Welcome, welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That podcast. My guest today is Gary Spivet, who books all the talent for the Danny Wimber Presents rock festivals. Good to have you on the show. Gary. How many rock festivals are there for Danny Wimmer.
There are six right now for the calendar year. First off, thanks for having me, longtime listener, first time caller. Appreciate you as I am a flag waiver of rock and roll. Having me on important to speak my mind on that. So there's six rock festivals, all destination minimal three days. Most of them are four day rock festivals.
Four days, so that would imply Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday most are three day. What's the thinking in four days?
Well, first off, on business standpoint, it's an advertising of costs. You got your stages, you got your crews, you got your staffing, everybody's there. So from a business standpoint, it's almost like this nice added day of revenue. Rock fans. Believe me, Bob, if they were, because it is taxing as a promoter and somebody to work a four day festival. If they were crying about it, we wouldn't do it.
But they they eat it up. So for them it's like instead of a Hawaii vacation or bungee jumping, this is their this is their vacation, this is their getaway, and families come to this.
And what are the capacities of these festivals?
Had a record breaking Welcome to Rockville Daytona Beach, which was the single day, which was well over fifty five thousand, So capacities vary from that number to a round forty.
Okay, And what festivals have yet to play this year?
We have Louder than Life in Louisville, Kentucky, after Shock I'm not doing chronological sorry, Louder than Life Rock Oklahoma, which is Labor Day weekend, and After Shock in Sacramento, California.
So conventional wisdom is rock is dead. What can you tell us about that?
Yeah, you like saying that. I know. Look, all I can tell you is when you put these festivals on and you have an abundance of bands and you don't overcharge, they come and they come in droves. To me rock all right, So I think we the heyday when I was raised in the industry, when I was starting at record labels, this was the early nineties and grunge rock
took over Nirvana, Pearl Jem, Soundgarden, Alis, Smashing Pumpkins. They had the mainstream MTV, buzzbin rock, and alternative radio, and I think a lot of us have been chasing the dragon's tail since then. But rock's never supposed to be in the mainstream. It's supposed to be the other side of the tracks. It's supposed to be like the grassy knoll where the cool kids are at the cafeteria table with the jocks and the kids in their polo shirts, and it's the rockers up on the grassy knoll with
their cigarettes and exchanging rush cassettes. That's always been my taking rock. It's always been the left, the rebellious, and not the mainstream. Pop music doesn't the word pop means popular as in popular music, and rock has never been intended minus a couple moments in our favorite era, probably you know, sixty four to seventy, specifically sixty seven to seventy when rock kind of took it ruled everything. Rock is not the pretty girl in school, right, It's not
the most popular kid in the class. It's the outcast. It's the misfits. So you gather them together at a festival or look I go to you see Greta van Fleet at the Forum twelve thousand people. I don't know how you can say Rock is dead when that happens.
Okay, is this the same audience who goes to the Juggalo festival? No?
You know what I equated to, Bob all right, So you might hear some sports analogies throughout our hang today, Hockey specifically Los Angeles. The Kings sell out Crypto every night, twenty thousand strong. There's probably twenty three thousand hockey fans in Los Angeles, right, It's like, but they're dedicated, they're into it. They have the jerseys, they know that, the players, they know that, they know their competition. That's Rock. That
forty thousand that attends our festival, that's the core. And if you treat them right and you give them great lineups and good food and good beer, not stale bud light and corn dogs anymore, they come back. So it is. It is not the Juggalo audience, though we cater to them too.
Okay, you talk about good food. Coachella had very high end offerings and stagecoach was moorn downscale when you say good food for rock festivals, go a little deep.
Yeah, we have. We have five stars. We have Louisville, Kentucky. We're Bourbon and Beyond and louder than life is. We have five star chefs backstage and front house. We have the best barbecue in Louisville. In Dave Grohl has been a part of that. Uh it is. We stopped with with the with the corn dogs and churos long ago. So it's a stone that it's it's oven pizza, it's it's it's quality food. And to go step further like
it louder than life in Bourbon and Beyond. We have Bourbon tasting villages a la Bottle Rock where every real quickly quick fact about Bourbon, which I become pretty vers in. Not like Danny wimmern of all, Bourbon is just and Planet Earth is distilled in Louisville, Kentucky. Thought that Louisville, Kentucky was doing a very bad job about pring. That Louisville,
Kentucky is the Napa Valley of Bourbon. So we have Bourbon tasting villages where it's it's one fixed price and every local bourbon distiller is set up so you have these fine bourbons, You've got high end barbecue, you have vegan it's it's all there and food trucks and vendors, and it's it's quality. So people are we want them for lunch and dinner.
