JASON LEKBERG: The brutal music business grind, a new label-free model, and why branding is non-negotiable

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host. Hey Eyal Levi. This show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. Every month on Nail the Mix, we bring one of the world's best producers to mix a song from scratch, from artists like Ms. Periphery A Data, remember, and Bring Me the Horizon, and we give you the raw multi-track so you can mix along. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of bite-sized mixing tutorials and Portfolio Builder Pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. You can find out [email protected]. So today with me is someone that I've known for quite a while, who I've always thought is a brilliant dude, Mr. Jason Lekberg, who's the founder of Lekberg Enterprises, which is a full service marketing outfit specializing in digital innovation and product management. Some of his current clients in this endeavor are Steel Panther, letters from the fire, Ramona Flowers, and some previous clients include Lamb of God, Judas Priest, alter Bridge, and tons of others. Jason also spent nearly 12 years as the front man manager booking agent for lea, and during that time he also held positions of various labels and digital medium outfits, such as Digital Marketing Manager at Epic Records, vice president of Digital Strategy and marketing at 11 seven Music and at these companies worked with clients like Ozzy Osborne, hell yeah, incubus, Motley Crue, Blondie, and many, many more. So with that said, Jason, welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:01:43):

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:01:45):

Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on and you've got a really impressive resume in the realm of digital marketing and product engagement, but I know that you're a musician. What drew you to that area of the music business?

Speaker 2 (00:02:04):

That's a good question. I've always been a fan. Things that are technical and the tech side of things. I mean, I've been playing in bands since the early nineties and when I moved to New York in 2005, I kind of continued my profession as a house painter while I was playing in bands and then had an opportunity about a year and a half after I moved to change professions. And thankfully I had a very supportive wife who at that time she was my girlfriend, but was like, all right, let's do this. Let's do something crazy. And so I quit and started interning and just the first really opportunity that came my way after I'd been interning was to work for the new arm of a management company in Brooklyn. The management company was called Zen Media, and the founder of that company was just a guy who was very forward thinking and realized that there was a lot of opportunity in the social media space for marketing, entertainment and specifically music.

(00:03:10):

So he started a company doing just that, being kind of the first ever company that specifically worked with entertainment in the social space and marketed the two with each other. So used artists to market technology and used technology to market artists. And just because of my background working my way into management in the trades, once I got in there, I pretty quickly went from being in the dirt in the trenches, a soldier up to a management role there. And I loved it because I was able to connect the two things, both the technological and the innovative side with the musical side, which is what I wanted to get into. And then Epic scooped me up and from there I learned project management and product management and then began that part of my career. And then I've just kind of done both, continued to do both since then.

Speaker 1 (00:04:07):

So give me an idea for what year it was when you got that internship

Speaker 2 (00:04:13):

That, well, I was interning in early 2007, the very, very beginning of 2007. And then I actually, I went to work for the company was called Buddy Lube. I went to work for that company in March of 2007.

Speaker 1 (00:04:24):

Okay, so about 11 years ago.

Speaker 2 (00:04:26):

Yeah. Yeah. And that was right at in that bubble, if you went on a MySpace page in 2007 or 2008 and it took three hours to load because there were 17 different music widgets on it. That was our fault.

Speaker 1 (00:04:42):

I remember those days very, very well. I was about to say very vividly. And then I realized some of those days are totally blacked out. But when you got that internship, you said you moved pretty quickly. What do you mean by quickly and was it a paid internship?

Speaker 2 (00:05:03):

Yeah, so by the time I actually went to Buddy Loop, that was a full-time position, I interned at a company called Verse Music Publishing and a company called MI two N, which is kind of like a CNN for the world music organism kind of world, like that type of music, world music. And then from there, actually when I went to Bunny Lube, it was actually paid and it was very quick. Actually, the 11th day that I worked there, the owner of the company took me aside and said, Hey, do you want to be in more of a management role? And I said, absolutely, I do. And so I ended up, myself and two other people shared the duties of managing the entire marketing arm of the company, which at that point was only about 30 people, but by the end of that year, by the end of 2017, we were around 125.

Speaker 1 (00:05:54):

2007, you mean,

Speaker 2 (00:05:55):

I'm sorry, 2007 by Christmas of 2007, and then by spring of 2008, the company had all but completely imploded. So it was a quick ride. The guy that ran it got a little cocky, got a lot cocky, and he started telling labels things like, we are the label killers and artists don't need labels anymore. Yeah, exactly. Which then made the labels start to cut us out and put a lot of pressure on the artists. And so pretty much everybody at the beginning of 2008 saw the writing on the wall and ran for the Hills.

Speaker 1 (00:06:30):

Man, one of the dumbest things you can do, I mean really ever, but especially when you're starting to get some traction, is to then shit on all those relationships which helped you get that traction.

Speaker 2 (00:06:43):

Oh, totally. He's a crazy guy. I mean, I'm sure, I know you have a long history in the industry as well, so there are quite a few of them in the industry that sometimes you look at and go, how in the hell have you not already been shot? But he's just one of those people that that's how he is. He burns lots of bridges, and to his credit, he's also a huge risk taker and a very smart guy. So he was able to see the future, I think before some other people were and really take the risks to capitalize on it and build the idea, but then he's just such a neurotic person that he ended up torpedoing it himself. But what came out of that, probably half of the people who worked at that company are now the leaders in digital innovation and digital marketing, both inside the music industry and in the advertising industry at large. I mean, those people that I was working with who were most of 'em college kids straight out of college, they have Lion Awards, which is the highest advertising awards you can get and are in just about every single label on the planet. It's

Speaker 1 (00:07:46):

Amazing how minds find each other in that way. I've always been fascinated by that whole concept because you kind of see it throughout history and it's kind of the same way that I think you'll notice a scene develop in a certain part of the world or something like Silicon Valley happens, and I've noticed it in my own life. It's just very, very happy accidents, for instance, that I'm working with the guys that I'm working with who all want the exact same thing and have just this shared passion and common goal. It's interesting to me how that happens. It is. I feel like it's definitely a prerequisite for making something work, but it's definitely interesting how those things come together. I do need to say though, that burning bridges sometimes is unavoidable, but you really should try to minimize it. I mean, you can't go years in this industry or any industry without having some people who hate you and that you, there's no way, but by and large, you should try to avoid it. It doesn't help things at all.

Speaker 2 (00:09:03):

Absolutely, yeah, there's no question. I mean, I've made the analogy before that I'm not a big sports guy at all, but the people I know who do know sports, well talk about that, say playing basketball, if you don't have at least a couple of fouls, you're not playing hard enough. And I think that that's a very similar thing. There's always going to be some people that don't like you and there's going to be some bumps, but you kind of have to have that. This industry is so difficult. You have to constantly have your elbows out.

Speaker 1 (00:09:29):

It's very, very interesting on the topic of people from the past coming up a lot. So with Nail the Mix, we're now starting to deal with much bigger artists than we were before, and that means dealing with much bigger labels than we were before. And somehow that means that a lot of the people from my past, from the Roadrunner days who have moved on to other labels are now a part of my life again, and I am so thankful that everything ended on good terms when it did. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:10:07):

Yeah, I bet.

