Billie Eilish's Longtime Agent Tom Windish on Booking Coachella, Touring Post-COVID and Working at Wasserman

Coachella headliner Billie Eilish. Like the most seasoned of booking agents, Tom got his start while still in college Binghamton, New York, to be exact. That's where he first caught the bug for buzzing bands that were sort of left of center. Upon graduating, he had a short lived internship at William Marris where he would bug the agents to show him the ropes. It's why Tom would name his own company, Bug, launched a little over thirty years ago as the rock

scene was exploding. In fact, the word indie is practically baked into Tom's last name, which makes his career track seemed practically predestined. Circumstances led him to Chicago, where he would build a formidable roster of bands most people had never heard of, and he would scale up to include dozens more. That led to gaining the attention of the budding Midwest booking agency Billions, which took Tom under its wing from to two thousand four. For the next thirteen years,

Tom called the Windish Agency home. He operated a lean and mean machine that looked after hundreds of artists, but it was his own skills as a talent scout and being in the right place at the right time that resulted in identifying the singular talent that is Billie Eilish. As Billy and other clients got more popular competing agencies, he says, we're all trying to steal them. The solution, as Tom Windish saw it, was to align with bigger entity.

He chose Paradigm in seventeen as it was absorbing several small to mid size indies like his own. Among them the firm's Little Big Man, a m Only Coda and X Ray Touring, which brought to the roster such touring giants as Ed Sharon Coplay, David Getta and Fish, among many many more. Not long after arriving at Paradigm, Tom Windish marveled at the health of his industry. Little did he know what was coming in the form of COVID. The pandemic not only disrupted touring in its physical form,

it turned the business of live music upside down. All agencies were impacted, but Paradigm in particular lost its financial footing and began exploring a merger or a sale. The buyer would turn out to be Ksey Wasserman, grandson of Lou Wasserman, who was among Hollywood's founding fathers, working for over eight decades to completely reshape entertainment. The deal for Paradigm closed in March, and the agency was re christened

Wasserman Music. Not surprisingly, Tom was well read on the Wasserman dynasty, and it's proven to be an asset as he and his new boss navigate the post COVID landscape, passing on that guidance to his artists. As Tom Winters prepares to fly from his home base of New York to India, California for Coachella, where he has multiple acts on the bill, he cautiously exhales while recounting the routing

and supply chain problems COVID has wrought. How Billie Eilish's live career progressed memphodically despite second guessing by his peers and what he's learned from decades spent directing artists on the road. We pick up Tom Story in Chicago in the early nineties. Welcome back to Strictly Business. Here's Tom win Dish. So, Tom win Dish, thanks so much for being on Strictly Business. Welcome, nice to be here. Thanks

for inviting me. M the indie rock music scene in Chicago at that time, this is like ninety something was great, Touch and Go Records, Thrilled Jockey, Drag City, Tupelo. Yeah, so I ended up like meeting tons of people. Everyone was super nice, very supportive of each other. Everyone was saying you should move here. I think maybe I was living with my parents at the time because I was broke. I was spending all the money I made on the booking on the phone bill, like literally, and he said,

you can live up above the club. He lived above the club too. You can live in this other one bedroom or something or studio for a hundred fifty bucks a month. So I then went over to Lounge Jackson met the people on that place, Sue Miller, and that was from Julia and those two clubs were they hated each other. Arrivals they were trying to book the same bands. They get really upset with you if you booked your band at the other club. And they took me out

to dinner. I said, I'm thinking about moving here. Oh really, yeah, I think I might live above the empty bottle. He said I could live there for a hundred fifty dollars and they were like that, you can live above our club for hundred bucks a months utiles included. And I drove out in January three weeks later, like my car full of stuff basically like a file cabinet and dot matrix printer and an old McIntosh ch s e this big cube computer thing. And and I lived about I mean,