Okay. Coachella historically, for like the last decade, except for maybe the last year two, has been line up independent, i e. People will buy tickets based on the name of Coachella with the faith that Golden Voyage will book a lineup that they're happy with. To what degree does that apply to rock festivals?
Not as well? It is. It is definitely artist dependent. But we do blind ticketing and we could sell about twenty percent of give or take of of capacity without a lineup, But it is, it is artists dependent. They they don't like repeats, they like reunions, they like you know what wins at our shows, Bob and a prop It's very simple. It probably wins at any concert you
go to is energy, songs, attitude, and production. I put production last because a lot of the festivals are city festivals with hard curfews at eleven, so, especially in the spring, top two bands really get lights because it doesn't get dark till nine nine to fifteen at some of these festivals. So songs win and energy wins. So when you put all these bands together and you curate it right, they
return and they show up. So to answer your question, the short answer your question at our festivals, it's it's definitely talent dependent and we got it and we're swinging with the biggest Now.
Okay, So how many of these festivals or city festivals and how many are destination outside of the city.
Well, they're all destination, you know, Louder than life. Using that as example in Louisville, Kentucky. One of my favorite things about that festival, it's literally across the road from the airport. It is art the hotel we stay out. You could see the main stages. Like how great is that?
One has to ask if it's across the street from the airport, what about the airport noise?
We work with them. Well, and you have left, you have curfews and they they they have. We are so good with Louisville that they help redirect their airline their flight takeoffs and departures where they direct it out of the you can see planes taken off. The quick funny story I have is Foo fighters played on a Friday. I had to leave on a Saturday for a family thing. Dave Groll wanted to see a band, and I escorted
him on stage. We're watching the band and I have my luggage with me, and I get my runner and I'm boarding my plane and that band's still playing. That's how great that festival is.
Okay, let's let's go back. How many of these festivals are like acl or Lollapalooza in the metropolis, and how many are more akin to Bonaru or Coachella in an area that's not literally right by a city.
Rock Klahoma and Prior Oklahoma is forty five minutes from Tulsa. It is a ninety percent camping festival. We have camping at every festival, but every festival I just mentioned is, if not ten minutes from the airport, less than thirty. So it's there's camping, but it's hotel. It's like Sonic Temple and Columbus, Ohio. We did a zip code report. Columbus, Ohio is responsible for twenty nine percent of ticket sales, meaning what is that seventy one percent of all tickets
sold are outside of the city of Columbus. So what we bring into that city, Hotel, Starbucks, gas station, sports bars. We bring a lot of income into into Columbus, Ohio for that weekend.
How into the data are you not?
It depends. I will not answer. If I don't know, I'm not going to make shit up for you. My specialty is talent booking curating. But when we started when when Danny Wimmer, myself and Dell Williams, you'll probably hear that named Del Williams a lot as we talk today. Dell and I were in record label world together. We wanted to start something. We felt there was a This is two thousand and six, by the way. My last label job was Geffen Records Head of Rock and Alternative Promotion.
I was hitting my head on the ceiling. I didn't want to be a promotion man anymore, live concerts or what gets the hair on my arms raised. So Del Williams and I started what was called Right Arm Entertainment. At the time, it was just a book. If you remember the Radio Festival craze those radio stations right So we started booking all them because these programmers didn't know what to do, and Dell and I were verse in it because of our label experience. And work with bands
and managers and agents. So we were booking festivals, sorry, radio shows. But Bob quickly became noticeable for me that if you're going to be kind of taken seriously in this business, you got to write a check and you got to be able to be an actual promoter. So we started Rock on the Range and Carolina Rebellion and that's Charlotte, North Carolina Rock on the Range, Columbus, Ohio, Dell and I and Danny Wimmer. Danny Wimmer and I
was it was kind of an arranged marriage. Through Dell, Danny and I flew to Saint Louis, Missouri to strike a deal with a guy by the name of Joe Lidvag who was the head of Midwest at AEG and we went fifty to fifty with him because it was us three. We didn't have. We didn't really have we had. We had a lot of ignorance and a lot of arrogance, and so AG became our partner, the nuts and bolts partner, and we worked with Columbus Creuse Stadium in Columbus, Ohio,
which was an AEG room, a building it was. It's on the it's on the grounds of the Columbus fair Grounds. So there's camping, parking, soccer stadium, parking lots, side stage areas, perfect and Danny and I went to Saint Louis to sign our agreement, and little did I know that the kid had food poisoning, but he kind of personed up and that was a real sign for me that this this this guy is serious and he was a hustler because he had food. If I think you've probably had
food poisoning in your life, oh I've had it multiple times. Yeah, that's a fucking knockout. That's like put me at just kill me now. But we just started talking and this arranged marriage became kind of this brotherhood, this partnership. So we started these festivals. And the reason why we started these festivals Bob two thousand and six, two thousand and seven.