Speaker 1 (00:10:09):

Yeah. Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (00:10:11):

That's something that people just don't understand how small this industry is, and I know you know this guy, but Brian Slagel, who's the head of a metal blade, of

Speaker 1 (00:10:19):

Course, love

Speaker 2 (00:10:19):

Him. Yeah, I love him too. For a long time he was doing a thing called the Metal Summit, and initially it was two times a year, then it became once a year, and you just got everybody together or at least a significant amount of the people together, and we'd be in a casino in the desert or down in Florida, and you're looking around a table and you're realizing that in this one room are managers and agents and label representatives from pretty much, I mean at least three quarters of every metal band that is working. And that's crazy to think how small that is.

Speaker 1 (00:10:53):

I felt really honored to go the two times I went, I felt totally out of place, but I definitely felt, I definitely thought it was impressive that it really was just like 20, 30 people that, so recently you called it Quits on Ilea after almost 12 years. What was the turning point that made you stop doing the band thing and focus full-time on the marketing game, or are you still doing the band thing?

Speaker 2 (00:11:26):

I'm definitely still doing the band thing. I'm in process. The last bass player for Ilea, Rob Broderick and I are currently trying to put together a new band, but what really caused me to put Ilea a bed was that I'm very proud of what we did over those 12 years. We had three records. I feel like each one was better than the last one. The growth that we had and the amazing journey that I was able to go on over those 12 years, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was beautiful. But I also feel like the art has a life of its own, and I do this as much for the journey and for the experience as I do for any success in air quotes that may come. And throughout that process, the industry has changed significantly. These last 12 years have just seen massive, massive change and especially in the underground, and it has just gotten harder and harder and harder to make the commitment necessary to really build a band from scratch and to go from the bottom.

(00:12:31):

And even for the things that Illia was able to do, we were very much still at the very bottom of the ladder. And so through that time, different members who were in the band just got to a place where they were unable to be able to continue and had to leave. After replacing members a couple of times, it got to a place where I felt like we were beginning to do a disservice to the work that everyone had put in and to the art that we had created, and it just felt essentially we were becoming a cover band of a cover band, and I just felt like that wasn't right. It wasn't right for the art. And so if it was, fortunately, the music lives on the CDs are there, you can stream it on Spotify, you can listen to it wherever you want. So that's going to live on forever and I'm proud that it will. But when the last guitar player decided that he was done with the road and that four years had been enough for him, it felt like, okay, if I'm starting over again, I want to completely start over. I want Achi to continue to live on as what it was, and now it's time to start over from really from the bottom again and let that brand live and let that art live for what it is.

Speaker 1 (00:13:41):

It's an honorable reason. That brings up something I wanted to ask you. We recently had an episode of something we do called The Career Builder Show, and it was an episode detailing really why it's so tough to make it in the music business and why most bands don't and a lot, and this is definitely not you, I'm just wondering your opinion on this. A lot of it has, in my opinion, has to do with the idea that what they think is hard work or dedication isn't actually hard work or dedication in reality, it's more in fantasy. I'm just wondering what your experiences are with this and what you see that's lacking in bands that just aren't quite on that professional level.

Speaker 2 (00:14:30):

I have all kinds of little phrases that I love. I collect them from other people who are smarter than me. A couple of those I think apply to this. The first one is a phrase I use often, which is that no one picked up a guitar to be responsible. And I feel like that's when you initially are getting into rock and roll as much as we all may grow and people start saying, oh, well, I'm not in it for the girls and whatever. Initially, we absolutely all were. Every single one of us picked it up to be a rock star and to live this life that we envisioned. And so you're starting from a position where you have a bunch of people who are not, their heads aren't in the right place, they're not business people, they're people who are out there wanting to make art.

(00:15:15):

And even some of them who aren't saying, I want these selfish reasons, I want a Lamborghini and a mansion. They may just simply be artists. And artists by their nature are not know business people. They're not extremely organized. They're people who are passionate about creating art, which is a beautiful thing. But unfortunately as the industry has changed so massively over the last couple of decades in order to succeed, you have to be both. And so that's a really rare thing. And then I think even beyond that, another phrase that I love is from an Irish revolutionary named T McSweeney, and he said that it's not who can inflict the most, but who can suffer the most that will conquer. That's something that I think people just really don't, even if you're an

Speaker 1 (00:16:02):

Person person, totally agree with that a hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (00:16:07):

And even if you're a person who understands and you're a person who thinks you understand and you are a business-minded and you're ready to go and you're ready to put the work in really living what it means to get punched in the face 17 times a day for 12 years just to be able to land one punch of your own, the reality of that is so much more crushing than I think most people understand. And that's just something that you're not going to truly understand until you get out there and start living it. And I think that's just overwhelming for a lot of even the people with the best intentions.

Speaker 1 (00:16:45):

Yeah, I mean I think that's absolutely right. You can have the loftiest most wonderful goals in the world, but as soon as reality starts handing you whatever reality is going to hand you, how you deal with that ultimately is going to be the majority deciding factor in how close you get to those goals. And it's a lot more brutal than people realize. I also think what you said about the 12 years straight thing is accurate. It's easy, in my opinion, to put up with tough environments and rejection for a year or something, but when you start entering year three and then year five and then year seven on and on, it starts to break people. And oftentimes you hear a lot of success stories where people said that the thing that turned everything around for them happened as they were almost ready to quit, but just decided to stick it out a little bit longer. You hear that all the time, and so obviously with people that quit, there's no way of knowing what would have happened if that had stuck it out six more months. But I just think that it's interesting that so many people share that, at least that feeling that right as they were ready to give up, they pushed a little harder and that's when things turned around. I've always held onto that.

Speaker 2 (00:18:21):

I completely agree with that, and I think even more than that, I think that I kind of touched on this a minute ago, but I believe in order for you to be successful in the music industry, it has to be this entire thing, especially in heavy music, has to be about your journey. It has to be about your personal journey through this, not necessarily what those specific goals are. Because as you grow as a human and as you go through these experiences and as you learn what this means, your goals are going to change and your definition of success is going to change. And so you have to be invested in and excited about the journey and excited about learning about yourself and learning about the industry and learning about the rest of the world, or you're not going to be able to handle those changes because in the beginning, your belief is going to be, oh, if we just do this, it'll be great.

(00:19:12):

And it's either going to be one or two, either you're never going to reach that, but you may be able to find satisfaction in the other things that you do or maybe you do reach that and then some. And you have to change your scope and your understanding to realize, okay, well what is success then If all of a sudden now we're as big as guns and roses, why am I doing this now? I have the Lamborghini, I have the house people. I think it is difficult for someone who doesn't have that to understand the struggles that come with that. And even when you do have that success, you still get told no every single day because as an artist and as a performer, you want to do these different things and you're up against a world, especially now that there's more people doing those same things in that same lane than there ever have been. So you've got more white noise, you've got to punch through every day, and you can be the biggest artist in the world, but a year from now, the opinion could be, oh, well that was yesterday's news and you're right back at square one having to start over. So it never really stops. It's a very, I mean, you have to just getting punched to be able to do it. Really

Speaker 1 (00:20:15):

The evolving your goals thing is actually way harder than people may realize because especially with something that's as personal as art, you identify yourself with those goals and if you have those goals for a decade, 15 years and it's just not happening or part of you just isn't committed anymore for whatever reason, it's very, very hard to take a personal inventory and accept that what you want at 30 or 35 is not the same thing you wanted F 15 or 20, but I think is absolutely key. Absolutely. And hey, if you still want the same things, that's cool too. But lots of people don't. And I know from my personal experience, my band did not. I do not think we were a successful band at all. I think we flirted with it, we flirted with the bottom level of success and got to do a lot of cool things that maybe we were lucky to be able to do.

