,
Speaker 1: So most of your revenue is from traditional music streaming. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so is it? How did you let people know that
Speaker 1: not only could they use their music on YouTube without
Speaker 1: asking that they could keep the red the new I
Speaker 1: simply told them when I started, And also when I started,
Speaker 1: was way more common that people would simply use stuff
Speaker 1: because it was just in the start of content idea
Speaker 1: when those things came up on YouTube, and up to
Speaker 1: that point, people would simply start using stuff, and then
Speaker 1: later on content idea kicked in. But it didn't kick
Speaker 1: in for my stuff. So a lot of people already
Speaker 1: used it and they realized they got a lot of
Speaker 1: copyright claims. But not on my music. So they were like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: maybe I should keep using this guy's music. Do you
Speaker 1: have any idea the volume of clips and and plays
Speaker 1: on YouTube that are using your music? Ah, So we
Speaker 1: made an estimate recently based on some other people's numbers
Speaker 1: that we know, Um, so are approximate as at the
Speaker 1: moment at the moment that it's like twenty five million
Speaker 1: videos using my music at the moment on YouTube. So
Speaker 1: it's not that's not played as a number of videos.
Speaker 1: So anybody else doing what you're doing in terms of
Speaker 1: giving their music away for free and how big are
Speaker 1: they on YouTube? Um? Yeah, there are a couple of
Speaker 1: artists especially like especially in the gaming music scene. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a common thing. Um simply because it helps
Speaker 1: you grow so much. People realize that because when you're
Speaker 1: coming from the video game culture, a huge and free
Speaker 1: promotion tool is that people using your music in the background,
Speaker 1: and then other people hear the music and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, what's that And then they search wood and
Speaker 1: they find the music and then they played. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there are other people doing the same thing. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning. So your mother random music school.
Speaker 1: What did your father do? He was originally a farmer,
Speaker 1: but not anymore. When I was born. He was an
Speaker 1: independent inventor, like inventing uh machines stuff, but he was
Speaker 1: never successful. Okay, and are your parents still alive? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my father's eighties six now and my mom is almost
Speaker 1: She is going to get seventeen in a week. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, but they're fine. They're also together and they're
Speaker 1: have an amazing family. I have to say. Okay, and
Speaker 1: how many kids in the family? Uh? So I have
Speaker 1: a daughter together with my wife and no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: your parents kid they Yeah. I have one brother. He
Speaker 1: also lives in gutting In. He works for a US company.
Speaker 1: He's an animator also in the gaming space, so he
Speaker 1: he animates uh dinosaurs for a game Arc Survival Evolved,
Speaker 1: which is also really huge game. But he's doing it
Speaker 1: here from from gutting In. And yeah, he has also
Speaker 1: a daughter together with his wife. Okay, so you're growing
Speaker 1: up and when do you start playing music? I grew
Speaker 1: up making music. So the first thing that I actually
Speaker 1: remember is me sitting on my mom's lap while she
Speaker 1: was playing piano. So she did this she was playing
Speaker 1: the piano. And I was two years old sitting on
Speaker 1: her lap, and I would start hitting random keys, and
Speaker 1: at first she wanted to keep me from doing it.
Speaker 1: She was like, hey, no, I'm going I'm playing piano.
Speaker 1: You you don't hit the keys. But I kept, you know,
Speaker 1: kidding keys, and at some point she thought, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: actually doing it for my son, so why not let
Speaker 1: him play stuff? But then after like a week or two,
Speaker 1: she realized that the keys I was pressing would fit
Speaker 1: to what she was playing. And I can still remember
Speaker 1: how like she was blown away that I was like
Speaker 1: pressing keys that would fit to what she was playing.
Speaker 1: And that's how I learned music. So I really learned
Speaker 1: it like a language growing up. And I like, I
Speaker 1: literally cannot think of a time where I was not
Speaker 1: making music. Okay, So what instruments did you play? Um, So,
Speaker 1: piano was my my main instrument. I've played a lot
Speaker 1: of other instruments, so I started a little bit with
Speaker 1: the flute and trumpet. I really liked a little bit
Speaker 1: of violent double bass guitar and a little bit of
Speaker 1: like vocal lessons and stuff, but piano was always main. Okay,
Speaker 1: And you can read music, I assume. Yeah, to a
Speaker 1: certain degree. I'm a little bit out of practice, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I can read music. Okay. Now you talk about going
Speaker 1: to Munich. How old again are you when you go
Speaker 1: to Munich? And what school are you going to attend
Speaker 1: in Munich? I was twenty one, I think, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was twenty one, and I go. I went to the
Speaker 1: s a E. Which is School of Audio Engineering, like
Speaker 1: an international school for audio engineering. Okay, but you said, okay,
Speaker 1: you you know, some of the terms may not be identical.
Speaker 1: You graduate from high school, which in America's traditionally eighteen,
Speaker 1: then do you go you go to university or when
Speaker 1: I do after eighteen? Yeah, exactly, it's it's School of
Speaker 1: aud Engineering. So I got a bachelor's degree there and
Speaker 1: so I'm a Bachelor of Recording Arts Honors Recording Arts. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you said once you got to Munich, you thought
Speaker 1: that people were much better musicians than you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I after six months, I went into a fraternity
Speaker 1: and it was a music or it is a music fraternity,
Speaker 1: which was amazing. Uh. They had a huge house in
Speaker 1: the middle of Munich, Munich, incredibly expensive and it's it's
Speaker 1: like it's like, I don't know, it's uh utopia kind
Speaker 1: of for a musician because it was in the middle
Speaker 1: of Munich and they had a big, big rooms with
Speaker 1: pianos and I could play like grand pianos to use
Speaker 1: for free all the time. Whenever I wanted, I could ill.
Speaker 1: I moved into the fraternity there, so that was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: But there were a lot of other musicians as well,
Speaker 1: and that's what I talked talked about. It was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, um, I'm not half as good as I thought.
Speaker 1: I was, Okay, you graduate, you get your degree, what's
Speaker 1: the next step? Um. Even before I finished the degree,
Speaker 1: I had the part was a U internship internship and
Speaker 1: so I took an intern at a company called Uniquate
Speaker 1: Music and that was a publishing company and a music
Speaker 1: production company. And they had this artist called lu Biga
Speaker 1: who didn't know five yeah, and so that was two
Speaker 1: thousand one, so that was just like one and a
Speaker 1: half years ago. So they were like the biggest thing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Okay, this is my chance because
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to become a music producer. That
Speaker 1: was my goal. UM, So I simply worked my ass
Speaker 1: off there like I worked like crazy and was like
Speaker 1: I wasn't intern first then, and like a year after
Speaker 1: they hired me as an intern, I was like head
Speaker 1: of the interim music production there and I run the production. Ah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the next step. And I can tell you
Speaker 1: a lot about that that company and what I learned there.
Speaker 1: If you want, um, how to like how not to
Speaker 1: what not to do when you have to says the company.
Speaker 1: So the the owner of the company, he was not
Speaker 1: creatively involved in Mambo number five, but after the big success,
Speaker 1: he thought like, oh, I want to be like the mastermind.
Speaker 1: I want to be the creative chief. So he took
Speaker 1: things in his own hands creatively, and that's simply ruined
Speaker 1: the entire the entire process. That killed the creativity. UM
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean there's like no value or very
Speaker 1: little value to the the brand today. And there there
Speaker 1: wasn't like a long time career that developed out of
Speaker 1: Mambo Number five because that idiot simply ruined everything. Okay,
Speaker 1: so where do you go from that production company? UM?
Speaker 1: I was there for like four years and then I
Speaker 1: um worked like crazy, fourteen hours a day and made
Speaker 1: like five bucks per month that's what they paid me.