There was Coachella, there was acl there was Bonnaroo, but there wasn't who was serving these rock fans when and I don't mean warped to or punk rock or oz Fest at the time, like rock and roll. You know, bands like Godsmack and Shine Down and Disturbed will never get invited to Coachella or bonnerou Let's make this their Coachella. And we picked Columbus, Ohio for a couple of reasons.
One because it was AG fifty to fifty two, but also we're really big into feeder markets, meaning around Columbus, you have Cincinnati, you have Cleveland, Detroit, you have Toledo, Akron, these kind of underserved rock towns, and they all it worked. They all came in and they all have rock radio stations. So at the time we were very terrestrial radio heavy because of our radio show knowledge, and we knew all these stations, so they became friends to us and we
use them. I got on and back in the day, because you asked, I said, I'm strictly mostly talent and booking. But back then us three did everything. Bob we I booked, I did the marketing, I got sponsors, I got on the radio, I talked to morning shows. It was just spreading kind of this rock nation around the area. And that's we did it, kind of you know, soup to nuts. At the time, I knew every sandwich on that subway because that's all that's all we can afford.
Okay, let's just go through the history a little bit. Okay, so the three of you start. Does Del Williams continue or does he step aside at some point? What's his role?
Yeah? It was it was Gary, Dell and Danny. I think we had one assistant maybe, so over the years we did a fifth year anniversary I think of Rock on the Range and Dell kind of stepped aside. Danny got into some capital and kind of bought Dell out and rolled me in to Danny Wermer Presents, and I became the head of talent and Dell stayed on as a consultant. Is I think we're at twenty thirteen now after a run of two thousand and seven to twenty twelve.
So Dell, Danny and I have always been communicating, always been talking. So from twenty thirteen to about twenty one, I was the head of talent at DWP Booking, curating programming all the rock festivals. Dell at the time was doing bourbon beyond helping where he could and for me, if I could talk about me, a couple of things happened. Two in particular, we got the Woodstock account, which was a very big deal for me. As I follow you,
I know you're extremely versed. You were living it in real time, but I'm a total student of sixty seven to seventy specifically and Woodstock, I'm kind of a complete Woodstock nerd. And we became friend. We cold called Michael Lang and became very friendly with him. He would come to our festivals, He came to Louder than Life, he came to Columbus, Ohio, and he said, I'm going to be doing Woodstock fifty, and we said we want to be part of it in any shape or form. He
ended up hiring me DWP for booking. He ended up hiring Superfly for production, and he got this company called Densu Japanese conglomber and advertising agency to fund it. And it was one of the greatest couple months of my life booking that festival until it was the whole thing imploded. Michael may he rest in peace. Uh is the ultimate was the ultimate Hippi hustler, you know, like, well, he was an elephant who would just kind of leave a bunch of shit behind and it was for us to
clean up. So Woodstock took a lot out of me. And if you yeah.
I mean I shouldn't remember den Sue pulling the plug, et cetera. But if you had to specifically state why that failed? Why did it fail?
Michael did not have his stuff together. He didn't. He didn't have a venue deal Superfly rightfully, so was holding strong. He wanted one hundred thousand. It was Watkins Glen was the venue. Uh, and I think in what was that? You remember? I was at seventy three, the Almond Brothers, Greg was there. You were there? Awesome? Uh, biggest one day rock festival in America. I believe for a long
period of time he chose Walkins Glen. Fish was supposed to have a Walkins Glen Weekend in like October of eighteen. This is Woodstock fifty supposed to be August twenty nineteen, and we were getting ramped up and started booking Woodstock and Fish. If you remember, there was all these water and plumbing issues at Walkins Glen and they had to pull the plug the day before that Fish Weekend, which caused a lot of red flags for everybody, but not
for Michael, and capacity was lowered. He didn't have permits, he didn't have dB permits. But we proceeded and booked a hell of a three day festival of four main stages and a couple side stages. Anybody. You can google Woodstock fifty. You could see the lineup because it was announced. I had never in my life seen a show. This was announced in March of twenty nineteen with no on sale, and Michael had the idea of this is March, like, let's put it on sale Earth Day, you know, April twenty.