(00:21:25):

But through that, I got to see what it was like a few levels up from us and through sharing buses and dressing rooms and all that. And for me, I started thinking about the future. I'd be sitting there on a bus with a band that was five times our size and I'd be thinking, okay, these guys are bigger than we're probably ever going to get. They still live in two bedroom apartments. Is this really something that I want when I'm 35 or 40? Do I really really want this or am I just holding onto something I wanted when I was 13, 15, 20? Or am I just being negative? And I had to struggle with that for a while. And then I realized that as shallow as it may sound, I'm not interested unless it's huge and unless that's just me and I know that some people are going to say that, that's lame.

(00:22:23):

It should be all for the love. But if I don't see the possibility for constant expansion and the ability to get to a huge world level, I'm just kind of not interested. My mind does not engage. And so for me, I had to then be like, okay, so what am I interested in? What do I want to do? And it took a few years to figure that one out, but if I didn't figure that out, who the hell knows what would be happening now? It was one of the most important, I guess, mental shifts I've ever made, and I think it has kept me in the game in my own way and has given me more success than I've ever had with anything else in my life. But it was crucial to redefine my goals and make them accurate for who I was older me than younger me.

(00:23:20):

And now I look back and I'm like the idea of for me to each their own, but for me, the idea of being in a band or whatever kind of gives me anxiety like I'm just not there anymore. But I try to think about if I was still based on how much work it is, if I was still trying to do that and my heart wasn't in it, what a wasted time and what a waste of mental resources. So I definitely think that people need to go all in if they want to make it work, and by going all in, you have to be all in on a much deeper level than you may even think you are.

Speaker 2 (00:24:06):

I completely agree, and honestly, no, I don't think there is any shame whatsoever in understanding that about yourself. I think that's one of the most important things you can do as a human. And I can say just from my own personal growth and my own personal learning, that understanding and respecting the rights and the room for the other humans that I know to have that same journey has been the hardest thing for me to do because when I was a kid, I was early on in my music career, I was really, really aware of how much I still didn't totally obviously understand as we've been discussing, but I was aware that there was a ton of work to be done and that we needed to get going right away. I remember being in high school telling my friends, look, all of our favorite bands got signed when they were 18 or 19.

(00:24:53):

We've got two years to get this shit done. Let's go. And then it not happening. And then when people would quit my band, I mean, it was very common that I was one of the first people to get my own place where I grew up, and so a lot of my band members ended up living with me and people knew if you quit my band, you had to move out. You didn't have a place to live anymore and you better cross the street. If you see me walking down the street and if I'm driving, I might run you over. That's where I was about it, a failure. It was like a personal affront to me. If you quit my band, you were dead. And it took me years to be able to step back and understand that everybody has to take that, their own journey on that, and if it's not where they are anymore, and as angry as I am at the positions that I've been put in by people who have quit my band over the time, I'm more angry at them for not being honest with themselves earlier and making commitments they shouldn't have made than I am with them quitting.

(00:25:52):

Because if that's who they are and where they are and what they need to do for their lives, who am I to tell them not to do that?

Speaker 1 (00:25:57):

Yeah, that's why there's a certain element of luck involved also. I don't mean luck as in you're not going to have to work hard. I mean, just luck in who you meet, right? Luck that you luck that Paul McCartney met John Lennon, luck that slash met Axel, that kind of stuff. The stuff that luck, that the Slipknot guys all met each other and happen to be the same age at the same time in the same town sort of thing. Those are the things you can't control. You cannot control other people's level of commitment, and unfortunately to make a band work, it's like all cylinders you need to be firing on all cylinders has to be to be to be. Yeah, you can't have dead weight. You just can't. And really there's nothing you can do about that. I mean, you can replace people, but then it's still luck if you find somebody that's going to work.

Speaker 2 (00:26:56):

It is the struggle I'm currently facing right now because when this went down and as it's gotten harder to put a band together and to make the commitment necessary and to really grow a real business, because that's what we're talking about here, we're talking about growing a business. When Elia separated, that was one of the main reasons I was like, okay, if I'm doing this again, it's got to be right, so I'm going to start back over and do it right. And I've spent since August 26th, I have not stopped looking. I have not stopped talking to people. I have not stopped trying to find different avenues, everything down to when Tune Track did that most recent thing where they had Dirk Van Buren and

(00:27:36):

Mario putting together drum tracks and guitar players playing for it. Every single one of the people who were winners or runners up, I researched them and found where they lived and if they were on the east coast, they got an email from me. And I'm just beyond looking on Craigslist, beyond looking on band mix, I'm like, who know? I'm going to shows being like, who are you turning over every single stone possible and still not finding the right people with the right commitment level? And it's infuriating and it's unbelievably frustrating, but if you don't find them, then it's not going to be right anyway. You can't force it. I used to say, and I tell you, I don't think I've ever actually even said this publicly, but we had a bunch of rules and one of the main rules was the best at everything, and that was it. If we weren't the best at winding cables and getting off stage quickly, if we weren't the best at shaking hands with the guy that runs the bar, if we weren't the best at everything, I knew that there was no chance for success and it has to be there. Hey,

Speaker 1 (00:28:45):

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(00:30:41):

It's interesting to hear that I have definitely suffered from the same mental affliction about that stuff. You see it as a fatal flaw in unsigned bands that they carry bad members and make excuses for them. Whereas I noticed in bigger bands, while obviously not everybody in every big band is like some musical Navy Seal or something, it's not that at all, but they have figured out how to work together in a way they're complimentary to each other and have figured out how to make one person's weaknesses will get complimented by somebody else's strengths, and it works like a jigsaw puzzle. They have that figured out.

Speaker 2 (00:31:32):

I think I would position it a little bit differently than that. The way that I prefer to say it is that if you're launching this, you're at the very, very first step. You're putting together a band, you're writing songs. You want to go out and start a band. You are entering into a territory where literally every single person that you encounter, every person you talk to, every person you reach out to their entire goal, not their entire goal, but their objective is to find a reason to say no to you because there are five other people just like you that are waiting on either side of you to talk to them. So they're all just looking at how do I clear my deck? How do I get to the next one so I can just clear and get to the next thing? Whether it's an a and r person or a radio person or even a talent buyer at a club, no matter who it is, they're all looking for the easy no so that they can just move on to the next thing because they're overwhelmed.

(00:32:25):

In that case, anything that you're putting within your organization that provides opportunities for no provides easy nos or makes it more difficult for you to overcome those nos or even just do what you need to do to be a band, to get to the place where you can be told no. Those things just make it harder for you. So can you potentially find a way to make that work? Could you work with a heroin addict in your band? Maybe the music they write is so amazing that it's going to change the world, but you're absolutely making it harder for yourself to even have a chance to get there.