Speaker 1: And then I decided I want to go independent, so
Speaker 1: I started. I was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do like or it's independent, like I would
Speaker 1: want to build start my own business, become an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: which didn't go so well at first, because the one
Speaker 1: thing that made me money was and was making ring
Speaker 1: tones for um Zeemens. So those mobile phones when you
Speaker 1: would buy a mobile Zemens mobile phone back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, the ring tones that were on the
Speaker 1: phone were I wrote those ring tones and produced those
Speaker 1: ring tones, and that was the one source of income
Speaker 1: that I had. And then ben Q had bought Zeemens
Speaker 1: I think in two thousand six maybe or so, and
Speaker 1: then two thousand no, I think two thousand four maybe,
Speaker 1: but they they let the mobile part of it, they
Speaker 1: let it go bankrupt purpose because they only wanted their
Speaker 1: technology and they wanted to lay off all the employees
Speaker 1: and everything. So that's that happened exactly at that time.
Speaker 1: So they still owed me a lot, a lot of money.
Speaker 1: So one month after I decided I wanna start my
Speaker 1: own business, that happened. So I had like I started
Speaker 1: with seven thousand euros in depth and I had like
Speaker 1: no income so that was my my start at that time,
Speaker 1: keep going down the narrative yea, well um, And then
Speaker 1: it was just you know, it's aistential crisis and thinking
Speaker 1: about if music production was the right thing, because everybody
Speaker 1: wronged me. You know, people finished, like all the people
Speaker 1: that I knew, they were like finishing their their university
Speaker 1: and everybody was like starting families. And I was just
Speaker 1: bankrupt basically almost like my parents had me had to
Speaker 1: help me out. And then I just I there was
Speaker 1: one guy that I knew from the company, and he said, hey,
Speaker 1: I also want to go away, and do you have
Speaker 1: some music like I wanna UM could help you. And
Speaker 1: I just played him a couple of songs and he
Speaker 1: for one song that I had produced, he found me
Speaker 1: a deal at Content Records, which is a German dance label. Uh,
Speaker 1: it flowed out, but he got me another deal for
Speaker 1: another record, and that's how we started. And then we
Speaker 1: founded a company together. And that was a good thing
Speaker 1: because so I was producing a lot of dance music
Speaker 1: and I was doing like everything that I could simply
Speaker 1: get my hands, like every job, anything that I could do,
Speaker 1: any production, we're the stuff, so still ring Tones, and
Speaker 1: then we had those big ring tones, like people would
Speaker 1: sell ring tones on television. That was a thing. So
Speaker 1: I did that um and for example, publishing company of
Speaker 1: that owned h take Me Home Tonight by Share for
Speaker 1: example for Germany. They hit me up and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, cascadas like a big thing at the moment,
Speaker 1: this euro dance is blowing up. Can you make a
Speaker 1: cascada is a version of take Me Home Tonight? And
Speaker 1: that's what I did for ext some and then they
Speaker 1: paid me like eight hundred bucks or stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I would do all those things and slowly, you know,
Speaker 1: make my way into the business. And then I signed
Speaker 1: a publishing deal with Chrysalis back then, I think that
Speaker 1: was two thousand nine already, and we decided that we
Speaker 1: want to reach out to the Yes because the dance
Speaker 1: music thing was blowing up, and we had like at
Speaker 1: that time it was possible from Munich to get in
Speaker 1: touch with Island in New York and you know Atlantic
Speaker 1: recket and all, because everybody was like searching for European producers.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, like dance music is blowing up,
Speaker 1: and like you know, the hip hop producers they were
Speaker 1: not there quite yet. They learned so quickly the U
Speaker 1: S producers, but there was like the small window of
Speaker 1: time where they were not there and we already had
Speaker 1: the sound. Um. Yeah. And then we in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: what we did is we booked K and A Studios
Speaker 1: in Brill Building in New York for a week for
Speaker 1: I don't know, ten thousand dollars or something like that,
Speaker 1: without having any session, and then we we reached out
Speaker 1: to I don't know which one it was like one
Speaker 1: of the maybe Atlantic or so, and said, hey, we're
Speaker 1: in like we're in New York, we're in cam A
Speaker 1: studios like you know, doing sessions, and we still have
Speaker 1: like one spot open. Do you have any artists that
Speaker 1: you want to send around and they will do? Okay?
Speaker 1: Cool you have like I know Winter Gordon for example,
Speaker 1: maybe you could do a session with her. And then
Speaker 1: we would go to the next like to Island saying hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, we're in came A students and we're
Speaker 1: working with at Landing on their artists, you know, but
Speaker 1: we have still one spot open and maybe do you
Speaker 1: have an artist? Yeah. That's that's how we did it,
Speaker 1: and then we had like the entire scheduled booked and
Speaker 1: came a studios, and then we went to New York
Speaker 1: and wrote a lot of songs. I think none of
Speaker 1: that ever got released, but we that was the first
Speaker 1: time it came to the U. S almost thirty years old,
Speaker 1: but it was amazing and it's like the Yeah, we
Speaker 1: realized how different the US mentality is, especially in the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry, and how how quickly things can happen. They're
Speaker 1: compared to Germany, where every it's so slow. Here. I'm
Speaker 1: not I have like almost nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: German entertainment industry, but I remember how baffled I was
Speaker 1: and how amazed that was when it came the first
Speaker 1: time to the US and things happened, especially in New York,
Speaker 1: had happened so quick it was just crazy. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then I was in New York four I don't know,
Speaker 1: eight weeks or so. So we did other sessions and
Speaker 1: you know, socializing and everything, and we was, yeah, we
Speaker 1: originally we had planned to fly back, but then we
Speaker 1: had a we had a in Art Island. He said
Speaker 1: he wanted us to work with his artist, and we flew.
Speaker 1: He flew us to Los Angeles and then I was
Speaker 1: away there for three weeks and then I decided in
Speaker 1: the end of two thousand nine, almost missed the flight
Speaker 1: back on Christmas but made it. And then we just okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna move to l A and see how far
Speaker 1: we can get there. And that's the next thing that
Speaker 1: we did. So what happened in l A? And how
Speaker 1: long were you in l A? Three years? And yeah, learning,
Speaker 1: learning as I had amazing Like I mean, it's creatively,
Speaker 1: it's incredibly professional. I was in the studio with people
Speaker 1: like Tovlo, b b Rexa, Um, even Bogart who wrote
Speaker 1: like Halo, Fifore Beyonce, with um the underdogs who are
Speaker 1: like also like Justin Bieber Beyonce and amazing. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of amazing people. I learned so much from it.
Speaker 1: But I also get like Piste or Piste by annoyed
Speaker 1: by the music industry, like how how political it is
Speaker 1: and how especially what bothered me is like how many
Speaker 1: people started talking into my music, Like you know, I
Speaker 1: put so much like work and thought into it, and
Speaker 1: then you have like the artist has an opinion, which
Speaker 1: is legit, and then the manager artist manager has an opinion,
Speaker 1: and then there in our has an opinion, and then
Speaker 1: the label head and this person and that person and
Speaker 1: the publisher, and everybody's like, hey, let's change this, let's
Speaker 1: change that. Can you do this? Can you do that?
Speaker 1: And then at the end of you like everything's kind
Speaker 1: of ruined. And that really was annoying. And also that
Speaker 1: some of the best songs I thought I had were
Speaker 1: never released just because they didn't fit anywhere. But I
Speaker 1: still thought they were amazing songs. And some songs where
Speaker 1: I thought like, oh, that's not that good, We're actually
Speaker 1: raised because we were done with the right people at
Speaker 1: the right time, the right studio you know. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the time two thou eleven. Oh, actually it's
Speaker 1: it's now exactly ten years ago, because thousand eleven, summer
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. There's okay, I'm just gonna put out
Speaker 1: some ideas that I have by myself, just gonna put
Speaker 1: it before you go there. You moved to l A.
