Daniel Glass

world in Paris. And from this incredibly hard upbringing, she creates an atmosphere where the where the world comes together of royalty wealth, jets set, truly jets set and figured everything out of what people how they want to be uh uh wined and dined. And the more money she charged, the better they did at this discotheque in in in Paris. That same set moved to your stad they would move to today today you call him Aspen and Hampton's, but

it's a different jets set in those days. So I'm in college at Brooklyn College and working a few jobs and luncheonette as a short order cook, soda jerk from my uncle. But I was deejaying and I was working as a publisher also, And the woman who I worked for was a very wealthy woman. She owned palisades of amusement park and she her husband passed away. She also wrote the theme song Palisades. Has wrote she was a songwriter because that's what I think of. She wrote that

song Freddie Cannon and she no, no, that's two. There's two Palisades. The commercials she wrote that's this too. She also wrote you can trust your car with the Man who Wears the Star. She also wrote a standard torch song called how did He Look, which was recorded when I was there dred and thirty times by the greatest singers of all time. So she records this disco record of a song that we had in our catalog, and she says, you have to bring it two Regime's it's

opening up. And I had read about it and the Liz Smith wrote about and a few other people. So in between college and different things, I go to the club and nobody is speaking English. The manager was Italian pepo Vinini, and her sister Evelyn was there and said, sit down, sit down. I thought, I'm just there to meet the DJ. For some reason, they're confused. They think I'm there to audition for the DJ. So I stayed, I have the twelve inches with me ready, and they

bring me downstairs and the club is unbelievable. It's opening in two days. The club and they give me meal voucher tickets for shrafts because I'm not gonna be able to eat with the rest of the help. I'm not eligible yet. I haven't earned a yet to sit at the table. I have no idea what's going on, and I just keep going with it. Long story short, I become the opening night DJ with Jonathan the opening night opening night DJ with Jonah Tuck Garvalia because he has

spoke no English and I did the American music. He did the rest of the world music, which really opened up my ears and eyes to international music, which is why I think Last Note is such an international label because of really what happened at Regime's was at fifty

nine in Park. UM I never strayed from there. By the way, my entire career has been in three blocks of that time, whether it was Chrysalis, S P K, Glass Note, I think my entire career has been between sixty one and fifty ninth Street Park in Madison, and sing Time, UM, A and M was there. But going back to Regime's, it was a magical time each night

Grace Kelly would come. Next night, Elizabeth Taylor would come and and I became a source of information for the for the what in those days, you know the page six of today. I legitimately became the source of who was there. And I learned so much about music. And then they'll get paid for being a source. I got paid a lot of money to be a DJ, and I'm still in college. I got paid money. One of the great scenes that Regime's was she saw somebody giving me a tip. They give me ten dollars to play

a song, and I said, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. She took the money, she threw it. You never ever play anything for less than a hundred hours. This is this is the late seventies. Then I made a cassette for fifty dollars for somebody. She took the cassette and she threw the cassette. She said, a hundred and fifty dollars for a cassette. I was playing the music anyway. All it was taping is what was playing. So I learned a lot about what how people wanted

to be treated, and then how they want. Bottle service started there. The whole concept of bottles owning a bottle and some of the bottles were watered down. But that's a that's another good story. But that's um so many, so many lessons in that getting that job. And she was thrilled my boss and it said something about showing up. So I stayed there for about a year, a year and a half maybe more, and that led to another

DJ job. So but Regime's was the place. Um, it was the suit and HiPE place, answered the studio fifty four and very hard to get in, very very expensive. So we went to a restaurant last fall, one of the exclusive lunch places, and we got the best table in the joint because you said, the major d you knew or the owner you knew from Regimes. So the owner was a bus boy. Really yeah, and now he owns the coolest bistro in New York. So we go

back to those days. Yeah, and the bistro's name for the audience, we're I'm there three or four days a week and the Philippe created you probably read about it because Michael Cohen is there three days a week, and if he's not there, the other lawyer, Stormy Daniels, Michael whatever with a v Avanati. He's there. So this is what's going on around our block. Every single day, the

two Avanati and Cohen, they go to three restaurants. They go to Fred's, they go to Bill Bok, and they go to Logo Lou and they have coffee at sant Ambrose, torturing each other every day. Okay, so you grew up in Brooklyn. Is there music in the house in Brooklyn? There's a lot of theater, There's a lot of films, is a lot of soundtracks. There's w traction mean like

the original Broadway gas. My parents took us to Broadway, went to the city, um many times a year to see you know, West Side Story or King and I My Fair Lady. But the West Side Story was the first musical I ever saw and changed my life. Um, the violence, the the you know, the Hell's Kitchen, the soundtrack. I'd never heard a song as as beautiful as Somewhere and I was a young boy. And then we saw

the other ones and they really worked great. And we went to the House of Chan afterwards for Chinese food on Sunday. Um. But it was extraordinary to go to the city and that that was going to the city. The only time we went to the city was the theater um. How about when you were a teenager, would you go into the city as we used to see in the sixties, duck around? I only I was sixteen. I got into college very early. Eskipped a couple of times, and I got into college rather early. So it's sixteen.

I think I'm already a freshman or sophomore. And my friend told me about a club on the what what they called Lower east Side now we I don't not sure what are you we call it in those days. It was on First Avenue in second Street, and it was called Club eight two. And he went and he said, you have and you said, you have to see this. You have to hear it. You have to see the whole thing. I said, what happened. What happened is I can't explain it. So I went. This was a transvesti club.

And you walk down the stairs and you see posters of David Bowie, the Stones, Uh, David Johansson, all in drag, and you get greeted by I didn't know it was a woman. I thought it was I thought it was a man. And they greet you and you had to wear they wanted the men to wear tight pants and high heels. And um, it wasn't a gay club. It was a club just to have a great time. And it was the first time I saw a guy playing two turntables and and all I did was I just

stayed with him. I just stayed watching him. His name was Tony Mansfield and he would come back from Paris and from London. We got friendly, bringing these seven inch records and playing them and he had a headphone on one year and he was doing this back and forth and it it made me crazy about music and about being and watching the dance floor and those days, people didn't care if you sat down, you got up and uh.

But that was the first time I went to the city without my parents, and my best friend took me to these clubs. And then these clubs gave birth to other clubs. It was Dan and and many many clubs we went to to hear music and it was great. And the first time I ever saw of producers coming to clubs. I used to go to the DJ booth. So I became known in a few of these clubs just a kid look like to hear music. And I used to say that this guy Bobby at Infinity or

J Dan. I said, who's that? Who's that? This guy produced this record? It was like Sandy linds Er, you know, people like that, or those Bob Gordio got kind of guys would come in to the gay clubs and play the music. And then I saw what I guess what major label people coming in. And then the greatest thrill was when this very very overweight black guy came in and it was Verry White and he wanted to hear the records. He wanted to test the records, which is

why White. No, I didn't talk to I didn't kind of know who he was. His voice was great. It was a big man, and it was the it was the Love's theme. There was no there was no there was no vocal theme song from Love Unlimited, right, And he had all these and every time we the D two would places, I got more had a whole stable because he had I think the three Degrees might have been or what was the name of the women that's saying I forget Love Unlimited orchestra, But he was in