Speaker 1 (00:32:59):

Yeah, a hundred percent. But that's actually what I meant by complimenting other people's weaknesses. If you do have that heroin addict in the band, you better be led Zeppelin or something to that extent. You better have something else that will make other people overlook it.

Speaker 2 (00:33:20):

Yeah, I mean I would argue though that I don't think Guns N Roses would get signed today, I think with as bad as they were heroin addicts and chunkies. Yeah, I don't think it would happen. I think for what I know of the industry and the people that I know who I talk to on a regular basis that are the guys actually signing bands for myself, if you were a band, if Guns N Roses came to me as much as I love Guns N Roses music, I would take one look at those guys and just go, this is wasted. There's too many obstacles here. One of these guys is going to od. And of course that would mean that we would be depriving the world of Guns n Roses, but there's just not enough money left in the industry to make it worth putting up with an asshole or a drug addict. It's just not there anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:34:03):

I have definitely noticed that shift as well. It's so weird when, I guess I was a teenager, how lots of these types of habits were glorified and really promoted as part of the gig, like being a horrible alcoholic drug addict. And there are certain genres that do promote that still, but I mean in our world, that was par for the course. And now I do know that everything you're saying right now is true. I know that people in the industry look at drug addicts and alcoholics like that. It's like kryptonite.

Speaker 2 (00:34:46):

Yeah, they're a liability. They're absolutely liability. And in a world where it's hard enough to make money and it's harder and harder every day to make money, there's just another reason to say No, this isn't the right band to kill it before it gets started. It's funny you say that because about growing up, because I did, I spent a long time being part of me being really bummed out about the fact that I was really aware that I would never get to just be a drunk that woke up at eight o'clock in the afternoon or evening and went and played a show and then partied all night. I was bummed out about that for a while. Well,

Speaker 1 (00:35:21):

They definitely made it seem like it was the coolest thing on earth, but now 20 years later or whatever you're seeing, we've been seeing lots of those guys dropping like flies who when we were growing up, were living like that and promoting that lifestyle. You see the other end of it and it's fucking brutal. So I am glad actually that the industry is not okay with that stuff anymore.

Speaker 2 (00:35:50):

In my career too, I've, whether you want to say fortunate or unfortunate, but I've met many of those people. I know many of those people now who were my heroes then or I looked up to or who glorified that. And I've met some of the second wave as well. I've worked for some of the second wave of bands that came around in the two thousands and still believed in that ethos. And some of those people are bad people. They're just shitty humans, and I don't enjoy working with 'em. I haven't enjoyed knowing them and looking back now, I'm glad that that never happened just simply because I don't want to be that person.

Speaker 1 (00:36:27):

It's a very dark environment. Once you get past the initial fun of it, the reality of it is super dark, not okay, but on a slightly different track. What do you think back to smaller bands, what do you think they miss about the importance in marketing themselves, no matter what level they're at?

Speaker 2 (00:36:53):

I think the most basic thing is a very clear and very defined brand. I think I would say that's the most common thing that I see that's missing, and it's a difficult thing to do because it's tough to identify sometimes what makes you original and what really makes you special and why you're different. But I think that that has to be done, and I think in this world, we're building businesses. We're building brands, so the best thing you can look at is the best brand, the brands that do it best, and you look at Apple and you look at Coca-Cola and you look at Nike and whoever you want to pick, and you look at what they're doing and you look at the amount of effort that they spend to make sure that their brand is perfectly positioned. I mean, if you work with a huge company like that, and let's say you're an advertising company, you go to them and they want you to build banners, they will send you a deck that explains the specific Pantone colors that their logo is allowed to be in, and how much white space is supposed to be between their logo and anything else on the page.

(00:38:01):

They get to that level, and if you send them a deck that doesn't follow that, you're going to hear about it. And that level of not only understanding of your brand, but protection of your brand, I think is massively important. You have to build something that is immediately unique and identifiable and that at every touch point, people understand that it's your brand and they understand that it's you. And I think that that's something that is completely in a young band's control and will massively help them no matter what they're doing moving forward.

Speaker 1 (00:38:34):

Do you, I totally agree that is a hundred percent right, but how do you contrast that? Or maybe, let me rephrase. Have you ever noticed though the local bands who just take it a step too far? So it looks like yes, they're doing all the right things brand wise, but just so wrong and it just seems like they're just trying way too hard, and so it kind of makes them kind of come off as more of a joke than anything else. Where's the fine line, I guess, between authenticity and trying too hard?

Speaker 2 (00:39:14):

That is a very tough thing, but I think it's something that is learned through experience the same way that brands sometimes do missteps. Pepsi made that commercial earlier this year. I don't remember who it was. Some pop star was in a fake riot and handed a Pepsi can to the

Speaker 1 (00:39:29):

Cop. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (00:39:30):

You know what I mean? That is just a complete horrific misstep. And I would say that that's a similar thing to a local band, having a brand that doesn't make sense, and some people are better at branding than others. Some people make bad decisions. So I think that it's more important to be trying and thinking about it than not. But that also being said, a big misstep that I see local bands make is when you get the one person in the band who understands that the brand is important and makes that the sole focus, because at the end of the day, you are an entertainment entity and you are a musical artist. So if your music can't back up your brand, it doesn't matter what you're doing. I mean, Kiss's brand is ridiculous, and I'm not even personally a Kiss fan, but you can't deny that they wrote huge hooks and huge songs, and without those things they just would've been a ridiculous bar band.

Speaker 1 (00:40:23):

Really ridiculous bar band.

Speaker 2 (00:40:26):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:40:28):

So one of the core values of your business is the concept of truth and justice. What does having a business that revolves around transparency and candor do for client confidence as well as confidence of potential business partners and associates?

Speaker 2 (00:40:44):

Well, that's an awesome question. Thank you for asking that. I remember when I first moved to New York, my wife was in the music industry and all of her friends were in the music industry, and I remember going out to brunch with them and having lunches and dinners and whatever, more hanging out, and they would constantly complain about their jobs. And I remember thinking, you guys are absolutely out of your minds. You work in the music industry, you've got the coolest job ever. Just give me three seconds and let me swap with you. And then I remember equally as clearly, I think the second or third week I was at Epic Records walking into the main boardroom to do a whole meeting and sitting with my back against the wall just as quiet as I could, having it all of a sudden wash over me, how half of the people in the room could have been marketing toilet paper.

(00:41:36):

It did not matter. Music was being discussed as a commodity period, and I'm not even saying that to disparage them. When you're in an organization that large, that's what has to be done. I was on the 22nd floor of the Sony building, which is five 50 Madison. It's an entire block. Well, it was. They've moved now, but it was an entire block of Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th Street, 34 stories tall. You've got a building that big, you have a minimum amount of money that you have to bring in on a regular basis just to pay your overhead. So you get forced into a situation where you have to make the decisions that are right for the company and not necessarily right for the artist. Artists obviously understand that. Savvy managers understand that, and so very often, especially in the majors, you end up with a really adversarial relationship where everyone is just trying to get one over on the other one, and nobody's really telling the other person the truth, and nobody wants anything in email and everything is about what can I get out of you and how do I just make sure that I get what I want at the end of this conversation?

