# Swell AI Transcript: David Boxenbaum - Meta Performance (Second Edit).mp3

SPEAKER_03:
Welcome to the Beyond High Performance podcast featuring content and conversations from me, Jason Jaggard, along with our elite coaches at Novus Global, their high performing clients, and the faculty of the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. On this podcast, you'll hear some of the world's best executive coaches and high performing leaders, artists, and athletes discuss how they continue to go beyond high performance in their lives and businesses. In this episode of The Meta Performance Show, I sit down with co-founder of Octone Records, David Voxenbaum, who has acted as an executive, advisor, and investor at the intersection of music and tech for more than 25 years. We discuss the origins of his record label, how different the music industry was then compared to how it is now, and a story about how he found a little band that we now know as Maroon 5. Before we go into David's music career, we also dive into his work serving on the board of Defy Ventures, training people with criminal history to develop their entrepreneurial skills and character to become contributing members of society after they've served their time. We explore his thoughts on networking and how he acquired an interview with one of the most prestigious management companies in the world solely through making and leveraging connections. And before we wrap up, David answers some questions from our coaches at Novus Global who are currently working with musicians, giving some indispensable advice for anyone out there looking to make it in whichever business their passion lies. And then of course, we end by hearing about a conversation he had with Beyonce and Jay-Z. We hope you enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_01:
The wait is finally over. Our new book, Beyond High Performance, what great coaches know about how the best get better, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. This USA Today bestseller is more than 250 pages of expertise, anecdotes, and insights from Novus Global coaches, as well as faculty from the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. We are so excited to put our proprietary framework that has helped thousands of leaders achieve more into your hands. And we can't wait to see how you'll use the book to enhance your life and leadership. To learn more and obtain this essential resource for yourself, visit novus.global.com.

SPEAKER_03:
So we have the one and only David Boxenbaum. Nice to have you on the show. Thanks so much for being here. How you doing?

SPEAKER_04:
Excellent. Excellent. Long time no see.

SPEAKER_03:
I know. In fact, that's where I'd like to start is, you know, it's not often I get to say this, but you and I met in prison. And I know that the reason why we were both in prison is close to your heart. And so I thought that we would just start by talking a little bit about what we were doing in prison, other than because we deserve to be there.

SPEAKER_04:
Well, I've been a member, a volunteer and a regional board member of Defy Ventures since kind of about 2016. And what we do is we provide entrepreneurship training to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. And it's really not just about entrepreneurship, it's about teaching you know, business skills, life skills, you know, communication skills, et cetera. And it's a way to give folks like that tools so that that when they get out, they can potentially start their own business. But, you know, the lessons they learn don't necessarily require them to only start a business. I mean, I think to me, being an entrepreneur is a mindset. It's not just like a job and you can be at a company and be entrepreneurial. And it really changes lives. I mean, I think the most kind of bottom line example is that the recidivism rate, the actual average for recidivism one year out for felons in the US is 40%. The recidivism rate one year out for defy graduates is seven. And Yeah, so our model works. It's just a matter of scaling it out.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, that's right. By the way, if you're listening to this, you can reach out to David. We'll put ways to do that in the show notes in terms of how to get involved. I was on the regional board in LA for a while. The CEO is a really good guy. The organization is a really, really, really fantastic organization. David, how did you come in contact with them?

SPEAKER_04:
So, complete serendipitous. I'd been on the board of another non-profit, and their direction was changing, and I didn't really believe in where they were going, so I left. I was always interested in penal reform and criminal justice reform, But I couldn't, you know, I looked at the Innocence Project and I realized it needed one of two things. It either needed a lawyer or big checks. And I can write small checks, not big checks. And so I was scrolling on Facebook one day and a friend of mine who's an entrepreneur had posted that he had been up a while ago at Defy and what a great experience it was. And he put the link to Defy in the Facebook post. And I said, oh, let me check this out. And like, That week they were doing a mentoring session up at Walkill, which is an all-men's medium security prison upstate. And I went up and I did it. And I literally, as I'm walking out, I said, if you're doing this tomorrow, I'd come back tomorrow. I just connected with me. And I just kept coming to the point where the director is like, do you want to join the board? I'm like, sure.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. And I want to pause there for a second. First of all, you mentioned entrepreneurialism. And most of the folks in prison are entrepreneurs. That's that's why they're there.

SPEAKER_04:
That's one of the things we acknowledge, because we one of the overall things we're trying to do is, you know, when UI folks generally have what's called an asset mentality, meaning we believe we have something to offer the world. We have value. We just have to find our place to do it. You know, they most of the inmates have now a liability mentality, which is the opposite. Like I have nothing good to offer. I'm a net negative to the world. I'm not even allowed to, you know, walk free. And part of our job is to kind of transform that mentality. And so one of the things we talk about, one of our slogans is transform your hustle, that you did work hard, you did have business skills, it was just in the legal endeavors. Yes. And let's take that know-how and work ethic and apply it to a legal business. And the other thing I'll say about virtually everybody I met in prison is they all have incredible EQ because whether they're on the streets or in prison, You need incredible EQ because otherwise you can get you killed. Yeah. If you misjudge a person, what does this person want? What are they? You know. And so I'm always amazed at how just highly tuned their EQs are. And it's such a critical skill.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. And, you know, it's also worth saying I do want to park here for a bit because I do think it's a passion of mine as well. And I really enjoyed connecting with you, the people that you meet. So so defy will what we got to see is really the tip of the iceberg of what Defy does. And but they do these essentially like visitations where people from the outside can go and volunteer in prison. They have both men and women's prisons nationwide. And it really is a I remember the first time that I went, I was like very nervous. You hear all these things about what prisons like or what people who are in prison are like. And I remember being very nervous. I remember I think the CEO, Andrew, was like, hey, man, just so you know, they're way more nervous to be around you than you are to be around them. And that didn't really make sense to me at the time. Then after my first day, because you spend the whole day with them doing various things. And before I keep going here, just David, give people a glimpse of some of the things that people do alongside the folks who are... And I want to make sure... Andrew, if you were on this call, the CEO, he'd be quick to correct me. I want to say the inmates or the people who are in prison, people with criminal histories versus calling them entrepreneurs in training.

SPEAKER_04:
Remember, during the year, they have in-class curriculum where they study business and entrepreneurship and communication skills, and they all have a business idea they're developing. And then so periodically, we do mentoring sessions where we bring in entrepreneurs and executives and investors. And it's always at least one on one. And we give them feedback on their business ideas. on their resumes, on their personal stories about why they're in prison and what they're doing with their life, which is critical if they're looking for a job, because that question isn't going to come up. And what I found so moving and maybe also sad at the same point is just their desperation for normalcy. Just the ability to interact with people in a normal setting. And one of the EITs told me something, which was, Really, I mean a nice compliment to Defy, but a really sad, it's like, so one of the reasons why I like Defy, it's the only place in prison where I get to be kind.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, that's a it's interesting because they're in the room when you show up. And it's easy to think that the experience that we have with them is it's like all the time for them. And that's a good reminder, David, in terms of when we leave, you know, we get on the bus. Usually you show up. People can go by themselves, but most people ride a bus and you get to meet really fascinating people who also are trying to care about something other than just themselves, which is really exciting to. That's one of the things I like about meeting people on those trips, like meeting you, David. It's like, oh, if someone's here, they are sacrificing a day of their life to care about not just themselves. And that's a meaningful thing. So there's some values alignment there. But we leave, and they go back to a system that is very different than where we just were with Defy. It really is like a glimpse of hope and encouragement.

SPEAKER_04:
Well, one of the things that I found out, which was, again, depressing was, I was, you know, we have this, you know, several hours, we're working together, and we're really bonding. And You know, you feel like you have all these new friends, and you have this great understanding, and they're getting ready to get on the bus, and one of the staffers turned to me and said, yeah, they're all about to get cavity searched before they go back to their cells. the harsh reality of what it is they're there for.

SPEAKER_03:
That's right. And to put a period on the story I started earlier, when Andrew said, hey, they're more nervous to meet you. A lot of these guys and women, people don't come to visit them, sometimes for completely understandable reasons. depending on who they were in the past and who they're trying to not be. But also, it's hard for them to understand. They don't get why a stranger would come to spend a day with them. It fills them with gratitude and some degree of intimidation, and they want you to have a good experience while you're with them. And it really is a powerful thing. In some ways, they become hosts in a way. They really do their best to make sure that you have a good time and a good experience and that you'd want to come back and see them, or to at least speak well of people who are there who are really trying to create a better future than their past.

SPEAKER_04:
100%. I consider a lot of these folks my friends, and I'm happy to see them. It was very hard for me during COVID because there was no in-prison work. I do a lot of stuff to fly outside of the in-prison work, but By far, that's the thing I enjoy the most.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. I don't want to move past. You mentioned the recidivism rates. I just want to double click on that for a second. So essentially, what that means is if someone gets out of prison, they've got a 40% chance of going back. So the one thing that our penal institutions do a really good job of is getting people to come back to them. It's a Shawshank Redemption institutionalization kind of a deal. And it's incredibly difficult to go from prison culture to the real world.