Speaker 1: How do you end up working with these artists? Sheer
Speaker 1: hustle or does somebody else make the arrangement? You come
Speaker 1: to l A? You don't really know many people even Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, so we did this this move that
Speaker 1: has had in New York with came A studios, um
Speaker 1: and that was our like you know, there was our
Speaker 1: step into the industry. So we started knowing people then,
Speaker 1: and like I said, we had this a are from
Speaker 1: Ireland who flew us UH to l A. He also
Speaker 1: the second time he said like, hey, I want you
Speaker 1: guys in l A. Actually, now that I remember, the
Speaker 1: second time I wanted to come to the years we
Speaker 1: wanted to come to New York. We also already had
Speaker 1: the flights booked and I think three days people, no,
Speaker 1: there was this volcano thing, if I remember correctly, we
Speaker 1: couldn't fly, and then the flights were delayed and in
Speaker 1: that time we had the call from Ireland and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to work you to work with our artists
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. So then we canceled those flights into Okay,
Speaker 1: two questions when you say we who are you talking
Speaker 1: about and who was in l A? And b how
Speaker 1: are you making money in this period in Los Angeles? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we that that was the the guy that I
Speaker 1: talked about who like brought me those first UH dance
Speaker 1: deals like with Contour Records when I started starting my
Speaker 1: own business. So I had this guy. He was working
Speaker 1: at the company were Lubka was also signed the publishing company.
Speaker 1: He moved away from that company as well, and we
Speaker 1: started our own business and he was he was the
Speaker 1: person uh that kind of did all the like management stuff.
Speaker 1: So it was one company, but basically I was doing
Speaker 1: the music production. He was doing like all the rest.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, and we just did it together. How did
Speaker 1: you make money in that life? Yeah? Um, well, actually
Speaker 1: we had a huge, pretty huge hit in Europe exactly
Speaker 1: at that time. One of those ring tones that we did,
Speaker 1: um it was it was released as a full so
Speaker 1: it went really well in France and it then was
Speaker 1: released as a full song and it became it got
Speaker 1: the number one spot in France for thirteen weeks um
Speaker 1: and it was best selling single of the year in France,
Speaker 1: and that was one of the things. And then we
Speaker 1: still had the publishing deal with the advance and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and then we had like cuts, a couple
Speaker 1: of cuts, like some K pop songs and then some
Speaker 1: I think it was also Atlantic Records, so so some
Speaker 1: some smaller placements and stuff. Okay, so you wake up
Speaker 1: one day and you say you're gonna do your own music.
Speaker 1: Continue from there, yes, So it was started kind of
Speaker 1: a side project. So it was just it was more
Speaker 1: a creative thing, and for me it's aweso important. I was.
Speaker 1: I was annoyed by how complicated everything was, including well
Speaker 1: now that came a little bit a litt bit later,
Speaker 1: but that that started then that it was annoyed by
Speaker 1: how complicated was for people to listen to my music.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it started that. I simply put out an
Speaker 1: EP on SoundCloud, and I sent it to a couple
Speaker 1: of blocks, and then I went into holidays, and then
Speaker 1: I came back and was curious to see how many
Speaker 1: plays I have And I had seventy three plays into
Speaker 1: on the entire EP over two weeks, so that wasn't
Speaker 1: too crazy. But so what I did then I hit
Speaker 1: up people on SoundCloud directly personally. Uh, you could wait,
Speaker 1: how did it work? On sound ticks? You could see
Speaker 1: like you could open up an artist like let's say Scritics,
Speaker 1: who was like blowing up at the time. You could
Speaker 1: open up Scritics and then it would show you people
Speaker 1: who would listen to Scrilics. I would show those profiles.
Speaker 1: So I would search for some artists, for example, Potter
Speaker 1: Robinson here like a little bit similar sized that at
Speaker 1: that time as well, similar to the stuff that I
Speaker 1: was doing complex shrow. So I would look up those
Speaker 1: people and see who was following them and then send
Speaker 1: them a personal message. So a lot of those were
Speaker 1: produced as well. So I would listen to their songs
Speaker 1: and say like, hey, I listen to your song like
Speaker 1: this and or maybe you could do this different. I
Speaker 1: have those ideas and maybe you want to check out
Speaker 1: my songs. So it was it like really doing this.
Speaker 1: I would like hit up ten people per day, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people got back to me like, Hey,
Speaker 1: your music is amazing, thanks so much for reaching out.
Speaker 1: And that was where I felt like, hey, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing annoying advertisement. What I'm doing is like actually people
Speaker 1: enjoyed when I reached out to them. And one of
Speaker 1: those artists he sent my music to his manager and
Speaker 1: to another band. The other band was The Knox. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know them. It's like an indie
Speaker 1: band from New York and his manager. So The Knox
Speaker 1: reached out to me saying, hey, your music is amazing,
Speaker 1: can you do remis for us? And then this manager
Speaker 1: who was tour manager for the Knox, but he was
Speaker 1: also manager for another artist, he also reached out to
Speaker 1: me see he said like, hey, I want to manage
Speaker 1: your music. Amazing, I think I could do something for you.
Speaker 1: So did. There's readings for the knocks, and back then
Speaker 1: high Machine was a big thing. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: probably remember, like was the music block charts sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And that remix became immediately went top ten in the
Speaker 1: High Machine charts. Okay, how did it go top ten? Um?
Speaker 1: So the manager that that that wanted to work for me.
Speaker 1: I think he brought up one block article um, and
Speaker 1: so a blog wrote about it, and then it simply
Speaker 1: clicked with the people. People like that. They click like
Speaker 1: you know, and then the algorithm pushes it up. And
Speaker 1: it took a while. I think there there's a small
Speaker 1: time window where you can get into the high Machine shuts.
Speaker 1: I think it's only three days, and after three days
Speaker 1: you drop out automatically. So every song you see saw
Speaker 1: on the High Machine charts still see it's not older
Speaker 1: than three days. So yeah, that happened. And then this
Speaker 1: manager say, hey, you can do a remix for Foster,
Speaker 1: the people who just blew up with pumped up kicks um.
Speaker 1: And so I did the remix and I wanted to
Speaker 1: give it to like sell it too, foster the people.