this was not really an apartment. It was like, I don't know what you described it as a room at four walls. My kitchen was in a bathroom. The rent was great, and I lived above this club. And and I never thought twice about like this is a dump. This is awful. I was in heaven. You must have seen so many amazing shows I did. And the talk about Uncle Tupelo. This is when Jeff Tweedy was playing their solo all the time and was dating or engaged to Sue Miller. They ended up getting married at the

club when I lived there. It was like the one time that I had to like go away for a while because they like used my room as like dressing. Yeah. Yeah, But I went to the wedding and everything. It was fantastic. And then you know, like probably six months after I got to Chicago, Batch from Billions called me up and asked if I'd be interested in joining Billions. Tell me about him because the listeners of this podcast are definitely

not familiar with these characters, So describe him. Okay, Well, he booked Pavement and John Spencer, Blues Explosion and loads of bands on Touch and Go and was a legend. And I mean he just had one of the best independent booking agencies in the country and was on the up and up. Jesus A Zero it was another band and they were all like doing really well. I had so much respect for him. I was afraid of him, so I kind of worshiped this guy. Maybe we worked out I deally. I went and worked there and it

was great. Learned a lot. So when did you form your own agency? Um? I think I was at Billions six or seven years something like that. Maybe a little more and I had a little roster of thirty or so artists. Remember I put it up. There was like one page on the website. Yeah, I have like a link to that somewhere or something. It's pretty funny. I think there's like a spelling error on it. One of the bands was spelled from for a minute. Yeah, it

was a long time ago. I my office was the second bedroom of my condo and I had an employee. That was the main thing, Like, the main reason I wanted to start my own thing was I didn't have an assistant, and I was booking a lot of bands and doing a lot of the contracts and stuff myself, and I thought if I have an assistant, I could book more shows. I was there for like eight for

ten years quite a while. It was great. I'm really glad that I started things there and not New York in l A. Why do you say that I didn't really have like a handle at all on what was going on in New York in l A with you know, this hot band and that hot band. But I'm happy that I wasn't comparing myself to others and losing out on things to others. We really carved our own Lane. I would say probably other people in the business probably hadn't even heard of a lot of the stuff that

we were signing. God Speed You, Black Emperor Low. We signed Diplo early on. I was doing a lot of electronic stuff to a lot of people on Warp records like Apex Twin really never played, but Square Pusher, aw Teckers group, Cold Cut, who started a label called Ninja Tune,

Kid Koala, and on Tobin, Saint Germain or Sanchoman. So like electronic live, which hardly anyone was booking that before other than Jerry Girard and his was more mainstream live electronic stuff in DJ's and ours was like quite underground. They would sell some of them would sell a hundred tickets, two hundred tickets, not not very big. And then when streaming happened, it was like someone turned a floodlight onto these things. Like before a lot of these records you

just couldn't find. There might be one store or two stores in New York and l A and a few other spots, and you'd go there and order it and it would show up like a month or six weeks later. So all of a sudden, streaming and I guess illegal downloading. Even I noticed more tickets being sold. Interesting, I mean discovery is that that is the challenge of the people who make music, who sell music. So one thing about the Windows Agency that I remember, even before you joined Paradigm,

is that you had a lot of acts. Is like you scaled up even as an indie. What was the thinking behind that and what do you look for in an artist? I mean fundamentally, like I'm looking I'm listening for music that gives me butterflies or goose bumps, or

that I just really enjoy that. I like things that are a little bit different than anything I've ever heard before, whatever element, the way the voice sounds, the way the drum sound, the style, and if I hear something that I like, especially back then, like you'd hear things you like and there was like an audience. You didn't really know how big it was, but you could book it and put up a few shows, see how it did, and then if it went well, like then you do

some more. I remember signing in this band Jagga jazzi Ist or Yaga Yazzis. They were on Ninja Tune. It was like an eight piece in Norwegian electronic jazz band. I had never heard anything like it. They were incredible. I had no idea how it was going to go. And we did like three to five tickets to night on the first tour in like eight or ten cities, and the shows were incredible, and everyone said that was amazing. Um, that was a success for us to you know, selling

that number of tickets was really good. I would sign bands or artists that I had never seen before, and I remember back then other agents really looking down on that. I would never sign a band I haven't seen, and I did that because I didn't have the financial means to go sign these bands. It didn't make sense for me to fly to Norway first to see Jagga jazz