SPEAKER_04:
And also, probation is really set up for them to fail. Yeah, and it's crazy the kind of non-crimes you commit that get you violated and back in prison.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, there's like a lot of low tolerance, zero tolerance policies. And so what's fascinating is if a defy graduate gets out of jail, when they get out of jail, they have only a 7% chance of going back into prison. And that's powerful for a lot of reasons, the least of which is because not only are they not going back into jail, and by the way, If Andrew were here, he'd have stats on it. Maybe you know how much a person in prison costs the American people. Yeah. It's expensive.

SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. One bed in New York State costs $190,000 a year. That's just crazy. You want people to not go back

SPEAKER_03:
it's a tax burden that's being saved. But more than that, they leave and they become contributing members of society. Not only are they not a drain on the tax system, but they are contributors. When they start jobs or they get a job, they are paying taxes. They are contributing to the system, and that's a game changer for people. Yeah. So you can check out defyadventures.org, and we'll put more information there. It's not the only organization that does what it does. And so whenever I promote things on the show, we don't want to be like, this is the only way to be a good person. But it was fun meeting you, David, in that context. And I really liked you immediately. And then your story is fun and fascinating. and the industries that you've been a part of are, I think, in many ways opaque to people. They see a singer on stage, but they don't really understand the imagination of what's happening there. And so I'm excited to dive into that and extract even leadership, self-leadership business principles for both our coaches who are listening and also our clients who are listening. So before we get to that, I want to go biographical a little bit. So where'd you go to school? And I want to frame this specific question in terms of You ended up in a business that is very artistic and in some ways subjective. Were there any inklings of competency when you were young that led to you being good at what you have done for the last 20 years and now you're doing it more in tech and business? Not at all.

SPEAKER_04:
I, I played baritone sax as a kid. I was pretty good, but I wasn't like a passion. I loved listening to music, but I grew up in West, in Larchmont in West Richard County where everybody's, you know, doctors, lawyers, executives, no one did anything creative. So it wasn't, it wasn't like I had role models who were, you know, artists and musicians and even executives in creative field. And then I went to Johns Hopkins, which is absolutely a school where no one pursues anything creative. It's future doctors, lawyers, physicists, investment bankers. But I did, coincidentally, my best friend in college was really into the music business. He had been in a band that had a record deal in high school. His father ran ABC Records. He was managing bands when they were in college. Because the first person I met that talked about the music business and he was already doing all of this stuff and done all this, I'm like, I can never be in the music business. Someone at the age of 19 is already this experienced. And I was really interested in working in pro sports. I interned for ESPN and the Baltimore Orioles when I was in college. And I really want to work at one of the pro sports leagues. When I got out in 91, there was like a mini recession. None of the leagues were hiring. So I got a job in advertising, which I didn't particularly like because it was about pleasing the client first and whether that was the best work. And the other thing was, I realized that my clients were making bad decisions about their business and then we were just communicating it. And I'm like, yeah, but like we're feeling the wrong thing and like it's done. And so I said, ah, strategy, that's where I want to be. And so I didn't really have an industry I wanted. So I said, you know, I don't want to be a strategy consultant. I want to work at McKinsey. That's the place to be. So I interviewed McKinsey and they're like, you know, you need to really get an MBA. So I said, I was not a great student and I was undiagnosed ADHD and Hopkins is a very intense place. So somehow through. a lot of grit and studying for this standardized test. I got into Columbia Business School, really interviewed McKinsey, said, I'm not a cultural fit for this place. But I met the folks at PricewaterhouseCoopers who had an entertainment and media practice around strategy. And I said, well, I'm definitely interested in media and strategy. And they were kind enough to hire me. And my biggest client at PricewaterhouseCoopers was Universal Music Group. And I said, oh, at a 10,000 foot level, I said, wow, this is a really screwed up industry, like not really not using the data they have, continuing to repeat the same mistakes, blah, blah, blah. And my friend who I went to college with was now a vice president at Columbia. And we started kind of, hey, we should do something together. And we started kind of iterating ideas around the business. And we came up with a new business model called the Upstream Business Model, which it basically was where you, it's a hybrid between independent and major label.

SPEAKER_03:
I wanted to find some terms here, because most of our listeners probably won't even know half of the things we've already talked about. And I want to go back for a second, because you just drop all these things, but there's a lot of gold in them that are heralds. So you had no MBA, but then you got an interview with McKinsey. McKinsey's one of the top consulting agencies in the world. How did you even get an interview?

SPEAKER_04:
I just networked. I'm not the best networker because the best networkers are the ones that do it when you don't need to network. It's like an extra limb they have. For me, I'm inconsistent, but I networked my way to McKinsey and I got an introduction and I got a meeting and I met with a partner and he's like, Because, you know, the way they have three hiring windows, they hire right out of college, and already been out of college two and a half years, right out of business school, or you have like 30 years of experience in a very specific industry that they work in, and they want you for subject matter expertise.

SPEAKER_03:
So then I have a theory, and we'll see if this is right in a second. I have a theory that says that the best people to talk to about how to learn how to do something are not the people who do it most naturally, because they don't know how they do what they do, it's the people who have to try a little harder and so when you're talking about networking would you mind kind of breaking down the mechanics of even you can be specific with mckenzie but like what is networking look like i really think the most horrible of this

SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. The way I think about networking is I think about the nodes and the connection between the nodes. There's two ways you're networking. One of which is you know where you want to get to, and one where you're using networking to figure out where you want to get to. Trying to figure out where you want to get to is like, what do I do next? You go meet with a lot of people, you know, who can maybe help, maybe they work in industries that you're curious about, or people like they're, they're like, he knows, they tend to be, you know, lawyers, bankers, accountants who deal with a lot of people in a lot of industries, and, you know, who also are inclined businesses. So they're often more receptive to networking, because You know, there's a great line, and do you ever see the movie Working Girl with Melanie Griffith?

SPEAKER_03:
You know what? I'm sad to say that I have not seen Working Girl. It's a very good movie. I bet it is.

SPEAKER_04:
Harrison Ford, Melanie Griffith. Yeah. Anyway, Sigourney Weaver plays this investment banker, and she's at a cocktail party and Melanie Griffith plays her assistant. And some smarmy little twerp is like hitting on her, hitting on Sigourney Weaver. And she's kind of humoring him, not going along with, but, you know, humoring him. And he walks away and Melanie Griffith goes up there and says, why do you put up with that? And she looks at her and goes, because you never know when today's junior asshole is going to be tomorrow's senior partner. And that's the way I think in a more less cynical way, I think they look at like, hey, I'm going to be nice to this person because, hey, maybe I'm not a bad person. I don't think I will. That's right. You know what? I did a favor for this person. Hopefully they remember it. And maybe there's somewhere where they need a lawyer, an accountant, a banker, and they'll call me.

SPEAKER_03:
Interesting. So there's two pieces there. And I do think there's a lot of gold here. here. It's just kind of along the way, you're done doing it for a specific purpose. David, I like what you're saying in terms of when you see people, it's easy to see people as a job and they think of that job as like a function, like a lawyer just files paperwork, goes in court or whatever, Perry Mason, whatever picture a person has of a lawyer. But you're looking at them as like, what assets do they have? And one asset is their relational network. And some vocations have much more expansive relational networks. And that's a form of legitimate value in the world. And so how do you get to know them and have some kind of mutually beneficial relationship to where someday they may be willing, if they trust you, if you're not a jerk, they might trust you with their network.

SPEAKER_04:
And that's one of the important things about networking, which is why if the best networkers start it before they need anything, because part of the value in your networking is not what are they giving to you? But you, what are you offering them? So whenever I'm networking, I always think, how can I show my value to them? I don't want this to feel like a one-way conversation. So I'm always like, oh, like, what, you know, the type of working, oh, like, I know somebody who does this, or have you ever thought of that? Or, you know, oh, I read an article, you know, something that might be helpful. So it just, you want to feel like it's a mutually beneficial relationship. But back to kind of the question at hand, there's the two types. Help me figure out, and you talk to a lot of different people, and you try and vector in on some ideas from it. Then from there, you can start to narrow your scope and then have more targeted networking. Or like in the case of McKinsey, I started asking around, But, you know, I networked to find someone and I found someone who wasn't like a really strong connection. So this was really before email. This was like ninety three. Yeah. And so I cold called him and I said, you know, So and so suggested I call you. Do you have some time to meet? I just want to learn a little about McKinsey and, you know, interested in working, you know, interested in, you know, in a career in consulting. And it's always that you have to be careful at saying, hey, I'm here because I want a job. Yes, because it's interesting about American culture, very direct about a lot of things. We're not direct about asking for a job. We're asking for money. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So I got the meeting. Very nice guy. And he just said, you're kind of caught in this in between phase and you're kind of too old for the right out of college thing. And so your next thing is to apply to business school. And that's what I did.