Speaker 1: But I still had my business partner, and my business
Speaker 1: partner said, okay, we we are ruining ruining our prices
Speaker 1: if you give away the remix cheap. So he asked
Speaker 1: for four K, four thousand dollars and the label said, no,
Speaker 1: we are only going to pay five and so that
Speaker 1: didn't so we agreed that I could simply put out
Speaker 1: the remix for free. That's what I did, and it
Speaker 1: immediately hit number one on the high Machine charts. Um
Speaker 1: it simply some blocks wrote about it, and simply it
Speaker 1: clicked with the people. It's just kind of went viral
Speaker 1: on its own. And funny story is um that back
Speaker 1: then a I got a message on SoundCloud from a
Speaker 1: guy called Billy and he said, Hey, I'm having this
Speaker 1: new channel on YouTube. It's called No Copyright Sounds, and UM,
Speaker 1: can I upload your remix there? Is that okay for you?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, cool, no problem. I looked
Speaker 1: at the channel and had like three hundred subscribers or something,
Speaker 1: and it was one of the driving forces behind the
Speaker 1: channel in the beginning to grow that channel, and the
Speaker 1: channel I think now has over thirty million subscribers and
Speaker 1: that's the channel where Alan Walker and a lot of
Speaker 1: like huge also huge gaming artists came from and as
Speaker 1: uh yeah, one of the biggest YouTube channels. Now they
Speaker 1: really started of my music. Yeah. Then I made another
Speaker 1: bootleg remis for Levels for VT which also on when
Speaker 1: number one Hype Machine, and made another remix for Gautier,
Speaker 1: the somebody that I used to know, also bootleg remix um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then then I got remix requests from Static Revenger and
Speaker 1: from Chris Brown for example, So I made an official
Speaker 1: remix for Chris Brown. And that was the point. By
Speaker 1: the way, we're really got annoyed with copyright protection systems
Speaker 1: and how major labels work, because what happened is I
Speaker 1: made this official remix for Chris Brown, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: the labels were releasing it in the UK first on iTunes,
Speaker 1: so people in the UK could buy it on iTunes,
Speaker 1: but in the rest of the world. So what happened
Speaker 1: was some people in the UK who are friends of
Speaker 1: mine bought it and they blocked about the right. Oh
Speaker 1: there's the fat Red remix for Chris Brown. Brown. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: you should listen to it. But it wasn't available in
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. So I had a lot
Speaker 1: of people coming in, Yeah, I want to buy your
Speaker 1: remics but it's not available, and like, yeah, there's nothing
Speaker 1: I can do about it. But I found this incredibly
Speaker 1: annoying because I thought, eight people want to listen to
Speaker 1: my music, but the labels they won't let them listen
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, and so that was also and then
Speaker 1: this this is interesting thing happened. So the small channel
Speaker 1: called no Copyright sound uploaded this Faster the People remas
Speaker 1: for free, and then I got uh comments on my
Speaker 1: SoundCloud the Great Space Butterfly. I was like what, and
Speaker 1: then another comment, yeah, great Space Blatterfly. Yeah, I kind
Speaker 1: of from the Great Space buttering It's I googled it
Speaker 1: and I found out that it was a YouTube I think,
Speaker 1: let's play uh serious or where they would use the
Speaker 1: Fast of the People bootleg remins as background music. And
Speaker 1: I realized that this video serious YouTube series was driving
Speaker 1: a lot of traffic um to my to my SoundCloud.
Speaker 1: So that's a point where I realized that, yeah, background
Speaker 1: music on YouTube can be like a good promotional tool. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're interfacing with other people, other companies, how do
Speaker 1: you decide ultimately to go totally independent. How do you
Speaker 1: build even bigger on sound and when do you get
Speaker 1: YouTube involved? Uh? Well there was. First of all, I
Speaker 1: got into trouble with my business partner obviously because I
Speaker 1: had a conflantly of interest because it was like pursuing
Speaker 1: my own artis story. I started playing shows and stuff
Speaker 1: and I I want to do more of my own music.
Speaker 1: But then it's the same time had like other producers,
Speaker 1: and I was actually my career and I was really
Speaker 1: starting I would like get bigger sessions, you know, like
Speaker 1: I totally like bb Rex back then way still with
Speaker 1: Pete Wentz. They had to do black cards I think
Speaker 1: was called, so we would get like bigger artists in
Speaker 1: the student I would My missus partent was really annoyed,
Speaker 1: so I had to go through this like phase of
Speaker 1: like saying goodbye to him. And then I was there
Speaker 1: was two thousand thirteen. Then already I was like thirty
Speaker 1: two years old, our thirty three, and I want to
Speaker 1: have family and we were in LA but for us,
Speaker 1: it was never an option to have a family in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles also because we wanted to have our family around,
Speaker 1: so we moved back to Germany. That was the next
Speaker 1: thing that happened. Okay, your wife manager, she was with
Speaker 1: you in l A, Yes, exactly. So she's from getting
Speaker 1: in um. That's a very different story. We know each
Speaker 1: other since she was fifteen and I was seventeen, but
Speaker 1: we were just best friends and at the time when
Speaker 1: I moved to l A. Uh, so we were not together,
Speaker 1: just with friends. But at the time when I moved
Speaker 1: to l A, um I offered her to visit me,
Speaker 1: so I would pay her a visit and then we
Speaker 1: got together. So she kind of moved to l A
Speaker 1: when I started moving to so she was there with me.
Speaker 1: We married while I wasn't a while I was living
Speaker 1: in l A. Yeah, but after we were married, we
Speaker 1: were like, okay, count and we want to have kids
Speaker 1: and we're not going to have them in l A.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and she was not managing me at that time.
Speaker 1: She only started managing in two thousand nineteen. What was
Speaker 1: she doing in the interim and you asked, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was. She wanted to become an author, like writing novels,
Speaker 1: so she was working on a novel. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: moved back to Germany to have kids yea. So then
Speaker 1: what goes on with your career yeah, yeah, that that
Speaker 1: was what I was wondering about, like what's happening now? Um?
Speaker 1: And what I did? Once again, I split up from everybody,
Speaker 1: So I so my management got a little slower. They hired,
Speaker 1: they had a they wanted some big artists as clients,
Speaker 1: which I realized, Okay, they're now really priority for them,
Speaker 1: which was okay. So I split up and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody, let's go separate ways. And I split
Speaker 1: up from the publishing, split up from everybody, just sitting
Speaker 1: in Germany. I still had like some passive income from
Speaker 1: the stuff that I had released. Then was really wondering, Okay,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do now? And then I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just gonna try for a year
Speaker 1: just putting up my own music originals this time and
Speaker 1: see what happens. And that's what I did. And then
Speaker 1: what happened what ensued? Well, um, I focused on uh
Speaker 1: on YouTube because at some point in the internet had
Speaker 1: I've seen like where do people find I think was
Speaker 1: in the US, like where do people find me? In music?
Speaker 1: That was like I think number one of those radio
Speaker 1: and like thirty thirty six percent there was YouTube. I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, a lot of people are finding their
Speaker 1: music on YouTube now, and I already had this experience that, um,
Speaker 1: I would get so much sound out traffic from YouTube,
Speaker 1: so I thought, okay, cool, I'm gonna focus on that
Speaker 1: and I made some music for for example, my songs
Speaker 1: Windfall and Unity, and I had this thing that I
Speaker 1: would make music that I liked. But it was like
Speaker 1: this is but this is not really, like this is
Speaker 1: not e d M. I'm not sure, like who's actually
Speaker 1: gonna listen to that because it's too playful for DJs
Speaker 1: to play it on a festival, right, two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: was like hotwell and you know David Gheta and everybody, uh,
Speaker 1: and then they're not going to play this, but yeah,
Speaker 1: let me just put it out and yeah, I put
Speaker 1: it out and it didn't explode, but I got really
Speaker 1: good responses. And what happened is I back then you
Speaker 1: could see the place on a YouTube channel. You could
Speaker 1: see like on a video, you could see over time
Speaker 1: how the place would develop. That features not around anymore,
Speaker 1: but it was back then, and what really I could see.
Speaker 1: So there were those taste maker channels, like the first
Speaker 1: one was Tasty Records and for example Mr suicide Cheeps.
Speaker 1: So Tasty Records I had like I think four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers, and they would simply every two days or
Speaker 1: like three times a week, they would upload some music
Speaker 1: and say, here's like new music that you can discover.
Speaker 1: So I hit up Tasty Tasty Network, this YouTube channel
Speaker 1: and say, hey, here I have some songs. Maybe you
Speaker 1: like them. They're like, yeah, cool, this is amazing. They
Speaker 1: uploaded on their channel, and like I said, it didn't explode.
Speaker 1: But what I saw, like you could see every video
Speaker 1: how it started really high and then the place would
Speaker 1: go towards zero. And my songs they started went a
Speaker 1: little bit lower, but then remained on a really high
Speaker 1: level and slightly started moving up. And they put out
Speaker 1: the next song, and that happened again, and they put
Speaker 1: out the next song. That happened again. And what else
Speaker 1: that happened is I did not put my at that time.