Is to make sure they were good. Because when they toured and they did sell eight cities and three to five tickets, that meant we made like four thousand bucks or something, you know, or three thousand bucks. You know, if I had flown there and stayed in a hotel, that would have been half the money. It almost always worked out. There's very few times I can remember where the band wasn't good, and then you flash forward to today, Like Billy had never played a show when I signed her.

Lord had never played a show when I signed her, so and I was fine with it. I just thought, they make great music, they'll figure it out. I'll do whatever I need to help, but they'll figure it out. And if they don't, then we won't do many more shows. But they did, I'll figure it out. That's so interesting because it's like, that's not how it used to be. It was like you had to pay your dues, you had to start at the clubs and make your way up.

And today it's like you can have a giant hit, your first record out be playing arenas in no time with zero touring experience. I think streaming had a lot to do with everything changing, at least for the kind of people I worked with, because I mean I saw I remember with Hot Chip we did one tour, it went well. Streaming kind of took off that. Back then,

it was like Pirate Bay or whatever it was. You could practically google things and find places to like download this stuff, and everybody like certain people are just doing They had computers running twenty four hours a day just downloading stuff. It was like it was like getting the keys to fdo Schwartz or something. You have whatever you want. But then the next tour they did like there were

a lot more people there. I'd say, like the chunk of their fans were doing that stuff right, probably because they couldn't afford to buy the music. That was the whole thing. Afford and it's like hard to get your hands on it, hard hard to find, of course. Okay, so tell me about when disjoined Paradigms in something like that. What was the thinking behind that. At the time, you had a staff of more than eighty in six cities and over a thousand clients. Clearly things were working. So

what did Paradigm offer? I guess what I felt was that the more successful we became, and the more successful our artists became m and at the time that meant Lord the x ax diplo Odessa Flu, the more intense the competition became. It was great when we were under the radar and no one had heard of the bands

in terms of the competition and the stress. And but like then, these artists got more popular and the agencies were all trying to steal them, and they would say no, but then the agency would go back again a month or two or three later, and that went on for years, so that it felt like towards the end like these people were offering their relative enough they would change I'll give you my my my house or something, and I

was like, jeez, what else is going to happen? And I was always thinking what this started almost day one when I started Windance Agency. What can we do to provide a better service to the artist. I know it sounds like everyone does that, but I was the first agency to start password protected webs site where you could see how much you were being paid and if we had the deposit and the signed contract and all those things. Very sounds incredibly simple. Now. We had a tour marketing department.

I think before anybody, we had a branding department. These were all things like I was either thinking, what's gonna be helpful for the artists, what are they gonna appreciate, what's gonna help sell more tickets? Or what is everybody else saying they do? And we need to compete with that?

We need to like have an answer. We had people that would like help with acting or would meet with our artists and basically asked like, what are your dreams outside of music and then go and try and implement them and they did very interesting things, and we did that for years. I basically got to a point where I thought it's never gonna be enough. I could have twenty people doing these things instead of six and still wouldn't be enough because it's all about perception, not reality.

So I need to join one. And the perception is like bigger, bigger, better, we'll get more from the artist. So I did it. You know, I went with ones that were nice people, and they had all been indies too. They were really cut from the same cloth. Paradigms or Party Diamonds Company, Little big Man Am Only Monterey, Dakota may have come after, I can't remember. And when I would speak with these people, the former owners of these agencies, they sort of had the same experience as me in

different ways. They all started these things like in the second bedroom or in a little garage or whatever, and it group And I don't know, there's something about that DNA that makes you feel comfortable, right, Were you being courted by the other agencies? Yeah? What was that like? I mean, it's nice to be wanted. Did you feel like the way that they sort of sell the artists. I'm like, we'll do this for you and this will happen.