SPEAKER_03:
So then two pieces on that. One is, and you used actually two phrases when we're talking about defy that I want to revisit for a second. You talked, what would you call it? You said when someone doesn't, an asset mindset versus what was the opposite? A liability mindset. A liability mindset. And I think that's not just people in prison. Because in order to network well, you have to have, you have to know what you're bringing to the table. Yeah. And I find even like when we do a lot of work with our coaches in our firm, and a lot of it is helping them realize just how much we call it work with your mama gave you like realizing how many assets they have already that they are completely blind to. And we find that leaders and what's funny is, you know, coaches can't do surgery on ourselves. So like we help each other with this. We also help our clients like we help our clients figure out that they have oftentimes way more than they realize, or we help them build paths to building assets so that they can capitalize on that later. And I don't know if you've experienced that too, even when you work with artists or business leaders, how poorly people understand what they have to offer.

SPEAKER_04:
I end up mentoring a lot of people and just, I'm that guy. And I think that when people look at their careers, what they've accomplished, and they're like, especially if they want to change careers, they're like, oh, I've done nothing. And I have this belief that everything you've ever done in your life is relevant to the job you want. You just have to understand how to make the correlation. And it's, oh, I did this, which showed me I didn't want to do that, which pointed me here. You can you can find those relevancies to it. And that's that's a key step in that direction. Like, I do have value for this job. I do have value in this company. I do have skills that are, you know, that are valuable, even though and because what the problem is, is that people confuse their situation with themselves. Yeah. So like maybe they lost a job or they, you know, or they had a, you know, a setback at work. And I really. I suck. I have no skills. I'm bad. No one likes me. You know, you start to go into a spiral and it's just temporal.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, we work with a lot of professional athletes and sometimes oftentimes with them on the court, but oftentimes when they're transitioning into civilian life. And it's fascinating how a person can be one of the best in the world at what they do and still have an insecurity about whether or not that translates into another domain or marketplace. And we all have a tendency to do it. The other thing I wanted to ask you about was... And then we'll move past the networking with McKinsey stage of this conversation. I'm wondering, how do you let people know what it is you're looking for? I make up that you're pretty good at being honest with people or letting people know, or people can't help you if they don't know how you need help or what you're looking for. Even like when you and I talked, we'll leave our conversation private, but when we're in prison, we're kind of just chatting it up. You were very good at saying what was going on for you and what you're looking for and what the next stage is for you. Have you always been that way? And what role does that play in kind of like Jerry Maguiring, like helping other people help you?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, I think it's really not useful to go to someone and be like, I don't want to do, what should I do? then you're really asking them to do the work for you. So it's really, even if you're in the searching phase, I think it's about narrowing it down a bit. There were some areas. Because ultimately, when you really look for a job, you really got to focus. So with anybody, it's making it very specific. And the ask should be at most one or two things. Like, oh, do you know anybody here Or, you know, can you see somebody here or, you know, can you find out about this one thing, you know, and just because you just want to be respectful of people's time. So, and at the end of the day, helpful people do want an ask from you, just one that's reasonable and achievable.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, and that's the other thing. They actually do want you to ask for things. Yeah. Most people don't think that's true, but it is actually true. And the evidence is you managed to get an interview, and then the guy was really kind. He's like, hey, you need to go get your MBA. So now I do want to quantumly forward into what we were talking about with the music industry. Thanks for the little detour there. So explain to our audience what you were about to explain in terms of, because the music industry, even now, and hopefully we'll have time to get to this, is radically, radically changing. I'm curious whether your career will be the same if you were starting new now moving forward than when it was 20 years ago. But what was going on at that time when you started your own label?

SPEAKER_04:
So at the time I started my own label, it was at the verge of a massive shift, but the shift did not happen. So I started. my label and I mean, really launched it in early 2001, in 2001. And the business was still physical, you know, selling physical goods. MTV still played videos. Radio was very powerful. You know, if you were going to make money selling music, you had to get into the stores. Otherwise, you're selling it literally on the street or at your concerts. And it was very analog manual. You know, it was Marketing was about radio is about press. Yeah. We did street market. We literally would give out like. Stickers or CD samplers outside concerts or events. You know, the earliest, you know, the internet was at that point brochure where, like, you know, there was no streaming, there was no social media. The closest thing we had were message boards. So we did a lot of work on message boards. posting about music and so forth. Within a couple of years of that, Napster came, but Napster was not what really changed the business. What really changed the business was the first big change was the iPod. Because you had Napster, but in those days, there was no Sonos. People didn't have network sound system throughout the house, Wi-Fi, music, none of that. People were still plugged into hardwired cables. Computer speakers were garbage. So if you download music from Napster, you either had to burn it onto a CD or play it from your crappy computer speakers. There was still friction. Yeah, so Napster wasn't the what people don't remember is there was outrage about Napster from the legality of all this stuff, but it actually wasn't impacting sales. What really killed sales was the iPod because what happened was, you know, A little quick mini history lesson. So go back to the 1950s of Sun Records, legendary Sun Records, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins. It was run out of a storefront in Memphis because they were selling 45s, one song at a time. Then the LP format, the long-playing record format came out, and all of a sudden, you were selling 10, 12 songs instead of one. The marginal cost of selling 12 songs was minimal, but the increase in marginal revenue was massive. The economies of scale of the LP is what turned the music business from a little, you know, cottage industry into a multi-billion dollar global industry that major corporations wanted to own. The iPod came around, and all of a sudden, you didn't need to buy the whole album. You could just buy the song, but access them so conveniently because now you've got a jukebox in your hand. Even if you had singles, we need to carry around a bunch of single CDs or whatever. The iPod really took apart the business model of the record business. Didn't take apart the business model of the touring business, or the merchandising business, but I was in the record and publishing business, a little less on the publishing side. There were years where we kept saying, how low can it go? To the point where some people were theorizing, oh, at some point, we're going to give the music away to sell tickets and t-shirts. That's not an industry I want to be in, because to me, that's like giving giving away the car to sell floor mats. Yeah. You know, to me, the music is the core of it. You wouldn't be going to the show or buying the T-shirt if you hadn't fallen in love with their music first.

SPEAKER_02:
Hi, my name is Mike Park and I'm a proud graduate of the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. The faculty of the Metta Performance Institute not only provided the training, tools, and experience to learn how to coach people toward powerful growth and thrilling results, but also advocated for that kind of growth and results in my own life. a unique opportunity to have world-class executive coaches invest in my development both professionally and personally. It's a privilege to be part of a tribe of coaches fiercely committed to exploring what we are capable of together. If you're looking to become a coach or to set up your coaching practice to reach the next level, I highly recommend the certification from the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. To fill out a free assessment of your abilities as a coach and to connect with someone to find out if the Metta Performance Institute is for you, check out www.mp.institute.

SPEAKER_03:
So talk to us about when you started the company, because you said that the was it the Internet or the business model was archaic and yours was a hybrid model.

SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. So so David, a quick background. Our key observation was that all of the biggest bands of the 90s, all the grunge acts, Green Day, Horn, et cetera, had started on independent labels. And independent labels are small labels that are owned by mom and pops who tend to be very passionate about music, usually are interested in a specific genre, and have a lot of expertise around that genre. But they don't have a lot of money, and they don't have a lot of resources. So they're good at gestating, and they're like minor leagues. They're good at developing artists. and into niches. But if an artist starts to have a hit, they hit a glass ceiling very quickly. So what would happen is the major labels, which are Sony, Universal, Warner, etc., would see artists that were succeeding on major labels and go to the major label and say, hey, you can't fully realize the potential of this artist. So we will either buy your label, buy out the deal, license it, or just wait till the artist finishes the deal and sign them. And our point was that there's a lot of friction in that process. And we said, what if we could streamline that process into one company? And it literally couldn't be one company, but we said, OK, Let's have a pre-negotiated joint venture with a major label. We're going to raise our own money, have our own staff, sign artists ourselves, make the records ourselves, put them out ourselves. But unlike most indie labels, which are making less commercial music, and they're just trying to go for a single and double, we were signing artists making very commercial records like the major labels, marketing it like an indie label, which is more bottom-up grassroots, but ideally, We grow it to the point where it outgrows us. And then we have our major label partner that comes in. So we had a joint venture with RCA, and they have a lot of things they had to commit to to ensure a good shot at success for the artist. And the first band we signed was MIRN5, and we followed that plan. You know, it worked out well.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, that reminds me. So let's go ahead and go there for a second. So first, tell us about Kara's Flowers.

SPEAKER_04:
So like a lot of artists, a lot of successful artists, they had a long history as an unsuccessful artist before they became successful artists.

SPEAKER_03:
By the way, I don't think most people know that. Can you just double click on that a little bit for us?

SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, so it's very simple. Music is art, not science. An artist will come out as a certain artist playing a certain kind of music and really go for it for a couple of years, and it doesn't really come through, and then said, I really believe in this. Like people think, I think often people think musicians can only do one kind of music. Like I'm, I'm this one thing and that's all I know. But it's incredible when you're really musically talented, you can do a lot of different things. So it's a matter of finding what it is you want to do that also people will like. So when four of the five original members, a fifth joined when they were Maroon 5, were in a band, they all grew up in LA, they were private school, high school kids in LA, and they had a band called Carrot Flower, sounded very different than Maroon 5, and they were digging around LA, and they got really big in LA. The guy at Warner Records who signed and produced Green Day, signed them and produced their record. And it didn't do well. And they were young enough that the band broke up, and they all scattered, went to college. And Adam was at music school at Five Towns College on Long Island. And he grew up in Beverly Hills. So the first time he really spent time with Black folks and really spent a lot of time listening to Prince and Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, a lot of R&B and Black music. and said, wait, I can kind of sing like that. And if I could meld that with a rock band, that could be a really interesting thing. And the keyboard players actually at school with them, they dropped out, moved back to LA, reformed the band, still, for initially, still called themselves Coward Flowers. But when they're out gigging, the old Carriage Flowers fans hated what they were doing. Carriage Flowers is an alternative pop rock band, and here they're doing this neo soul rock thing. They just believed in it, so they kept going. When we saw them, Carriage Flowers used to sell out big rooms. By the time we saw them at a club, I think there were 75 people in the room. And they just believed in what they were doing. And we saw a real diamond in the rough. And the rest is history.

SPEAKER_03:
But I've discovered every time a person says, and the rest is history, there's like five volumes of novels of interesting things.

SPEAKER_04:
There was a long process. So keep in mind that in 2001, when we signed them, back when radio was still very powerful, and alternative rock radio was the medium for rock acts, more or less. And they were rock. I still see in the rock act who makes pop songs. But in the early 90s, rock radio was like grunge, Nirvana, et cetera. Then late 90s, it got relatively pop rock. Third Eye Blind, Gin Blossoms, Toad the Wet Sprocket. But in the early 2000s, it got really heavy. Stain, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down. because there's this other format called active rock that was doing well, and modern rock started also playing it. Because part of it remembers every label passed on Maroon 5. Not because they didn't think they were good, it's that the music and free meets put you in a slot. Where do you fit in the genres or the lifestyles? they weren't really heavy enough to be a modern rock act. They hadn't written any of the big songs yet to be a pop act. The music was good, but it wasn't obvious big pop songs. This was an important thing. We were a new label and we were looking at a lot of artists at our first signings. In that time, pop, punk, and rap rock were very big. And we looked at a lot of pop, punk, and rap rock, actually. We're candidly a lot farther along than Karras, Flowers, Maroon 5. But as we looked at them, we said, look, we're trying to be a different kind of label, upstream artist development. And if we sign the kind of acts that everybody else is signing, and especially if we don't even succeed with them, we're just like everybody else. And let's try and sign something special and different for our first artist, because even if we don't succeed, like, oh, these guys are trying to do something different. That was part of one of the guiding principles in signing them. Then there were a lot of things that needed to be worked on. There were four piece, like Adam Levine, who is maybe, I think, the most talented musician I've ever worked with. Plays every instrument, wrote all the hits, amazing voice. He was doing lead vocals and lead guitar. He can pull it off, but the problem with it is, is when you're singing and playing guitar, you're singing to a mic stand, which means you're stationary. and the lead singer, it's like the Davery Loft Mick Jagger thing. You're the master of ceremonies. You're the P.T. Barna. You need to work the crowd, and working the crowd is really being able to move through the stage, through the room. And so after you saw them play, we're like, we want to sign you, but Adam, you shouldn't play guitar full time. He's like, I totally agree. I've got this friend, James Valentine, that if we got a record deal, we were going to bring him on to be our guitar player. And so brought on James Valentine, who's been a key, key part of the band. And the other thing was they didn't quite have the songs yet. They had good songs that had artistic merit, but they weren't commercial enough. And so which is, by the way, one of the things that turned off other labels, but that was the wrong way of looking at it. So when you have an artist, the way I look at when I scout artists, the same way I think about like, you're a pro baseball scout and you're scouting a high school baseball player. A, you're not saying, are they ready for the majors tomorrow? It's how good are they gonna be in two or three years with coaching and guidance? And then are they good at the things you can't teach? Do they have great hand-eye coordination? Do they have speed? Are they big? Do they have good field sense? You can teach them how to hit a curveball. You can teach them how to hit the cutoff man. But there's some things that you just have to, and there is so much greatness already. You saw Adam was a star in the making. He needed to be polished a little bit. But he had that, you know, that electricity and that talent. They're a great band musically, like they were great musicians and they had a different sound. And those are things you can turn somebody to a star is not a star. You can help. help them come out and shape it. But they either are or they aren't. And they had a different sound. And the thing that was not quite there was the songs. But arguably, that's the easiest thing. Because if they themselves couldn't get their songwriters, you could all potentially bring in outside songwriters to help them. So that was the last resort. And we had them write. They took them a long time, and what I realized, and this is public domain, Adam has ADHD, and just saying, hey, go write songs. He was writing songs, but they weren't much better than what he was doing. It was going on for a while, and finally, they're like, we want to make a record. We're like, well, you don't have the songs yet. No, we have plenty of songs. What you do in the music business when you're writing songs, you demo them. A demo is a rough recording. You get a sense of what the song is. You're going to go record and spend the money to rent a studio in Hyderabad. You want to know you have something worth recording. It's like a dress rehearsal. And so we want to do a record. So we've got the songs. And I'm like, let's just do one last demo session. And so we knew we had a friend who was an engineer at a producer and had a studio in LA. And we said, go to Perry's studio and go cut some songs. So you remember, we have not put out any music. This is our first artist. We've got investors. And we call Perry. And we're like, how's it going? And they go, they're writing in front of me. I'm like, what do you mean? It's like, they don't have any songs. Oh, my God, we're so screwed. We're never going to have a record. And they come out, and we had the first three singles from that one demo session. and what I understood and it was a good learning about songwriters because there are many types and Adam and this is my opinion I don't think Adam actually likes songwriting I think he's something he's amazing at it I just and and also he has ADHD which someone who's ADHD I'm not good at being productive without a deadline so like he knew that he had to deliver the concert subconsciously. He knew he had to deliver great songs so they could make his record. And he did it. And that was basically played out all of our time. Adam didn't write a song until he had a real deadline. Wrote a real song. And they were amazing songs. And he God, one of the best songwriters in the world.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. Well, and so a couple of things I want to unpack there. So in coaching, a lot of the work is feedback, like giving feedback, helping a person become conducive to feedback. When we work with companies, we train people how, like, processes for how to give feedback, because learning happens through feedback. And there's a moment, it sounds like early in your relationship with the band, when, whether it was you or somebody else, was like, hey, like, You guys are great, but if you really want to untap Adam's potential, we got to liberate him from that stationary thing. And he said what, you know, what everyone would long to hear is, yeah, that's a great idea. And let's make that change. Now, I've also heard as I've done research on you, like you've given feedback to other artists and They don't take it so well. So what is it that you think... What role does feedback play in developing an artist? And can you talk a little bit about... You can't share names or anything, but times when you've given feedback and it didn't go so well.