(00:42:41):

And it really turned my stomach as an artist myself. I was approaching marketing from the perspective of I know what it feels like to be in a 15 passenger van. I know what it feels like to go to Texarkana, Arkansas and play for 17 people, 15 of whom I'm pretty fairly sure are extremely racist.

(00:43:03):

I know what that feels like. So I always wanted to approach it from that perspective. And it is one of the reasons that I launched my company because I realized that I wanted to do something different. I wanted to provide something different. I wanted to provide an option that focused on what was right for the artist and in the new environment. That's the greatest thing that I'll say that social media and the internet and things like that have provided is the ability to build a brand focus specifically around what's right for the artist and the relationship with their fans. And the only way that that's done is through transparency and through trust and through honesty, and it is either going to resonate or it's not. But thankfully, our market is now directly between the artists and the fan. It used to be that the artist made the music, the label sold the music to the store, and it was the store's problem to sell it to the fan.

(00:43:52):

But now we've cut that out and the relationship is between the artist and the fan, and by creating something that resonates and that's honest and that's real, and my relationship being honest and real with them and helping them create a real honest persona and brand for them, you can create a relationship that goes beyond, I heard this song on the radio and 10 years from now I'm going to hear it again and remember that moment, and it goes to this, music becomes a definition of self for the fan, and that's how you build a sustainable career. It's not about labels and agents and managers, it's about the relationship between the artist and the fan. And the only way that that's going to happen and the only way you're going to effectively market all that is through honesty and transparency.

Speaker 1 (00:44:32):

That's great. I guess since we're on this topic, can you talk a little bit about what specific services fall under the umbrella of Lekberg Enterprises?

Speaker 2 (00:44:42):

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I prefer to say that Lekberg Enterprises provides a third option in shorthand. We're a label services company, but what we do in the macro is that we provide the same relationship and marketing and services that a record label would provide to an artist, but we do not take any ownership of the artist's music and we don't take any of the profit. We take no profit share in it. So what that means is that when you look at a record label, they primarily, if you're going to be very simplistic about it, they primarily serve two functions. One is a marketing company and the other is a bank. So Legwork Enterprises is the marketing company. The artist has to provide their own funding, but through that, enterprises will come in and handle all of the production needs. So if you need assistance getting engineers and producers and mixers and masters to the table to finish the record, we can help with that.

(00:45:39):

Then getting all of the physical product produced, so making records, making vinyl, getting it serviced through to all your DSPs, establishing your distribution deal, overseeing that process, creating all the metadata so that you get paid properly, managing that whole situation and then making music videos and photo shoots and everything that goes along with that. Then creating the overall plan, so creating the marketing plan and the timeline to execute these items and use them in such a way that they can help market the release and then putting together the team. So finding the right publicist, the right radio team, the right digital marketing person, and then overseeing that entire campaign throughout the time. So being the point person that liaises with the artist and their manager and with that team and assures that we're all working together to release the music in a timely fashion and create the largest marketing that we can around a release and help them spread their brand and grow their brand and then grow to the next release.

Speaker 1 (00:46:40):

Do you find that what you do at Lekberg Enterprises requires artists that are somewhat business savvy to be your clients? Or do you think that it's something that can work as well? For artists that are the very beginning of their careers?

Speaker 2 (00:47:01):

I think you absolutely have to have a solid understanding of the fact that this is a business and a respect for it. Some members of bands are less active than others, but someone in the band or the management team has to be fully aware of the fact that this is a huge business undertaking that's being done. And I don't really think that that has to do with the position in an artist's career, whether they're young or they're old. It has to do with the mentality of where they are and what they're doing. The biggest hurdle that I face regarding what stage they are in their career is the funding. That's the biggest problem. And I don't say that Lekberg Enterprises is the solution for the music industry because it's not. It's why I call it a third option, because option one, releasing your own material and just building on your own slowly or option two, signing to a record label are both still very viable options depending on who you are, especially if you're a young band, a label, being able to have the war chest to invest several hundred thousand dollars and lose it all in you because you've got to grow and because you're not going to make it back initially.

(00:48:11):

And having the ability to pick up the phone and call a partner and have them answer the phone because they represent a massive band as well as a young band, those are important leverage things that are needed. So for some artists, for some people, being with a label is a better option than doing something like what I'm doing. But for other people, it's exactly what's needed. And I would say if you're going to get the most out of what I offer, you need to be very, very business oriented, and you need to be very, be very invested in building a business. It's

Speaker 1 (00:48:42):

Interesting you call it a third option on the topic of threes, I also see it as a very good third step with those three options. Like number one, start the band yourself, sell your own stuff, develop your brand. Then two, sign to a label, it takes it to the next level. And then once you're big enough to where you can fund it yourself, step three, get with a company like yours.

Speaker 2 (00:49:08):

You're absolutely right. And that's 50% of my clientele. My clientele is pretty evenly split between artists that are established and have been through the system and just simply don't fit as well in the system anymore. I mean, let's say you're an established band that at one point was gold, or at one point was selling a couple hundred thousand records a year and through the career, now you've passed, you've done a couple of albums, and you've gotten to the point now where you're fan base are people who are really the diehards and the passive fans who heard you on the radio and liked that one song one time, they've kind of fallen away. Well, if you're only selling 30, 40, 50, 60,000 records on a larger label, you're going to be a very low priority. You're not going to get a big budget. You're not going to get a lot of time devoted to you.

(00:49:55):

But working with a company like mine, that's enough money to sustain yourself. That's absolutely enough profit. And if you're selling those types of records, your tour merchandise or your merchandise and your tour revenue is going to be good as well. And by keeping it all, you afford yourself the ability to build a sustainable business that is not just going to have the rug pulled out from underneath it. When a label feels like We've spent enough money, we've lost enough, this isn't worth us, worth our time now, which again, understandably, they have an overhead they have to take care of. So yeah, for a lot of artists it is, I'm kind of the back end of the career rather than the beginning. But then for the other half of my artists, it's either businessmen themselves or artists who are funded by businessmen who have made their money in other realms of the industry, and not to be disparaging to the industry again, but sometimes they just come to me and say, the typical record industry deal is horrible, and from a strictly business perspective, I'm not interested in signing away rights for 18%.

Speaker 1 (00:51:00):

Yeah, it's interesting. I think that, man, I have seen those business guys who fund artists do such stupid things because they might be brilliant at traditional business, but they know nothing about how the music industry works. So I think especially for those types, a company like yours, I would say, should be prescribed.

Speaker 2 (00:51:27):

It's funny, when I'm working with those clients, I would say I spend as much time educating them as I do doing the work. And it's because not to say that they aren't smart people because they're smart enough that they're able to understand this and they get it very quickly, but through that education process and through me spending time with them and talking about how the music industry works, then they're able to take the knowledge and their business smarts and apply it with the proper information. And then I feel like we're much more effective past that point. But yes, I do spend a decent amount of time on the phone going, I completely understand why you think that, but let me explain to you what's really happening.