We have these whatever tools. I mean, it's interesting because back then, like I didn't really know they say that, Yeah, they say they have all these things, they say they do all these things. I wasn't really sure like which one is telling the truth or which one is the most true? Right, Well, so that's really going to do it. This is what the artists go through, right when CIA and W M E and U t A are all yeah,

and when they have to choose a label. Yeah, that's true, you know, um, and I guess ultimately it kind of comes down to your gut again where you feel most comfortable, which was obviously paradigm for you. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about festivals, because we're coming out of this very dark couple of years which really upended the touring industry. But we're days away from Coachella at this point. Lollapalooza went off without a hitch. What's your view of

the return of festivals, Amid Covid. I mean, I went to the Lalla Closa. I figured it was great. I went to us the city limits. It felt like every other obsously limits. I went to it was great. They waited in lines for food. I saw a ton of bands. It was really good. How do I feel about it? I mean, I'm really happy it's back. What was the pandemic like for you? As a booking person? It was brutal and horrible in a lot of ways. You like

to see everything you've built and what you do. I would say booking and live shows, that's the thing that that makes me tick, that's the thing that excites me. And to not have that sort of it swept out from under you and and sometimes thinking like this is ever going to come back, just not really knowing it really sucks. Yeah, and probably something you've never experienced. Hell no, of course not. Yeah. It was I mean sometimes very awful,

very stressful. And then also it's a responsibility to guide artists make them feel like it's going to be okay. It was really brutal a lot of ways. There were a lot of silver linings, but definitely being able to spend lots of extra time with my son when he was one and two years old, it was amazing and I feel just so grateful that I got to do that because normally I would travel every week or two and go out to a show every other night and that's what I do. Now you're back. I'm back. Yeah.

I was talking to someone today. It was asking me, like, do you think that, like we'll do less small trips and not go to as many shows. I said, I'd like to think that would be the case. But I'm going to shows every night now and I'm on a plane every week for the next eight weeks. I feel like it will go back to that, at least for a while. I mean, yeah, maybe I'll say no to some things, but there's an awful lot going on, and

I'm also happy and grateful that it's going on. We need to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more from Tom Wendish, and we're back with Wasserman Muse six Tom Wendish. I mean, Billie Eilish's tour was one of those tours that that was impacted. It seemed like she was able to pivot, do a lot of other projects, be available for awards shows and things like that. But what were those conversations like about having the postpone a tour for a year or maybe two years. Who knows,

she might have a new album by then. You could be a completely different cycle. They were repetitive because we did it several times. Yeah, and it wasn't just with hers, with everybody. You'd get to the point where you're moving moving the thing for like the third or fourth time, and it feels like you're beating a dead horse or something, and it's I mean, it's not great. I've had this feeling the other night. I've been feeling really happy to be out at shows. There have been moments where I've

been overwhelmed with emotion or goose bumps or tears. I mean, it's actually like quite a beautiful thing to be even it doesn't matter how big the artist is, whether they're playing the twenty people or a hundred, to be there and just to be so happy that like this amazing musical moments happening, you're in a room with all these people, you realize, like this is why I do it, and this thing that the reason I do it, being in the room and experiencing these things and helping to bring

this joy to these fans and musicians. Like not having that and doing it for two years, like it was dark, Like it kind of sucks talking about shows that are sort of fictional might happen. And I'm really glad that the things I'm talking about now are really happening. It's the same for the artists and for the fans and for the promoters. It's amazing. Like sometimes I go backstage after the show and we're hugging each other and we're all like so happy that they have that feeling too,

and when they're on stage they get it. It's not just me. It comes to like rescheduling a tour, like there are many challenges that pop up with that, the availability of venues and what kind of things were you up against when you were moving a major tour two three, four times, other people that want the buildings to and as you push things back further and further into the future, you just run into more and more people that are planning.