SPEAKER_04:
Well, the feedback is critical because they're artists, and it's hard for them to be objective about their work. They're very close to it. It's something very personal. You'd be amazed at how a hit songwriter will write two songs, and one song sounds like a number one song, and one song sounds like a song that doesn't even deserve to be recorded. Because like all artists, they throw away some work. Just like Caso painted over plenty of his painting. Often, the writer will think that song that he's thrown away is the best song he's ever written because it often connects to him very strongly. It's something him or her very personally, but no one else is going to get it. My job, is always to be kind of the gateway between the art and the commerce. Because if an artist did everything I suggested, I would be concerned. Because the artist does need to have a point of view. Sometimes the artist needs to do something better or needs to stop doing something and start doing something they're not doing. And you talk to them about it. But The important thing to remember is, which I always have in mind, is they're artists. Even though some of them are good business people, it's their art, and it's something very personal, and you want to treat it like it's something very personal. Doesn't mean you can't criticize it or try and change it, but you need to give it the respect that knowing that when you're talking about their art, you're really talking about... You always say, like, don't make it personal. When you're talking about their art, you're making it personal because it's something from them. And so you have to treat it with that kind of respect when you talk about it. And so, you know, in a lot of cases, it's largely about picking your battles. because you're not going to get artists say yes to everything. And sometimes, like any negotiation, you figure out what's important to each side and give on the things that are important to them, that are important to you, and vice versa. And an album is a big negotiation. There are songs that they want on. There are songs that you want on. There's ways to go about different songs that you want to do, that you want it shorter, you want it longer, you want it faster, you want it slower. It's a negotiation. It's not like you do this because I say so. It's like, this is why I think this is a good idea, and I think it's going to help. And the other thing that's important, which I think some people in this industry are going to do a good job of, you've got to treat the artist with respect. Don't insult their intelligence. I find when I really sit down and explain something to an artist, when there's a good reason for something, I often get a very positive response, if not even, okay, yes. And I've dealt with some artists who did not seem like they would give into reason, and I've found it worked, but many times I've given advice and they haven't followed. In some cases it had, put it this way, the advice was to prevent them from driving off a cliff, I'm gonna jump in front of the bus. But if it's really like I think this is a good idea or a bad idea, you know, you just have to look in their eyes and see that they have so much conviction and they've drawn a red line on this one. And so you'd say, OK, because it's, you know, it's your career and, you know, you don't you don't work for me. And so. Uh, it's it's persuasion can only get you so far.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, that's interesting. So then what would you say are like, this would be like a great this is like a great blog question, you know, an article question, you know, what are like three or four things you've learned about managing artist personalities? And you've mentioned one already. So, you know, like treat them with respect. Understand that this is personal for them. It's emotional for them. Are there any other like tips for people, even as they because here's the thing to everybody on teams, there's always artistic or creative people on teams. And we all have to learn how to get along and how to work with each other. So like, what have you learned by in order for like managing artists?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, the other thing, getting back to the art is sometimes artists want to do things that it doesn't matter if it's great or not. It's just saying they need to get out. They need to It's something that is important to them that they want to do. And you have to just recognize those moments. It might not even fit with what they're doing, but understanding that the artist's process is not totally linear. And the other is that being an artist is a very isolating life. You're on the road a lot. You're with your artist. You're with your band. You're with your crew. who, yeah, they're kind of your friends, but it can be very isolating. And part of my job is to be not their friend, because that sounds too patronizing, but like an authority figure that's there for them to lean on. Like, I manage a band right now. They're very mature, very independent. But, you know, they'll call me about non-artist stuff. Like, I'm thinking about buying a house. And what do you think about this? And, you know, life stuff. Because, you know, in some cases, they don't have parents they can talk to, you know? They came from homes where, like, they didn't come from a stable home. They don't have the kind of You know, because I grew up in a stable home, not only do I have my parents, but their friends, my family. And, you know, some of these artists grew up in environments where they wanted to get the hell out of. They wanted never to come back. And so they're kind of alone in the world and they need they need some stability personally. And you can help give them that and being their friend and advisor, sometimes like a father figure.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, and I can imagine if they don't find those types of people they can trust that can really blow up really fast because the artists are curious if you agree with this, like are vulnerable in that way.

SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, and they often the successful ones get surrounded by yes men who either have a financial or personal interest in sticking by them and are going to support their worst habits and ideas, you know, and like they don't want to say no to them because they don't want to be expelled.

SPEAKER_03:
You know, what's interesting about that is, OK, so that's, by the way, a universal phenomenon. The more powerful or the more assets a person has, whether it's fame or whether it's wealth or positional power in a company or whatever, it's like there's a joke. When you become CEO, all of a sudden your jokes get funnier. And I'm curious, what advice have you given artists and what advice would you give people who maybe self-aware enough to know that their jokes aren't that funny. But they're in that space of people are being nice to me. I'm not as smart as I think. I'm not as funny as I think. I may not be as talented as I think. But I'm hitting a wave or I'm experiencing some kind of success. What advice would you give people who are in that space in order to sober up? Or how would you approach someone who might be getting high on their own supply?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, the first thing I'd say is you don't know that this is going to last forever, so be humble. But I would definitely say think about the people along the way who've been helpful in giving you advice and make sure that you haven't left them behind. Because what happens is you go through a career And there are people who help you along the way. And then you move on. And then you get in that situation. And all of a sudden, you might be surrounded by sycophants. So it's like, go back to those people and be like, is this right? Am I doing the right thing? Is this a funny joke? Whatever it is. And the other thing is active listening. Like, you know, not all your ideas are great. And, you know, maybe throw out the idea once in a while and see how people respond. On purpose? Yeah. You know, well, in the same way, like a lot of celebs share fake gossip with their friends to see who's leaking to the press. Oh, I didn't know that. That's brilliant. A big celeb who thinks one of their friends is leaking, you know, gossip to the press. will give. them a specific piece of false information that she only gave, he or she only gave to that person. So if it comes out, they know they're the leak. Oh, that's brilliant.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. That's brilliant. I heard one time, I can't remember who told me, it was a CEO who would do that. They would leak internally false information and they would see where it would spread. It would kind of paint like a communication map, almost like when you put dye into your veins and you can get like a map of what the communication arteries are. David, was it you when we were in prison, when you were saying most people say they want to be a professional musician, but they don't really want to be a professional musician?

SPEAKER_04:
I said there's a difference between a professional musician and a musician or recording artist. Because the recording artist is the one who participates actively in the business side. Because in the early days of the business of the 60s and 70s, when there's more freewheeling, you'd be a little more rock and roll and just play the music and not participate in the promotion and so forth. But now there's so much more competition, not just among artists, but around pop culture. Let's think about 1999. 1999 was a zenith of the record business. That year had the most recorded music revenue ever. Really? A big record could sell a million physical copies a week. Think about what was happening in 99. There was barely an internet. There were no smartphones. There was no social media influencers. There was no reality TV. There was no one spending $50 to buy a video game. Your entertainment choices were, Movies, music, film, TV, and print. That's it. And fast forward to today, think about all the choices you have. In real dollars, people have less disposal income. People are working more. So it's not even a zero-sum game. It's a negative-sum game. People are, you know, Listening to music is one thing, but paying attention to music is something else. It's important because I might listen to a lot of music, but I'm listening to stuff I already knew. my attention is about finding new stuff and people don't have the attention. It's harder and harder to get people's attention because they have so many other options. The artist has to work that much harder to do worse in some cases. I always say when you get a record deal, you're never going to work harder, be more broke, and be less creative because when you're an unsigned artist, you're playing music every day, you're writing, You might not have a lot of money, but you probably have a day job, you're living okay, but you're writing and creating a lot. You get a record deal, you write the music, record it, put it out, then all you're doing is re-performing and promoting that same music over and over again. Until it either succeeds or fails and you're traveling all the time. You're not really spending more time talking than you are playing. And you really have to hustle. You know, a lot of artists have the, you know, I call the field of dreams. mentality, which is, oh, if I just make great music and put it out there, people will find it. No. Being great music just gets you to the starting line.

SPEAKER_03:
By the way, that's transferable to so many industries. A lot of people who are listening to this might be solopreneurs or small business owners, or even for coaches. If I'm just good at coaching, then then the business will come. If I'm just a good musician, the business will come. If I'm just a good photographer, then the business will come. If I just provide, even like in tech, like if I just make an app that people like, the business will come. And to your point, that is absolutely not true. And it is just ability. In fact, so in our firm, we have what we call the navigate process where we kind of break down success. I'm curious what you think about this. And we have the first three is in order to be successful at something, you have to have ability. And that's like, obviously, you have to have the chops. You have to be able to coach or you have to be able to be a photographer or whatever. Then you have to have accessibility. It's the people paying attention to you or people paying attention to the relational network. And then it's authority. Are the people who are paying attention to you, do they also agree that you have talent? Because people can be paying attention. Everyone can know you for something, but you want to be known for something else, and that's not going to work. So I mean, I like to this is a little vain, but I'd like to hear you play with that a little bit. Does that ring true for you as you've worked with musicians like Ability, Authority and Accessibility? And is there other things missing from that that you wouldn't?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, I think I think the thing about musicians is they're often granted that automatically externally because you're the artist and like, you know, there's some magic to that. But The short answer is yes. And the difference is where someone like an executive might have to establish those three things to succeed. I think an artist is given the benefit of the doubt initially because they're kind of put up on a pedestal. But they actually have to execute. They actually have to act on those things. And I think that's the big difference is I think in the business world, you have to nurture those qualities. Whereas an artist, you're somehow seen as a little bit, not superhuman, but elevated. And so I think you're given a little bit of a headstart to be considered those things because you're an artist and you've come this far. And I've seen plenty of artists who are like, and by the way, there are artists who've succeeded who are not really good at that. but it's a combination of luck and overwhelming talent. But having interacted with or where some of the biggest artists in the world, they're very on top of their business, really often on top of their business better than the people that work for them. Because, you know, look, the thing I artists need to remember is that they only have one career. All the people around them have invested in multiple careers. So the manager probably managed more than one artist. A lawyer manages more, you know, represent more than ours. The agent, the record. Everybody has they have a portfolio of artists. Yeah. And a portfolio of careers that they invest in. They do. It's about risk. Yeah. They you're the it's like no one's going to every artist. I always say. He said, no one is going to care more about your career than you. And so you need to take that responsibility.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, and part of that's building a team. And you just listed a few things here. Like, what role does team building play in a musician having success?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, it's critical because the artist can't do everything. And it's not healthy. I also think it's not healthy for the artist's image and career to get too involved in the business because you lose some of the mystique. You know, like if the artist is like taking all the meetings and doing all that, then, you know, familiarity breeds contempt. Like, oh, you know, artist. So, you know, wow, it's so mystical now. My God, it's kind of annoying and a little too detail oriented, you know? And so, you know, you want the artist showing up to your meeting to be like to be like an event like, oh, he doesn't always show up. So this must be important. So it's trust is really important. Like, you know, are they going to whether it's a manager, a lawyer, an agent, are they going to represent you in a way that you want them to in the sense of, OK, it's going to be accurate? Is it going to be well done? Are they going to make me look good versus made me look bad? I mean, there have been plenty of managers who've been fired who are effective, but they were screamers and so forth. And the artist was like, that's not how I want to be represented in the market.