Speaker 1 (00:52:10):

Well, I mean obviously they're smart. As a producer, I had to deal with these types of guys a lot. They would pay for bands, I'd record, and they were often the most lucrative clients. They'd be better than the labels nine out of 10 times, but they would send you contracts that are just insane, more insane than label contracts. And they'd have these expectations that are just, it's cool for the corporate world, but just not how things work in the music industry. And of course, they're smart. They didn't get rich by being dumb, but they do require some education, but they usually are quick studies. I mean, they are intelligent guys, obviously got to

Speaker 2 (00:52:57):

Be. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they are. But you're exactly right. It's exactly that little key point of understanding the expectations versus reality, because going back to the point that we made earlier about the fact that everyone is basically waiting around to tell you no, all of the touch points everyone that we deal with throughout your career in the music industry are people who believe that their opinion and are in a position that their opinion holds power over whatever thing it is that they're managing. If they're a booking agent, if they're a promoter, if they're a blog writer, whoever they are, their opinion plays into that relationship. And that's something that the business world has a hard time understanding because it is. I mean, frankly, it's kind of crazy to sit there and say that my career could be dependent on this person, whether or not this person likes the music that I made, and they could just be having a bad day. That is a really crazy thing. But that's the reality of it. And that is a tough thing for those types of businessmen to understand when they're used to one plus one equals two. That's math. This is business.

Speaker 1 (00:54:03):

That bad day thing is very real. It totally

Speaker 2 (00:54:07):

Is.

Speaker 1 (00:54:09):

So on this line of conversation, if you were sitting down with the new client who had yet to release anything at all, just getting started in their careers as musicians, artists, what would be some of the first steps that you'd take to be able to understand their brand as well as begin developing a marketing strategy on your end of things?

Speaker 2 (00:54:32):

That's always such a tough thing, and it's always a moving target too. There's a certain amount that you can just ask some simple questions. What inspires you about the music? Why are you inspired about this? Talk to me about how you got to where you are. What was the first band that moved you? What made you pick up a guitar or drums? Understanding those things about an artist helps you understand who they are and then diving into why did you write this song? What does this song mean to you? And for some artists, that's a very fruitful conversation, and they're going to be able to come back and they're going to say, this is a chord progression I used and I was inspired by this. And they're going to talk about lyrically this is what I was inspired by and this is what I was trying to get across, and this is the emotion that I want this song to convey.

(00:55:20):

And then you're going to deal with some artists who are going to go, it sounded cool, so I did it. And that makes it very difficult to come up with that. And so a lot of times when I'm helping to, when it's my job to help craft that brand, it does fall to my own creativity and sometimes even my interpretation of what the music is. And so I'll listen to a band and I'll listen to what they say, and I'll spend time with them, and then I'll go away and just brainstorm on it for a couple of days. And a typical marketing plan for me is 14 to 17 pages to launch a campaign. And the first couple of pages are specifically that kind of stuff, brand overview, key objectives, what our mission statement is, and sometimes it takes me a couple cracks to get it to a place where the band feels like, yes, this represents me because sometimes they don't even know what would represent them, so I have to massage that out.

Speaker 1 (00:56:14):

How important is the first impression? Is this something that is yay or nay for you at first, or do you have to take your time with it?

Speaker 2 (00:56:23):

The first impression for the artists themselves,

Speaker 1 (00:56:26):

First impression that the artist makes on you, potential clients.

Speaker 2 (00:56:29):

It makes on me. Oh, gotcha. It's important. It is definitely important. I think it's important for both of us, but it definitely is important because this is not easy. There's a manager who I respect a lot and I'm not super close friends with, but I'm friends with, and I'm sure you're aware of him, but

Speaker 1 (00:56:50):

I love that guy.

Speaker 2 (00:56:52):

Yep. And he and I have known each other for many years, and when I was about a year in, I was really pitching him very, very hard to try and get some of his bands because he was in a position where he had bands that were very much like you were describing. They had done it themselves and they had signed, they got big and they were in a position to really own their own world. And he kind of looked at me and he said, why would I ever do that? He said, as a manager, I have to take all,

Speaker 1 (00:57:19):

That's such a blasco question.

Speaker 2 (00:57:20):

Yeah, exactly. He was like, I have to take all the risk for touring. I have to take all the risk for merch. Why do I want all the risk for records? Why do I not want that to be somebody else's problem? And it is a big commitment and it's lot of risk. So it's important to me to understand that the artist has a level head and has what I think are realistic objectives and a realistic understanding of where they are. But at the same time, I am also in a client services business. I have turned down artists. I did have a call with an artist one time who was clear that it wasn't going to go anywhere, and so I thanked her for her time and I turned her down. I try not to do that too often just because I don't think it's good business, but it does need to be be the right fit. My clients, with the exception of a couple of my clients, I'm working on six to nine month campaigns. So I'm constantly having to find new clients and if they don't walk away happy and I don't walk away happy, then I'm not going to have a business. So we have to be aligned.

Speaker 1 (00:58:28):

I mean, if you're not aligned with somebody, it doesn't have to be the end of the world too, just because you aren't working together. Maybe it's for the best. For instance, my company, when we first started getting bigger producers and bands on, we decided to get a publicist, a publicity firm who's great people and well-known in the metal world, and they were helping. We worked together for about six months and about six months in they were like, look, we don't feel like we're making any difference, so we're going to part ways, but we've got your back. And actually it was true, they did have our back. There was a situation that happened a few months after that where we had to make a move very, very quickly because a huge, terrible controversy erupted online about something that we were involved with and they helped us.

(00:59:30):

It had nothing to do with us, but we were attached to it and they helped us get through it, but we were feeling the same way. We didn't think it was a good fit just because in all reality we can do it ourselves and we know enough people between myself and my partners and we're good at marketing and press. And it was just a pointless partnership really. And them telling us that didn't make us look at them in any bad sort of way. It actually increased my respect for them because obviously they're not just in it for the paycheck. They didn't feel like they could get anywhere with us and they were upfront about it. So I do agree you shouldn't be Dr. No, but it is the honorable thing to do if you don't think that it's a right fit to just say it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):

Absolutely. I mean, and every one of us in the industry has had moment, I'll give you a specific one. On my turn, when I was at 11 seven, I was presented with nothing more and I passed and I passed on behalf of the company. The owner of the company said to me, what do we do with this band? And I said, no, I don't think they're special enough. I think they're too middle of the road. And I think that they're either going to be absolutely loved because they sound like everything else, or they're going to be hated because they sound like everything else. And we have seven records in the pipeline right now, and I don't want to use energy on this. Then obviously after I left 11 seven, they came back and were signed by 11 seven and got nominated for three Grammys. So what the hell did I know? But I feel like in that those things happen and we have to be honest with who we are, and there's always going to be that relationship that's one we're going to get wrong or one that's not going to work out or someone you're going to meet with and you're going to go, wow, I just don't vibe with this person. But that doesn't mean that they're not going to be successful. I

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):

Heard a rumor and I never got this confirmed that Monte Connor passed on corn back in the day.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):

Oh, wow. I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):

It obviously did not affect him or them in the end. So these things do happen, and I do think it's, look, even if you got that one wrong, it's important that you don't take on projects that you're not feeling

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):

Because yeah, if I don't love it as much as they do, how am I going to be successful at it?