Everyone's planning a tour, and it feels like you're kind of squishing into a time when just everybody wants the same real estate and it's hard to get. And yeah, I mean we were talking about it before. How when I first started doing this, artist booked themselves so they kind of understood the routing process and stuff. But most are almost all artists these days, have not done that at least like at the level that I'm dealing with.

I was talking too artists the other day. It was like they couldn't understand why they had to drive from Washington to Boston and it was like nine and a half hours or something, and it's like, I know, that sucks it as of bales, And normally, I'm sort of known for booking things very far in advance, and part of the reason for that is to just get perfect rating.

But that's not really possible these days. I mean, I'm booking shows for next spring, and so is everybody else basically, and summer and fall, and even the tours that like, let's say got going like the end of one, they had to deal with like different state laws about COVID, so the routing really could be funky where it's like, oh, we can't play that venue because they don't require masks or whatever. I mean, were you running up against that too. I didn't run into that so much. It was mostly

what's going to be happening with COVID next week? And I just felt like every day I still sort of feel this way, but definitely like last fall when I had a lot of people on tour again, every day you wake up and wondering, like, what's going to happen today. Is it gonna be okay or not? I will say like this year, there's been a very high number of just odd things that have happened that lead to cancelations, like one of them, and they're all like sort of

active god type things. One of my bands, one of my clients they had there, the trailer was stolen, all the equipment, so they can't play the show that day. Some of the supply chain related. Also, something breaks in your van, they can't get the part. That's happening with busses a lot. You know, last night the sound was all messed up, but at a really good club, and I was asking the club, the owner or whatever, what's

the deal. We've had four different sound people in the last four weeks, and this is like a premier venue, really good club. Well, they can't find a sound person that is like a very good sound person. A lot of sound people when it got another job. So that's also a supply chain issue. That's the supply chain issue. And then they also had issues with the equipment and they can't get it fixed because the parts have and arrived. And then people are getting COVID left and right. Still

they're sick, they can't play, they're sick. You wake up and just like, what's going to happen today? Thankfully I haven't had any like major issues, but it's really keeping you on your toes. I mean I remember talking to an agent years ago about like how great it all was. Everything is just selling tickets and we work at amazing artists they're selling tickets. This I don't see this changing ever,

went from that to uh stressful, really stressful. Did you ever question like, oh my god, maybe I didn't I got into the wrong business. I mean, I'll tell you I had extra time even though I was booking these tours over and over again. I started a small record label. I have like a label called Wilder and I named after my son that I did with Future Classic and I put out about ten records, some were single, one album, a few EPs. That's been really interesting. I'd manage an

artist named Daniel Ponder, who incredible. I think a lot of people will hear her. I became a partner of School Night, which is a live music showcase in in l A. And all those things. I did them not to change to replace my day job, but to help me understand other aspects of the business a lot better to make me better at my day job. And it's been remarkable. I feel like I've learned more in the last two years. I feel like I've learned a lot.

Let's talk about Billie Eilish. You started working with her when she was fourteen. Tell me what you saw in her back then. The main thing is I was just so lucky that Justin Loveliner, I didn't know him. He signed her to his label and just reached out to me and said, I'm Justin. I have a record label. I found this as young woman. I think she's going to be huge. I really like what you've done with Lord, go meet her. And he sent me Ocean Eyes and I love that song like like every and you heard that.