So it was supposed to be on sale. April twenty came and went, and I was getting a lot of heat from every agent. You know, these are big bands I had. The Killer is Maty Cyrus, The Racking Tour's Dead and Company, Chance the Rapper, I'm on top of my head, Jay Z Imagine, Dragons, Brandy Carlisle, Halsey, it was Black Keys and they were like, what's up, what's going on with the show? And I and nobody can get a straight answer. Finally the plug was pulled and it took a lot out of me. So now we're
in twenty nineteen. Second thing that happened was COVID March twenty twenty. I'm on a trip with my wife to see my daughter who's studying abroad in London and crushing it as a young woman. We fly back on I think it's March ninth, I think was March ten. We're trying to fall asleep and we turn on CNN and Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks got COVID and the NBA season was canceled, and I think I'm texting with Wimmer, like,
you know, oh, this is this is real. And I just was one of those guys, Bob who kind of had an epiphany, you know, like I'm I'm a little burnt right now. I pushed through twenty twenty with DWP. We do what everybody else does, you know, get into streaming, do what we can to survive. We all take big pay cuts and just as a company, and that took a lot out of me. Twenty twenty one rolls around. We put shows together thanks to guys like Cliff Bernstein and Q Prime. We were the first to have Metallica.
We were the first to have Metallica played twice. They played a Friday and a Sunday, different sets. And so by then I was watching Metallica at Aftershock, which is October twenty twenty one, and I just had this moment where I think I'm good. I think I'm good, and I talked to Wimmer and we worked out. I left as an executive just to become a consultant, just a book and during that time, during COVID, I myself became a lot closer with one of my than I have met, Bob.
I have mentors. I thought i'd have a shitload of mentors in this industry. I have less than a handful. And one of them is Mark Geiger, who's appearing a mentor and a tennis buddy. And I know I could take him skiing too, but that's a different story. I want to get with you one day on skiing too, because I went to the University Colorado for the sole reason because I was a ski rat.
That's such a long conversation. I'm gonna let it go. Sorry, continue with the getting together with Geiger.
As my wife would say, here's my ADHD kicking. Geiger was leaving WM and we're playing tennis, and he's like, I'm starting something. I'm kind of going back to my roots, and I want to what I love and when I've always loved to booking Metallica and Guns n' Rows and Foo Fighters is great, but Bob, I'm all about music discovery.
To this day, I eat it up and I love when I find a band that I actually love, because a lot of these and everybody knows this about me, there's a good amount of these bands because I'm a businessman that I book that I don't really like personally, but I get it and I appreciate it and I respect it. But when there's a band that I like that I appreciate and respect it and I get to go watch, that's that's the good stuff. So with Mark,
you know, here's a guy who started Lollapalooza. Here's a guy who's his resume is we all know it, but he loves going to see an unsigned band at a three hundred club room, as do I. So he said, I'm starting this company. And at the time I was like, you know what, you know, if you were selling strawberries off the four or five, I think I would go with you. Let's let's let's do this. So I called Wimmer. This is I think January twenty two now, and I said,
look something. He loves Mark like I do. And he said something something on opportunities arisen and I want to try this with Mark. And Danny said, is Mark interested in festivals? And mark S answer was fuck no, because Mark's been there, done that, and he just he wants to do his venues and Dany's like, all right, you know, have at it man. So twenty twenty two to twenty four, I was kind of rolling double duty working as an executive in Marks Companies, Saved Live and consulting with DWP.
Dell Williams came back and took the role of of talent at DWB was so it's been this kind of constant flow between Gary, Danny and Dell to this day.
So you've recently left Save Live. What was going on there?
Sports analogy if I can. I was a player at a position and I knew it and Mark knew it. It right, people wrong fit it was. It's a volume based booking job. I love creating and curating and putting together who could I put under Metallica with with Danny and Dell and what can we put on the side
stages Save Live. I wish him the best, love them, just it wasn't right for me, and I'm at the point in my life, you know, I'm a squirrel Who've collected a good amount of nuts where I just want to work with people or do something that inspires me and excites me so completely amical parting Mark got it. I hope he I hope he rules the world, and I hope woman rules the world too.
Okay, so where does this leave you?
I am consulting with DWP. I also kept a couple of venues Mark greenlit which is the Rave and Eagles ball Room in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Fantastic historic venues. I'm working on an international deal with a German promoter, and I'm just kind of you know, I'm leaning, Bob. I'm in a really unique place in my life. I'm leaning hard on my relationships because that's all I got. You know,
somebody said, you work till you're forty five. Let's say you work to your fifty to build your relationships, and then why don't you take fifty to whenever to use them?
Dot and I here, what's this? What's going on with you? I think you said in Wisconsin?
Yeah, I am consulting Eagles Ballroom and the Rave Eagles at there. It's this fantastic historic venue that is all in one. There's four venues in this building. It's across the street from Marquette University. An a rock band worth anything. In the last thirty years has heard of Eagles Ballroom Independent? You know again, I've always been kind of an independent spirit, even at the at my record label days. I worked for one Monster Major. That's where I met Jason Vlohm
at Atlantic Records. Besides that, I was I was an Electra. Geffen at the time was kind of a sister label of Innerscope I worked for. Before Atlantic, I worked for Tag Records, which was the Atlantic Group, a startup label started by Craig Callman. That folded. I kept on with Atlantic. So I always love the independent spirit and that was Saved Live. Save Live is independent run venues that go up against cocin PEPSI.