Love Unlimited. So he used to go there. And I always tell the artist that we signed a glass note to play the music for the audience first, which is counterintuitive to a lot of my competiti ds. With my peers, you know, they want to keep the security. I said, play include the audience tested, play it early. Mumford and Son is a great example of an artist that always plays the music early. And I remember they were playing with you two last year and they were playing music

that I'm just hearing now being recorded. So my first trip to Minneapolis, I saw this five ft three guy go into the booth and you know who that was, And he went in and tested his music. And I went to Atlanta. The same thing happened in Atlanta. In Miami Beach, producers would do that the t K Gang l A, which is very late to disco and dance. In San Francisco, you'd see Sylvester, you'd see Patrick Cowley, you see people in in l A. The Casablanca Records

crew would come in. Okay, So when do you decide you want to be in the music business. M hmm. That was controversial. So I'm in college and I'm cruising towards becoming a pediatrician. That was the Jewish thing. You're a doctor, you already knew you're gonna be a specialized be a pediatrician. I wanted to be a pediatrician because I loved pediatrician. He was very nice and I wanted

to be him. So the djaying thing got to me and working at the college radio station similar to Rob, he did it earlier than he did it in high school, and I got hooked. The easiest conversation with with my parents, who are very supportive. They said, do whatever you want. Um. The only problem with my parents was to to this day my mother still thinks I'm a dj um and she always say, are you going out tonight? Are you working tonight? She still asked me that are you Are

you working tonight? Uh? But that was the easy one. The hard one was going into the dean or student advice. I've got what the name of the people at Brooklyn College were to explain in my junior year that I want to change. And I finally found a woman who was very supportive, and she said, you've got to go into a theater class, and you've got to take some humanities and you've got to study Marshall McLuhan. I said, who's that. She said, Oh, he's he's the guru he's

in charge. He's the whole, He's the whole universe of media, communication and messaging. So I switched. Um, I gave up stuff I loved. I love the Bunsen Burner, I love the lab techniques, I love the emergency room of the hospital. And I you know it was for me. It was at Einstein or Downstate Medical Center where they was gonna go and m but it was easy. Um. Once I got into that groove of of doing it, then I really I went to I went to college. I checked in.

I just went to class, but I was not there. I physically checked out, well mentally checked that I should say in my second half of junior year. But I wanted to finish. I had to finish that. I owed my parents, and I wound up. One of the things you said to me, in which I repeat all the time.

You have the first SPK Records convention in the desert, and you see three things you need to work at SPK Records, And I'm not going to say them in the order you said said, you have to really want to work at SPK records, you have to work retail because that's where the transaction actually happens, where people pay their money. And you say you have to graduate from college. And I cornered you later in the hotel and I said,

in college, have been the first thing you mentioned. I say, you know, I went to college, okay, and I graduated. But you know, this is business where people didn't go to college. And you say, I said, why do you have to go to college? You say, oh, you don't learn anything in college, but it proves that you can complete something. Yeah, it's some. It really bothers me. How many people do not finish a book, a movie, a newspaper, do not wait till the closing credits. We're in the

music industry and I'm always asking people. I called this guy from Downtown Music recently. His name is Justin Ollifouit's to tell him how how great he did in a movie because I saw he licensed all these songs he was. I think he was prize that I stayed till the credits. Um. I think it's a really bad trade and attribute of our business that people do not finish the job. It takes a long long time to finish, and it's not easy the end. The you know, I've run many many marathons,

and that last mile, that last point too. They're the hardest, but they're the most euphoric. You've got to finish um and it's it's it really says something to me when people because some people say to me, oh, you know, I didn't, I didn't. I skipped over that. I probably wouldn't hire them. I like people that finish. So you're in college and you get their first music business jobs

with the publishing organization. Yeah, this woman Gladys Shelley and Harry Finn for I played this song on my show called Wet Weekend, and I read about it in a Record World magazine and it's said, if you need an extra copy, called this guy. And I called him, and my program director, who actually went on to fame in radio, said, you should never meet your your listeners. It's a it's a it's a mystique. I said, I'm in college, come on. So I decided to call this guy and he said,

love to meet you. So I went to the city. My father took me and then he said, where should I pick you up? I just thought of the only place I ever heard of was the Empire State Building. I said, picked me up the Empire State Building, picked me up in a Limo. My father said goodbye, and I went and my life change. That night. I went to a fifth Avenue in sixty ninth Street to a dinner at Gladys Shelley's apartment and she offered me a job.

I went in and no one said hide him. I just walked in and I sat at the dinner table and the butler had given me a spoon for salt and a spoon for pepper. I had never seen anything like that in my life from benson Hurst, and I noticed there were four or five to as walking around and literally urinating everywhere on the curtains and the carpet. What am I? It's like a Fellini movie. And there's a guy sitting next to me, fascinating guy, and he said, what do you do? He says, I own Metro Media.

I said, you own Channel five. Yes, William Klugey, he's he's at the table and he loved Gladys. That's the kind of table. So it was the salon that she had and I started working that night for her. UM and I was the go to publisher and all I had to do is get artists to sing our songs and um that was my first job. Okay, and then you're working as a DJ. You say you look leave Regimes to go to another club. What was the motivation there?

This guy, the six ft five, great looking guy comes up to me and says, Dan, because I'm usually Danny, never Daniel, Dan, I need to have lunch with you. Come to my office. Gives me his card and it said Revalon. His name is Frank Shields, his Brookshields father. So I go see Frank the next day and this is like super wasp again. Never met a guy like him before. And he's the number two or three at Revlon.

I met Charles Revson, who's the number one there, and he says, listen, Dan Um, I'm on the board of a club called Doubles and we'd like to double your salary. Whatever you want. We want the mystique and we want the regime's vibe. In the Sherry Netherlands Hotel, I had to go one block by the way fifth now going out of my comfort zone. Still there by the way, still there, and uh it was a no brainer. I just got married and I said this would be great.

And I said, but I want to design the DJ booth and he said, whatever you want, and I wanted Thorne's turntables, which were my favorite, because that's what Larry Levine was using at the at the garage, I wanted the same as him and David Van Cusa was using. Those didn't turn out to be super I needed to go to techniques after that. But we were using thorns with rubber bands, um as opposed to direct drive. Yeah, and it was. It was really ironic. Is the owner

of the club's husband, Gerard turntable from England. That's like a weird thing. But I wouldn't use those because they were terrible. Um so I worked at doubles. What do they say regimes when you walked? Well, I can't say this because it's not politically correct. Um um what can I say politely now? Because I love the people of this country and I don't want to make a statement

from about people from because of a country. But they were they're arrogance, said goodbye basically if you know what I'm saying, baby steen the lines Okay, not really, but French people would would not give you the benefit of the dab. That's why we love them so much. And they said, oh wah, I'll be in to uh And I left and I went to Doubles, and I was quickly rising up in the music industry. And I had a you know, we had a baby. Now we have Sean, so I need a substitute. I can't work six nights

a week. So I find this guy named Ted Currier. Ted becomes my number two. Ted becomes a record producer. He produces Xavier's worked that Sucker to death. Ted becomes really big. I get Ted a job at Kiss to do the master the master mixes, and I said, Ted, you're getting so busy. We can't handle this. I said, we can't run a business when the business says, yes, we can. Have a guy you need to meet. I said, who's that? He said, this guy is gonna sub for me.

I said, we're already subbing for me. So this kid comes in. He's never spun records before. His name is Junior Vasquez. I said, what are you gonna do? We're going to teach him. He learns how to do at Doubles in a suit and tie club. He becomes, you know, the go to guy obviously. So now we have the master mixes for WBLS and Kiss going on at Doubles, all the tapes all the Saturday and Friday night shows are coming out of Doubles. No one knows this in

the world. The owners don't know it. Junior rises up to this huge mixer, Madonna discovers him while he's working at Doubles, and they do Vogue and all those records. So it was a great time for us. We had a ball and I was down to like once every two weeks at this point, but I had the contract and I'm stumping it out to these guys and we wind up having like six of the greatest DJs of all time coming out of this little club Doubles. You're listening to Daniel Glass on the Bob Left Sets podcast.