Speaker 1: I did not put my songs on iTunes and on Spotify.
Speaker 1: Everybody had told me, you're not gonna make any money there, right,
Speaker 1: it's so small, like it's just especially on the street
Speaker 1: that's Spotify. You make like no money. It's not worth
Speaker 1: the effort. So I didn't put it there, and I
Speaker 1: didn't put it on iTunes. But then Tasty, this YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: said hey, we're making a label, now can we like
Speaker 1: release your music? Say okay, say cool, let's do it.
Speaker 1: And I let them release Windfall on a fifty split,
Speaker 1: and then I put out the next songs, you know, Genesis,
Speaker 1: same thing split, and then next one Never Belong, and
Speaker 1: then monthly I think was January two thousand fourteen. Then,
Speaker 1: so I had been releasing my own music for three
Speaker 1: or four months. Now, hey, we have the first numbers
Speaker 1: coming in. I thought, okay, this is gonna be like
Speaker 1: putting me down to probably be like twenty sales, right,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be but never mind, Okay, what are the numbers?
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, it's six thousand sales. Like oh,
Speaker 1: that was the moment where I wait, everybody said there's
Speaker 1: no money. It's like just one song. And the first
Speaker 1: month it was like six thousands. So it's like still,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much did I make like thirty
Speaker 1: cents per sale? So what's that? Uh yeah, exactly some wait,
Speaker 1: that's not that bad. And then I turned on monetization
Speaker 1: on my own channel. I remember, I think the first
Speaker 1: day was like fourteen bucks. By wait, if you over
Speaker 1: entire month, this actually makes sense. Yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: really fascinating time because I started putting out more music
Speaker 1: and all the numbers started growing and growing and growing
Speaker 1: bigger on its own, even when I didn't put out music,
Speaker 1: and that was funny. There was the time where my
Speaker 1: daughter was born February two thousand fifteen now, and uh,
Speaker 1: she had a serious sleeping disorder, like serious. She would
Speaker 1: rarely sleep longer than an hour, usually like thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: Now we know she's like the reflux that her like,
Speaker 1: she's like the from yeah, acid reflux, but we didn't
Speaker 1: know back then. Yeah. So so there was sleepless time,
Speaker 1: but not for a career reasons, and was really kind
Speaker 1: of observed because I was like completely sleep deprived. I
Speaker 1: would start crying like for no reason, like carrying out
Speaker 1: the garbage and then just really start crying because it
Speaker 1: was so sleep deprived. But sometimes they looked at their
Speaker 1: numbers and like, yeah, everything kept growing and the and
Speaker 1: the income kept growing. And I remember the time, I
Speaker 1: think March March April, around the time me and my
Speaker 1: wife said, hey, wait if it goes on like that
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, we might be have
Speaker 1: like ten thousand a month income and it ended up
Speaker 1: being twenty grand per month. It's simply because it kept
Speaker 1: growing and growing and yeah, that's yeah. And then I
Speaker 1: kept putting out songs and then made some experiences with
Speaker 1: major record companies and with management. That would be the
Speaker 1: name the next chapter. Then, okay, how do you ultimately
Speaker 1: get five and a half million subscribers on YouTube? Slowly?
Speaker 1: Simply simply two thousand subscribers a day, very very constant growth, simply. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the labels start calling, and then what happened, Well,
Speaker 1: let me say, you go with Tasty label when you
Speaker 1: see how much when you see how much money is involved,
Speaker 1: do you then go to direct or do you stay
Speaker 1: with Tasty? Well? I went direct, uh, simply because they
Speaker 1: were like small things with Tasty that so it's it's
Speaker 1: one person basically back then, right, or maybe two, very
Speaker 1: very small and he's he's a nice guy and he's fair,
Speaker 1: but it was just those small things that he wouldn't pay.
Speaker 1: He with value added tax in German, you have, it's
Speaker 1: very taxes in Germany is incredibly complicated. So I needed
Speaker 1: like a certification from his side, but he didn't have
Speaker 1: his company registered, so he couldn't give me that certificate,
Speaker 1: which made me I would have to pay additional twenty
Speaker 1: percent text because he didn't have that. Like those small details,
Speaker 1: those were the reasons why I didn't keep signing with him,
Speaker 1: not that I not the money, just because that's sort
Speaker 1: of those sort of things like and he wouldn't pay
Speaker 1: for the paper fees and stuff like that. Um, even
Speaker 1: though he was a nice guy, but that was where
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: do myself. Just was a little annoying. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I simply tried putting out a song by myself
Speaker 1: and discovered tune Core. Simply uploaded it on tune Core,
Speaker 1: and I have had a very good reputation now at
Speaker 1: a different taste maker channels as well, Like different YouTube
Speaker 1: channels were asked asking me, hey, do you have new songs?
Speaker 1: We would like to upload them. Yeah, that's what it is. Okay.
Speaker 1: So then at what point the managers and label start
Speaker 1: calling you? What's the experience there? I think they started
Speaker 1: calling after like four Like after I started, I had
Speaker 1: put out my origins for about half a year, so
Speaker 1: I'll to a record called and Cloud nine and like,
Speaker 1: and I put them on like I said no all
Speaker 1: the time, I think like fifteen times. So so I
Speaker 1: was always like, no, I'm not gonna sign. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna do it independently. That's it. And then at some
Speaker 1: point I thought, hey, I might get myself a manager
Speaker 1: because it's so much work with the like administrative stuff,
Speaker 1: and I come at the things that I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So I meant went with the management again from New York,
Speaker 1: l A. They have both cities. Yeah, and they they
Speaker 1: talked me into a record deal. Again. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not their fault, but because it was always my decision
Speaker 1: of course. Um, but they were like, yeah, we have
Speaker 1: this Universal Music reached out they had reached out to
Speaker 1: me before, right, and I was just straight up no,
Speaker 1: not interested, thank you very much. And then they reached
Speaker 1: out again from Sweden and it's very very great. You
Speaker 1: should at least meet them and so on and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then I discovered how record it was work. You know.
Speaker 1: There they invited me, which was the biggest like the
Speaker 1: biggest upside of the deal was that they invited me
Speaker 1: to Ibtha to each his last show where he will
Speaker 1: he quit touring and then nobody would know. Of course
Speaker 1: knew that he would die, but I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: he's going to play his last life show and then
Speaker 1: he because he's gonna stop touring, so we want to
Speaker 1: invite you. So that was amazing. Was in the VP
Speaker 1: lounge drinking the record labor champagne, and I was meeting
Speaker 1: in New York with Republic, which was amazing because the
Speaker 1: first time when I went to New York was finally
Speaker 1: or we were always trying to get a record deal
Speaker 1: right or place artists play songs, and now they were
Speaker 1: inviting me to New York. And when they want to
Speaker 1: sign you at Republic, we're really good at that. Like
Speaker 1: you they bring you up in the elevator and they
Speaker 1: have screens all of the place that they're like, welcome
Speaker 1: the fat Rat, and they would play my song in
Speaker 1: the entire building and you're the star. Yeah and yeah.
Speaker 1: So I signed for only licensing deal for ten songs,
Speaker 1: and then realized, yeah, it's a little different once you signed.
Speaker 1: Next time you come there, they don't play your songs.
Speaker 1: They also don't put your face on the screens anymore.
Speaker 1: Um uh yeah. So that was quite an experience and
Speaker 1: now we almost sued them, but I think it's still open.