SPEAKER_03:
You know, that's fascinating. There's like a like, hey, you're an extension of me. I want to build. I want to build a team that represents my values or how they reflect on you.

SPEAKER_04:
And it's like and if one of your people is being an asshole, they're going to assume you're an asshole.

SPEAKER_00:
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SPEAKER_03:
So then I want to pivot here just for a second. So whenever I interview someone, I try to let our team know ahead of time and we get questions from our coaches. And more than a few of them, either A, are working with musicians or B, have friends who are professional musicians. And they were curious, like, OK, David, if there was some kind of paint by numbers approach today to architecting success. And I know there's a degree of luck involved and things like that. But taking luck out of it, How would you advise or mentor either working professional musicians or aspiring musicians to, like, if they could just design it themselves, how would you recommend they design their success?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, I think the first thing you need to do is understand the music you do and, you know, whether it's This sounds obvious, but I've seen artists that were doing a couple of different kinds of music at once that, A, that's a problem because you don't want to work in multiple genres because it confuses fans, but also you tend not to be good at all of them. So you've got to pick your lane musically. I think the most important first thing an artist needs to do in this era is to define the lifestyle or the niche that their music appeals to. I'll explain why. Let's go back to 99. The music business used to have a center, like MTV, National TV, magazine covers, terrestrial radio, where it could push you and your music across demographic and cultural lines to create you know, crossover, as they say. Yeah. And and so an artist, if they're making really good music but didn't. You know, fit into a lifestyle that was OK because these channels could spread you up and broadly, those channels are all gone. And now, you know, if you look at social media and streaming, which are the two biggest places to expose music, They're all algorithmic driven. And remember what algorithms do, they're not designed to expose you to new things. They're designed to give you more of the same. They're designed to create engagement and they don't want to give you something new with the risk that you'll leave. And so what happens is, musically now, people are getting stuck in silos. I listen to a certain kind of music, and I get fed more of it because that's what the algorithms are seeing. And so what it means is that it's really hard to get that broad success. And the most likely success, and likely doesn't mean they're high odds, but just better odds than broad success, is dominating a niche or a lifestyle. But not all music is obviously tied to a lifestyle. So I'll give you a few examples, and it's an exercise that everyone should go through. You have artists, you have artists made recipes like Jimmy Buffett, who is music was about a lifestyle, you know, that, you know, beach drinking. It's like you listen to his music. It transported you to a lifestyle. Yeah, the Caribbean. That was very obvious. Yeah. Then there's a guy like Jack Johnson, who it wasn't necessarily music, but he was from the lifestyle. He was a professional surfer. And so you could almost see him strumming the guitar at the campfire after the after surfing. But then you're like, well, I'm neither of those. I'm like, OK, then just pick one. What music, what lifestyle niche does your music appeal to? Or would you just make a guess even? What do I think it will appeal to? And then start marketing yourself to that lifestyle. Because one of the meaningful ways that music succeeds is it gets married to your lifestyle. We always like to talk about it becoming the soundtrack of your life. That music is the music I cook to, or lift weights to, or run to, or party to, or have sex to.

SPEAKER_03:
And that music

SPEAKER_04:
it's never going to go away in your life. It's going to stick with you because it's tied. Sometimes, there's certain music I listen to on certain trips, and I just listen to that music, and it takes me back to that trip. Defining that lifestyle, I think, is critical. Because that's where this era of social media and so forth is really useful. It's easy to target niches and lifestyles. People who like this, people who do that. I think that's the first thing you should do and start playing to that niche.

SPEAKER_03:
So I have a follow-up question. But before we do that, is there the lifestyle? Is part of it also sound? Like you mentioned, at Adam Levine and Kara's Flowers before they were Maroon 5. I think that's amazing, by the way. They got a record deal with Warner, and then it didn't work. And then Adam goes down to Long Beach and experiences different cultures and starts being immersed in that and integrating that into his music. This is weird to do, but I'll use myself as an example. So I love to play. I love to play the guitar. I play the piano. As I'm playing the piano, I've learned some Harry Connick Jr. I've learned some Billy Joel. I've learned some Jerry Lee Lewis. I'm learning Great Balls of Fire right now. It's super fun. And also, every time I'm doing this and I'm singing, I'm like, my voice sounds nothing like theirs. a Coldplay like I'm just I'm not the technical range, you know, I imagine that musicians have an ideal range of when their when their voice sounds the best. And there's also like a tenor tone or pitch, like probably my voice is more like James Taylor, right? Like, it's a smoother, there's not I'm not going to sound like Michael Jackson. Like if there's a smoother kind of even like vanilla tone to my voice, and if I only play his stuff, I can sound just like him if I want to in some ways. Is that part of the journey of an artist?

SPEAKER_04:
Broadly, yes. I mean, you're trying to figure out music that you like playing, that you're good at, that's going to be appealing to people. Yeah. You know, so, you know, one of the things that I always look for is someone who's doing like they're not doing something that everybody else is doing. They're doing something different, but not so different that it's going to take people forever to figure it out. So like you just want you like what? How can I take? I think a twist on this or spin on this, like what are the stuff I'd like and how can I kind of reinvent it in my own voice a little bit? That's great. And a lot of trial and error. I mean, I think the, you know, I mean, you talk to her. So I've written 12 songs. I got to know. No, you've you've written 12 songs. Maybe a couple of them are worth recording. You know, Springsteen writes 60 or 70 songs to get to 12. He wants to record. And he's one of the greatest songwriters ever. So, you know, the part of it is, you know, when you asked about how do you what's the blueprint, one of the blueprint, which sounds obvious is, like, is where I keep it as raising the bar to the right level, like, OK, you've picked this is who I am as ours is the kind of music I'm doing. Who are the biggest artists in the world who are doing that music? Yes, I have to be as good or better than. Oh, that's good. You know, I like I'm working. I'm working on a project. I have a record label in the Philippines, and it's with the largest media company in the Philippines, the top 10 media company in the world. And this is not just them. It's the entire Philippines music business has been really only trying to win in the Philippines. And so I partnered with this company with the idea of trying to globalize some of their top talent. And the artists, the bar for them has just been the Philippines. I'm like, well, stop looking at the Philippines as your bar. Now look at Adele or Taylor Swift or BTS or whatever your comparable artist is. It's no different. Again, I always make the sports analogy. It's great to be the national champion of the Philippines. But you want to go to the Olympics. Now you're competing, not because everybody in your country, it's everybody in the world. Yes. And so part of what in working with these artists, it's been raising the bar for them. It's like, you're like, They just never considered themselves in, you know, and not that they're in competition, but they never consider themselves, like, comparing themselves to lead artists. I can never do that. I'm like, no, you have to do that.

SPEAKER_03:
Yes, and by the way, that is so transferable. Any leader listening to this, like, who, and it doesn't even have to be competitors, people you look up to, you admire or whatever, but like, how can I be like them and or compete or supersede them? Like, how can I go beyond what the best in the world are doing? And to me, that's romantic. To me, that's intoxicating. It's always interesting to me when people get intimidated or scared or even discouraged by that. And I would imagine your response to that invitation is going to determine some degree of your success.

SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. And by the way, when I met with When and back to the thing about being a professional recording artist, we met with, you know, some artists and told them what our plan was to see if they wanted to kind of move off the Philippines, part of the global plan. And the most by far the most talented artists of all of them passed. Fascinating. She just she just wants to do her own thing. And, you know, it was heartbreaking. But, you know, again, like it clearly wouldn't have worked with her because that's not what she wanted. She just wanted to do a DIY thing and you know, maybe she'll never make much money at it. Maybe she's OK with that. And and maybe she'll come around and maybe it'll be too late. You know, I've had that happen where artists, you know, I had a artist, her own name, and we did OK with him. But he just was very he was resistant to a lot of change, which was going to. in our mind to make it more successful, you know, more commercial, more accessible. And ultimately we couldn't get there. We ended up not renewing his contract. And I know people have seen to this day, people run Jim is like, man, I should have listened to those octane guys. They knew they totally knew what was up. And he didn't, he wasn't even, and he said it in a way like to someone like, you know, trust the people around you. Like I, I just thought I knew better. And, you know, and, uh, And for me, what breaks my heart is, I want to see great talent get out to the world. And what I find super gratifying and exciting is helping an artist who no one knew, and then people coming to me and talking to me about that artist. And I'm like, you know, like getting, you know, having an artist's music, generically a product that the whole, it's on the tip of everybody's tongue.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, one, so then I want to regress just a little bit. So going back to the anatomy of a team, if there's someone who wants to take this seriously, if there's someone who wants to If you were to look and say, that's the proof that they are stacking all the cards in their favor, not a guarantee, but just increasing probability of success. Give us a breakdown, a flow chart or chart of the team that they're going to need to assemble around them in order to make this work.

SPEAKER_04:
Well, I always say the first person you hire is the lawyer, because the lawyer's there to protect you from everybody else. Oh, interesting. So a good lawyer, so you don't sign any stupid deals. Usually, the next person is the manager. The manager oversees your entire career. Your records, touring, publishing, personal appearances, They often help you with your life stuff if you need it. And then that's kind of the core of the team for an unsigned artist. And then maybe you've started touring a little bit. You probably don't have an agent yet, but you're just booking shows on your own. And you're marketing yourself. That's a key thing. Because in the old days, when I started in the business, you know, it was very hard for an artist to market themselves because you're getting on the radio, getting on national TV, getting in print, you know. So like if the artist wasn't marketing themselves, you're like, yeah, I didn't expect that. But now it's like you. We expect the artist to have something going on besides their music because the bar is so low. I mean, just get on social media, post videos, post content, get your friends to share. The bar to becoming a recording artist is now much lower. In the olden days, to get your music in people's hands, you had to get on record storage shelves. and that required a distributor and record stores have limited space. Now with a click of a button and $10 a month, you can have your music on every digital platform around the world. And then pursuant to that, but face it, social media is the biggest marketing platform in the music industry. Anybody can use it. Maybe the label has more money and more people working on it, but You know, you can find a couple of bucks to help boost a post. And at the end of the day, creativity can often win, you know, doing clever things. And it doesn't have to be clever. Like, I look at a guy like Noah Kahn, who's a classic example of what I'm talking about. You know, when I talk about everybody stuck in silos, Noah Kahn's a really big like folk singer-songwriter now. I think he's got two sold-out dates in Madison Square Garden. You'd be amazed at how many people have no idea who he is. Yeah, I've never heard of him. He started on his own, had a good manager, and largely was on social media just really talking about his music and just helping, he's a really good writer. and people are making a personal scheduler but he wasn't doing like dances or you know sketches it was just him and his music and him talking about his music and and so forth so it doesn't there's not one there's not one path you need to follow but you know but i would even say start marking yourself before you can get the lawyer and the manager in place like you've defined your Music, and one of the biggest questions people have when they're getting started is, do I put out this music? And the answer is, my recommendation is, unless it's objectively bad, put it out. The only way you're gonna find out if it's really good is what the music listeners say. You're gonna get a lot of opinions. The only ones that count are the ones who are actually deciding Hit play or not. And so, because often artists are not objective about their music, and sometimes putting it out is the only way to find out if it's good or not.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, in some ways that's like alpha beta testing, to your point. It's never been easier to get immediate feedback. And even, I'm thinking about our clients who are musicians and artists, and I'm also thinking about our coaches. Do you find that most artists or musicians or solopreneurs or people who are running small businesses over market or under market? Definitely under and then what what would you so I guess what even just practically by the way? So one of my friends her name is Tiffany Thompson. She is such a talented musician. She's she's got a fascinating history She worked for the CIA like she just a really interesting woman and she's really done the work in terms of her songwriting has gotten better she's got a great voice so so so so talented and I It just dawned on me is we're friends and I'm, you know, advocating for her success just the way friends do. And I'm like, I don't know if she's ever posted a song on social media and then boosted it. Yeah, but that's like it's such a maybe she has and maybe I'm wrong, but like how much money do you think artists should be spending like small artists should be spending on marketing and will that help them attract a manager? Like what's the strategy there?

SPEAKER_04:
Well, the answer to the first question is, is how much do you have? You know, like I tell every artist, every unsigned baby artist, I'm like every spare waking hour and every spare dollar you have should be going into your music. You should basically more or less be living like a monk You know, have a day job if necessary and live in somebody's basement as cheap as possible. You can invest in your music and in your career and in your marketing. So the answer is as much as possible. Where should you start and how should you start marketing your stuff? You build your social media profiles and you start posting content. You're tagging it. You're, you know, you're trying to get your friends to share it. You're trying to maybe even identify influencers who like similar music and say, hey, you know, I'd love to see, love to see what you think about my music. Maybe they post about it. Maybe you have to give them a couple of bucks to post about it. Because marketing, especially on social media, is like a form of networking. Yes. You know, it's like you're creating the nodes. Oh, interesting. And you're, you know, this node gets five more people and five more people. And you can spend money to help boost that, obviously. But, you know, it's an ecosystem that lends itself, obviously, to virality. And virality is something that you can help

SPEAKER_03:
You can nudge it along. Well, and also you're building your 1,000 true fans. I think Seth Godin's a pretty genius marketer. He talks about if you have 1,000 people who love your work, you can make a living doing that. So what's your strategy? He even has had artists who have a spreadsheet with 1,000 slots. And they're like, OK, I'm going to build my thousand fans.

SPEAKER_04:
And then, well, that's it's actually a big topic of discussion. The music industry is how do we how do we better monetize super fans? You know, the industry has been very focused on mass. Like, let's get the most people, which that that's not going away. But they're like, wait a second. Like most industries, your top, you know, five percent generate, you know, the huge it's more than the 80 20 world. Oh, wow. But the problem that the music has is the fan data is very fragmented, you know, and the managers who have, you know, you look at the different aspects of the business. The record labels are just on the recorded music. The publishers are just on the copyrights of the artist. The Live Days of the World are concerts. And then the merch companies are T-shirts and whatever. And they're buying all those things separately. And you're trying to understand you know, okay, like the super fan might spend more money on touring than on merch or, you know, like, and so how do you aggregate all that data when they're from different silos and different verticals? And ironically, the one who's in the strongest position to be in the super van business is the manager, because the artist is in all of those businesses. So when you look at this, you know, all the majors are talking about the superfan business, but they don't necessarily have all of the correct rights. So then they're going to have to, it's not like a natural extension. It's only a partial extension of their business. But if, you know, I'm just saying, because if Universal launches a superfan platform, they're going to have to convince artists to be on it. It's not like, oh, now you're on our superfan platform. No, like why am I going to be on your platform?

SPEAKER_03:
No kidding. And by the way, super fans tend to not want to be on major labels platforms.

SPEAKER_04:
Correct. And also artists are always concerned about having too many eggs in one basket. Yeah. So like, oh, you're my company for records. I don't want you to be my my company. for anything else. That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_03:
They want to keep separation of church and state. Yeah. Well, there's some wisdom there, I would think. I'm curious what you think about this. So I boosted some podcast stuff on X, not like with our company or anything. I was just toying around just to see what 10 bucks would do. And one is 10 bucks does a lot. depending on the platform, especially at that time, I think people were kind of running from X. And so you're going to get more, you're going to get more bang for your buck. But also it was fascinating. And I didn't do this on purpose, but I might now after having talked with you, like you get feedback, you know, so there was a lot of especially if it's like sponsored content, you're going to get some pretty ruthless feedback, because why is someone paying for this to be on my feed? And on the one hand, you can be like, I don't want to hear that. But on the other hand, it's like really fantastic.

SPEAKER_04:
You can start building a community if it's actually good. if it's negative constructive negative feedback like if it's just like you suck it doesn't help me at all but like like you know but if it's like why are you talking about this why don't you talk about that yeah it's too long or but you know if they actually make actionable feedback, then yeah, but it's easy to turn the other direction, obviously.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, and you can guide that. You could say, hey, instead of listening to this podcast or listening to this song or check out my photography or whatever and tell me what you think, rather than saying, hey, check out my photography, aren't I so great? You can actually say, Give me thoughts. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm growing my business and I'm working on my art. This is what I was trying to do. What do you think?" And then boost that post. I'd imagine you get way more bang for your buck.

SPEAKER_04:
We have a call to action. That's Marketing 101. Give people a call to action. Click on this. Sign up for this. Please tell me what you think. It's a call to action.

SPEAKER_03:
And then I would imagine honoring that when they actually do tell you what you think. You don't have to do what they tell you to do, but you can say like, thank you and thank you so much. And if you didn't like this one because of this, I actually wrote another song that's kind of like more like that. Check this out. Like I said, it's a way of building the tribe or the community. OK, so I want to pivot here. We're rounding third. I want to put some bows on some things. I want to put a bow on the team. So you mentioned lawyer first, oftentimes, then the manager. Are there other folks that would be good to surround yourself with?

SPEAKER_04:
I mean, eventually you want a business manager who's your accountant, who's basically helping you budget, you know, um, for everything, you know, but you pay your taxes, um, helping you manage your money. Uh, then eventually, you know, A record label, although that comes in many forms now, sometimes it's a full record label. Sometimes it's a label services where you get distribution services. You know, a music publisher, you don't necessarily need a full music publisher. You can do what's called a publishing administration deal where your essence, your publisher, but you need someone to register your copyrights to basically need to do the work to actually collect the money from your copyrights. So you need the publishing manager to collect the money that you make on your copyrights, and then an agent who helps you with shows. Fascinating. Or booking touring.

SPEAKER_03:
And this question has left in my mind, what do you think are the biggest mistakes that artists make as they're building their careers?

SPEAKER_04:
That's a good question. I think starting to believe their own hype, and they forget who they were when they started it, the hungry, driving, I can do better, you know, and start to, because it's easy to get distracted, because you, you know, You have money, you have all these other opportunities. And I've seen too many artists get successful, start chasing all these other things, and they neglect their recording artist career. And they got to remember that all those other things They're the fruit from the tree of your, you know, because unless you take one of those things and become bigger at that than being a recording artist, your access to all those things is based on your fame as a recording artist. And there are, you know, artists have, you know, because by the way, being a recording artist is a very hard life. And they're like, oh, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be an actor. And success in one doesn't guarantee success in the other. So you have to continue to nurture your music career while pursuing other things. And too often, a young artist will look at a big artist who's doing all that stuff and, oh, I want to be like that. Well, yeah, but they didn't do that from day one. They built towards it. and they have infrastructure around all those things. Oh, they've got a liquor brand? Well, they're not really running it. They partnered with a liquor company, and they're doing a lot of promotion around it, but they're not sitting there like, OK, let me help formulate the new vodka. You have an overly idealized view. And so that's one, I think, is especially in this day and age, where in the olden days, You know, if you're a big artist and you have put out a record and toured, you would want to go away for a while because you get overexposed, you know, like you go away for a year or two or so. Now you can't go away because the people's attention spans are so short that if you go away, they'll forget about you and they'll move on. And so you really can't take that kind of time off to pursue other stuff. And the other thing is, as an artist, not evolving. How do I evolve? But not change it. With every artist, I always say evolutionary, not revolutionary. Because you want to evolve and become refreshed so that, at the musical level, you don't want to be like, oh, for a fan to say, oh, this just sounds like the last album. There are artists that I think are good, but I don't listen to any of their new stuff. It just sounds like everything they've ever done. So you want to evolve and grow. but not so much that the fans are like, this isn't the same artist I've been listening to. You don't want to Chris Gaines. It has to be kind of gradual over time.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, that's good. That's so, so, so good. So then I'm curious as we're. Look like with I bringing this person's name of is always funny, it's like a Rorschach test to see what people think about life. Taylor Swift, as you're watching her, I'm not even referring to her now as a musician anymore, like a business titan. what do you think her next moves are? And I'm asking because there's phases of an artist's career. So you're building your trunk, like you said, and she still, obviously, is very much protecting. And she hasn't even really diversified publicly. I mean, I'm sure she's got 100 businesses that she owns or whatever.

SPEAKER_04:
Well, I think part of the... She's an interesting case because she literally... I don't think it's possible in this day and age for an artist to be bigger than her. I go back to the last artist that was this big like that was Michael Jackson probably. From a musical career perspective, I'm not even sure what she can do that she hasn't done. Maybe do a concert on the moon. I don't know. She's done. She's dabbled in some acting. She's quietly invested in some businesses. I think, you know, and again, this is a total outsider's perspective. I just think. she still really loves doing this, you know? I just, the amount of music that she's recording and the amounts that she's touring and just, like, I still get the vibe that, like, this is all she wants to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, and it could be a double down strategy. She seems, unlike Michael Jackson in some ways, she seems, Michael seemed to be managed a lot. It seems as if she's a major voice in the architecture of what's happening.

SPEAKER_04:
I've actually met her management and she has management but she's like the CEO of Taylor Swift and the manager is like the COO of Taylor Swift. They're helping to make stuff happen and so she's not doing everything but I think she's not driving all of it but I think and there are other artists like that you know that are really driving the ship, but I definitely get the sense that she's driving the ship.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, well, and it's fun to watch and admire and then dissect, you know, in terms of success leaves clues. What is she doing? How do you, there's a wisdom, I think, to what she's up to. And you know, who knows how long it'll last, but I think people are rooting for her to kind of see how she evolves. And she's young, you know, if she wants, she can have another 10 years of being the most famous person on earth and then turn 40 and decide to do something completely different.

SPEAKER_04:
I think she has the level of fame where she'll never ever be able to go back to not being famous. And so whatever she does, it's going to have a big spotlight on it.

SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, that's fascinating. That's fascinating. So then speaking a little bit of name dropping, I do want to give credit And actually, your record label discovered a lot of people. The Hives, I really enjoyed. And there's other artists as well. And obviously, Maroon 5 was such a huge deal. You mind telling our audience the story about when you're at that dinner, and there was seating. Usually, you're in the back, but then they put you in the front. And so you were

SPEAKER_04:
Oh, yeah. So, um, Clive Davis has a Grammy party every year. It's the night for the Grammys. It's like, it's like the Vanity Fair Oscar party. It is. She was my friend Star King. Like you would not believe, not just the biggest recording artists, A-list movie stars. You know, I met Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis and Robin Williams and Plus all the big A-list recording artists. And there's like a sit down dinner and then artists perform and you're all sitting at tables and they put the talent up front and the executives in the back and the publicists run the party. And, you know, I was invited, but I obviously had a crappy table in front of the publicists. I'm like, I'm like, where is it? So I'm like, how bad is my table? Am I sitting in San Francisco? They're like, yeah. Oh, you know what? There's this. There's this table centered second row where I don't think any of the people are going to show up. It was like Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe, Kevin Bacon, Keira Sedgwick, Jay-Z, Beyonce, John Mayer. I ended up getting side of the table. The only people who didn't show up were Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon. I ended up sitting next to Beyonce. It was by the way, she was lovely in every way. She was so beautiful, really tall. And just on one hand, I'm not famous. I'm nobody. But on the other hand, I was in that party. And that's like so they're like, I don't know who this guy is, but he got in the party. So, you know, maybe I need to be nice and maybe get hurt my career. And but, you know, it was really fun for me was watching all of them being so excited by all the performances. Like they're just like, in fact, Maroon 5 was performing and Jay-Z and Beyonce were late because at that time, Jay-Z was running Island Def Jam and he was hosting an event somewhere else. They came in late and they snuck in when the music started and Beyonce literally introduced herself. It's like, hi, I'm Beyonce. I'm like, I didn't say, yeah, I know that. I'm like, oh, Dave. Julie said to me, sorry we're late, but we had this Island Def Jam, but we really wanted to see Maroon 5. Because this was when they were nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy, and they were blowing up. They were very popular with the black artists because all the black artists and black music fans, they want to support, they want to like a band, but a lot of them like R&B and music like that. They weren't listening to Nirvana and being like, now they're running on black fans, but if you're classically like black music, so Maroon was the band that they all could really wrap their arms around and say, I love this, my favorite new band. It was really interesting to see that and informed a lot of how we thought about making the next record because Adam really was a huge Prince fan and wanted to make something very production forward. We're like, on the first record, let's keep a little more organic. Now that they were embracing this broader neo-soul thing, we can do something a little more forward production-wise.

SPEAKER_03:
Well, what I love about that story is just the generosity, you know, uh, the, the way that musicians, I'm sure this isn't always true, but musicians like rooting for each other, you know, and to see people who are, um, icons of their own, like Beyonce and Jay Z being excited about, uh, other artists is encouraging. And it shows like the love, kind of the love of the music and yeah. And I imagine that's one of the reasons why you got into this business in the first place. And, you know, David, thank you for a sprawling conversation. We didn't even get to half the questions that I was really excited to ask. And so your career is legendary. And I know that you're doing other things now. Excited to have you back. We can talk about that some other time, but thanks for being on our show. Thank you for having me. Alright, we have a few more things to let you know about before we go. First, podcast reviews really help us serve more people. So if this podcast is helpful for you, we'd love your help to get it into as many leaders hands as possible. Please leave us a review, even if it's not five stars. And if you really want to go the extra mile, let us know what you'd like to hear more of or what you think we could do better to serve you and the people you care about. Okay, second, we have more resources for you online and they're all free. We have free assessments, educational videos, articles from sources like Fast Company, written by our coaches and clients, all designed to help you use our tools in your everyday life and leadership. To dive into the free treasure trove of goodies we have for you, go to novus.global and then click on resources. Some of you have been listening for a while and you haven't yet taken that next step to hire a coach. This is your time. I can't tell you how often I've heard from clients around the world that they wish they would have talked to us sooner. If you have a sense that you're capable of more, we will be thrilled to explore what coaching could do for you and those you influence. Simply email us at begin at Novus.global or click the link in the show notes. You also might be listening to this thinking, Maybe you want to be a coach, or maybe you already are, and you have a vision to build a six or seven-figure practice coaching people you love in a way that brings life to you and your clients. Well, that's why we created the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. It is an in-depth coaching apprenticeship designed to help you create the coaching practice of your dreams. The first step in exploring that is simple. Just go to www.mp.institute. There we have free assessments to help you see what kind of training you need to create the coaching practice the way our coaches do at Novus Global. Finally, this show was produced by Rainbow Creative with Matthew Jones as Executive Producer, Steven Selnick as Producer, and Rob Johnson as Audio Editor and Engineer. We love working with this team. Find out more about how to create a podcast for you and your business at RainbowCreative.co. Thank you so much for listening. We love making these for you. And remember, dare to go beyond high performance.