This podcast is brought to you by two new which brings together all the live, sports, music, news and podcasts you love, original, live and on demand audio, all in one place. Go to tune in dot com slash left Sets to download and listen. Now more of my conversation with Daniel Glass, recorded live in Santa Barbara at the Music Media Summit. Okay, but you marry your wife and your wife's father is in the business. I worked for Sam for about three or four years. We had a

lot of success and This was its simultaneous to DJ. Yes, a lot of jobs. Who want to you tell the audience who Sam was? So Sam Weiss was a was an R and B pioneer entrepreneur who owned the biggest one stop in the world, win records and video. First guy to ever Danny Bush worked there. Um. So one stop was a place where retail stores would come to get all the labels, all the brands. And this was in the food business, the clothing business. It was a warehouse.

You could either buy by phone and you could do it, you know, or telex before faxing, or visit there and you'd go into a little booth, listen to the new selections and then you'd buy it. But every single label, so the major labels independent, but all the records would break out of here and the radio stations would be calling, what's happening. This was the pulse of the street at a one stop. Everything happened at a one stop and uh. In fact, some of the records would come in and

so quickly unpacked, they wouldnt even get unpacked. They'd go right back out to the stores. And you could sell out of a one stop twenty five to fifty thousand copies of a record, but you saw it all. Our little record company was based there and we had we had a lot of big dance and R and B hits, and we were very tied into radio. And I worked for my father in law before I went to Chrystalis. I worked there for about three or four years. So how did you get the job at chrystmas Well, we

did a very good job. Um clumb Be. Columbia Records hired us secretly to work their records. Bill Graham was a was was everybody who who who? Bill Graham is the famous promoter and venue of Filmore's Filmore West. So Bill Graham had a band called Santana, and Santana had a song called One Chain, Don't Make No Prison, and it was a dance record, and all these dance records

were coming out. Rod Stewart had one. Everyone was coming with a disco or a dance record, but he didn't trust Columbia Records, so they sub contracted this to us to run it up the charts and get him on. People just wanted us to get records on. One radio station was w b LS, which really ran America at

the time. A DJ named Frankie Crocker, who was you know, he was the Howard Stern of music, the biggest DJ in the world, legendarily he took money though, well, my father in law went to the it's it's in the public. My youngest son is studying, has a class. He's in college now, and it's actually the trials of and Freed or in there. My father in law testified in those trials about what happened what didn't happen. Um Al Sharpton was the guy, by the way, supposedly the bag man

for James Brown and all that transactional money. Yes, yes, yes, if you look at out Al Sharpton. I can't talk about Frankie Crocker's past of what he did or didn't do because I never saw it, um so I that's all alleged or hearsay. But Frankie was great to us, um. But the point was we was so tied into w BLS and subsequently w K to you and subsequently what w xl O had become that the major labels came to us for help. So we were doing that on the side, and then Barbara Streisan had this song called

the Main Event, and she had no more tears. Enough is enough. We did that. So the president of Columbia, guy named Jaff Craigle, left to become the head of Chrysalis, and I was his first phone call. What was strained was he was my AMO, was best friend. So I told my father that I'm leaving. It didn't go very well, but I also thought it'd be great for the marriage because we would just talk music and business twenty four hours, you know, seven days a week. So it was actually

great for the family, was great for the marriage. And then I started at Chrysalis and all he wanted me to do was mix and edit records. That was my job. Go into the studio, mix edit, and those days it was called new music marketing and you I was the head of new music production and marketing, and that was my job at Crystalis. All I had to do is take the cool records from overseas, mix them, edit them and give them to the staff. But ultimately you became

a head of promotion. How did that happen? All my mistake? Um. I brought the record we had finished, very passionately spanned out l A. I brought it to all my black DJ friends. I brought that True True. I brought True to Frankie Crocker, who put it on and went number one. Then I'm went to Philadelphia to w d A. S to see butter Ball and he put it on. And I think what got me as the guy had a promotion, was my brother in law was graduating from Stanford. I

had never been to San Francisco, Palo Alto. We and I did something crazy. We're driving we Land and my father in law was a tough, tough guy. If you know anything about the Wise brothers, High Wise, Sam Wise and George Weiss, two of them were very tough and their stories are in many books. And you know, tough guys from the Bronx. So I was a little afraid of my father in law. So as we get in the rent a car, I said, would you mind if

we made one stop? And I have to and he's already like really upset with me that I took this job. Can we stop at kfor C And he said who do you know that? I said, don't know anybody. So we stopped at this and then parking lot of k f r C, which is this big radio station, the biggest top forty on the Would you say John biggest on the West coast. Yeah, so I stopped there and I go out of the car and I've got once one I guess. It was a seven inch disc of

of True by Spandu Ballet. And I go to the receptionist and this guy greets me, such a nice guy and he says, you know you have no appointment. I said no, I said, but I need to get this to Sandy Louis, who is a female. She's the music director. And he says, let me see what I can do. And he comes back. He says, she won't see you, but I'm going to give it to her. And he says, I know this group, and he says, call me next week.

I go to the graduation and this guy calls me and he says, she really likes it, but she doesn't believe in Chrysalis, which is interesting. So eventually she calls me and she and she says, we're gonna play it, but can you can you guys deliver this? So I tell my boss, I said, listen, she believes in the record, but not the company. We haven't delivered a hit, and well, I just joined the company. The company was cold. So

everybody starts playing this record. And this guy, by the way, is now the president of our c A. His name is Keith Naftally. This is the receptionist. He went on to KM. Yeah, that's a real story. So be nice to people on the bottom and the people on the top. Good advice. Keith was great and stayed I stayed friendly with him and we're still friends. So True goes to number two on the pop charts. And there's a very very bad situation with Huey Lewis and the News and

Chrysalis and it's it's documented in Rolling Stone. The manager who was a hothead, this guy Bob Brown's basically we want we want off the label The Terrible And they weren't that big. They were a bar band from Mill Valley at the time and they've done okay um, but they delivered this record Cold Sports, and Bob Brown really said we would like him to be in charge. And I and I said, I don't know anything about this stuff. I've never been to any of these radio stations. I

know nothing about it. So my boss says, you better learned. So my wife got flash cards and she did the w's in the case and would test me every night, and uh, I had to get the program director's name, the music director's name, the radio stage location. I didn't know what a k was. I don't know what a queue was. And um, I had two I had two

bosses in promotion, but they really weren't my bosses. Um. And then I started to travel and I went down to these places and I learned about it and got named Fred Decippio took me under his wing, who was documented in the book hit Man. It was very nice to me and mentored me on the game of promotion, and I learned it quickly. I guess I did well in the flash cards, okay, okay, but also that turned into a gigantic album. So when did you know? Wow,

am I we have a juggernaut here. I was in Atlanta and my boss I had never been to it, and I've never been to the South, and my boss sent me down. It was a consultant named Don Colberg, and Jack Craigo said, forget about to promote. You go down there. You go down there, and you've got to get this record re added the first single I think was cold Heart and Soul, and they dropped it. I go to the radio station. The guy says, you gotta come out tonight. You come out tonight with us, we'll

talk about it. But he said, we don't do that. We don't go back on records. And we went to Jim Davenport's house, the old Bear, who is this independent promotion guy, and we're hanging around and he's got a jukebox and I said, put that record on the jukebox. And he says he played it twice and it sounded really good. And I said, but that's the one you dropped. So they tortured me for about three weeks. Then they re add the record. And you needed the south. Atlanta

was the key to the whole country. You get Atlanta, you get Augusta, you get Charlotte, you get Savannah, you get everywhere came in north. You know, Tampa was really important in those days, and you got them and they would spread to EXAs, but you had to have the South. But John Young and Jeff McCartney were running the South. One Q one was we got nine And once he went back on the record, the record goes to number one. Every single one number one after that, and I thought,

that's the way it works. So that's every record. What number one? Now you ultimately had a string of hits and then Charles Coppelman calls and says, come with me to my new company. Well, Chrystal was sold, unfortunately, and the one company they said they would never sell to as E M I. That the owners had a divorce and they sold to E M I. I'm unemployed for about six hours, um, and the phone's ringing and it

was Stephen Swid, Charles Coppelman and Martin ben Deer. We'd like to meet you, and they said, we're starting a company. E M I is funding us, and we don't really have anybody who knows anything about the record business. They were publishers and they had just scored. So I took the job because I said, this is the best blank canvas I've ever seen. That's why I took the job. I think it's that old thing that to find out just how good you are. It was completely blank canvas,

well funded. So I took that job coming off this incredible We just finished Shade O'Connor World Party in the Water Boys so and we went into you know the problem with the music of SPK though the beginning music was very very pop, very pop, and that was one of the greatest three year runs of all time. I don't think there would be an Interscope or a giant or anything if we didn't have that run, because it proved that you could take it from scratch and build

a huge company. Well, the first hit was Technotronic. First big hit was with Pump Up the Jam, and then Vanilla Ice No No, No. Wilson Phillips was second. No No. We had Katrina in the waves. We didn't have the big hit, but we had Technotronic into Wilson Phillips. Technotronic was probably the first mass licensed record um and I became friendly with the guy that that licensed did, a

guy n Ron Perlman, who owned Revlon. By the way, afterwards, this funny story, one of my rewards for doing so well at SPK was they wanted to get me some custom suits and I went to this guy fear Auntie for a suit. He was there and I told him what I did for a living, and he heard the song move This and he made it a Revlon commercial. So, but if you go to any sports or the sports places started playing Pump Up the Jam uh as one of the anthems of basketball and baseball football, and then

Wilson Phillips was the second one. Then Vanilla Ice was a monster hit, John Saccada, Blur, Jesus Jones. Then we did the Creation Records deal where we had a door Robal slow Dive Oasis. All of this in three years. It was I'm leaving out. We had the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles that was multi platinum. I'm leaving out like six more. This is all in three years. That was a hundred million dollar company in those days a year. And you also assemble a promotion team where those people

go on to greater success. Yeah, I got the secret. The secret was the CBS College Department wasn't called Sony, and I would take the best reps every year. I used to say to those guys, why don't you take those people? I took them all. So that's why I found Hillary who went up to run the w n B. A, found Greg Thompson, I found uh, Chris Waltman who's now managing twenty one pilots and NF came out of that

school um countless people. They were the greatest because they were trained really well, and I just would pluck them out and throw them into the field. I threw Monty Littman into Atlanta, threw Rob Stone who now owns Fader and corner Stone. I threw him into San Francisco. Um John Colin, who legend I threw him into Boston. Uh, so many of them they were they were great, um and still friendly with all them. They were just all terrific. Okay, So SPK has this amazing run. They saw the company

in the e M I twice in my life. Okay, and did you then you then get elevated to a big position the worst that was the worst, um, the golden handcuffs. If I wanted the big check was to become president CEO of Emerge e m I Records Group North America. We know how great when you emerge three cultures, three promotion staffs, three business affairs, three A and rs UM. It was a good run, but I didn't enjoy one day of it. It was not me, it's not who

I am. And uh. I spent about two years or maybe a little less doing that, and it was tough. It was really tough. And every superstar delivered a record, shall we say less and Robust I had Billie Idol Cyber period, I had rock said I had Queen's Reich, I had Robert Palmer, I had Pat bennettor not one of them delivered the home run that we thought because on paper it looked great. But I think it had to do with the culture. We managed to break a

few on the side. We had arrested development, we had a few other pretty big hits, but it was very tough. And then the war happened between Blur E M F Jesus Jesus Jones, and they weren't happy they were under the same because they needed their own cultures to breathe. So then that ends and suddenly I can't remember, did you go independent before you worked with Doug or you went no, no, no, no, Doug, Doug. We all everybody lost their job within a month. It was Mo Austen Doug.

I don't com you know, I'm not saying I was on that level, but it was me. Everyone suddenly is out, Clive Davis eventually he was out. So Doug called me and said Edgar. I said, who's Edgar? Proto e d g e are he pronounced it. Edgar is going to fund me in a new company called Rising Tide, and I'd love you to join me. He said, you're an independent record guy, and you know I'm independent now, And I did it with him, and the two of us had one desk at the Hit Factory recording studio. Eddie

Germano had generously given us space. And from scratch, we create this company called Rising Tide. We get hot. I hired Monty Littman, I hired Steve Leeds. I hire Kiddo Massemburg, who had given me D'Angelo when I was at E m I and I thought he was terrific. And he then brought in India Ire and Erica Bado. So we're often running. And then Doug calls me up. I was in the studio in Muscle Shoals and he says, come home. You're the new president and CEO of Universal. I said,

what's Universal? He said, that's the new record company and you have to find a logo. And I'm going to be the chairman, I said, went up to al Teller. He said, oh, he's gone. They're all gone. We're gonna do this, and everybody's excited. So we came and started Universal and UH from scratch, and a lot of the people,

I guess is still there today. And it was a very very tough time for me, because when you joined somebody to be independent and have a piece of a company and all of a sudden you're an executive with department meetings and politics and and stuff. I was a fish out of water and it was It was a very tough time because I joined Doug for that dream and I thought we would have been the biggest independent in the business. So that that wasn't a great time

for me. And so then you go independent distributed by Sony No. No, I did not. I went independent for a few days, and my dear, dear friend Danny Goldberg called me, well, you were independent for longer than a few days, but whatever. And then Danny said I need some help, and I stayed with him for a really long time. I had a wonderful, wonderful time with him. Learned a lot, and that was really graduate school of how to run a company. Had to be fiscally responsible.

And I don't think I could have done it if I didn't spend those years with Danny. So you learn more from Danny than you do not from Danny, and Danny's it's still a dear dear friend learn and he taught me a lot because we had a day what you did with today with Rob Glazer, we did every single day. Every day we did an hour worth of

worldwide politics and current events. And I looked forward to it and we met Al Franken would come in, Hillary Clinton would come in, Chuck Schumer, this young centator would come in. It was great, um, and we discussed the world of liberal left wing politics, UM, and it was. It was fantastic. In his house was the centerpiece of New York liberal art. And you'd meet Ornette Coleman and Patti Smith. It was the coolest place to go with it when he had a party because it wasn't only

people from music, it was people from art. It was like being in the Chelsea, except it was at his house. So that was finishing school. I guess the lesson for anybody listening is for artemus records. But I met these

people there that I never would have met. I met Ricky Lee Jones and Warren Zevon and got friendly with Jackson Brown, and then Dylan would make records for us, and and Springsteen and Keith Richards played on Peter Wolf's records, and it was just meeting the best of the best of the best, and that I needed that in my education because I've never met those people before, and I

never went in the studio with them. So I knew when I started my company one day, I'd only want to be around the originals, the authentics, and I would sit with them. I remember driving hours with Graham Nash. He was the only sober, like normal one of that those those those guys, and Graham would tell me the stories of Laurel Canyon, I and I actually got I made I made wrong turns with Graham in the car. He never knows, he never knew this, just to hear

more stories. Tell me about Neil, Tell me about Elliot Roberts, Tell me about that, What about Janie? What about? He had complete recall because we were both photography freaks, him and I, so we had that common bond. Is very good father. So I got to meet Graham, I got to meet some wackos and Riggie Lee Jones was totally out of her mind and Warren Zevon if you know, it's nuts, um, but it gave me the It was the last refining of my palate before I went into

the real world. And most people go into the real world at two. I waited tell I was eight to go into the real world. And I remember Mo Austin. I asked him, when did you go into the real world? And he didn't go into the real world till he was forty something. He was an accountant, and I asked him a lot of questions. But Artemis came to an end. Some hedge fund creeps ruined it and uh they fired my dear friend Danny, and I didn't want to be part of it. So that was the day my wife said,

we're doing this. We're gonna do this with our own money. If we if we starve, if we if we struggle, We're gonna do this. No more mergers, no more promises, no more people telling you you're gonna be Indie. We're gonna do this. And we bought two laptops the first day and that was how we started. And the first success was Phoenix right no no, no, No No. For success was second Hand Serenade. Um. This was the number one record. I don't know if you remember my space.

Number one record on my Space was Secondhand Serenade. And the manager had invited us to a show and I took my whole staff, which was one person besides me, But I showed up with um eleven people that night. I stole that scene out of the Godfather, and I actually told Francis ford Coppo of this story. He loved it. Um I took We had one one guy, my partner Chris Scully, and I went to the show at the

Bitter End. And I couldn't show up alone because I'm insecure now, like I'm starting from scratch, and you know, the major labels are coming in, rolling deep with SUVs and and I was one of them at one time. And I said, you know what, I cannot show up alone and I don't want to pay a tab. So I said, why don't we just go? So I had my son, every friend he had you come in. So the scene of The Godfather, if you remember, um, al Pacino finds out that his father had been shot, and

he said, well, who's protecting my dad? And they said there's no one there. They called the hospital, there's no one there. So he as these guys show up and they turn their collars up and the guy actually urinates in his pants because the other family came by and they see two guys standing outside. They go, oh boy, it must be a lot of protection. They move on. So I show up deep and I said to the manager,

this is our team. This is the team. This is and I don't remember who came actually at an intern and my son brought like five five six friends and me and and Chris. And it was an interesting night because everybody left. The major labels who had flown this guy in, they all leave except for one A and R guy from Jive Records. He stayed Jeff Finster I think was his name. But everybody leaves, and I said, wow. So the next day the major labels have the meetings,

and I don't want to make fun of people. They really messed up with this guy, though, So I flew to San Francisco, met the artist there, like Jerry Maguire, and I said, listen, this is it. It's You'll be the biggest artist in the label. You would be the only artist in the label. And I'll kill for you,

I'll name for you. We sold two and a half million copies of that record Fall for You by Secondhand Serenade, and it was distributed by Warners and Leo Cohen was the head of the company at the time, and I made a one record deal with them. That was it, and then I and then we joined Sony Read after that and really built the company. And then that's when the days of Justin Azuka and then Phoenix. Okay, so Phoenix had had a career that had sputtered in America.

What made you believe this would be a hit? The record? It was the record it was. We did not want to sign anybody with the past, because I had had a lot of that at Artemis, and I wanted fresh, I wanted the best. I wanted international, left of center inspired artists. So they checked a lot of boxes. The only thing is they had a track record. They had three records released through E M I Corporate and the sales were always twenty nine thousand, thirty thousand, thirty one

thousand albums. That was it. But the record. I brought it back to the company. Now we were like five people in the company and it was one and it was list of Mania and it was it just was the best record I had heard in years. And I flew to Paris to meet them and told them what they need to do to make it. And at that meeting, I said, you gotta get rid of a few things. We're not going to be French. We're not going to be fashion, we're not gonna be pop, and we're not

gonna be dance. It's gonna be one word rock. And they said great, and uh, we signed the deal like two days later, and they I think they changed rock radio that band, because no one had heard music like that. I think a lot of the records we've had have changed the sound of radio because is what I would prefer to sign, something that's not commercial, that that doesn't

sound like the radio. And I think what gives us an advantage over the major labels is that they try and sign something that sounds like everything else, produced by the same people, written by the same songwriters who are based in like a five block radius and Los Angeles.

We this was produced of a band from Versailles, France, mixed by a guy from Paris, and we took it out there and it took fifty eight weeks to break it the first song, and then you know, we're platinum and where the Grammys and and then Mumford and Sons.

So Two Door Cinema Club came next, and the Temper Trap came after that, and then there was a band touring with the Temper Trap opening for them in Australia and I went to see the Temper Trap and the band that opened for them in front of literally eighteen to twenty people was Mumford and Sons. And I had never seen anything that passionate, that emotional, because it just it just transported me and I freaked out and no

one liked it. The company that went in the company liked it, and the industry didn't really care too much about it. So I flew to London three days later just to see in my own mind was I romanticizing? Was I right? Was I wrong? Was it as good as I thought? And again they opened for Temper Trap, They were better, They were better, and it was an easy deal. Manager was terrific. It was still good friends

and that was not an easy record either. That That record came out and you know, it landed and didn't do so well at the beginning until a couple of radio stations start a playing it. More of my conversation with executive Daniel Glass in a moment. If you like the podcast, please go to left stufs dot com and sign up for the newsletter comes out once twice timetimes even three times a day to keep up on my story in the world at large. Now let's continue our

conversation with Daniel Glass of Glass Node Records. Okay, so let's jump to today, and today's marketplaces certainly changed from what it was in the nineties and even ten years ago. So if a how do you signed a band today? Do you get in bidding wars with other labels? Do you find things that other labels don't want you get in early? What what ultimately happens we get in early? UM We've been in one bidding war in the history

of the company, and I regret it. We actually made money on the deal, but I regret it because it lost the essence of why you It goes back to what you said, why would you want to be on this label? And when we started to audition for this artist, UM, it lost the essence and the taste for me. And

I still resent that battle. And I think marriages are very indicative of the courtship and the engagement, and I still think there's a chronic issue in that engagement which subsequently affected the band's career after we had the big monster hit. We have to be early, we have to be very early, and we have to get on it. UM we really want to see the live performance. I think the artists that we've signed has not been done through research or a buzz or some metric and data.

It's been through hearing the music and then seeing it live. Very different than most labels. Most labels do not sign that way. Most labels sign, especially major labels, um, social media numbers, streaming numbers, UM, that's not how we do it. So our current artist that's rising up now, Jade Bird, the manager came in and played her and I felt the same way about her that I felt about Mumford and Sons. This is an artist for the ages. How

is she doing this at nineteen years old? Where is she getting this understanding of folk and blues and rock and country? And I met her, and I met perhaps the most ambitious person I had met in years. So she started checking off these boxes in my head and I knew this was going to be that she was going to be one of the biggest artists in the world. And it may take five years, it may take seven years. I don't really care. But we were early, and I don't know if anybody else wanted her um, And it

doesn't matter to me if anybody else wanted her. It really doesn't. I think those are foolish conversations. Should have, would have, could have. Every time we have a success, I meet someone in the hallway of a conference who says to me, I could have done that, or I knew about my boss just wouldn't let me. I just walk away, like I said, why don't you do it? If you if you know about it. Um, so you have to be early. I think the live performance and the songs are the key to us. UM. Lawyers don't

play a big part and anymore for me. You know, if the used to be in the eighties early nineties, the lawyer would have a lot to do with it. You know, they gets you on the phone and tell you why they wind you up. But not anymore. UM. It really comes from different sources. We tend to lean towards international music at our company. I think if we have a prejudice, we we kind of like things that are outside of America. UM, and those work really well.

But we do well with left of center music people here. But let's stop there. If we look at the Spotify top fifty, it's almost completely urban and most of the pop records of the last year have failed Katie Perry, Taylor Swift, et cetera. And in addition, radio is pretty much all urban and the other labels are not signing anything other than me to acts. How are you having success with the records that don't sound like everybody else's.

About two years ago we doubled down on spending spending more money on making records, making better records, and almost went on a freeze of releasing records. So like Churches, is a good example of a band that competes and makes a lot of money. They make money through licensing, sinc sales, streaming. The concert revenue is fantastic. So that's a band that's keeping up with the times and doing very very well. Um, I think Jade ultimately goes to the top of it. When we had our success with

Childish Gambino, he wasn't hip hop, he wasn't wrap. It was just great soul music and we knew we had something. We stayed with it as seventy something weeks. So we can do that, and I think that's how we compete. And you look at our streaming we did. We did four point seven million streams last week, a red Bone six point seven million on the album last week and when he goes on SNL this week, it's gonna go crazy again. So two things, good catalog and signed, great

music and stay with it. Now are you spending on marketing? Who's spending on the actual records? You said you'd double down on spending and our most important You know when you see Dave Cobb is producing three different projects for us right now, it might be the hottest producer in the world. Greg Kirsten did eight songs on Churches. Nile god Rich is about to do something for us. Paul Epworth is working on a record for US, um the mixing of the records. The Simone Felice, who just had

the Luminear success, is working on jade Um. You've got to hire the best people. You have to have the best of the best of the best. Red One we have a hit with him right now with Mansion air Um. You know who we're connected because of You know, Troy Carter has so much success with Red One and Gaga Um. Every day That's all I dwell on is the n R, the n R, the n R. Everything else is easy. After that, You've got to make better records and you've

got to have the best songs. You've also told me with certain acts on your label, you told them, if you don't deliver a hit, either stay in the studio and if you want off the label, that's fine. Yeah, we we've That's really it. I mean that that's a that's a kind of a brutal summary. But we're in that bag with like three or four people right now, and three of the four are loving it. They're loving the quote unquote tough love. One of them can handle it,

and one of them is going to go. So that's okay, Um, he'll be better off somewhere else. But you you've got to raise the standards because it's just too tough. It's just really, really too tough. You know. I had had

a battle with James Hersey two years ago. I was in Berlin with him and he handed his record in and it was good, and then we had this whole fight about the record, and finally he agreed, okay, I'll show you, and he came up with a song called miss You, and Will Hicks produced it and Steve fitz Morris mixed it. You know, that's I produced at Sharon's first record. The other guy did the Stay with Me for Sam Smith and Spotify alone where at nine five

million streams on one song. That song, So we gotta beat that song now. But that that that was, that was torture. He's gonna beat it now. He's working on something with terrific producers now. But that was that was a very unpleasant experience. And the only reason I do it is because of my three children. Because I I noticed when you, and I've said this many times, is the indulgences as a father and a mother are not

always the best thing. You gotta be able to tell the kids lights out, no no, no in or tonight or take away the phone from them. Well, whatever you have to do as a parent. And uh, I think artists need that. I don't think we give them enough direction and enough expertise and to say to them, because ultimately we all fail. If the records come in and we do it because they need it out by by Coachella, I need it out by Glastonbury or you know my manager,

nobody wins. Okay, So let's say you get the James Hersey record. Tell us how you approach the marketing and promotion of that record or a record doesn't have to be that specific record, So James will be handling handing his record and hopefully in the next couple of weeks and it will come out this summer and we'll probably starting in Austria, Germany and the Nordics. I think Spotify

will be very key to his record. I mean they were really key that from Denmark and and Stockholm with the people that really got behind him, So we're gonna start there. Um. I probably will get on a plane with our head of international and go to see people in St. Coleman, Berlin and started there. I think the UK would be next, um, and hopefully the fuse will be lit. Sirius XM was very helpful in the last record,

uh and I think that's key. Um. He's got an idea for a video we'll probably want to work with. I think the video wars are gonna start up again between Facebook and and YouTube and Spotify an Apple, and we'll take advantage of that. And I think we'll go to each one of them and say, if you love this, would you like to fund or create a piece of content? And I as an indie, it's nice when they do that. Okay, So when you I know, when you come to l A, you have a meeting with Apple, you have a meeting

with everybody involved. What do you tell them? What play the music? I think the main thing is to play the music. We're a company likes to bring the artist in. And when you have a label that has people as as magnetic, as charismatic, as inspirational as Marcus Mumford and his guys and you know, guys from Phoenix, Aurora, um Jade, you're better off bringing the artists with you. Let them tell the story of how the record was made. You know, no one better than Lauren Mayberry of Churches to tell

our story or even play a few songs. So I prefer that meeting rather than some record company, you know, reading off a piece of paper that's going to be a smash. So the better to tell how the record was made. But we'll see everybody. We'll see everybody at i Heeart and Cumulus and and and to Calm and Apple and Pandora. We we go see everybody Spotify, um we'll tell us about the playlist wars, how do they affect you or how do you enter that system? Relationships?

You know, somebody asked me, I've forgot the restaurant We went to the other day, Oh, I know where I was. I was. I was with my wife somewhere and we wanted to get a table at a restaurant. And afterwards there's a movie screening. So we got the table we wanted and the movie theater. The policy is no reserve seats, and we get into the theater and the the waiter said, would you like your dessert in the theater. I said, that'd be great, you could do that. He says, absolutely.

So we get to the theater and almost embarrassingly, there's three seats reserve center center. And I called someone in my company who told me it's all about the algorithm. I said, was that about the algorithm or was that about being nice and going back and being you know? It was about a relationship that I had with somebody who said something to somebody. So we got those reserve seats. And I think it's the same thing with this force, that it's all about the algorithm and it's all about

the the data. I think it's about people. It's about people, somebody behind the technology. My son, my youngest son, worked at Spotify for two summers. One summer he coded and once he worked on an artist development relations thing. They were people doing the engineering. People with a hard beat and a pulse and a soul. The same people run the playlist, the same people that WBLS and W A B C and K four C algorithms do kick in.

You can't keep a stiff up. And I actually like that that the playing field gets level for independence when you get in there. But getting in there is no different than it was in the sixties, in the seventies and and five years ago. So you have to have incredible relationships and know how dominoes work in life. And so let's say you go to Spotify, they agree to go on a record and it doesn't react to me.

You have to have patience. If you overshoot and try and get big place for new music Friday, get on the top fifty of this rap Cave or whatever it is the biggest of the big lists, you're setting yourself up for probable failure. I prefer to build slowly. I would prefer to get a focalist, an urban list, and R and B list, a soul list, um, a chill list.

It's like my favorite, one of my favorite stations right now is this chill channel on on Serious that's where records start, it's one of the hottest stations, so that leads to all nations, that leads to the Kid Kelly station, the serious Hits one or or Venus. I prefer a building I think you last longer. So we go in with a knowledge of many, many editors in l A and New York and London, different people. It's the same

thing with Beats one. The Beats one is a great radio station, a great resource if you only want the world record, which is what most UK executives do. They want one play on any Mac and then what one play on Beats one. They forget about week two through week nineteen. So I'd prefer to build equally with many of the digital players and spread it out with them and build sensibly. Okay, So how important is Serious, very very very very important. It's so well run. They are

so good at what they do. You see them at festivals, they get the prominent position. Um. You know, when you know how important serious is when your artists starts selling three tickets and then six tickets, and that you could speak to every club owner and promoter. It's coming from them, country dance, every genre of music that they're great at. It it's it's vital, it's really really well. What is

the future of terrestrial radio. I think it's in pretty good hands because you still I think we have at least a generation and a half of people that still push a button in a car. It's still a reflex of a DJ and a button in a car. I think the car is the battle for serious and the car, and for Pandora and for Spotify and for the VR of of the echo. UM. But for now, it's still

about radio. And when you have people like Bob Pittman running radio and making it extremely accessible and friendly, I think you're in really, really good shape at radio for now. I know you and I disagree on this. UM. I think radio in tandem with streaming radio just has to play more new music. They're playing it too late. The lag time has gotta gotta stop. Lagtime. I've judged about twenty eight weeks with records. That doesn't make any sense.

You've got to get it down to five or six if they can do that, and spot records earlier, because young people will abandon them. The two to nine year olds that are growing up now, we'll never listen to radio if they can't get new music and discover music there. So it's like the sixteen to seventeen year old kids in Parkland High School. They're gonna vote in a few months, and they're gonna vote with their heart and mind and conscious.

They're gonna take over this country. They're gonna do something very similar to the sixties. So I think this generation coming up, the two year olds know how to use alexa and they're gonna want to hear their music. Now they're not gonna want to hear commercials. So radio has got to start thinking about this new generation. If they don't, they're going to alienate people and no one's gonna listen to the radio. But for now, I think when you have real, real radio people running it, and I think

I heart's a good example. I just came back from Australia and you know how important Triple J is to that market. Uh. I think radio is still fine and and it's every manager I meet with they want to be on the radio. They want to be on the radio. And I think when you speak to a concert venue owner and you speak to a a festival person, they talk about radio and they want to see the amount of streams, but they want to hear about radio. I actually think Spotify is excited when radio is in tandem

with them. Somehow it's rare that they're in tandem. But we've talked about Spotify. There's a record company how important? Or Amazon and Apple very Uh. Amazon is a secret giant. Uh. They've been great partners with us, with Mumford and Sons, with Jade. There they do exclusive of music. It's it's a very underrated uh ecosystem right now. And every time they open up the voice recognition in a country, it explode.

I predict Australia is going to explode. And the fact that Spotify and Pandora and my Heart and Serious are going through their system. And you now have our house thanks to son Nos. We have Sonos in the office and we have Sonos one in our houses. Um And to us, it's the best of everything to go on demand and here our music. Most of my music, I have to say, comes through either Spotify or or Serious um when I when I request an artist. But Amazon

is amazing and country music, rock music. I don't think they're dominant in hip hop music. I think SoundCloud and in Spotify and Apple or Apple, I think it is getting better and better and better every day. You finally feel them connecting the different stylos there. I think had a lot of issues. Um, but when they they could exploit that radio station, I think we're in for in for a treat. I think Beats one is just this amazing radio station that needs more listeners. More Daniel glast

wisdom after this break. I hope you're enjoying this episode of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to hear sound bites or check out videos and photos of our guests, go to at tune in on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Welcome back to my conversation with Daniel Glass. Now we're going to throw it to the audience and see what they have to ask. What what metrics do you currently use to gauge the success of developing artists that you're working with. Streaming is the easiest and quickest

for us. UM. We look at a lot of live stuff, though we have a touring department, and we really feel that if you build it, they come. When when when ticket sales start going up, we get more excited. Even though it's not really the business warman and we don't really have a piece of most of the artist's live income. Uh, so I would say streaming numbers first, and then uh, I think shazam Is is good in a lot of ways in different markets. We like that. I think that's

a very active participant. But I would say ticket numbers is really important for us, and we go to that. We go to the shows and we we we watch and we see who's reacting. We're on this Alternative Nation tour right now with this group Mansion Air, and we're looking at that. So I think that's that's a key. I think streaming numbers. Hi, Daniel John Boyle, UM, So

just one quick comment and then a question for you. Um, You've probably been the foremost gentleman I've ever worked with in this business, from when we had you at E. D M. Biz Um, all the way through how you've raised your family. UM. I've become friends with your son Sean, who is becoming a very important person in the business. And so I commend you on that. UM. I think you're somebody that I hope to have those same um, you know, be looked at in the same way down

the road Asia. I'm not running Live Nation Japan. Um. The Japanese repertoire is nine. Well, the Japanese music business is Japanese repertoire. By the way, CD sales still dominate in Japan. Um what is and and it's not dissimilar throughout most of Asia, including India? What is your Asian strategy? Do you see Asia as a panacea being in the live music business? I do. But how we break down these walls and get further exposure for Western acts I

think is our challenge. So streaming is a key. I'll answer you a question in a sort of a semi circle. I started noticing our artists going to Lallapalooza in different places that Live Nation owns in South America, and I looked at streaming numbers of our artists and the number to market. The number three markets were Brazil where Mexico were Chili, and I was like, whoa, Now I know where they're going down there, and the Android phone is

bigger than anything in those markets. So I started looking at the streaming numbers there. Then I see and I called DANIELCT the day he made the deal with ten Cent. I said, that's brilliant to throw in with the biggest streaming person there. So I think that the ten Cent investment the reverse or reciprocal, you call it investment. There is is my is going to create a lot of waves. I think India is going to go. I'm very encouraged

about Japan only because I followed Germany very closely. That has been a physical market, that has been a domestic market, that has been a CD market, and it's changing. It's finally changed slowly to a streaming market. Uh. I believe if we could penetrate streaming in Japan. They just don't know about the music. We went through an era I guess it peaked with Michael Jackson where it was American pop, and then we did a terrible job as a business

sending artists there. Um. We still send artists to Japan. We send churches that we said Phoenix just left a few days ago, and they they're in Beijing actually at the Great Wall um yesterday. So managers in working with companies like yours have to make the investment to go that's probably number one, and then go back again, and then go back again. You can't dilude it to we

can't go everywhere. So I really believe that we come back to this conference in two years, we're gonna be going I mean seven months, will see South America, We'll see India, will see China, and I do believe there's going to be a change in Japan. I do believe the phone and the streaming Spotify, A bowl will be there. Um. It could be a third service though, because we didn't see ten cent coming, and it might be a different service because the nationalism, the xenophobia, you know, that could

take over. That could be a deezer or something like that in that market. I'm very encouraged though, because of what I saw in South America, Mexico and in in Germany. Just one question. We've also been talking about Chance the Rapper and certain acts debating whether or they even need a label. How do you foresee that playing out? So Chance the Rapper I get asked about all the time, and I think that's the aberration, that's the anomaly. Um.

He started out with a lot of money. You know, Pat is a friend, a friend of my son more than me. You know, that's a seven figure investment. It's nice to have that. Um, and they did it. And he's a really important artist. He sells stadiums out, he's really really important. I tend to think that most of these artists that are not gonna have a qualified team with them, are not gonna have important catalogs, are not

going to have long lasting careers. I think you still need the great agent and the publicity and the licensing sinc. And the artist development nuances to be a bona fide

international artist. I still believe in the team. I think the bidding wars of the major labels that are going into there was an eight million dollar deal signed a few weeks ago, then there was a fifteen million dollar deal signed a few weeks ago, and that probably is just coming because of these infusions of cash from Facebook and Spotify that have just come into the vaults of these companies. UM, I still think you need a team.

I think there are managers who are doing a very very good job of having promotion and marketing and within their own management company. There's maybe four of those though, uh So I think you're gonna see one maybe every couple of years. We've tried to sign some of them and I'm not I'm not sure how they're gonna do. Those artists. I think still think you needed I would advise somebody to be smart to write your deal the way you want to write it. But you still need

a team. I every artist in our company that had success, no way they could have done it without an independent, patient company behind them. Um, and I think they all start out. You know, somebody in the hallway was using the word with me what inspires you? And what's inspirational in that word? You know it could be used so loosely. I think the inspired artists really do need a team, because you know, there was a team behind Kanye West.

There was a whole team and he then you get off in fashion and and and dance and ballet and and and all the things that he's been involved in. But it was a very good team behind him and everybody else that's been successful. So I do believe you need a team. Is always going to be a chance though. Okay, other questions, how does a new artist get onto your radar? How many? How many acts have you passed on with me? Daniel? So that's how you get on his radar? You you

asked him and then he sends. The manager of Jade Bird is a great guy, Like I put him in that a group of management. He manages Plan b Tom Odell, Liam Gallagher, Jess Glynn, and we had a chance to sign probably all of those, um, and they're all successful, not in America, not in different places. We just didn't feel it. You know, there's a culture in our company, and it's a family culture and it starts with my wife and my children and the people like Bianca. It's

a family. So that's one thing. You know, you have to have a culture in your company. And I always look at the artists that would I have them over on Sunday, I really think about that. First of all, they stars, they have great repertoire, you know that. Let's just say they have that. Um. So getting on the radar, I would say managers. I really trust agents. I think agents are really good and managers are the two best sources for me. Club owners I think are great. There

was an artist that played here. People were singing every word of the song. Should have seen the reaction. Those are good sources to me. UM. A couple of people in Spotify, not not high ups, but middle to lower Uh. I still talk to radio people all the time. Um, those are sources. UM. I don't know, it's just you know, you talk to you talk to people. You gotta trust your team too. We have an amazing team, our little team,

our family member has grown up with us. So now you have people have been with us six to eight years and they are out there. So that's that's a way. But you know, we created a culture in our company and it's and it's Fami Maine amount be for everybody. We're a family culture where a family of inspired people. I would prefer our people go to the ballet or

a foreign film. I'm I'm taking this Thursday night. I'm taking six to eight of our people to the Shed, which is the newest, coolest, most cutting edge art space in the world world where the high line meets the meets uh what's it called the new city, the building up over the over the railroad tracks. No, what Hudson Yards. And it's it's the people that did the armory that's the most that's that's inspirational. If you could see that.

I want my team to do that. So I want an artist that that would be moved by going to the Shed with me. I want to hear what book they read. I want to see what movie they what. That's why one of the reasons I love reading Bob is is he turns me onto movies. I turned them onto a book in Vice versa. So I want that in our company. I want inspiration. And when you say family, you know, I thought about it this morning and prep and just in preparing this. We started this company, you know,

ten and a half eleven years ago. There's marriages in our company now, beautiful marriages that we've I've attended some weddings and there's another wedding, two more weddings coming up this summer. Great people. And then I look at the lead singer of Phoenix gets married to Sofia Coppola, the lead the keyboard player marries Kingoberza, who might be the best video director in the world. She's incredible. She just did the Aurora video. I see Marcus Mumford marries Carrie

Mulligan Winston. Mary's Diana grown, another great actor. Um and I see now a lot of our artists having children. And we go out together, and we we go to opera together, we go to we traveled together. And that's what I wanted when I started, because that's what Chrysalis was for me. That was so beautiful. We we did

everything together. I got to know Blondie lad and Benatar Late and Jethro Tall, I got to he brought us gravelocks from his farm to Chris Wright's house where he had his trout, and these are these are rich guys, you know. And I was, you know, a little pitshirts twenty six years old going into these places. But I wanted that. So when I started glass Note, I needed to learn about the past, to say, what of environment,

what kind of family. I wanted to have a family culture, but I wanted a culture of excellence, and I wanted to train people. I didn't want to hire major label people. And for the most part we have, and the few we did very very good. But for the most part I prefer not to. So when you get that culture and you have these people that can come over and I don't know, it's just it's it's it's it's a better feeling. And I never worried. You know, some people say,

how much money do you make? I think we make a lot of money. I think we sell a lot of records. But it's not that important to me. What's important is that you come to see these artists and you go wow. I was emotionally transported tonight. That to me is better than number one. That really, I really mean that. The first time I heard on the radio, and then when someone comes to a show and goes that was really something, I think, that's what you want

to be in business with. So that's the that's the A and R of the company in a in a roundabout way, it's it's really about fitting into a much more inspired cultural world than it is. You know, there's a as an artist we signed. I hope I'm not boring you, but I went to the Juno Awards, uh not this year, the year before and it was in Ottawa and Justin Trudeau had given a very emotional speech about the indigenous population, the First Nation Indians, and I

didn't know a lot about it. I did some research and this young man gets up on stage and sings a song called Breathless, William Prince. And I met William that night and he made everybody cry. He sang this song and behind him was the scroll of who died that year and everybody's crying, and he had a standing ovation And thanks to my wife, I went over to him. I gave my business card. A month and a half later, we decided to go into business together and Dave cop

just produced his record. And the reason I say it is that got the hearst already of what it was like to get out of what I said to him. This is over many lunches and dinners, what went on on the Indian reservation. And he's not supposed to be alive. This guy between opioids, diabetes, rape, he's not supposed. If you've seen the movie Wind River, that's what it's like. You should see that movie. It's an important movie from

last year with Jeremy Renner. So William overcame that. William got into medical school and now I think he's gonna have a big hit record. But that's why we signed him because of his voice. He is not any Bianca asked me a lunch today, who do you think is gonna play the record? What play? I have no idea. I have no idea. Who's ever going to play this guy's record. It's just great. Lucy and Grange wrote me a note and he wrote, great song, great record, and he said good luck. I don't know if I don't

know what he meant by that. Was that like a dig or is that like good luck? Getting something this different on the There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it, nothing like his voice, but there was nothing like you know the banjo. There was nothing like that. There was nothing like you know gambinos. So um, that's the A and R of the company. And the song made me cry. And then Dave Cobb heard it and he said, I

gotta produce this. So after he did Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell and Brandy Carlyle and all the records he's had, he did it and it's coming out, you know, in a few weeks. So that's the A and R. That's the company, that's the inspiration, that's how we worked the company. I don't know if that's a business thing, but I think that's what Chris Blackwell did. I think that's what Jerry Moss did. I think that's

what Chris Wright did. And I think that's that's the people that I want to be like one day when I grow up. So that's that's that's my feeling. And on that note, was congratulate Daniel on a grade before everyone I thought of introduced. That was Daniel Lass, Executive Extraordinaire from the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. Daniel has literally done it all other than be a musician, himself. He was at DJ, worked at many labels before he

started his own company and had mega success. If you want to know where it's going, if you want to know how to live your life, listen to Daniel Glass. Thanks for listening. Don't hesitate to email me at Boba left steps dot com with feedback and suggestions. I may not always respond, but I read every email until next time. I'm Bob left Sets