Speaker 1: Maybe I will maybe not, we will see. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: but now independent again, fully independent and two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: two thou eighteen, I think I fired my management and
Speaker 1: thought I'm going to do everything by myself. And then
Speaker 1: I had had the idea which turned out to be
Speaker 1: really pretty good. Do you have my wife managing me? Uh,
Speaker 1: which was I think the best decision from you talk
Speaker 1: about you might too Universal on what grounds? On the
Speaker 1: grounds that they have no uh, they're not allowed to to.
Speaker 1: They had don't have the rights for SoundCloud right there,
Speaker 1: excluded soundclouds excluded in the agreement. What they did is
Speaker 1: they well, you know Sweden, I have the agreement with Sweden.
Speaker 1: They they made sure they wouldn't claim it on SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: but then you know, in the university system gets like
Speaker 1: sub licensed, and I think some of them still put
Speaker 1: it in the SoundCloud copyright protection system. So I would
Speaker 1: upload the song immediately get to claim on my own song,
Speaker 1: which then we removed. But recently I found out that
Speaker 1: the claim was kind of removed, but still the song
Speaker 1: was administrated by Universal, was also monetized by Universal and
Speaker 1: not by me without me knowing it, and it was
Speaker 1: GEO blocked in almost the entire world. So I was
Speaker 1: really surprised because one of my most successful songs, fly
Speaker 1: Away Uh, did incredibly well on YouTube, did incredibly well
Speaker 1: on Spotify, and did almost nothing on sound plot. It
Speaker 1: was like, what's going on with sounds like the platform
Speaker 1: falling apart of what I thought that would be the case,
Speaker 1: I recently found out, No, it's the songs GEO blocked
Speaker 1: in almost the entire world. So I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: remove it police, and they didn't even answer, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, wants the deals through, it's yeah, they're
Speaker 1: not gonna they're going to treat you differently. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: didn't respond, and then I was like, okay, cool, this
Speaker 1: is like, uh, you're violating the riem and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to our terminate the agreement, which was what I did.
Speaker 1: So I terminated the agreement, which then they of course
Speaker 1: said no. Then suddenly they responded yeah, and now we're
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. Okay, So did they do
Speaker 1: anything good for you? They tried. I have to say
Speaker 1: they tried. So there were some people that were really
Speaker 1: uh motivated at University Sweden. They said like Hey, we
Speaker 1: really want to get into the gaming space. And they
Speaker 1: did this collaboration with the Electronic Sports League, so they
Speaker 1: put me on those shows, like right before the finale
Speaker 1: of a Big counter Strike for example event or a
Speaker 1: Dota to UM they would put me onto the stage
Speaker 1: playing a set, and the set got really great reactions.
Speaker 1: They tried that, like s I'll tried that before with
Speaker 1: other DJs and they had like a really pretty bad
Speaker 1: feedback on that. But since I'm from the gaming space,
Speaker 1: I kind of knew a little bit what I could do,
Speaker 1: what what reason resonated with the audience, and that went
Speaker 1: really well, and that that definitely helped me grow and
Speaker 1: help me gain an audience. Yes, but when you look
Speaker 1: at the percentages that they get and then how much
Speaker 1: they help you grow, which you can like kind of
Speaker 1: measure a little bit, it's it's not a good deal.
Speaker 1: How much did they help your uh screams grow? Well,
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell on the streams, but well, I
Speaker 1: mean I think I had an increase when I played
Speaker 1: those shows. So I had like this plateau before on
Speaker 1: a certain song, and then I played the shows ahead
Speaker 1: and like ten increase on streams on the YouTube and
Speaker 1: Spotify and those things. Okay, did you get any money
Speaker 1: from them? Yeah? They paid in advance of course. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you look at it at the end of it, now,
Speaker 1: would you've made more money or less money if you
Speaker 1: stayed independent the whole time? Of course, it's always difficult
Speaker 1: to make those scenarios. But from my from my calculation
Speaker 1: at the moment, I think I would have like at
Speaker 1: least a million more when I in case I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have signed. Okay, So presently, how much money are you
Speaker 1: making in a year? Uh so revenue? It's about I
Speaker 1: think about a million. Okay. So you have a new
Speaker 1: project that's totally independent, which one do you mean you're
Speaker 1: putting out like these? You have this story album that
Speaker 1: you're putting out. Is that totally independent? Yes, it's totally independent.
Speaker 1: And it's even more than that, it's completely controlled by me,
Speaker 1: which means which is a really interesting thing because like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm doing this thing where a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of my music is free to use for creators,
Speaker 1: Like it's free to use on social media, is free
Speaker 1: to use on YouTube, it's free to use. Most of
Speaker 1: the stuff is free to use on Twitter and stuff.
Speaker 1: So my approaches that creatives. Creators are free to use
Speaker 1: my music. Um, I think it's also kind of fair
Speaker 1: to do like that. So to do that, what I
Speaker 1: realize it's it's not that easy. It's not that you
Speaker 1: simply do not claim. You have to actively not claim
Speaker 1: because the entire system now is built in a way
Speaker 1: that it's claiming automatically, and if you don't watch out,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a mine field if you do
Speaker 1: one wrong step, every like everything gets claimed everywhere. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a thing that I learned now. So I'm very
Speaker 1: very careful and I'm very uh so what we're doing
Speaker 1: is like I have the entire publishing control, so I
Speaker 1: have a publishing company. Now I only work with people
Speaker 1: who can give the songs into my publishing, which has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the money we're paying out hundred
Speaker 1: percent on most things like accept licensing, which because we
Speaker 1: do that actively, but the rest of you simply them
Speaker 1: out percent. It's not that we want to make any
Speaker 1: money from that, but we have to have control over
Speaker 1: it because once you have another public that you have,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, Sony and Warner involved, and you say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't claim on YouTube but they'll be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna claim on YouTube and yeah, there there
Speaker 1: goes your strategy and your Okay, So going going forward,
Speaker 1: what's the business model, what's the strategy, what's the dream? Yes? Um,
Speaker 1: so so what I did this album is, well, what
Speaker 1: I what I generally did started is I used sci
Speaker 1: fi fantasy art art as artworks, and together with the
Speaker 1: artists that I had first, Jordan Grimmer was his name,
Speaker 1: we started putting like the same characters and some like
Speaker 1: objects and stuff into it where we start telling little
Speaker 1: stories with the artworks together with the songs, and defense
Speaker 1: reacted really great to that thing. Hey there's a story,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. They started like discussing the story and discussing
Speaker 1: the lore and everything. So what I did with this
Speaker 1: album now is that I took this to the next
Speaker 1: level and be more conscious about the story that we're telling.
Speaker 1: So it's a ten song album and every songs it's
Speaker 1: coming out over ten weeks, So every Friday, one song
Speaker 1: is coming out together with the new artwork, and the
Speaker 1: artworks together tell a story, um, and a more obvious
Speaker 1: story than we told before. Um. The next the big
Speaker 1: dream is too, U take this to the next level.
Speaker 1: So I'm working on the next album already and this
Speaker 1: is supposed to come with a the same thing again,
Speaker 1: so artworks telling a story, but also with the comic
Speaker 1: where you have way more detailed story. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of a entertainment storytelling process that starts with the music. Right,
Speaker 1: Usually have like movies, you have the the story and
Speaker 1: what you have the pictures first, and yet then you
Speaker 1: add the music. So it's a little bit the other
Speaker 1: way around. So you have a story, but then you
Speaker 1: read the music and then you add the pictures on top.
Speaker 1: And the comics with those beyondline or physical or boat,
Speaker 1: I think they're going to be both. We have a
Speaker 1: partner that we're working starting to work with now and
Speaker 1: that's the plan to have both. Who's doing the images?