Okay, let's go back. You do the initial festival in partnership with AG. Are the rest of these festivals fully independent or are they in partnership with AG or anybody else?
Yeah, they're fully independent, fully independent. The AEG partnership, as things do in life, ran its course.
Uh.
There was a there was a divorce. I'm the child of the divorce, you know. And when those festivals kind of as things do, as festivals come and go, those festivals had a great run, and that partnership had a great run, and it dissolved. It was time to it was time to separate, and I stayed on as the
head of Talent with DWP. So all the festivals that I've mentioned to you, Welcome to Rockville, Louder than Life, Bourbon and Beyond on Rock, Oklahoma, Sonic Temple, After Shock are completely owned and operated by by DWP.
And where does the financing come for these festivals DWP? So it's self financed.
Yeah, there's you know, there's there's investors, and not right of me to talk about that right now.
Okay, So let's say you have these festivals. How far in advanced you start planning for a festival.
That's a great question, because it's getting more the window, the windows getting more and more. When we started, I remember we used to announce like on Martin Luther King Day in January for a May festival. And now we're definitely in the in the back end of the year before when we announce usually November December. So it's a it's a three hundred and sixty five day siege we have. You know, again, when you say Rock is dead, I'll just tell you man two thousand in twenty five, because
twenty twenty four we're as we're so talent dependent. Kind of a down you know, the thesis come in cycles. It's kind of a down year for headliners. We actually had to freaking reunite a metal band, Slayer. They're doing three shows this year. Two of them are with us, the other one's riot Fest in Chicago. So we like helped put together Slayer again. So it's been kind of a down year. And that happens. I mean you see it at God if you remember last summer with Beyonce
and Taylor and Metallica, gn R and Green Day. How many stadium tours are this year? So kind of a down year. Twenty five feels great. We're in twenty five, we're booking twenty five.
Let me go sideways for one second. You had the Black Keys and Arenas that shut down, and you had j Loo that shut down. Do we learn anything there?
Yeah, no, it's and I was talking to I still like to talk to venues for my especially for festival research, and it's kind of down this year, and especially Look, I think rock and hip hop. I like to think inflation has a lot to do with this, Bob. I think we deal with paycheck to paycheck people that's the core audience, you know, for for us at a at
a single GA ticket, I'm being really general. Say it's one hundred and seventy five dollars, which to me is great value because you say you have forty bands a day. Do the math, it's like five it's less than five five dollars a band. But these people have to decide, like am I gonna buy Welcome to Rockville or fix my carbureator. It's being very general. I have to you know, I have to paint paint part of my house or
get that concert ticket. And I think people, I think inflation is catching up, and I think you're seeing that around, especially in rock and hip hop. That's what that's what I'm getting for this year. So the strongest will survive. The branded festivals I think are doing great. Dvp's having
a really good year. I'm not hyping you. It's it's the record breaking year actually, because I think, Okay, I think if you are a festival and you're starting and you start with say you launch a new festival and it's Siza and Noah Khan and Blink one ey two and Gwen Stefani and Janelle Monet, like who are you appealing to? But if you're at if you don't have a these festivals, the root of the tree, the core are rock festivals. You can go kind of left, you
know with Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age. You can go right with Mega Death and Lamba God and Slipknot. You go center with Papa Roach and Shine Down Godsmack. We're allowed to do that, but we're not. We don't go for Megan Thee, Stallion and Sisa. We are rock festivals and I think those are those are thriving because they have their base. That's my take.
Okay, let's go back to the timeline. Let's say a festival is going to play in May. How far in advance will you start working on that festival?
May May twenty five? We were doing calls in January twenty four.
Okay, on that What is the first step? Where does talent come in putting on a festival?
Yeah? I love that question because for me, I'm a big proponent of top down because for a couple of reasons, if you have Metallica or you have the Food Fighters and Metallica Metallica is their own genre, that's bad example, because Metallica could play with anybody. If you have Pantera, you have to curate and program a proper way. You know, you can't get too cute and put Royal Blood with with Pantera. If you have the food Fighters rightfully, so
they they come with a couple proper demands. Dave loves females, so a band like the Pretty Reckless or Hailstorm is great to get and represent on that day. They don't like the fist clenching metal, although Dave is a big fan of that, but food Fighter of the brand. So you go Queen's of the Stone Age, you go Greta van Fleet, you go Royal Blood. So you have to so you have to stop the start at the top,
at the top and work your way down. I think if not, you're going to be left with all all these mid level bands and a very bloated budget, and you got to be careful.
Let's start with the budget. Do you have a hard budget before you start calling anybody?
Yes, but it's it's it's a moving target depending on you know what this band. Like with Slayer, you want to have security, I guess using that word. So if you look at Aftershock, we got Slayer and Judas, we got Slayer and Pantera. We got Iron Maiden, a band that I've coveted, Danny and I and Delve coveted since we started. There's two bands, by the way, that we coveted and were down to one, and that that one is raged against the machine and just cry and shame.
They're not an actual band right now. So normally you would say, you know you got you got your headliner, Slayer or Maiden, We're good, let's let's but we wanted to really kind of hit them over the head with a hammer. So we increase the top line budget and with that, you're gonna probably have to increase your ticket price. So that's the great catch twenty two, and that is the great moment where festivals can outprice themselves because at the end of the day, our boss is the fan.
Capital f capital, a capital end period, the fan will speak and we'll know if we've outpriced. And I think some festivals out there have like they look at the ticket price and I'm taking a pass because this isn't my festival. So yes, there's a budget, Yes we stick to it religiously, and yes it's a moving target.
Okay, So let's say it's January of twenty four. You're booking for May of twenty five before you call anybody, do you plot out all four days?
You plot out your your your headliners. I do, we do. And if it was like if it was pay for, you know, you would go through a fucking notebook because what you start with and what you end with are two very different things. Those those grids that we live by a change and they were we're booking. I'm telling you, I don't. I can't speak for all festivals. We're booking the usually the week the week before we announced too. You're still in it. It is, it's it's wild because
festivals are different. You know. You you ask for more rightfully, so you pay from You pay more money for two main reasons. Bob, is you pay for the specialty of the performance. We like to make it special. And you pay for radius claus you know, like I said, those feeder markets. We like to If you're playing Columbus Sonic Temple, that's your play in the region.
Do all acts have the sea radius clause?
We like to kind of keep it case by case, but it is a Pandora's box. We're really strict on radius. Can't speak for other promoters, but it is case by case.
And how long a period of time and how many miles will be the typical headliner or radius clause.
I'm more into state like, for example, sonic temples radius states as in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia. That kind of covers it. If you want to play outside of those, we're probably cool. There's a couple markets that kind of go into that two fifty to three hundred mile radius, which is kind of the the industry standard.
And how long a.
Window you could announce you could play that show the next day, as long as you announce the day you can announce from our festival stage.
No, no, let me let me be clear. Okay, I'm a band, I'm playing in Kentucky. How long until i can play in Kentucky again?
Sixty to ninety ninety? It's kid's case by case, it's sixty to ninety.
Okay, So let's go back to booking. Do you call agents and see who's available for headliners? Or do you make a list to who you want and then call the agents.
Both were you know, we we've become that I there isn't another company that does this amount of rock festivals in North America of what our core is. So there used to be a time when we started, when we were getting on our knees to agents and managers like what are you doing? What is this? And thanks to people, I would say, people like Bill McGaffey and Ken from Me Gush and Rick Roskin, early believers, Corey Brennan that that got it, that got what we were doing. But
now we're we're in lockstep. We we have bands that will literally create their their cycle around the festival. We want to launch a single when you announce, we want to put the street date on the festival date, do and doing a meet and greet, a pop up in store. So these rock bands have it's great. There's a great partnership. I mean, I have so many examples, Bob, and I'll use and I think you've you've talked to her, which
I love that you did. I think a couple of years ago you reached out to Lizzie Hale of Hailstorm.
Actually I have not done a podcast with Lizzy Hale. I'm certainly familiar with Hailstorm, but the pretty reckless Yes, I've done that.
Yeah, I'll use Hailstorm. Example that was Bill mcgafey. He stepped up for us. He called me and said, hey, I want you to, you know, put a brand new band that I just signed Kenya and am Mike. Who is Bill? He's said the lead singers, A lead singer is a girl, and the younger brothers the drummer, and I hadn't heard a lick. I'm like, you know what, yes, but in the band was Hailstorm. We put them on at twelve thirty on the little stage and we loved him.
Two years later they headlined that stage. Two years later, they're opening the main stage. Two years three years later they're in the middle and they're one of our core bands. We build this relationship, we have this. I've got Greta van Fleet. Greta van Fleet. I got a demo tape from an unsigned from Mark Giger and Ron Opeleski, and it was two songs. It was the Flower Song in Highway tune. I mean yes, its completely sounded like led Zeppelin, and I'm like, let's go Yes, booked him for five
hundred dollars. I have the contract on my wall. You got add a couple of zeros now to to get credit of Anfleet, but they're worth it. I've got countless stories of that and how we build these bands together and they've become family, and how they've risen with us.
Let's go back to the top end. So what you're saying is the agents are where that your festival is going to play, and they're pitching you a little bit. Do you also have dream talent that you just call the manager of the agent and say this is our.
Vision totally Yes, yes, and we'll and we'll design a pitch. I'll use I'll use our friend Cliff Bernstein. We weren't ready for Metallica for many years. We had to we had to build that trust, we had to build our brand. So what we did there was other bands that Q Prime has, three Days, Grace, Disturbed, put them on They're they're they're down the middle, core bands for these festivals, and he'd get word back like great crowd, great merch numbers. These guys take care of us. That's one thing that
we knew from day one. If we're an independent, we better go the extra mile backstage and front of house, and we do like our We work our stage managers and that crew to the core and there by Sunday at eleven PM. These guys are so fried because we go the extra mile and I go to a lot of festivals, and yes, Coachella completely does it right for the fan and for the band and for everybody. We
take notes of that. We've gone to Hellfest, We've taken trips to download and rock and ring and walkin park and see what some of these do and somewhat of these festivals don't do. So we take care of these bands. And Q Prime got wint to that. So tried for Metallica. No,
not this year, not this year. We almost had them one year, but we ended up getting the Red Hot Chili Peppers when they are Q Prime monumental booking for us because that type of booking made sure that we weren't just the slipknot of ND Sevenfold, who we love hard rock metal festivals. We can go left and we can go right. Red Hot Chili Peppers had an amazing experience and Metallica was ready for us. So that's the story of that dream scenario. We had to be ready for them.
Okay, if these are four night festivals, how many a list headliners does each festival need?
Well, we're four now, and that's the thing which it makes it very hard, Bob, because if like for example, in twenty one, we had the Foo Fighters done at three of them up and announced, and one of the saddest things in rock in the last couple decades was Taylor Hawkins past and we couldn't I think they were playing Lopaluza and a couple other festivals. We couldn't uh replace them with Meghan the Stallion, you know, or Chance
the Rapper. We we we are rock festivals. So the you are limited, it does it does make it harder. Like I said, this has been a kind of a down year for headliners. We got the foods for Rockville, we got iron made in an aftershock, but we we we had to kind of go back to the well on some of some others. But yes, the headliner is key, But I'm telling you these fans love Bulk.
Okay, But just to ask the question again, if there are four nights, you have iron made in one night, what caliber of status, economic status, and draw do the other three nights need to have to make it work? Well?
Similar to to to the story I told you of we had made in one night and then we did you know a Slayer and Pantera for another night, so you do kind of a you know, two A minuses if you will, to stack it up, look a core bands for us that our family, Slipknot Events, Sevenfold, Corn Disturbed. You know you look at Spotify numbers like Undisturbed, I
think twenty two million monthly listeners. That they have a couple of songs that are through the moon, the sound of silence cover bigger than might Some people might think, Okay.
So let's just assume you have your headline level band. You've locked those in. One question before I go down the bill. You know, for a long time festivals had exclusives and then just before were COVID, the same acts seem to be headlining all the festivals. To what degree do you want or not want multiple festivals for the people you do book?
Yeah, we were into what's called bundle offers. If you can get food Fighters or you can get Pantera for a couple of them. But I will tell you these fans are smart. They start seeing, oh that looks like Loud of Them Life looks like Welcome to Rockville or Louder than Life and after Shock. So we can't duplicate too much, So we do our best to separate, but it's good when you can get a band for a couple of them. It's great when you can get a band for one of them. We had Green Day for
Louder than Life. They're exclusive kind of Ohio Valley Play, which is Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia fucking great. So the exclusive is great. Those are those are important, Love them expensive, but love them.
Okay, but you've locked in your headliners? Where do you go from there?
Right? So if you have again, if you have kind of slipknot closing a night, you got to program appropriately, and you could we like to kind of stretch the fishing net as much as we can without sorry to use cliches jumping the shark on a slip not day. So then you go down and you know, mega death.
I'm just throwing bands out, Lamma God, there are tons of them, and I'll tell you there there is a nice crop of bands right there on the cusp in our world, including and again you may never have heard of these bands that I'm about to say, and that's okay, but bands like bad Omens, they're about there. An arena act, Bring me the Horizon, a data remember falling in Reverse and sorry to the word. If I'm missing a couple in that immediate world, you know, a band like Eis
nine Kills, who Metallica is taking out right now? There is movement, there is there is traction in the rock hard rock world. And these are bands that you know are melodic and very heavy and not mainstream, but the core knows them. If I just said ban Oben's falling in reverse to a bunch of rock fans are like that, that's that's that they think they could headline a festival. And again, I could look at you and I bet you may have never heard of bad Omens.
I have heard of those bands has been around for a while.
Yeah, yeah, let's let's go back.
Let's talk about pricing. Can you buy a day ticket or do you have to buy all four days?