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):

Exactly. And I'll take it another step. Maybe if you had gone with it and had to work it, that might have impeded their success if you weren't into it. Not saying it would've, but it's a possibility. I know that

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):

It absolutely could have.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):

You really have to be into what you're working on in this game, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):

I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):

Back in 2014 when I decided that I was going to do URM and make it a real thing, I knew that I had to stop producing bands. There's just no way for me to do them both because producing is an all encompassing time, enveloping life eater, and I had to make that decision. It was a tough decision, but I was really, really confident that I could grow this into a real company. But what that meant was saying no to things. And I was slated to co-produce a record in January, 2015 for a metal blade band that I had worked with before. I loved all the guys. I knew it was going to be sick, and I passed. I mean, it was already confirmed for January and about November or something, I was just like, look, I can't do this. I made the decision to change directions, and if I don't make the stand now, if I don't follow through, I'm never going to, I'm keep on saying yes to projects. So for my own reasons, and I also think my heart wouldn't have been in it, I think I wouldn't have done as good of a job as they would've needed. I'd be sitting there thinking, I need to stop doing this so I can start my company. So I definitely think that saying no is the right thing to do when it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):

Yeah, a hundred percent. And that's a tough thing to understand when is the time, but it is vitally important.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):

What does drive you to be productive? Is it passion, but between doing the band and working on all these high level projects and marketing, you got to be hustling nonstop.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):

I am. I am and I am. It's just kind of who I am. I don't like sitting still. I just don't do well with it. I'm not good at breaks. I don't really watch a lot of typical tv. When I do take some time and do something else, I prefer to watch a lot of documentaries, just I always want to be doing something. I always want to be moving forward. I always want to be growing. For me, the thing that drives me the most is what that next goal is and where I'm going and what I'm doing next and how I'm getting this thing to the next thing. I mean, not to get crazy philosophical, but I consider myself to be an existential nihilist in the sense that I don't believe that any of this has any real value. Anything that we do is going to be forgotten, or anyone who remembers it is going to die and they're going to be forgotten too. So for me, I'm not sitting around thinking about some greater glory and some big, like, I'm going to do this, and then that's going to be the definition of me as a person. I have to constantly be in motion. And the challenge though, unbelievably exhausting very often is the reason I get up in the morning.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):

I definitely think that you have to bring your own meaning to things, at least I do in order to be able to have the energy to do what needs to be done. So I have some questions here from our listeners for you actually. Oh really? Yeah. Before we finish up, I'd love to get some of these in because they're excited that you're coming on.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):

Sure, love to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):

So let's see. I'm looking for one that we haven't already kind of covered. Okay. Here's one for Matthew Rivas. How do you approach marketing with bands who want to maintain artistic integrity as an actual thing that they say AKA are afraid of selling out?

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):

Absolutely. I mean, I think that honestly, it's the same way I approach marketing every single band because that integrity and that vision that they have and that journey they're on is the reason to do this. It's the whole reason we're doing it. And I think that a band that's afraid of losing artistic integrity simply either hasn't worked with the right people or isn't really aware of what that real process is, because authenticity is the only thing that sells. So when a band says to me, I'm concerned about our artistic integrity, my response is great. I'm concerned about your artistic integrity too. Let's sit down and define what your integrity is and who you are and what the definition of your brand is, and then let's make sure that everything we do moving forward reflects that and respects that. And that's the only way I think to market a band is with their integrity in mind. Without that, there's nothing, the only other way to do it is to look at a pop world where you're saying, well, what can I do to get attention? But that's not something that I feel ever really works in heavy music or in any lasting genre.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):

Yeah, totally agree. So here's one from Geo Hewitt. Say you had a brand new band and they had everything on point, killer music, killer image, responsible people touring experience in previous bands, but they're waiting to release everything and make social media assets as a band. What would be some of the first steps you would take to market them or would suggest for them to do?

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):

I think that's very wise actually. I think that's exactly the way that they should be doing it. The most important thing in any campaign that I do is the structure and is that calendar. As I touched on a little earlier, I write large marketing plans at the beginning of every campaign. And the reason for the large marketing plan is to have a very clear roadmap. And any trip that you're going on, you're going to take some detours and things are going to change along the way, but you need that map upfront. So if a band is wanting to take a step back and take a look at the assets and figure out how to launch, that's exactly the right way. The right way is to create a calendar and to talk about upfront what is every piece of content that we want to release throughout the entirety of the campaign. Let's calendarize that content and let's get it made ahead of time so that you have a plan. So every day you know what you're posting.

(01:08:59):

I like to say to some of my artists that we always know something is going to go wrong. We know that there's potholes, we're going to have to swerve, and the best way for us to be prepared to handle that and to handle them in the most effective way possible is to have all the other things already done. So if our plan is in place, our map is in place, we know what we're doing tomorrow. We know what we're doing two weeks from now. When something bad happens today, we can just focus on handling that bad thing and figure out how it is to swerve around it and get around it, rather than having to figure that out and then also wake up the next morning and realize, crap, I don't have my content ready for today, and now our whole plan's off. So that's the most important thing is the plan is the roadmap. And I think waiting and putting that plan together is exactly the way to do it

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):

So long as you don't take forever.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, look, yeah, you absolutely need deadlines and you can't wait forever to create. There's that other phrase that I love, which is that art has never finished. It's abandoned. And I think

(01:10:01):

Making those deadlines and saying, okay, this is this piece. And that's the beautiful thing about being in a band though and about creating art, is that you are creating mile markers on this journey. And so this record and this video and all these different things that you're making, you're going to learn from them and you're always going to want to do a better one. If it was the perfect thing that you had ever done in your entire life, why would you want to continue living? Those two things don't make sense. So of course it's not going to be perfect. So what you do is you get it as good as you can that's representative of right now within an appropriate timeframe, and then you move on and you grow on that to the next piece.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):

Great. Here's one from Kevin Ronan. Is there any viability in internet slash satellite radio for a local band that's trying to increase their audience? For instance, my band has submitted our music to different internet radio stations who have accepted it and now play our music. However, we haven't seen any increase in activity on our website or social media, and we don't have any way of getting any metrics from it to see if our music being played on these radio stations is even effective for us. And thank you for your time and knowledge.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):

You're very welcome. Thank you for asking. The first thing I would want to do is make a very clear distinction between internet and satellite. Satellite radio is by far the most powerful form of radio in the United States, and it's very difficult to get on, and if you get on it, you will see the effect. And I would also add that there's a few radio companies out there, radio promotion companies out there that specifically work in rock and metal, and their fee is 100% the cost. If they only get you on Sirius, that's hands down, it is absolutely worth it. So if you're thinking about that, do that. As far as the online radio is concerned, that's a really tough one because anybody can turn on their computer and create an online radio station. My experience has been that just the vast majority of those have no listeners, no real actionable listeners.

(01:12:02):

Obviously they have some listeners, but if you're talking about less than a hundred people a week, it is not really anybody listening. Now, it's still effective to do because it helps if it gets you in front of another one fan. As a band starting out, you're counting fans one by one. So if you get one fan, then great, but I wouldn't expect any of those to all of a sudden change the world because most of them are not going to have big fan bases. If you're not seeing an effect in your own analytics, it is doubtful that there's a big reach that the station has overall. So I wouldn't get hung up on needing to call into them every week, but if you have the time and the ability to reach out to all of 'em and ask them to play your music, it's a good thing. And supporting them socially when they do play it is good. It's never bad, but it's not going to change the world.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):

All right. Here's one from Rodney aba, which is what advice and resources would you recommend someone looking to get into the business side of music? And thank you for your time and good luck in all your future endeavors.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):

Alright, thank you. You as well. So there's a couple of ones that I really like. There's a website called Ren Man, M-B-R-E-N-M-A-N, and then the letter's m and b.com, that's all together with one word, and that's run by a guy by the name of Steve Renny, who at one time was the president of Epic Records on the East coast until he discovered a little band called Incubus and he began managing them and he no longer manages them, but he started this site to specifically help break down and really provide more information, very direct information. I think he's done just a fabulous job of creating small pieces of information, whether they be little, couple minute long videos or interviews that really get to the meat of the things that you need to know about those topics. So I think that would be a great thing to start with.