Speaker 1: We have some like artists, uh like candidates at the moment,
Speaker 1: it's not higher persential yet what's gonna do them? Okay,
Speaker 1: So obviously your publicists reached out to me about doing this,
Speaker 1: although we've had contact previously. Let's just assume you made
Speaker 1: this music and you posted it on YouTube. Is that
Speaker 1: enough marketing to make it so people aware of it
Speaker 1: will be streamed or you have to do other things.
Speaker 1: You hired a PR firm, which is spreading the word.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to hire a PR firm?
Speaker 1: What is the marketing plan and do you need that
Speaker 1: to make the thing go it all? Or is the
Speaker 1: marketing just a cherry on top? Well, the marketing, I
Speaker 1: would say is the it's sort of a cherry on top. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's also getting into new like like getting more audience. Um.
Speaker 1: Most so so far, my career took off just on
Speaker 1: its own. Um. The best example for that is China.
Speaker 1: At I played shows in New York and people came
Speaker 1: to me after the show and we're like, hey, do
Speaker 1: you know your music is really big in China. I
Speaker 1: was like, no, I have no idea. And then at
Speaker 1: some research and I thought out that there's this big
Speaker 1: platform which is called net ease and over it's like
Speaker 1: Spotify in in China and on the entire platform, two
Speaker 1: of my songs were in the top fifty and I
Speaker 1: didn't even know. And the funny things, I didn't even
Speaker 1: release it. There was like just pirated. So people just
Speaker 1: grabbed my music then put it on the platform. But
Speaker 1: this is the best best example because I didn't even
Speaker 1: so there was the absolutely zero effort from my side,
Speaker 1: but the music just did its thing. And yeah, now
Speaker 1: I mean now the situation change. They have like a
Speaker 1: team there and everything. Um. But of course I can
Speaker 1: never know that for every song because they are It's
Speaker 1: like maybe of my songs they do that where they're
Speaker 1: just they. I always say they grew grow legs they
Speaker 1: like they which which for me means so you have
Speaker 1: a certain point whether the song starts right on release date,
Speaker 1: then it goes down and if it ever gets over
Speaker 1: that starting point, that's where I say, Okay, that song
Speaker 1: really grew legs, so it really it becomes bigger than
Speaker 1: at the start. And I think I would say, of
Speaker 1: my songs do that, Okay, So give me some numbers
Speaker 1: so that people can relate to the twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: percent that go big. How big are they? Um? They are?
Speaker 1: So the biggest song I think it's fly Away. It has,
Speaker 1: like Honey, around hundred thousand plays on Spotify per day, um,
Speaker 1: which maybe it's not that much for a couple of artists,
Speaker 1: but the key is that it's it's now four years
Speaker 1: old and it has now a hundred thousand place on
Speaker 1: Spotify per day, and that's the highest that ever got,
Speaker 1: so it still keeps growing. That so the daily place
Speaker 1: still keep growing. And that's the same for by some
Speaker 1: monity for example, or the calling and yeah, so so
Speaker 1: there's a hundred thousand places. The next my I think
Speaker 1: is probably eighty thousand place, and next rounds probably you know,
Speaker 1: forty thou place a lot of around. The stronger is
Speaker 1: also Stronger started at I think thirty thousand place per
Speaker 1: day when I put it out in two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: Now it has eighty thou nine place per day. And
Speaker 1: what are the cum numbers cumulative on Spotify? It's at
Speaker 1: the moment I think a rundred thousand and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: around that. Okay, So what are your biggest tracks on
Speaker 1: Spotify and how many times have they been streamed? The
Speaker 1: biggest is Flyaway. It has around hundred million place at
Speaker 1: the moment. Okay. So you're saying you're getting a eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand streams a day. Yeah, okay. You you talk
Speaker 1: about your music being big in Vietnam, etcetera. This is
Speaker 1: purely organic or you're working it, um, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: working it's more now. So the reason for example, why
Speaker 1: have we have this PR company now and more stuff
Speaker 1: going on is my management now, which is my wife.
Speaker 1: And it's also the the attempt to you know, reach
Speaker 1: new audiences as well. Um, because it's spreading in a
Speaker 1: certain community and it's going a lot of music is
Speaker 1: going viral viral, not a lot, but like I said, roughly, um,
Speaker 1: it's doing its own thing. Uh. You have, But I mean,
Speaker 1: you want to keep growing and keep getting bigger. But
Speaker 1: I could I could completely stop any marketing simply put
Speaker 1: out songs and if it's the right song and would
Speaker 1: still do very well. What kind of marketing are you doing? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we have this amazing PR company now I think
Speaker 1: they're We're really really happy with them. Uh. Then we
Speaker 1: have a like making like ads now on on Reddit
Speaker 1: ads and YouTube ads and Facebook ads and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But all that that's all my wife. So I'm not
Speaker 1: that much into it. She's like trying to figure out
Speaker 1: stuff and I think doing a really good job. But
Speaker 1: I have to say after I I after my wife
Speaker 1: became a manager, I think within one year my streaming
Speaker 1: numbers doubled, which they never did well in the very
Speaker 1: beginning of the first year that happened. But but I
Speaker 1: think in the in the Union when I was signed
Speaker 1: with Universal. Over the two years roughly had a growth
Speaker 1: of maybe thirty percent. And then I kicked out the Universe.
Speaker 1: I kicked on my manager. My wife started managing me,
Speaker 1: and we had a growth of d percent within a year.
Speaker 1: And what about live gigs? I played some, uh, not
Speaker 1: a lot. Also for family reasons. I'm very like a
Speaker 1: very you know, a family guy. Uh and you know,
Speaker 1: to a life it's not it doesn't go so well
Speaker 1: with with family. So yeah, I played some. I played
Speaker 1: Electric Forest for example, I played the like the small
Speaker 1: venue on Webster Hall for example, Avalon in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I prayed to the Roxy in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles for example. Um, but that's sure, it has
Speaker 1: been a while. I don't even know how long it's
Speaker 1: ago because of COVID and everything. And what's the creative
Speaker 1: process for me making songs? Oh, it's making a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of songs and throwing away most of it.
Speaker 1: I tried to make one new song every day at
Speaker 1: least like what I kinda lay out, uh, putting out,
Speaker 1: putting together some beats, some melodies and stuff, and then
Speaker 1: do it all over again the next day until something
Speaker 1: sticks with me when I'm like totally fall in love
Speaker 1: with it, because I have to be in love with
Speaker 1: it to go through the finishing process, which can be
Speaker 1: slow and tedious. For I don't put out a lot
Speaker 1: of songs that we I mean, now I'm putting out
Speaker 1: ten songs in a row, but usually often has been
Speaker 1: for me, it's been like three or four songs a year.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't like three singles a year, and that
Speaker 1: was my year. So you're working ten hours a day,
Speaker 1: you only work like you know sometimes no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty structured. So usually I stand up and I
Speaker 1: hit the STUDI immediately, So the first thing during the
Speaker 1: morning is like ten ten two hours of music production.
Speaker 1: Then I do work out, then I do like, uh,
Speaker 1: having breakfast and everything, and then I go back to studios.
Speaker 1: So it's more and more a morning person now, which
Speaker 1: another thought. When I started, I was always working late night.