That's a great song. It was not rocket science. It wasn't like I was taking a huge gamble. Her first show, I set up a so Far Sounds in my office. She had never played, and we didn't want like all these people to go that actually wanted to go see her. We just wanted her to play in front of an audience that didn't know what they were getting, which is so Far Sounds, that's their whole thing. And she got up there and played and it was great. I think it helped her sort of break the ice and we

went from there. Was it just her in Phineas. Yeah, it must have been like twenty minutes or so, twenty five minutes. She played the ukulele and they literally sat on the stools that were in our kitchen, these sort of like taller stools, uh, and played to fifty people. So did you envision like the future that she would end up having, like as a real groundbreaking artist and arena filler festival draw she's headline in coach Alla. I never really think about it in those ways. I don't

know what it is about my mentality. I just get excited by the music and in the moment, I try and book the best show possible, the best show for them, the right size. Not always that doesn't always mean the biggest show. Just one that's going to be great, that they're really gonna like, and that the fans are really gonna like, because those are important and those are great for developing an artist and a lot of for a lot of different reasons. And I'm always thinking, like, what

is this show going to lead to? If we sell this out, then we'll go sell that place out and set that place out. But I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself. But I mean also, I like, I knew this thing is going. This is a rocket we're holding on. And I think one of the biggest things that did was like really discourage everyone from going too big, too fast. I said, Billy needs to play

in in the place that fits a thousand people. If where she plays in front of the place that fits four thousand people, even though maybe she could play there, Let's let her have that experience in front of a thousand people. It'll be a comfortable experience for her. The fans will be like so excited that they were able to get in, and people second guests that along the way, I had to get these calls like why isn't she

playing here? Why isn't she playing there? Why is she headlining the main stage the second Why is she headlining the second stage? She should be on the main stage. No, I think it's gonna be great when she headlines the second stage, because where would we go if we were second or third on the main stage and should just be on the main stage every time. That second stage is pretty cool. There's been a lot of amazing moments over there, and let's have one, um, and I think

that worked out. Think it's really cool. Are you talking about the specific festival where she played the second stage Coachella? Coachella, Okay, so this will be her as she headlines. This will be her first time headlining Coachella. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm not thinking, like how many other times she's going to do that? Right, I got you. I haven't thought about the next one yet, you know, I'm looking forward to

this one. I was just going to say that it is amazing that she can command an audience that big. I mean, I saw her at the Greek and her some of her songs are very quiet. She's her voice is not projecting the way a belter like a pop artist would. I think that's amazing that she can. Actually I find this with few artists, but when they do it really well to be able to capture the attention of a room that big or a festival. The loudest part of her shows is not the sound system, but

the audience. The screaming. Yes, I know, it's like when bad Guy, when she's sang bad Guy was like, I really could not hear her sing at that point, it was just screaming teenage girls, but such a fun experience. It is super competitive to get that slot at at Coachella though, right, Yeah, yeah, it wasn't just one phone call. It was a very long time. I told Paul to Let that he could write a book about booking coach Ella this year, but I don't think many people would

read it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's just like dorks and geeks like Paul and I and people in the weeds that would be really excited about it. Why do you say that? Was it just the again, the COVID of it all and the switching it up and confirmed then they're not Scott. Yeah. And the mix of coach Hella. It has to be a mix. It used to be like you'd have that one huge retro or sort of multi generational artist, but now it's like you have to have hip hop, you have to have pop, and you

have to have whatever is cool of something else. Yeah, exactly something. Yeah, it's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be amazing. Yeah you're excited. Yeah, I am excited. I've got some other bands playing there too that I'm excited about. Yeah, who else do you have? I have this woman named Rena Sawa Yama. She is amazing and it is going so well for her. What's her story. She's from the UK. She's kind of a cross between imagine a Japanese version of The York and Lady Gaga. Wow, that sounds awesome,

very interesting. And she's playing New York coming up. And we sold almost ten thousand tickets really fast. I love that. Like an artist that almost no one I know has heard of and then they're selling town thousand tickets. That happens. Great, that happens these days. It happens. Yeah. I mean I book a lot of those artists. Wolf Peck is one of those artists people. So this band Wolf Peck, never heard of him, you know, they just sold out Master Square Garden, who likes them, like a lot of people.

And then I had this other band called Biagra Boys. They're playing Coachella. They're from Sweden. They're like a punk rock band. And I booked this this tour that they're on. I just had no idea how it was gonna do. And the whole thing sold out and we or something really fast. And like every one of those bands that got bigger in the pandemic and there's not really the data to support it. I don't really follow data very much because I still have a very hard time telling

what it means. There's bands that they don't stream, what they sell a lot of tickets. There's bands it's stream, they don't sell tickets. And then there was also a two year break there where it's just someone just like threw the cards up and we're figuring out where things are at. Now, let's talk about the transition from Paradigm to Wasserman. I know it got a little chaotic there for a second. Yeah, yeah, but it all worked out hopefully. What's your view of it? Was it the right thing

to do? What happened at the beginning with Paradigm, so it's nothing to do with Wasserman, Like, Paradigm let go of a lot of people from the music department, a lot of agents and staff that were formerly Windish people. So these people that I really worked a long time with and worked hard to build their foster's and we're all great agents. That was devastating. It's like having two thirds of your family kicked out or something and there was nothing I could do about it. So that sucked.

It was awful. I mean I felt really bad and powerless. And then the Wasserman thing, like that was a great thing. We wanted to like join a different entity. When the Paradigm ut a thing happened, I met Casey. I had heard about him, I had heard about the grandfather, read the books about um, watched the movie. I mean, of all the old Hollywood agent manager legends, this was the top. His roster was insane. So I met his grandson, cool guy.

And then when the Wassman stuff came start came up, I was like cool, and I feel very good about it. I'm excited about the resources that they have and a lot of the people I've met, and I feel like it's going really well into changing the name, almost like give you guys a fresh start, because I feel like Paradigm kind of took a beating those last few years. I feel like I was so focused on my roster and doing things that I don't know and also sort

of powerless. If people said things about Paradigm, I think a lot of times I didn't even hear it, but also didn't pay much attention to it because there wasn't anything I could do about it. Like I was booking to the Eilish tours, I was booking a whole bunch of other things. No, it was it was really mainly about the leadership and the financials of the agency. I didn't really like know much about that until the pandemic.

They definitely weren't walking around talking about it. It may have said spend less on your travel or something, but I mean they I don't spend a lot on travel. I fly coach most of the time. I was saying that to me. I don't take subs two shows. I've ride a city bike. You can never take the d out of tom windows. Yeah, I take subways. You practically have the word indie in your last name. Yeah, I never really thought about that. This is my takeaway from

our conversation. You are a risk taker. You take on bands that you don't know if that tour is going to sell well or not. And it seems like connecting with Paradigm was also kind of a risk and I can see why when it came to layoffs that would have been really difficult for you because you decided to take that step, right. Did those employees find other places to work, Were you able to hire people back at all,

or we've hired people back. I mean, the the agents, like the Formula windowsh agents that they let go have all gone and started independent agencies and and I'm sure they're all going to have the best year they've ever had, and I'm very happy for them. And every agency is going to be trying to buy them, just like they tried to buy my agency. And I think they're all

going to find a lot of happiness. I think that they're really psyched, just like me, are very psyched that their shows again, you know, they can go and experience this stuff that they've been talking about for two years. So are we back? Is that it? I mean? I wish I knew. I'm afraid to say, who knows? Yeh, who the heck knows? Um? I sure hope. So when the pandemic started, everyone was like, oh, yeah, it was

going to be two weeks. I remember reading, uh was it Mark Geiger, Who's who said the industry wouldn't be back until two And I was like, that's crazy. He was right, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. All right, here's hoping for better times and a healthy live industry. It sure feels good now. I go to a show almost every night. Sometimes too. Yeah, it's feeling great. That's great, Tom, thanks so much for talking to us, and have an amazing time at Coachella. Thanks Tom. All right, thank you,

thank you. Tune in next week for another episode of Varieties Strictly Business.