(01:14:02):

The next thing that I would say is just getting experience. If you want to be a manager, if you want to be in the industry, get in the industry, find a band to manage, even if it's a local band and you're just doing stuff, just going through the process of helping them think about their process and booking shows and setting that stuff up and finding marketing opportunities for them locally, that's experience that's going to be invaluable to you. The majority of the really, really heavy hitters that are out there in the industry right now started locally doing their own thing. They were putting on shows at their college and then they became the talent buyer at a local bar, and then from there they met such and such artists and began managing them and whatever the best experience you can have is to just start doing it, start working, find any opportunity you can to get in, start developing those relationships and continue that. I mean, unfortunately you'll hear Renny say this, but relationship is 99% of this industry. It's about who you know and what your relationship with them is.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):

Absolutely. Here's one from Flavius Constantino, which is where to start when you want to produce content for daily scheduled postings like pics, videos, what types for these formats?

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):

It depends on the format. I think that you need to look at what performs best in each format. Instagram obviously is better for photo than it is for video. As much as they would like to be a video hub, it's not necessarily a place that's real great for that right Now, understanding the strengths of different ones. YouTube was obviously about video, so the better the visual content is there, the better you'll be. Facebook, you get to do it all. I think it is less about thinking about what type of content to create and more about thinking about what your objective is. If you understand what your objective is and what the brand is that you're trying to portray, then that will help you decide what pieces of content will help portray that brand and will help push that brand forward. And I think you're going to end up finding that it's a combination of everything. And I mean really content is king, so you can't have too much content, so you're going to end up wanting to make absolutely everything and as much of it as possible. Alright,

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):

Last question. This one is from Kirk Wells, which is would an agent or management team be the better direction for an independent artist to go if they haven't got the time to spend on marketing and publishing?

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):

Well, that would be a manager's job. A manager would be able to help you with that. Manager would be the first person to add to your team. If you're adding someone like that, an agent is going to be focused on touring and booking shows. Either one of those are going to be tough because both of them work on a commission basis. And any agent or manager who tells you that you need to pay them to do the job, run as far away from as you can, as fast as you can. But finding one of those, you need to find somebody that believes in what you do to add them to your team and they need to believe in the future because initially you're not going to be making any money, even if you're making a hundred bucks a night at your local club, an agent taking 10%, that's only 10 bucks, so it's not going to be giving them a lot. So a manager is the first place to start there. And I would say moreover, just based on the question, I would do a little digging and a little go to reman MB and check out his definitions of what each individual team member does. And I think that'll help you make that choice too.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):

Great. Well, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You've been enlightening to have on.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):

Thanks, man. I really appreciate you having me on. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):

Anytime. Would love to have you on again at some point in the future. And I know that we could probably have talked for about three more hours about this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):

We forgot the most important topic.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):

Oh yeah, you're right. All let's get into that real quick. Do you want me to, I'll lead in. Okay. So about 11 years ago, my former band lost our singer unceremoniously and we had no idea what to do. We were faced with getting dropped and it ended up happening anyways. But basically we just prolonged the inevitable. We ended up doing a competition on YouTube to, we put three instrumental versions of our songs up and checked the responses. And actually you did one of them, one of the better ones. And you were highly recommended by Mike Kidder. I remember you actually had one of the best ones.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):

Thank you. It's funny, I actually didn't submit through the YouTube thing. Getter brought that to me because he had a band called That's, yeah, he had a band called Mutiny who ended up becoming called Mutiny Within,

(01:19:03):

And he was trying to get me to quit Iki and sing for them. And I had done some demos and we were just headed two different directions as artists, and I still love those guys to death, but we just were headed two different directions, so it didn't happen. And at that time you had lost a singer and my demos and some of my music were kind of floating around. Roadrunner and Getter called me and he was like, Hey, Mon wants you to check this out. And then you and I got on the phone and then I went in and tracked it. So actually I don't even think I knew about the YouTube thing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):

Oh, okay. Yeah, you should go check this out. There's some really funny ones. So just so you know, the reason we did not go with you was at the end of the day, the fact that Sean Z lived 15 minutes away and we could really cultivate him by just having him come over

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):

Really

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):

Kind of made all the difference in the world. We had no budget. So when we were like, man, someone from out of town, we were going to have to fly them all the time and we're not going to be able to afford this. It's just not going to happen. But definitely you were in the running for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):

That's awesome to hear, man. That's really awesome to hear. I appreciate that. I actually didn't, I didn't hear a lot back. I just heard that I didn't get it, but that was, I totally understand that. And when I heard him, it is funny. When we started talking about doing this, I went back and listened to that demo and I haven't listened to that in probably a decade, but I now hearing myself singing and know who I am, I was cringing at a couple of points. I was like, oh man, I could have done that better. And I still contest that I had a better chorus, but he did have a better verse. His verse on that song is better than mine. But it was all good. I mean, I was honored to have the opportunity. It was killer to have a choice. And I mean the ability to have someone that who's close by that you already have an affinity for, to go get in a van, I mean, I would've made the same choice in your shoes.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):

Yeah, we long, well, I had a longstanding relationship with him already. I had known him for years and he's like the most agreeable dude I've ever met. And we were just coming from a situation with the two most disagreeable people you will have ever met in your entire fucking life. And so we kind of had mild PTSD from the whole experience. So the fact that he's, we knew him and we already knew he was such a good dude, and that wasn't even, there was no question mark about that at all. That went a really, really, really long way. All kind of traumatized.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):

Well, I mean, look, we both know what it's like to be in a van with somebody and you get three days into a tour and go, oh, I don't like this person. Then you're like, great, I got to spend the next six weeks within 10 feet of this person. So I totally understand. It makes complete sense.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):

And there's also the factor that if we get someone and we don't like them and it doesn't work out, then for sure it Monty's done with us. He was done with us anyways, but it definitely would've been he's done with us right now. He even told us that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):

Wow,

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):

That's

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):

Heavy.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):

That's what I love about him though. He was always real straightforward with me. I will say that I knew we were not going to last on Roadrunner from the get-go that I was like, there's no fucking way that we're going to be able to sell enough records to keep this in place. Let's just take this ride for as long as the ride lasts.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):

That's funny. I think you made two great records and I still jam 'em, so I love 'em, and things happen for a reason. It's all good. I made some records. I'm very proud of after that, and it is what it is. So we're both doing all right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):

Yeah, it could be way worse.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):

That definitely could be. Well, with that man going to end here, but thank you again. Okay. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. To get in touch with the M podcast, visit urm.com/podcast and subscribe today.