Speaker 1: But I realized that I'm you know, there's this thing
Speaker 1: that you'd really productive at late night, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people discover at some point that you're actually even
Speaker 1: more productive it really early morning, when it's kind of
Speaker 1: similar that being close to sleep thing where you're very
Speaker 1: creative where you're not distracted and everything. So, yeah, I
Speaker 1: try to be as productive that can be four twelve,
Speaker 1: uh before noon, and then uh there's business stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and then uh, spending time with my daughter, and then
Speaker 1: I usually get back into the studio around evening doing
Speaker 1: a little bit of office stuff and then also being
Speaker 1: creative and listening to a lot of music. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's very yeah, very structured and very home based and
Speaker 1: also not that crazy star. You say it takes a
Speaker 1: long time to finish the song. How long does it
Speaker 1: take to finish That depends. So when it's fast, it's
Speaker 1: around a month. When it's slow. For example, my song Monitory,
Speaker 1: you took me five months or every day. I was
Speaker 1: working on it every day for five months. What are
Speaker 1: you doing for five months? Um? So in the end,
Speaker 1: you know, a song can have like hundred fifty tracks,
Speaker 1: and for every of those hundred fifty tracks, I have
Speaker 1: like ten other tracks that I made, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it could be done better, whatever it might be, you know,
Speaker 1: just going through all the options that you have, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this step could be like the step sound could be
Speaker 1: a guitar, and I'm trying with the guitar sound. Maybe
Speaker 1: it should be more brass, and putting in brass. Now
Speaker 1: maybe it should be more orchestra, and then I'm putting orchestra.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, just going through a lot of ideas
Speaker 1: that I have until I have the one where I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the right one. But you're doing it all
Speaker 1: yourself on electronic equipment. Yeah. Sometimes I used this platform
Speaker 1: that is owned by Spotify, and I think it's called
Speaker 1: sound Better. Why you can hire pretty good musicians online.
Speaker 1: Uh So I'm for example, four strings or guitars, and
Speaker 1: or I produce it and the computer and then I
Speaker 1: send it out and then they recorded and send it back.
Speaker 1: And if you how do you know when it's finished?
Speaker 1: And can you tell when it's done what tracks are
Speaker 1: going to resonate most? If I can tell what tracks
Speaker 1: are going to resonate most h yes and no. Um.
Speaker 1: Usually I have a pretty good feeling a lot of times,
Speaker 1: but sometimes sometimes I'm very wrong. Simply Sometimes sometimes I
Speaker 1: have a track while like they're like, okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put it out, Well, it's like barely good enough for
Speaker 1: me to put it out. For example, my track Flyaway,
Speaker 1: which then totally blew up. That sometimes happens. What really
Speaker 1: happens is that I love a song and then it
Speaker 1: doesn't do well. I kind of had this one time
Speaker 1: a song Maydeay. I thought it would be really outstanding.
Speaker 1: It did well, but not as good as I expected it.
Speaker 1: But that rarely happens. And then most of the time
Speaker 1: I'm kind of know where it's where it's going to be.
Speaker 1: So how do you know what a song is finished?
Speaker 1: Simply when there's nothing left to change? At some point
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, no, I have like all ideas that
Speaker 1: I have, there's nothing bothering me, there are no ideas slip.
Speaker 1: We're like, okay, I should try this. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's not that I I you know, with today's way
Speaker 1: of working, you change something and you can always change
Speaker 1: it back. So every idea I have, it would try
Speaker 1: it until at some point I have like, okay, now
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea what could be done better?
Speaker 1: And nothing's bothering me anymore. Okay. The other thing I
Speaker 1: noticed in your music, unlike traditional E d M, is
Speaker 1: there's more melody. You conscious of that, yes, very much.
Speaker 1: Just I had a time I was making like beats,
Speaker 1: you know, I d M. It was when I moved
Speaker 1: to l A. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: the beats, and we're gonna have the top liners. And
Speaker 1: what read was interesting for me. In Europe, it's this
Speaker 1: this thing I was I was working with sweets. They
Speaker 1: would spend so much time on the melodies and then
Speaker 1: they would write some random lyrics within ten minutes. And
Speaker 1: then I moved to the US and they would write
Speaker 1: the melodies in ten minutes and then spend Yeah, they
Speaker 1: would spend hours on the lyrics, which was really fascinating,
Speaker 1: which I realized, Okay, lyrics are important because I'm from Germany, right,
Speaker 1: and we when you grow up you don't even understand
Speaker 1: that English lyrics and it's just you need some punch
Speaker 1: lines in it. But I realized in the U s
Speaker 1: that there can be a lot of deep meaning and
Speaker 1: lyrics can be really meaningful and they're really important and everything.
Speaker 1: But what bothered me was that they spend a little
Speaker 1: time on the melodies. The top lineers were more like
Speaker 1: the lyricist. And then I said, okay, now I'm simply
Speaker 1: going to do the melodies and when the top line
Speaker 1: is come to the student, I'm gonna have some melodies prepared,
Speaker 1: and my business partner back then, he was like, no,
Speaker 1: don't do it, Like can you even do that? And
Speaker 1: I started studying melodies. I started a lot of Max Martin,
Speaker 1: for example. I listened to a lot of music, his songs,
Speaker 1: and I analyzed everything and I transcribed a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then I started doing it. And first my business
Speaker 1: partner I said that it's not good, but then I
Speaker 1: think after two weeks. No, it was actually the first
Speaker 1: session where insisted that we use my melody and we
Speaker 1: finished the song, we sent it around and we immediate
Speaker 1: immediately got Jason Rulu to the record it and was like, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I should keep making the melodies. Yeah, and ever since,
Speaker 1: I just uh worked on it very consciously. And one
Speaker 1: big inspiration for me has been Vici as well as well.
Speaker 1: That was the incredible thing how he incorporated melodies into
Speaker 1: idiom music. And you have this ten song album, And
Speaker 1: if it takes you so long to finish your track,
Speaker 1: how long did it take you to do the ten
Speaker 1: song album. Yeah, that was a little bit faster because
Speaker 1: I consciously decided I'm going to do some album songs.
Speaker 1: So before I had a really high bar that a
Speaker 1: song had to get over to actually get released, which
Speaker 1: also my wife said, hey, you have so many great
Speaker 1: songs that are really good. Maybe they are not a single,
Speaker 1: but you still should still release them. So that was
Speaker 1: simply I said, Okay, I'm gonna do an album. I'm
Speaker 1: also going to release some songs that are more experimental,
Speaker 1: which are not a single, which probably will not stand
Speaker 1: on their own way. I think like, Okay, they're gonna
Speaker 1: grow legs and they're gonna do big things on their own,
Speaker 1: but still people might a lot of people might simply
Speaker 1: still enjoy listening to them, to them, and yes, some
Speaker 1: songs just took like two weeks, so yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: that long. Okay, do you consciously shit in your studio
Speaker 1: and say I want to make a hit single? Sometimes
Speaker 1: not all the times. Yeah. I sit there and then
Speaker 1: I think that, and then I realized it's completely blocking
Speaker 1: me creatively, and then I tried to figure it out,
Speaker 1: and then I do weird stuff, and then I think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm doing completely weird stuff. I should focus more on
Speaker 1: making a hit single. And that's kind of a cycle
Speaker 1: where it always moves and once in a while, randomly
Speaker 1: a good song comes out of that process. Okay, if
Speaker 1: I snap my fingers and we're in a perfect world,
Speaker 1: what is your career look like? What's the ultimate dream?
Speaker 1: I have this question recently, which record like which? Uh yeah?
Speaker 1: Which which like Guinness World Record? Would you like to
Speaker 1: uh break? Have? And I simply said, I would like
Speaker 1: to have the most stream song and the and I
Speaker 1: think that would still be a goal for me, simply
Speaker 1: number one on on every single chart. Okay, well, I
Speaker 1: hope you reached that. This has been fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're very articulate and you know where you're going, and
Speaker 1: you experimented a lot in the American way to get
Speaker 1: where you are today. Yeah, it was very beneficial for
Speaker 1: me to be in the US, I have to say, right,
Speaker 1: it learned so much there. Okay, it's been great talking
Speaker 1: to you. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex