DAN TSURIF: Building a music business, when to get a manager, and why you must be great first

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Joey Sturgis tones, creating unique audio tools for musicians and producers everywhere. Unleash your creativity with Joey Sturgis tones. Visit joey sturgis tones.com for more info. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and

Speaker 2 (00:00:22):

Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. I am Eyal Levi with me as co-hosts today are the very, very honorable Finn McKenty, who you guys probably know from previous podcasts because he's already been on here twice. If you don't know him from that, you should. He helps run the marketing for URM and Nail the mix, as well as plenty of other amazing companies like Horizon Pedals and works for a bunch of really awesome bands, and I've known him for a long time. He also ran the audio channel Creative Live. You should listen to everything he says. And with us is also Mr. Dan Tsurif, who's the VP of Mercenary Management, one of the smartest people I know in the music industry, known him for a few years now and have watched him just kind of climb and climb like smart people do. So you should listen to everything he has to say. Welcome, Dan. How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:01:18):

Hey guys,

Speaker 2 (00:01:18):

Nice to have you here. Nice to have both of you here.

Speaker 3 (00:01:20):

Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (00:01:22):

Yeah, so let's just jump right into it. I know that we don't have five hours to do all this. I wanted to talk to you guys about things that artists and producers should think about doing besides just their art. So I know that at mercenary you guys handle Zach Wild and Zach does all kinds of stuff besides just be the guitar God that he is. There's coffee, there's amps, there's straps, there's all kinds of stuff. I think I even saw Bobblehead Dolls and Finn, I know that you work with artists like Misha Mansour who just put out his Horizon Pedals line. So these guys are examples of two really well-known guitar players who musically are super respected but are making the most of their careers by going beyond just their playing. So let's jump in. Do you guys think that that's something that artists and producers in 2017 have to do?

Speaker 4 (00:02:24):

Yeah, you know what? I think that's probably how all artists are going to start making their living maybe 5, 10, 15 years down the line. There's only so far you can get with just being a musician and the income opportunities are really closing in or not closing in, but they're dwindling I suppose. There's just not many opportunities out there. So what you need to do is, at least in Zach Wild's case, we took his fame and his name Power and we were able to channel that into products that his fans love. Zach is synonymous with guitars and guitar playing, so it's only natural that he would progress into having a guitar company and amps and guitar accessories.

Speaker 2 (00:03:09):

And why is that better than just doing it the traditional way, like a signature line through Gibson More money? Well, no, that's good. That's got to be said,

Speaker 4 (00:03:20):

Right? I guess I should say for the listeners, I'm pretty blunt and honest and straightforward with most of my answers regardless of how popular or unpopular, what I say is. So with doing your own line versus a signature model, the typical deal with a signature model gives you a very, very small royalty. And I think it's something like four to 6% on the high end.

Speaker 2 (00:03:48):

Ouch.

Speaker 4 (00:03:48):

Yeah, it's painful. So you're not really doing anything, but you're contractually obligated to push sales and you are responsible for the sales of your signature line. With creating your own company, you reap more of the benefits and the payout is much, much higher. While audio is something that Zach will eventually be able to retire on versus his Gibson signature line that he was doing years ago, which was a good paycheck, but it wasn't enough. Wild audio is comparable to the business Black Label Society is doing.

Speaker 2 (00:04:28):

That's pretty impressive actually. Now what about for a guy who just got an endorsement deal? It's not like some kid in a new band can just go make their own guitar company or can they?

Speaker 4 (00:04:42):

That's a good question. Well, Zach Wild is a strange case since he came in with already a lot of influence and I guess power. He had the money to spend and the money to invest, and we were able to get investors behind it no problem. But that's because he's been in the business for 30 years. If you're a 19-year-old kid and your band just got signed and Ivan as or ESP or someone offers you a sponsorship deal, then that's probably the right move for you at that time. When you're 19 and you're starting to go on tour, your main concern is you need to be able to perform When you're out on the road, you need those guitars and you probably can't afford a 600 or a thousand dollars guitar. So with age and with popularity, your priorities start to shift. But yeah, should someone like Misha Mansour, should he look into making his own line of guitars and whatever else? Yeah, absolutely. He's getting to that point, and if he's not at that point or any guitar player at that point, their goal should be to get there.

Speaker 2 (00:05:56):

I think he's at that point. Finn, what do you think you would know better than us? If Misha said, I want to start a guitar company, you would probably say Do it, right?

Speaker 3 (00:06:07):

Yeah, that would be like, imagine you had a dump truck full of cash and someone gave you the keys to that dump truck. That's what it would be like if Misha started a guitar company. That's

Speaker 2 (00:06:25):

A nice way to put it.

Speaker 3 (00:06:27):

Yes. So for anybody who doesn't know one of the ventures, so the periphery guys are some of the smartest guys in the game are really great at monetizing their following, and they're involved in a whole bunch of ventures, two of which I help 'em with Get Good Drums is one which listeners of this podcast are probably familiar with. It's a virtual drum library.

Speaker 2 (00:06:52):

And let me interrupt you real quick, subscribers for Nail The Mix who are listening to this. If you go to your bonuses section, you have $20 off, get good drums, there's a bonus code right there for you. So yeah, one of the perks of being subscribed to Nail the Mix, sorry, go on. Definitely

Speaker 3 (00:07:08):

Take advantage of that. Yeah, so Get good drums is Ali, Matt and Misha from Periphery Creating and Dez from Good Tiger have partnered to put out this virtual drum library, which has been doing incredible business. I won't share the number, but if you guys saw the Gross, you would faint. And then the other thing that they're involved with, which I've been helping with is a company called Horizon Devices that is Misha plus a couple guys from Wired guitarist who have partnered with MXR to make an overdrive pedal called Precision Drive, which is kind of, it comes with a really tight gate and some other features that are really geared towards that super tight metal sound. And that thing also has just been flying off the shelves. And so yeah, I would say if you are a musician of their caliber, you would be insane not to pursue something like that.

(00:08:14):

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with Dan that that's going to be the way that people like them make their, well, that's the way they make their living now, but it's going to be increasingly true 5, 10, 15 years from now. I do want to say one thing though, which since we thought about this podcast really has to be said that frames all this. And if you guys disagree, feel free to tell me, but I feel like there's a thing where bands and producers, but I would say especially bands think way too much about marketing and business and strategy and stuff way too early. And this may sound weird coming from me since I'm a business and marketing guy, but the reason that people like Zach and Periphery and Jason Richardson and stuff like that are able to, or Joey for that matter, you and Joey are able to do all these things, is because all you guys are really, really fucking good at what you do. And that is the thing that unlocks all these opportunities is you've got to be super fucking badass at your craft. That is what opens the door to all these other things. So it's great that people are thinking about this stuff and it's great that bands are thinking about the business, but if you aren't a badass at your actual craft, whether that's playing guitar or writing songs or mixing or whatever, then you're not ready to think about this shit.

Speaker 2 (00:09:41):

I completely agree. And let me just add, since you mentioned me and Joey, that basically as producers, and I am a former musician too, but as producers, we're also doing our own version of what Zach is doing, or Misha, by doing nail the mix in URM Academy and the Joey Sturgis tones and Drum Forge, and even more recently, my Metal Beard Club. This is me, my version or our version of doing that exact same thing of using what we've got to spread our wings. And

Speaker 3 (00:10:15):

The reason why people were interested in it is because you guys did masterful fucking work when you were playing in bands and producing albums and stuff like that. That's the key to all these things.

Speaker 2 (00:10:28):

Yeah, it wouldn't have worked otherwise.

Speaker 3 (00:10:30):

Yeah, if you're some random person off the street whose craft is only mediocre, these things would've failed.

Speaker 2 (00:10:36):

Absolutely. I mean, when you talk about Zach Wilde, you're talking about a guitar God.

Speaker 3 (00:10:40):

Yeah, I mean he's

Speaker 2 (00:10:41):

One absolute legend

Speaker 3 (00:10:43):

And Misha will be the next version of that. And by the way, for anybody who's listening that thinks Misha isn't a good guitarist, feel free to pick up his rig anytime and see if you sound like him. And I think you'll quickly understand that he might be a little bit better than you think.

Speaker 2 (00:11:01):

That's a great point. I think that one thing that people should think about is they should learn about marketing along the way of getting good, but they shouldn't put that before their actual craft at the beginning. They should have their eye towards the future though. So we were talking about earlier about the 19-year-old guitar player who's getting his first free guitars probably the first time in his life that he has good quality guitars that he can play and that's great. He should be thinking that, okay, if things keep going right five years down the line, I want to have my own guitar company or something like that, but not, okay, this is nice. Within a year I'm going to have my own guitar company before I'm even established as a name.

Speaker 3 (00:11:49):

I mean, you could start your own company at the age of 20 and it might work. You might be that one in a million kind of person that can pull it off. But there's another thing I want to mention that I think both you and Dan are really good at is that you don't have to do all this stuff yourself and in fact, you should partner with other people on this stuff because running a business is hard and there are a lot of operational elements to it that you don't know about no matter how good you are at your craft, and you should partner with other people who will help you figure that part out. And like Dan, you've been doing that for a lot of your artists and maybe you can talk about how that relationship works.

Speaker 4 (00:12:31):

Absolutely. I mean, just like management is not a one person game or one person show either is building a business around an artist. Again, using the Zach example with Wild Audio, we knew what we wanted and Zach had this game plan and this vision, but ultimately we went to Schechter who they do this all day every day and they specialize in manufacturing and distributing guitars and we partnered with them to make it happen. You mentioned the Bobblehead dolls earlier. We did that through a global merchandising company called Araca, and it really is just finding the right synergy between groups of people and finding that correct partner that can make the dream a reality. If we're talking about a 20-year-old guitar player, maybe he's onto something, maybe he invented a piece of technology that is going to revolutionize guitar playing or whatever, but he himself probably doesn't have the means to mass manufacture this and get it out there. So yeah, he or she will probably end up partnering with a larger company or a tech firm, whatever to make it happen. There's nothing wrong with that and that's what most people do. It is no different than a band partnering with a record label for a release.

Speaker 3 (00:13:57):

I mean, one very simple example of a thing that nobody thinks about is shipping, fulfilling orders, shipping stuff out and dealing with customer service inquiries. Those are two full-time jobs and if you want to take that on, then be my guest. But I think it's a lot smarter if you're an artist to focus on what you're great at, which is being a public personality and being able to capture people's attention and let somebody else answer the customer service emails and ship the orders out.

Speaker 2 (00:14:27):

Let me tell you about that. So first of all, I've got two things to say. One is I've known lots of bands who do the crowdfunding thing, who get bit in the ass because they think it's really, really cool to make tens of thousands of dollars. But then six months later when they have to deliver all of the prize packages and ship them, they get into a lot of trouble because they're not used to fulfilling orders and doing customer service and why is this three months later and they get all these emails and how they don't know how to deal with it. And then people shit talk them online and they look like scammers when in reality they're not scammers, they're just musicians who don't know how to do customer service or fulfill orders and it makes them look bad. So it is very important that you get people who actually do know how to do these things.

(00:15:19):

And at URM Academy now, the mix, as soon as customer service became more than two or three emails a day, we got someone it started at 10 hours a month and those of you listening say hi to Amish, Maha, we love him. It started at 10 hours a month, then it went to 25 hours a month now, and we're probably going to have to add a second person soon because there's no way, there's no way to do this stuff yourself. You got to have a dedicated person the moment your business starts growing, you have to have someone who is good at it, enjoys it and can put in the time to do it or you're going to fall behind and people will talk shit about you on the internet and you'll want to die.

Speaker 3 (00:16:04):

I want Dan to add something to this, which is, I know a question that comes up a lot is, so we just told people that it's important to partner with people to essentially outsource things that are outside of your comfort zone. On the other hand, a lot of bands or producers look for a manager very early on in their career, and Dan, maybe you can tell people when is appropriate to look for a manager and when is too soon or agent or whatever other support people.

Speaker 4 (00:16:35):

Well, every band has different needs and so does every manager booking agency and whatever, and everyone's at different points in their career. Generally, I would tell musicians that if you're not at that point where the business needs or the business workload is so overwhelming that it's interfering with the creative workload, then you probably don't need a manager. You're just not there yet. Yeah, there's going to be some people they'll want to take it on, but it is more often than not, it's just going to turn into them begging for favors. And if they're not able to deliver on those favors, then your career kind of gets stagnant and it's not really worth the hassle. The most successful management relationships I've had have been bands that got themselves to that point to where the business end of it was just so much work that it was interfering with the creative side.

(00:17:35):

Black Vale Brides was already a fully functional business before we ever picked them up for the listeners, before black fellow brides ever had a merchandising deal, a record contract before they ever went on tour, they had a music video with millions and millions of views and they were selling out every show locally in the Ohio, Michigan, and Kentucky area. And that's really what I would look for for a client I'd be interested taking on, especially at the beginning stages of the band, is someone with that upward momentum and a band whose business is really turning into an actual long-term business versus some band that may have a cool song or two but really needs you to pull them up and those stories of a manager coming in and getting you on all these tours and you breaking out of nowhere, that's just not realistic. That's maybe one in a million. There's many more horror stories of it falling apart and the band's breaking up.

Speaker 2 (00:18:39):

Well, not to mention when a band is really small, typically the level of manager that they can attract isn't the kind of manager who can really do anything for them anyways. So I mean, if a local band somehow is lucky enough to get with a real manager, that's cool. And then that manager say that somehow a local band convinces you guys or outer loop or whoever to take them on and you guys have to beg to get them on tour. That's one scenario. But more likely they're going to get with a local Yoko manager who literally can't do shit for them. And so they're going to have to pay them out of pocket a percentage of what the a hundred bucks they made off of that local show makes no sense.

Speaker 3 (00:19:24):

So that tees up. Another thing that I think is important for people to think about in regards to working with other people, partners or really anybody that you approach before you even think about contacting them, you have to ask yourself what's in it for this person? So for example, when bands just randomly ask some blog to post about them, why would that blog be interested in posting about your band? Or when you approach a manager, Hey Dan, do you want to work with us? Why would I want to work with you? What's in it for me? And that's not to say that everyone looks at it from a selfish calculating perspective, but just at the end of the day, we only have so many hours in the day and Dan can't work with every band under the sun, no matter how much he likes them.

(00:20:15):

This is his job and he can't work with everyone. And so I think it's super important to think about that and with Nail the Mix, you guys are able to work with some super high caliber people and some of those are people that you already knew. And so you can, I don't want to say call in a favor, but it's easier to do with somebody that you already know. But a lot of these people I know that you didn't have a relationship before and yet you were able to get them to say yes by coming to them with a deal that clearly made sense from their perspective. So the takeaway to me again is before you think about approaching anybody, ask yourself, okay, what's in it for them? Put yourselves in the shoes of the person across the table or on the other end of the phone and go, why would they say yes to this?

Speaker 2 (00:20:59):

Let me point out that the first six months of Nail the Mix, we were either doing unsigned artists or smaller artists that we had worked with personally. We didn't have a guest on for the first six months with a bigger sign band because we didn't feel like we had the audience yet or the structure to where we could offer a well-known producer, something valuable. Now we do now we've had a lot of bigger artists and a lot of bigger producers, and we have a large audience and we know that when we approach a producer to do nail the mix that they're going to get a lot of exposure for this, that it's going to be good for them, it's going to be great for us, and it's going to be great for them, it's going to be great for everybody. But we didn't even think about doing that until it was built up to a certain point.

(00:21:51):

And that actually, I want to take this back to something that we were touching on earlier, but I want to make sure I don't forget to bring this up. Dan, you guys work with Goat Whore and have been working with Goat Whore for a long time. The reason I'm bringing them up is because we've been talking about periphery and the producers that now the Mix works with or Zach Wild or Blackville Bride, and these are all big time artists and Goat, while successful in their niche are not a huge band, but they've managed to just keep in the game for a long ass time now. And I know because I know them and because I've toured with them many times that their merch game is super strong and that's what keeps them them going is their relentless tour schedule, but also their incredible merch. And that incredible merch is something that I've seen lots of people who aren't even fans of the band wearing.

(00:22:50):

It's that good that people just wear it because it's cool. And so that's a good example of you don't need to be a Zach Wild in order to start your side business or your spinoff business. You just need to have a good idea or a good quality product. Of course, if Goat whore were the size of DMA board gear, maybe their merch business would be three times the size it is now or something like that. But still, they are still going and going strong and a lot of it has to do with that merch game or am I wrong?

Speaker 4 (00:23:23):

No, you're absolutely correct. It's great that you brought up the merch game because not many people realize, I mean God who is just fantastic at marketing themselves, they're the epitome of a band that focuses on one or two amazing designs that everybody wants to buy versus having 20 mediocre designs that not many people would want to wear on a t-shirt, their apocalyptic havoc t-shirt, the one that says Who needs a God when you've got Satan on the back, I see that everywhere. And like you said, with people that don't even know that GOAT who is a band and they're just that good and there's an element of exclusivity to their merch since they don't have a retail deal,

Speaker 2 (00:24:11):

Oh, they don't,

Speaker 4 (00:24:12):

Don't

Speaker 2 (00:24:12):

Amazing.

Speaker 4 (00:24:13):

Most of the time you can't even find Goor merch online unless you're buying it used or through the Metal Blade Store, which only has a handful of designs, God, who is very unique in that they turn their shows into a real experience and people that may have never heard of that band, they walk away as diehard fans. And that's not to say God who is just a merch band. If you listen to their progression over the years, they're better with every single album. They get stellar reviews across the board and they're road warriors. It's some of the hardest working guys I've ever met.

Speaker 2 (00:24:51):

They're a great band, and they definitely always, they were a huge influence for my band when we were touring on how to do things professionally and how to sound good. Even their tone is incredible. But to me, I feel like without that merch, it would probably be really, really hard to keep going in that genre.

Speaker 4 (00:25:12):

I mean, absolutely. There's only so many people that can show up to that type of extreme metal show. So yeah, that's how they pay their bills is having cool merch, but then it really pays off and it's always high quality. And if we'd want to talk about weird merch, they had some really awesome hot sauce about a year ago that we still get a ton of requests on their Facebook page.

Speaker 2 (00:25:40):

But I mean, that just goes to show again though, you don't need to be the size of Zach Wild to tap into these types of ideas.

Speaker 4 (00:25:47):

Absolutely not. You just have that. You just need to have a cool idea and make sure it's actually cool, not just what you think is cool,

Speaker 2 (00:25:53):

And then figure out a way, get people to know that it exists and then price it properly. That's a whole other situation. Finn, question for you that I have is when you decide to take on something as far as helping to market it, what are you looking for? So we asked Dan what he's looking for. What are you looking for when you say yes?

Speaker 3 (00:26:24):

Well, I have a three-part formula for deciding whether I want to be part of anything. And so I think of it as like a triangle. There are three points on the triangle, which is good paycheck, cool people, and cool project, and anything needs to have at least two of those things in order for me to say yes to it. And fortunately, I don't have to worry about money so much. At a certain point in my career, I would've taken something just for the money I had to pay the rent. And I know a lot of people have probably in that same position. So there is a time in which you got to do what you got to do. But in general, I look for at least two of those three things. And then fortunately, I've been able to lately work on stuff where all three of those things are true, which is amazing.

(00:27:17):

But that's because I've been doing this stuff for 15 years now and I've slowly worked my way up to that point. But that's how I look at it, and that's how I would encourage anyone else to look at it too. And in particular, I know in a lot of creative fields, there's a real bias against doing free work. And if you do anything for free, like a test mix or a design, a concept for something without getting paid, people will come out of the woodwork and say, you're devaluing the industry and rah, rah, rah. And first of all, I don't agree with the fact that they're devaluing it, but aside from that, so look at it this way. If a local band who you do not know asks you to do a test mix, run it through that triangle, would you say yes to it?

(00:28:05):

Well, they're local bands, so there's not going to be any money involved. And unless if they're a local band, they're probably also not that good. So it's probably not that cool of a project. And if you don't know 'em, you can't really check the cool people box. And so I'd go, no, you shouldn't do that for free. On the other hand, if Dan calls you up and asks you if you want to do a test mix for the next Black Veil record for free, you better say yes because that's going to check all three of those boxes, or even the test project. It doesn't check the money box, but Dan's a great guy and it's a really cool project, so you should definitely say yes to doing that test mix for free.

Speaker 2 (00:28:47):

I did when I did work for Zach Wilde for free, I remember that Glasgow a few years ago, there was some sort of emergency with something that was going to ESPN, and he just asked me if I could do it, and I said yes, and money wasn't even a thing. I just wanted to do them a favor. And

Speaker 3 (00:29:10):

By the way, I'm pretty sure I did some stuff for you guys for URM and nailed the mix for free a long time ago just because you guys are my friends, I think you said, Hey, would you mind helping with such whatever it was, I don't remember. And yeah, sure, why not, because it checked two of those boxes, which is cool people and a cool project. I think URM is really cool and you guys are my friends, so yeah, I'm not worried about the money. Same with GGD, Matt Halpern. They were doing some digital marketing stuff and he said, Hey, would you mind taking a look at this? Just I want to see if we're doing it right. And I looked at it and I said, okay, you're definitely not doing it right. Let me fix it for you. And then that turned into working with them on a larger basis.

(00:29:53):

So yeah, that's how I would encourage anybody to look at it. And in general, especially if you're just starting out, you're never going to get lucky unless you roll the dice and being overly precious about your own worth is not going to get you anywhere. You should say yes to shit more often than you say no to shit when you're starting out. Do be smart about it and don't say yes to any Yahoo that comes along. But on the other hand, you never know where a given project is going to take you. And in general, I think you're exposing yourself to more upside by saying yes, as opposed to saying no, and then patting yourself on the back for playing hardball. You didn't get yourself anywhere.

Speaker 2 (00:30:38):

You got me thinking about something, which I think is always hilarious. And Dan, you probably have noticed this too, have you noticed that some of the people that play the hardest hardball are local bands when it comes to contracts?

Speaker 3 (00:30:55):

You we're not signing away our likeness rights. They're like, okay, fine. We didn't really want 'em anyway, it's just like a boilerplate thing in the agreement.

Speaker 2 (00:31:08):

Whenever I've done production contracts, it's always the local bands that are the worst about it. And literally the production contract is just, we're going to do this many songs and this length of time for this amount of money.

Speaker 3 (00:31:25):

I have something I want to say about contracts too, and again, I'd love to hear what you guys think about this since at the level that you guys are operating at. Contracts do matter. But here's my thought on contracts, which is my high level thought. There is a contract has never stopped an unethical person from being unethical. So if you think that because someone signed a contract saying that they would or would not do a thing that that's like the Silver Cross that prevents the vampire from entering your house, you're kidding yourself and vice versa, a good person is going to be a good person regardless of what it says in the contract. So I do think that you should be smart about that, and you should most certainly use protection and make sure that the contracts are in place. But on the other hand, don't play hardball and don't let one little line item in a contract scuttle a deal for you unless it's a really, really, really important line item. Because think about it this way. So let's say somebody does violate the contract, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sue 'em? No. So does it really matter?

Speaker 2 (00:32:39):

No, Dan, this was probably happened when mercenary shared the office with Sumerian, but do you remember two or three years ago when there was that battle for Sumerian winner who

Speaker 3 (00:32:53):

Got, oh, yeah, I remember that

Speaker 2 (00:32:54):

He got the contract. Yeah. And yeah, he went on. So for anyone who doesn't know this, Dan, maybe you can tell the story better than I can. You were probably actually there,

Speaker 4 (00:33:07):

Right? So I guess I start by saying, so Sson the founder of Sumerian Records, he's involved in many, many businesses within music, so he's able to do a lot with a band that's just starting out. And one of the cool things he did to give back and set up smaller bands for success was run a national battle of the bands, which resulted in the finalists being flown out for a showcase for Sumerian records executives and executives from every other large label in metal music managers, booking agents, publicists, attorneys, publishers, anyone you could think of plus a built-in audience that follows Sumerian records and their fans. And ultimately the ultimate prize was a contract with Sumerian Records. So I don't remember all the details, but I do remember Sumerian ended up giving contracts to the five finalists because they thought all of them were excellent. And there was some controversy with one of the bands that didn't agree with some of the lines in the contract, and I believe they posted it online,

Speaker 3 (00:34:27):

Which is super unprofessional. It was a long video.

Speaker 4 (00:34:30):

So it is super not pro instead of dealing with the label directly. And at least in my opinion, kind of watching it unfold, I did think it was super unprofessional, but I'm going to tell these bands right now, some labels are better than others. Sumerian records, I started my career with Sumerian and I shared office space with them for years. They break bands, and that's just the reality of it. Certain labels, if you're on them, you just have a much higher chance of becoming popular because people pay attention to them. Sumerian is a trendsetter in metal today, the same way that Epitaph Records was a trendsetter when I was getting into punk music, you immediately pay attention to a band because they're on a certain label. So to me, I thought it was kind of petty. If I was in a metal band and Sumerian or Metal Blade or one of those types of labels came to me with a recording contract, I wouldn't fight too much on it.

Speaker 3 (00:35:32):

Here's another example of what I'm talking about is let's say that you are a producer and you get some local band to sign a contract saying they're going to pay you $500 or whatever for your work, and then they don't pay you. What are you going to do? Fax them the contract and say You are in breach of contract?

Speaker 2 (00:35:53):

No.

Speaker 3 (00:35:53):

Do you know what I mean? So of course you should have that stuff in place. But my point is that it's kind of another thing of people I guess, putting the cart before the horse and worrying about things that at the end of the day don't matter. And if you are so concerned about a person screwing you that you want to fight tooth and nail over some line item on a contract, then don't work with that person. If you trust them, the contract is going to work. If you trust them, then you should work with them. If you don't trust them, then you should not work with them. And no line item on a contract is going to turn an untrustworthy person into a trustworthy person. I guess what I'm trying to say,

Speaker 2 (00:36:36):

For me, those contracts were not for in case I got stiff for 500 bucks, they were for, if I was doing some sort of a spec deal or a development sort of situation where if they got signed from the work, the label wouldn't be able to ditch me without a buyout. And so in that,

Speaker 3 (00:36:54):

And how many times did they ditch you anyway?

Speaker 2 (00:36:56):

Never.

Speaker 3 (00:36:58):

I bet they did.

Speaker 2 (00:36:59):

Never. That's exactly, it was just a backup plan. But if a band ditched me or something, what am I going to do? Hire a lawyer for a few to try to recover maybe a few thousand dollars? No, of course not.

Speaker 4 (00:37:15):

You know what? I want to add something real quick. If we're on the topic of recording contracts, musicians that have issues with whatever line items they need to keep in mind, a record label is like a bank. They're putting money into you and they expect a return on investment. All these companies, booking agencies, managers, publishers, they're all for-profit businesses and they want to protect their investment. So if you're not willing to give up, let's say you likeness for some merch designs, then you should at least counter with maybe another revenue stream that they can tap into to make sure that that they're able to recoup on whatever money they spent on you plus make some profit like everybody else wants to make. And I know these are kind of taboo things people don't want to talk about. It's art, people shouldn't be making money off of it, but we all have bills to pay. We all have families to feed. And that's just the reality. If you're not ready to accept that reality, you're probably not ready to be signed because it's going to suck when you start going on tour and you're looking at rate reductions because the promoter, you're not selling tickets in the promoter, doesn't want to lose his house overpaying you.

Speaker 3 (00:38:30):

And again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, if you are so goddamn good at your craft, most of these things will just take care of themselves because you have something they need, which is you are a great producer or a great performer or something like that. And that is the answer to almost all of these problems is yes, you should be smart and you should certainly care about your business. But if you are really, really, really undeniably fucking awesome at what you do, these problems will mostly solve.

Speaker 2 (00:38:58):

Now, a lot of these stories about the evil record labels and all that come from a whole different era too. And what we're not in any way, shape or form in encouraging people not to read contracts or get a lawyer or try to negotiate a better deal, what we're saying is don't be an idiot.

Speaker 3 (00:39:17):

Don't be an idiot about it and don't negotiate. Yeah. So I should be more clear. Don't negotiate as though you have a lot of leverage when you actually do not have any leverage.

Speaker 2 (00:39:28):

Yeah, exactly. We're not saying just take a deal where they own your name and likeness for the next 200 years, and you can't do anything in case the band breaks up and things like that. Obviously you don't want to screw yourself over for life. And you hear about stories like that from dumb artists from the eighties who or something who signed over every single thing forever and then couldn't have a career once their band broke up.

Speaker 3 (00:39:58):

And if you do want to pass on it, that's fine too, but do it respectfully. Just say, Hey, we super appreciative of your interest in working with us. I think there's just a little bit too much distance between what we think is a fair offer and what you think is a fair offer, and we're just going to move on, but we'd love to keep in touch and maybe work together someday and then just leave it at that. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:40:22):

Totally. So Dan, what do you think about producers getting managers? And this is funny because when I was a producer, Blasco managed me for a while, but what are your thoughts on that? I think me personally, I think it's almost unnecessary, but what do you think?

Speaker 4 (00:40:45):

Well, I guess before I jump into it, I should say for those that don't know, Blasco is my boss and owner and founder of Mercenary Management,

Speaker 2 (00:40:54):

And we love him.

Speaker 4 (00:40:55):

Yeah, he's super awesome,

Speaker 3 (00:40:56):

Very smart guy.

Speaker 4 (00:40:57):

But I don't really think I'm fully qualified to say whether producers and mixers and whatever need management, everybody has different needs. If you're operating on the level of Bob Rock, yeah, I'm sure he has somebody managing his career, but also there's some people that could just do it themselves, that their mind just operates in that way, that they're able to handle both sides of their career or whatever. So there's really, really no one right answer. I know that the people that do have a successful management career working with producers, they only work with producers and managers typically specialize in something. Myself, I specialize in social media marketing. Blasco specializes in branding and building businesses. So the ones that work that manage producers, they typically specialize in. They either used to be a producer or they specialize in publishing or something more relevant to a producer. How

Speaker 3 (00:42:07):

Many producers are there in the world of rock and metal who even need to ask themselves the question, should I have a manager?

Speaker 4 (00:42:18):

I think this is better answered by Al.

Speaker 3 (00:42:22):

Very few. Yeah, exactly. Very

Speaker 2 (00:42:24):

Few.

Speaker 3 (00:42:24):

You don't need to answer that question, is my take on that. It's asking what kind of fuel should the space shuttle use be like, if you're one of the guys that is responsible for running the space shuttle, then you should worry about it. Otherwise just leave it to them.

Speaker 2 (00:42:40):

Well, it's one of those things where we just get asked that question a lot at the URM Academy, which is should I look for a manager? Should I look for a manager? It's like, why a manager?

Speaker 3 (00:42:50):

Do you think you should go out with Demi Lovato or Selena Gomez?

Speaker 2 (00:42:54):

Yeah, it's like first, a producer manager is not going to make your career. All they're going to do is help negotiate contracts for you. And if you're big, if you're Andrew Wade or Will Putney or something or bigger than those guys, then yes, maybe they can help get you gigs. But as a producer, you get gigs because an artist wants you. That's basically it. That's pretty much 90% of where your gigs are going to come from. And so if there's no demand among artists for your services, no manager is going to create that demand for you. The manager does not create your demand. They basically will make sure that the label pays you. And the number one reason that I know that producers get managers, and this is why I got Blasco too, and he did a great job for me with this, and this is why this is the reason, is because most labels, not all, like Dan said earlier, different, not all labels are created equal in terms of their ability to break bands. Not all labels are created equal in their willingness

Speaker 3 (00:44:01):

To pay invoices.

Speaker 2 (00:44:02):

Yes, exactly. And I got sick and fucking tired of getting paid three months after a record came out. And so I hired Blasco. And that's the number one reason that I know that my producer friends get managers, is because there's a five figure bill that they have $150 on their bank account, yet someone owes them 25 grand and they're behind on their rent payments when they shouldn't be because the label won't pay them. And that's why they get managers. It's not because the manager is going to get them a gig because the gigs come through the artists or the labels.

Speaker 3 (00:44:43):

And when you were managed by Blasco, you were one of a handful of people working on the really elite billboard top 20 metal artists. And there's what maybe, I don't know, at most 20 people in the world that are in that circle. It's probably less than 20, it's probably more like 10.

Speaker 2 (00:45:07):

Yeah. So I was working on lots of big records, and I got to a breaking point where I could no longer keep on bothering labels without totally ruining my relationships with them. So I reached a desperation point where it was like, okay, I need someone to take over someone who's bigger than me in the scene, who is more respected than me, who can just make a phone call and get me my fucking check. And

Speaker 3 (00:45:39):

It made sense from Blasco perspective because there was enough money on the table that his percentage was worth his time. So if these were local bands that you are nagging over 750 bucks, Blasco would not do

Speaker 2 (00:45:51):

It. And all he had to do was make that phone call in Presto, it's done. He didn't have to develop me or anything like that. I don't think he would've done it if he had to develop me. And then of course, I stopped producing bands because this is better. What I'm doing now is way better. But I just want to point out for all of you guys who are listening who are at the beginnings of your careers as producers who are asking if you should get managers unless you're not getting paid or something. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:46:29):

I remember when I was doing graphic design, which is essentially, it works the same way as music does the same way as being a producer does really, I remember always working so hard on building these portfolio sites and sending out, I print out these elaborate portfolios and stuff and send them people that I wanted to work with and stuff. And it never, well, I shouldn't say it never worked out, but it didn't work out for a long time. And I remember just being so frustrated by it and looking back on it, it's because my work wasn't very good, or it was just, okay, I should say it wasn't bad, it was just mediocre. And all that time that I spent sending out these portfolios and stuff like that, and probably making myself look stupid in the process because I'm sending it to this world-class agency and they're going, why is this Scrubs sending us his average portfolio, just throwing it in the trash? My time would've been much better spent just focusing and getting better at my craft. And when I did get better, then people started noticing and hitting me up and it kind of solved itself. So I want to be super clear that I by no means, I'm not saying that people should put self-promotion and that sort of thing to the side and not care about it. You definitely have to care about it. But my point is that you can't put it ahead of your craft. And I feel like that happens a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:47:53):

So how do you guys feel about some questions from the audience now? S they submitted. Do it. Yeah. Cool. Let's finish this out with some audience questions then. Alright, so here is the first one, and these were asked to Dan. So Dan, you take them first, but me and Finn will jump in after you give your answer. So here's one from David sdo, which is what are the top three pitfalls of up and coming bands?

Speaker 4 (00:48:28):

Okay, I think we covered a lot of this already, but I would say the number one kind of pitfall that I see coming from bands at least that are submitting to me is they worry way too much about marketing and all this needless stuff when they should be, at least in my opinion, focused on creating something that's marketable and that's creating a good song that's a high quality recording. And I can't even tell you how many poor recordings I get. And it always strikes me as weird being like, Hey, everything we've ever put out sounds awesome. Why are you sending me something that sounds like it was recorded in a toilet? And again, I'm being honest right now because I hope some of the listeners will be able to take some of this knowledge and use it. But yeah, the number one pitfall is, at least in my experience, they worry way too much about marketing themselves as opposed to creating something that's marketable and of value.

Speaker 2 (00:49:28):

Let me add something to that that's really, really important. So I did a lot of studying on marketing, digital marketing over the past few years, and I know a lot of people who have to, and I've had a lot of success with my efforts because I focused on marketing something that people really wanted nail the mix. And whenever I used those, my knowledge of how to market on stuff that people didn't want, it didn't matter what tricks I used or anything. So all the marketing knowledge in the world didn't mean shit if I didn't have something that people actually wanted. So I feel like that's the exact same thing that you just said, which is create something people want first, then you can market it.

Speaker 4 (00:50:11):

And then I think number two, I would say probably they don't invest in themselves or at least not enough. And by investing in yourself, that's everything from maybe taking guitar lessons or vocal lessons, even professionals do this. It's something that you need performance lessons, getting into shape, looking cool on stage. Aesthetics matter where especially if you're in metal, it is easy enough to put on a black t-shirt and black jeans, but there needs to be some kind of dividing line between the band that people paid to see and the people in the audience. But it also comes in the form of if you're at that point where you need to market yourself, invest in ads, invest in good equipment, in high quality recordings, because again, going back to number one, it's a bad look when you send somebody a value, a poor sounding recording, that's not the first impression you want to make of your band and they don't invest in themselves. And three, they may just not have the talent, sorry to say, but not everyone's destined to be a rock star and not everybody can write a hit song.

Speaker 3 (00:51:25):

I want to ask you something about kind of that third point you guys, and from what I understand, this is one of Blas CO's big things, you guys work with bands in which there is clear like charismatic star power at play. Can you talk about the role that plays? I mean because something you're either born with or you're not. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 4 (00:51:51):

Correct. So the saying goes is that people say mercenary only manages rock stars. And what they mean by that is charisma. And that kind of X-Factor, star power plays such a significant role in the success of what you're doing. Someone like Zach Wild or Andy Biersack from Black Fell Brides, they would've been successful at anything they wanted to do if it's acting, modeling, Zach Sports, whatever, because they have that drive and that on-camera personality that just makes people like them. And I can't fully explain it, but it's the same star factor that movie stars have. And when they walk into a room that they're rock stars, they command an audience's attention. And actually the best example I want to use would be Heidi and Carla from the Butcher Babies who I used to work with, even people that weren't familiar with the band or didn't like that band, whatever the case is, when they took the stage, everyone paid attention.

(00:53:04):

I mean, I've been at festivals with them when I've seen people drop everything that they were doing, drop their beers or cigarettes or whatever, stop mid-conversation to watch Heidi jumping 20 feet in the air. Your ability to command an audience is what's going to set you apart from the hundreds of other bands in your scene playing the exact same style of music and having the exact same stage bander and whatever. I guess that's the best way I can put it, is just that there is a star power quality and that is a very defining factor in how far you'll take your career assuming your band breaks.

Speaker 2 (00:53:45):

And I think it's that it factor that everybody talks about. You just know it when you see it.

Speaker 3 (00:53:51):

And do you think that can be, if a band doesn't have that, is there anything that they can do to create it? Or what are your thoughts on that? If you see a band that just doesn't have that, maybe they have some good songs and good production and they're doing everything right and you go, I'm not really seeing the rockstar factor, how do you look at that?

Speaker 4 (00:54:11):

I mean, yes and no. I would think an example to use would be Spencer from periphery. When he first joined Periphery, he was kind of like a quiet kid or whatever, but over the years he's really grown into himself and now you see periphery and that dude looks like M shadows on stage. So he's really grown into it and built that confidence and it shows in his performance. Some people certainly are born with it. Some people are just born really good looking or naturally funny or whatever, but others, they invest in themselves. If you're not naturally charismatic, take some speaking lessons, do whatever you need to do. But if you're serious about this, then you will. If a professional touring musician can take guitar lessons, then you certainly as a front man or a front woman, shouldn't be opposed to taking maybe an improv class, something to better yourself on stage.

Speaker 2 (00:55:13):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:55:13):

And then meet, sorry to cut you off.

Speaker 2 (00:55:15):

That's okay.

Speaker 4 (00:55:17):

With press, there's something called media coaching, which is a whole separate thing. But yeah, the way you interact with press and then the way you interact with fans, those are equally as important and those are all different types of charisma and personality traits and you need to develop all of it.

Speaker 3 (00:55:36):

Do your big artists, do you actually have them do media coaching?

Speaker 4 (00:55:40):

We haven't, but we've also been very fortunate in that Zach has been doing this almost all of his life, and so has Andy, and those are two, my two star clients. Andy from Blackville started out as a child actor, and so he's been acting at a very young age. So they were both really,

Speaker 3 (00:56:00):

Yeah, I was specifically wondering about Andy because he is so good with the media choosing his words. Yeah, he's very good in the media and I was curious if he had had any training in that.

Speaker 4 (00:56:12):

Right. So it is not something that we've done, but we're certainly not opposed to it. And when you start performing at those higher levels where you're a billboard top 10 act, if you're not naturally charismatic or you don't have acting experience or whatever, you're certainly getting media coaching. Your publicist is pulling you aside and they're telling you the proper way to interact with certain members of the press. And if you've ever been to Apma or Golden Gods or whatever, and an artist is doing the red carpet, they need to knock out dozens of interviews in a very short period of time. So they need to be able to give a good interview very quickly and hit all the important points and

Speaker 3 (00:56:55):

Do that 10 times in a row. Yes. Without fucking any of 'em up.

Speaker 4 (00:56:59):

And say it in an interesting way, something that's interesting enough to where it's going to make the magazine or it's going to make the website or whatever else. Nobody wants to end up on the cutting room floor.

Speaker 3 (00:57:10):

I have a thought that's sort of related to this. The media training thing made me think of it as that, speaking in particular about producers is, so one of the things I've done a whole bunch of my career is presentations and pitches, whether that's to my bosses at the company or to clients that we want to work with or something like that. And people have told me that I'm pretty good at them and I think I am. And the reason why is because I practice those literally down to the word. I mean, I guess I don't do it as much anymore, but I used to, if we had a presentation coming up with one of our clients years ago, I would sit down in a room for four hours with one of my friends that I worked with and we would practice it and he would interrupt me in the middle of a sentence and say, no, no, no, I think you should say, don't say they need this. Say we think it would be great if you did blah, blah, blah. We would rehearse this thing down to the word. And I think that this idea of practicing your people skills, I think is something that I would love for producers to walk away from, because I don't think that's talked about very often, but that will pay bigger dividends than almost anything else. And it is a learned skill. Some people are just naturally amazing at it, but it is a learned skill that you can get better at through practice. No different than mixing. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:58:30):

I totally agree. Let's move on to another question. So here's another one from David sdo, which is in lieu of touring, is it possible to build a substantial fan base through internet marketing and advertising?

Speaker 4 (00:58:44):

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. The internet and social media are just so powerful. I think Finn would probably be the best answer to this question, but I do want to remind people that, again, Blackville Brides was huge, massively successful band before they ever went on their first tour. It was all through MySpace and YouTube videos, they built their career from the absolute ground up from the very bottom with almost no funding at all. But I'll Finn jump in with the marketing segment.

Speaker 3 (00:59:19):

Well, I mean, I'm not an expert on breaking artists by any means. I was going to say the opposite. I would say, Dan, you're the expert on that, but

Speaker 2 (00:59:27):

Well, let me just say Job for Cowboy Suicide, silence, white Chapel, these are all bands that were big on social media.

Speaker 3 (00:59:37):

Periphery was a forum band.

Speaker 2 (00:59:38):

Yes, that's right. Long before they became touring acts. And then you see bands like Keith Marrow's Band and Conquering Dystopia for instance. That's that super group with Alex Webster and Alex Reger, Keith Marrow, they were an internet thing before they ever became a touring thing. It's absolutely possible to do that, but don't forget from the previous question point number one, which is worry about making something marketable before marketing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):

And also they didn't punish people with unsolicited emails and Facebook messages and shit like that to build that following. They just used the internet as a way of surfacing the thing that they were doing, which was great. I mean, suicide Silence is a fucking great band. And Job Free Cowboy when they came out were totally fresh and new. And so what the internet did was just allow people to discover them. It didn't, to your point before, it didn't create demand for them. It just sort of allowed people to discover this thing that was awesome. So I think we would all agree that it's totally possible to build up a huge online fan base, but just don't be a Punisher online, just the same as you wouldn't be in person. And then the other thing that I would add there, and Dan, I know you've seen this too, there's one particular example of this that just really blew me away was back in 2009 on Warp Tour Millionaires played that year.

(01:01:07):

And at that time, and I think maybe they still do have a huge online following, but especially back then, they just were gigantic online. And yet when they played Warp Tour, there were maybe like 35 kids there or something that actually showed up to see them. And I saw the same thing happen with a few other bands. And so the thing I would caution there is don't necessarily think that an online following will translate into anything other than an online following. It might and it will or it can just like some of the examples we've talked about. But there's also examples of bands that are only popular on the internet and completely fail in any other context.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):

Yeah. So, alright, next question. And here's one from Jonathan Grob Grub. Sorry dude, I don't know how to pronounce your name. Forgive me. What are the top three things that would make you drop an act from managing? And have you ever reached out to some newbies that you thought had potential if you were to manage them?

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):

That is an excellent question, and the answers are probably not what they would expect, but probably the number one reason part ways with bands would be I just don't have the time. We kind of pride ourselves in being able to focus all of our energy and all of our best ideas into our artists and everybody wants to feel like they're getting the most out of the relationship. So unfortunately there's only so much time in the day, and a lot of times we're just not able to devote the required amount of attention to all these artists. So if our roster gets too big and we're unable to devote the time needed, we will part ways with the artists, obviously, we'll part ways amicably, but we're not going to let them suffer because we want to make a buck dishonestly. I guess that would be the best way to put it.

(01:03:11):

So yeah, number one reason, I just don't have the time for it. Number two reason we've dropped an act would think probably we've gone as far as we can go with that artist whether we've taken them to our limit and they need to upgrade or our ideas just aren't working and maybe they need to go to a smaller management company where they can be looked at with more focus or maybe go to a different manager with a different specialty. Because like I said, every manager's got their own specialized thing. So yeah, I would think that'd be the second one.

(01:03:54):

It was that time. We've reached our limit and there's not much else you can do and most bands don't want to plateau. They want to continue to grow. And then the third one, honestly, bands break up. So there's no need to manage a band's estate or a band that's not active or they're on an extended hiatus. We'd rather just clear the roster and make room for either a developing act that has potential or just reinvest that energy into our existing acts. And this is something that's happened recently where we've parted ways with a big chunk of our roster because we knew that we needed to continue focusing on the acts that have been with us for seven, eight years versus the acts that have been with us for just a couple years. They would be better off working somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):

Fair enough. So hey Dan, do you have a little while to keep answering some questions because Finn has got to take off, but if you still have time, we'd love to keep going. So Finn, thank you so much for being a part of this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):

Thanks for having me. Always great to talk with either of you guys. I would highly recommend that anybody who's in any aspect of the music business, follow Dan on all the social media and pay close attention to what he has to say. Very smart man. So you made a good call by having him on. So I will hop off and look forward to hearing the rest of your words of wisdom. Dan,

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):

Thanks for being here, dude. I'll

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):

See you. Bye now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):

It's just you and me, baby.

(01:05:34):

So I want to key in on something that you just said about sometimes downgrading to smaller management. And in my experience, and remember, I got signed a Roadrunner out the gate and was with the agency group and then went to agency group was a booking agent. I had been with Century Media and got booked by Finberg also and had Dan Rosenberg for a while and various different managers and have done it all. Had a solo record on Magna Carta records and in my production career was managed by Blasco but also worked with Jason Soff and Mark Lewis who were managed by Laura Richardson when she was alive. And then they moved to Good Fight. And so I've kind of been through it all at this point, have had various publicists from the amazing George Val to the now defunct Fresno Media. Now we're with Maria Ferrero and I've been around the block at this point, and I can tell you and I can tell everyone that it's not about the size of the manager or the agent or label, it's about how much they care about you.

(01:06:54):

I mean, within reason. Of course, you can't go with a local Yoko who has no reach and think that they're going to do big things for you just because they care. But once you're in the big leagues, you don't need to be at the a plus level to get a plus results. What you need is someone who believes in you, who's going to prioritize you, and if you go with an a plus level manager or label or something and you're at the bottom of their roster, that's arguably way worse than being at a B level management firm but being at the top of their roster.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):

Yeah, I mean what you said is absolutely accurate. I don't want to say so much my company, but yeah, even at Mercenary Management, your results are going to need to compete with the results of Zach Wild and Black Label Society and Black Veil Brides and Goat who and these well-established bands and any of the management companies that are even above us, you still need to compete with their top shelf clients because you're competing for the management companies time and the resources. But when I say downgrade, it doesn't mean downgrade in the level of ability, but maybe you're a mid-level band that's catching a lot of momentum and you need to be somebody's priority client. And actually a really good example you brought up my good friend George Val,

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):

Love you, George.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):

Yes. I hope he's listening. He's one of the best publicists I've ever worked with hands down, one of the best in metal and rock and roll, but he, he's also a manager and he doesn't roll with some huge, massive management company. He doesn't have some jaw dropping roster, but he does provide a very valuable service in that he kicks ass at what he does. He's able to plug you in with all the right people, and since he's also a publicist, you have that skill that you would normally pay thousands of dollars for that your management is taken care of. So while that may be a step down from let's say slip knots management or whatever, it could be the very move that breaks your band or is exactly where that band needs to be, because like I said earlier, every band has different needs and some people are just better cut out for those needs than others.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):

And if you got with Slipknots management, they're going to balance you with Slipknot and I wouldn't want to be in that position.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):

Yeah, it's tough, and just because you're rolling with a certain manager, just because you're with Mercenary Management doesn't guarantee you a Black Label Society tour. Just because you're managed by someone that plays in Ozzy Osborne doesn't guarantee you the opening slot on a Black Sabbath tour. You need to weigh your needs with their talents with the talent of the management company.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):

Yeah, great answer. Okay, so here's one from Jacob Turko, which is considering that the best way to spread your music is to, one, have awesome music, and then two, let it spread via social media's power of word of mouth because people like it. What's the best way to get it going? I often plan ahead of time, email hundreds of reviewers magazines and Facebook pages, but I run out of options as soon as I do that, and I feel like I could do a whole lot more. Let's say you have enough visual content in top quality. What are the most effective ways to approach a potential fan base?

Speaker 4 (01:10:29):

You know what? I honestly think they're taking the wrong approach. This goes back to creating something marketable instead of trying to market yourself. Finn has a great saying, which is do newsworthy shit.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):

It's true.

Speaker 4 (01:10:46):

It's absolutely true. If you're in that position where you need to hunt down reviewers and press, you probably shouldn't be wasting your time with it, and that's just my opinion. I'm sure somewhere there's a blogger that's trying to blacklist me right now, but I've dealt with plenty of bands that no Press ever wanted to cover, and they are very successful. Black Phil Brides and Butcher Babies being excellent examples of people nobody wanted to cover for years and years. Forget about all that you need to focus. If you already have an awesome song, then you need to focus on making an equally awesome music video for it. If you're spending money on a publicist to get reviewers and whatever, press, forget about that. Put it into a Facebook ad campaign. Do something where it benefits you when you get a feature, even if it's something as awesome and whatever, a review and AP Magazine or a Premier and AP or Revolver, yeah, that's awesome.

(01:11:48):

It does cool things for your ego, but it's not really going to help your band because those websites are going to, they need your clicks, they need you to send traffic to them, and if you're not doing it or you don't hit what they project or what they need, you're just burning a bridge with somebody that could be a close allied later on. And with reviewers, most reviewers, at least the ones that are going to review an up and coming no name band, they're probably not taste makers or influencers, and I'm sorry to say that, but

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):

It's true though.

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):

Anyone that's ran a website would know that those get the fewest clicks and the fewest eyeballs and nobody really pays attention to it. Sorry, bloggers, but to go back to it, reinvest into that time and energy and money into something that directly benefits you. A Facebook ad campaign goes a very, very long way. A great music video goes a very long way. Whatever else. If your music's awesome and you've kind of ran out of options, make more music. If you're kind of getting to that level where serious press is starting to poke around, because I know a lot of these bigger websites like Metal Sex and metal injection do cover unsigned bands. At that point. Maybe it is time to start looking into a publicist or a PR person or at least have somebody to help you build the story and to build that relationship with these price outlets. But if you're really going out there and spending this much time emailing them, whatever, you're probably doing the wrong thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):

Absolutely. Here's one from Sean Doty, which is after you get signed and are on a small label, how should a band's priority shift and what's the best way to take the momentum of added team members and run with it?

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):

Well, I guess it depends on what you would qualify as a small record label. Like most people would think Metal Blade is a big label, but it's small compared to Roadrunner, and then Roadrunner is small compared to Republic or whatever. So it depends on how you define it, but how to carry that momentum. It depends on what momentum you have. That could be from, let's say you have a song that's crushing it on Spotify and you're getting hundreds of thousands of listens a week. You'll probably want to get with let's say a booking agent. And at least how I imagine that scenario going is if I had that, I would get the analytics, see what cities and states those streams are coming from, and if there's a way to route a tour around it or if there's already an existing tour going through that area and maybe either buy on or come in as a support band, but with a record label.

(01:14:34):

They have marketing departments, they have people whose job it is to structure something around your band to capture that momentum and keep gaining it because it is different with every band and every scenario and every record label. There's certain record labels that don't focus on any of that, but they kill it at regular radio. And their entire marketing plan focuses on taking your single to active rock. Others don't pay attention to radio at all, and they just have a heavy focus on music videos and the visual component of it, and there's no wrong answer there, but yeah, that's something you need to really work with your team on, and hopefully if you have the right team members, they'll be able to build you up and couch that momentum that you have going.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):

All right, here's one from Liam Knott, which is any recommendations of what artists should be doing before they contact labels or what will attract the interest of labels?

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):

Yeah. I mean, record labels want hype and they want sales. They want a band that people are excited about and they want those people to be excited enough to buy a cd and a t-shirt. But yeah, if your hardest set on submitting to a record label, please just submit the highest quality recording. That's really all it comes down to. All the business stuff is nice, and if you can submit tour finals or show finals merch sales and streams, that's great, but don't be that band that sends a horrible recording to a record label. That is literally what the record label does is they sell music, so it needs to appeal to them. But yeah, when I was at Sumerian Records and we would have these a and r meetings, we would always talk about whatever up and coming band we were listening to, what's the hype on the street? Are people talking about them? Well, if people are talking about them, then there's something there. If no one's talking about you, then you're going to have a much harder sell to that record label.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):

Here's another question, and I'm actually curious about this, which is how did you get into this line of work? How did this even happen?

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):

Well, I like telling this story because my career before this was in banking.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):

Banking,

Speaker 4 (01:16:50):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):

What

Speaker 4 (01:16:51):

I went to college for, finance, dropped out, got into retail banking and ended up as a bank manager and then a private banking financial advisor working on investment portfolios for millionaires or whatever. But around 2007, we had the financial collapse bank started laying everyone off. So my branch closed down and I was faced with a very tough decision.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):

So you picked the music industry. That's smart,

Speaker 4 (01:17:24):

Kind of. It started out with, I very loosely knew Blasco because he used to manage a hardcore band that I was friends with, and I saw a posting for new management company needs, an intern that's familiar with punk rock. And so I'm sitting there thinking, well, I'm unemployed. I need something to fill up my time while I look for new banking jobs, so I'm going to do this and listen to punk music. I emailed him and we hit it off, and it turned out to be really fun. My first assignment as an intern, as I think I was like 24 at the time as an intern, was working the MySpace account for a punk band called The Casualties, which actually I had grown up listening to them, and I'm a huge fan of punk rock, but little by little, I started opening up revenue streams at first for the casualties, then for other bands we were working with, and really carved out a salary for myself.

(01:18:28):

So by the time it hit around the one year mark when banks were back on their feet and they were starting to hire again, I had another decision to make, which is, do I want to try to make music into a career or do I want to go back into banking? And I don't know if I made the right decision, but I chose to go with music and I was able to kind of show blasco my results of, Hey, I opened up this revenue stream, this revenue stream, this revenue stream. If we put it together, this is how much the company makes, and we can carve out this budget to pay me. Because up until the one year point or so, I was not collecting any money. I tried to do some freelance stuff here and there, but I had no experience, so nobody was going to pay me for it. So that was something I really had to invest in myself, and fortunately I had savings from my banking job to be able to live off of

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):

Smart man. Hey, all of you guys who are listening who want to take plunge from having your day jobs to being full-time audio producer guys, take note of what Dan did. He had savings.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):

Well, yes, that's very important because even for the first couple years or even longer than that in music, the paychecks weren't really enough to make a living off of. You're getting paid, but it's tough to survive, and it's a very competitive field, and there's always going to be somebody younger willing to work for less. If you really want to break through, my single best advice is find revenue streams, find ways to make your company money, and from that money that you generate, carve out a budget that is going to be able to pay you. You're going to turn yourself into a sustainable business.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):

That's such a great answer, man, and it's really, really, really relevant because I guarantee you that thousands of our listeners are wondering how the hell they're going to quit their day jobs and make this happen.

Speaker 4 (01:20:24):

Well, yeah. It's not something that happens overnight. You're going to just slowly start to build up your credibility and the amount of money you can ask for or get paid. I've been in this almost 10 years. It took me years and years before I was able to really do one job, which is just management. For years, I was working at Samaritan Records and mercenary management and a booking agency called The Pantheon Agency, and I had all these side gigs within music. It was all under the music umbrella, but they were all different jobs, and that's what I needed to pay rent. And that's kind of what most people end up doing while they're starting out. That's the only way to get that experience and to make those connections to where you can ask for larger sums of money.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):

So as a producer, that could mean you do live sound to nights a week at a club, and then you edit drums for someone that's bigger than you one day a week or two days a week, and maybe you intern for free at another studio and clean their toilets and bring them coffee. And then at nights you record your buddies or some local bands and then you do all these different things and over time increase your value and your reputation until you get a break or you just start getting better bands organically. It's the same idea.

Speaker 4 (01:21:45):

That's exactly it. It's a tough business and not everyone's cut out for it, but those that work hard and really, really want it, they'll figure it out. They'll figure out some way to make it work.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):

Yeah, totally. Here's one from Tyler Rodriguez, which is, so band A wants to make it big so far they're only playing small local shows around their area. What should they be focusing on and striving for

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):

Selling out those local shows? It is way too early at that point to think about breaking it big and doing big things. Your goal should be to sell out your local shows with regularity and then what's it sell? Local shows, start playing shows 10, 20, 30 freeway exits away and sell those out too. You still have a long way to go.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):

Oh yeah. It's funny, my band never played local shows before we got signed, but Well, because the Atlanta scene sucked and they were mean to us. We didn't get it. There was too much infighting in the scene. We didn't want to be a part of it, but we focused on playing shows all over the region and building a fan base that way. But what you could do in 2005 is different than now.

Speaker 4 (01:22:57):

Right. Actually, we had an interesting scenario. We used to manage a band called In This Moment,

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):

I already know them.

Speaker 4 (01:23:05):

Yes. And so Blasco found them on MySpace and the guitarist, Chris had this great thing going, which we later discovered is called the Leapfrog Technique, but maybe this is something that can help the listeners. What he did was he's Los Angeles based, so he would connect with other bands maybe in Arizona and Vegas and Bakersfield, San Diego, whatever, and he would say, Hey, in Los Angeles we're worth a hundred tickets on our own any given out of the week. We see you're about the same in your town. How about we drive out to Las Vegas, play a show opening for you, and then you come out to LA and play a show opening for us? And I mean, it worked out great,

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):

Smart.

Speaker 4 (01:23:54):

They were doing their own little West Coast mini tours selling a couple hundred tickets a night, even during the weeknights before they had any label or management interest. And granted, this was a long time ago, but I think you could still do it. And it was a very smart idea. And so if for the person that asked the question, if they feel they've played out the local scene, talk to a band 50 miles away. If you're worth tickets and they're worth tickets, trade off, do something cool. There's a lot of really great bands out there

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):

That's a smart idea. And Chris in this moment are a smart band. I know that there's plenty of times when people thought that they were finished where they just reinvented themselves and got even bigger. And I mean, I thought they were finished too, so I think everybody did except for them, and they just goes to show smart people in that band. Here's one from Jonathan Linton, which is what should a band prepare to send inquiries to record labels as a general rule? That's a weirdly worded question, but I think I understand what he's asking. I'll read it again. What should a band prepare to send inquiries to record labels as a general rule,

Speaker 4 (01:25:10):

It's the same thing. How about a record label only cares about, not only cares, but their main priority is some music. So you need to have good music, and I don't think you don't need to send them a 10 track demo cd, none of that. Take your single best song, make sure it's of the highest quality, and email it over to them or submit it however they prefer it submitted. I know with Sumerian records, we also really liked getting tour finals and whatever numbers we can get so we can get a better snapshot of the band. If you have good looking promo photos, that helps, but it needs to be good looking. Don't send something where you are wearing plaid shorts and you look like a doofus unless that's your actual look. You want to present yourself the same way you'd present yourself on stage.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):

Paul, let me just add that really bad band photos and things like that are something that gets shared in the industry. It's like, look at those guys.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of unfortunately true. I've had some really bad ones mailed to us, but you know what? I want to talk on a positive note. I've gotten some really great ones too. I don't know if I'm allowed to mention the band by name or not, so I won't. But I've had quite a few make these really intricate EPKs that were just tailor made for Sumerian records or for mercenary management, and they would mail it to us, which I thought it was a little weird, but they would connect with me first and ask for the address and whatever, and it would come with a handwritten letter by the band, Dan, we see you manage these bands. We really love what you do, and this is our band. This is about us. This is why we think we would be a good fit for your roster.

(01:27:02):

Here's reviews from guys you manage that also agree with us. And there was quotes from bands that I work with that played shows with these guys, or they worked with them to what? Building them up. And then they included flyers and posters from past shows and all these things to what I mean, the band just couldn't be ignored. And the music was great as well, but the band just couldn't be ignored, and it wasn't just some random email that they shot off. They really thought about this, and they really weighed their options and looked at which company would be best for them, which record label would be best. And they did their homework and it was very impressive. And when we got one like that for Sumerian Records, it went straight to Ash Albertson's desk. He was the person that called the band. It wasn't somebody in the a and r department, it was the head of the fucking company. Sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed.

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):

Oh yeah, you can fucking say whatever you goddamn want.

Speaker 4 (01:28:04):

Awesome. So yeah, something like that went straight up to the very top and they got a personal call from the head of the record label, and that Bandit sent me the letter from Mercenary management. I called them myself. It wasn't an ignore, it wasn't an instant message or an email. It was direct contact. And sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. But you always want to present yourself in the best possible way. And those were two very great stories of bands that went above and beyond. And I really have to say, getting quotes from people we already work with from artists that we already work with or manage, goes a long way.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):

That is so smart. They're

Speaker 4 (01:28:45):

Vouching for you and they know what it takes. They're doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):

That's so smart on so many levels because one of the best ways to get a door open for you in the industry is to be vouched for by somebody else. I mean, that is, in my opinion, the best way besides just having huge sales behind you, which that is something has to vouch for you. And if you don't have sales, you need a person to vouch for you. And nothing like having people who are already making money for a manager or a label vouching for you. This is so smart. And now of course, I'm glad you said that. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Just because a door is opened doesn't guarantee you that you're going to get the deal or the management relationship or whatever, but if you're already getting direct contact from the head of the label, that's better than most people. You're doing something right.

(01:29:46):

It's the same thing when you see the show Shark Tank and people get a deal on the show in reality, then afterwards the shark has to do their due diligence and then there's an actual contract that gets worked out, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. But the point is that they got in the door and you have to get in the door before anything can work out. So those people are smart from one from Dmitri, which is who do you think was the most successful artist you have managed and why? And in your opinion, what is the single factor that determines one's success? Excuse me, in music business?

Speaker 4 (01:30:26):

Oh, easily it would be Zach Wilde. The guy's been an icon for 30 plus years. He's got his hand in everything. And I mean, he has such an impressive resume. He has the career and career longevity that rock stars dream of. And I don't know if there's much else that needs to be said. I

Speaker 2 (01:30:48):

Don't know. I mean, Zach wild enough said,

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):

Yeah, doing three, four decades in the business and still lasting, only a handful of bands can say that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):

Not just lasting, but thriving.

Speaker 4 (01:31:04):

Yeah, good point. Yes, correct. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):

He's not just doing the old fogies tour or anything. He's fucking current.

Speaker 4 (01:31:12):

He's selling out arenas.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):

Yeah, he's still doing and cool shit and new products, and he's in the game and it's incredible. And I remember, I mean, he came out when I was still a kid, I caught, I first keyed into him on no more tears, but he's just been God level since I was a preteen, which is ridiculous. I mean, I'm trying to think who else. I can't think of anyone else who's really done that. I can think of lots of guys who were incredible back in the day and have kept their careers going, but I can't think of anybody else who was incredible back in the day and has remained cool this whole time and has done this sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:31:57):

Yeah, he's done a great job of avoiding that kind of, oh, that guy's old, older, it's dad rock kind of mentality. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he's an old school guy that has plenty of young teenage and college age fans. He keeps it fresh and whatever. That's how I would measure his success. He's lasted this long and it's still cool. Zach Wild is still a very cool name in any corner of rock and roll. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):

It's impressive. So here's one from David Zagato, which is EP or album first or single,

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):

Single, followed by a good music video. Going back to what I said a few minutes ago, there's no need to put out 10 mediocre tracks, put out one really awesome memorable track, follow it up with a music video, a good music video, and follow that path. It's a lot easier to create one really mint song than it is to create 10 or 12.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):

And just think from a production perspective, those of you guys who are not getting that much money per song and are doing full albums for like a thousand dollars, crazy cheap, it is better to try to convince an artist to spend that thousand dollars on one song and put all your eggs in that basket and make it as good as it possibly can be, because the power of one really well done song is infinitely higher than a shitty album. All you need is one great song to break you. And like Dan said, you can go from there. So whenever I get approached by bands who have a couple thousand dollars, this was when I was producing and they want to do an album, I'd say, well, first of all, I'm not going to do an album for that cheap, but if you have a couple thousand dollars, why don't we do one song all the way, everything.

(01:34:03):

I'll pre-pro it with you, I'll help you rewrite it. We'll do everything. We'll make it fucking incredible. And that will get you so much for, or say they only had five grand and wanted to do a full record or something, I'd be like, let's just do a short ep. Let's make it an incredible EP though, and let's not waste our time with 12 songs. Let's make this as good as we can possibly make it. Invest your money wisely. Yes, you can go down the street to your buddy who will do the full album for a grand or something, but no one's going to care. You're going to be throwing that money. You may as well roll a joint with it and smoke it. You're probably going to get more out of it that way.

Speaker 4 (01:34:43):

Right? Yeah. You always want to present yourself and your art in the best possible way. And a lot of times that means not recording 10, 12 songs, but only recording one or a handful and making sure they really rule. So yeah, I would say if you're just starting out, do a single and then take the rest of that money and put it into a music video and see, YouTube will tell you whether you're doing a good job or not.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):

Yes, they will. And as a producer, if you want to have a successful career, you need a band to break. I mean, you can have a successful career with bands that don't break if you become the local guy. But I'm saying if you want a career, the kind that the people you hear on this podcast have had, for instance, or who do nail the mix, if you want a career with known bands, then obviously you need a band to break, and you're more likely to have a band break if you put out higher quality music. So it's kind of your job to convince the artists of that if they don't already know it. And you can always count on the artist to already know that. So basically the same advice that Dan is giving to artists, you need to give to the artists. Here's a question from Tyler Rodriguez, which is, with the rise of more and more people wanting to become musicians, forming bands and solo artists, have you noticed also an increase in talent? Or is the number of assignable talent still relatively small?

Speaker 4 (01:36:13):

Well, I think talent is kind of subjective. Musicians are entertainers. So if the listener or the audience member is entertained, then the opinion is that the performer is talented. If you're not entertained, then the performers a talentless hack. So it's on you to define what talent is. But in my experience and in my opinion, I haven't seen much of a change in talent, the numbers of talented people. What I have seen is people that were able to put together a song that people liked and a concept that people liked, and they were able to distribute it and reach a far greater audience than they ever were. So it is definitely moving forward. It's just not talent versus untalented right now. I think it's more of smart and clever versus maybe lazy or complacent.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):

Great. Well, Dan going to end the podcast now. I want to thank you so much for coming on and spending all this time talking with us. We went long, but I like it that way. I love doing these long podcasts. I know that there's different formats out there, and some are like 20 minutes or whatever, but I love doing these where you can really, really get into it. And I thank you for taking the time and would love to have you on again in the future. Yeah, man. Well, have a great Friday and we'll talk again soon.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):

Thanks, man. Bye. This episode of the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Joey Sturgis's tones creating unique audio tools for musicians and producers everywhere. Unleash your creativity with Joey sturgis's tones. Visit joey sturgis's tones.com for more info to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit urm Academy podcast and subscribe today.