We go four day tickets out of the shoot four day tickets? Single day there was uh we we will uh priced here. Rock Oklahoma will start as a weekend because again that's such a camping festival. So again, ninety percent of that festival are campers, so you know predominantly they're gonna want to They're gonna want the weekend pass and the single day at that particular festivals is kind of minimal because it's Oklahoma, so it's pretty much Oklahoma City, Tulsa,
maybe Arkansas, and a couple other cities. So out of the gate, we will go single day, single day, VIP, four day, four day, VIP, four day ticket plus camping, four day ticket plus hotel. So there are a ton of tiers.
But you announce them sequentially. They don't all go on sale the same time.
They go on sale at the same time.
They do go on sale at the same time.
Yes, and it's kind of good research. You can kind of see that.
You know.
Look, Saturday is a protected play. I'm in quotes right now because yes, it's it's not hard to do research to know that if a guy's going a single day, he's off work, he's not going to church or a football game on Sunday. Saturday is a good concert day. Friday is too, So Thursday the Friday, and Saturday can outperform the Thursday Sunday. It's a delight when we see the Sunday out performing a Friday or Saturday.
And once again I realize every festival is different. What are the price ranges?
Okay, so if you go onto Aftershock festival dot Com, which if it's okay, I'd like to do because every festival is different, because every city is different. And one thing I love that we do when you go on this website is well, immediately try to grab email addresses. It's for research, it's for being part of the family. It's for merch discounts, it's for early ticket discounts.
You know. We like that.
Again, fan is our boss. We like to ask them what bands they want to see next year, what bands they liked this year. Love the comments. So you're going on aftershock dot com and well, let's.
Go with the email. Let's say I register for the email. How often am I going to hear from you? And what's going to be the content?
Uh, it's everything, It's it's Uh. You'll hear from us on uh on a on a on a band that's performing, that has a record coming out. You'll hear from us on an interview that we did. We have our own social media and video team and content. Uh, you'll hear from us on on updates. You know, if if a band has to drop and we replace, you'll be first to know. So going back on on tickets, let's see a a weekend, four day it's again I'm not I'm
not giving away seekers. It's right online we can four day is around is around five hundred dollars, so it's it comes out to be, you know, a little over one hundred and change a day, okay.
And how much is VIP and what do you get for VIP?
It depends. We have certain different VIPs. One standard VIP will be a dedicated entrance will be access to the VIP lounge, which usually is tree shaded furniture, live audio, video streams of the main stages, water refill air conditioning and flushable restrooms dedicated for merch, boose, private lockers, premium food and drink offerings. And then there's there's this different tiers on that.
Okay, you were talking earlier. One hundred and seventy five dollars and five dollars of band were you talking about for four days or for one day?
By the way, that's including fees. We don't hide fees. So it's right there again on the website.
But the example you were giving for one hundred and seventy five dollars, is that a real price for one of these festivals?
Yeah?
And for one day or for four days.
That's single day ticket, single day ticket.
Okay. So generally speaking, you're in the same price range as other festivals.
I think so. But God, the value that we offer to the rock fan.
Okay, let's go. Let's stay as I'm looking at the aftershock. You know on Thursday you have Slayer, well known, tell me about Linda Man. Who's the next is built under Slayer?
That is Till of Romstein. Yeah, so the again, the core, well, we'll know who that is.
Okay. If we go to the bottom of that stage like a storm, what time will they go on? And who are they?
One o'clock cash? Like a storm is from down Under? Funny enough? Fun fact? The drummer is the son of Godsmax co manager. Fun fact.
Okay, there are all these bands. There's like sixty to one hundred.
Bands of good bands. Man.
Yeah, if I talk to you Gary and I say, we're booking sixteen months out, okay, and we look at the we start from day one in January of twenty twenty four, and the show plays on May of twenty twenty five. Will you already know? You personally? Will you already know? In January twenty four? Every band that's playing sixteen months later, or some of these new to you.
Oh, some of these are art brand new. And looking at this list, there's a scene that's happened that we got into and we booked later than normal, which includes Drain and Drug Church and gel and Military Gun. There there's a new scene popping up and it's kind of like. The leaders of that scene is a band called Turnstile, who I adore. That's another tremendous d DWP story. I found them on YouTube and the manager now is still their manager. It's become a very dear friend of ours.
It's their Turnstile. At the time was like Fugazi meets Green Day Ors. It was just they were doing shows in gymnasiums and like rec centers. So there's there's a real scene. So we grabbed onto this current scene again. The leaders of this I don't know al core. Somebody's gonna yell at me from probably not saying the genre right, but looking looking at the poster of Aftershock, we wanted to make sure that scene was really kind of taken care of an account.
For okay, broaden that what other bands were in that scene?
All right, I'd go, let's say Drain Drug Church, flesh Water, look out for Fleshwater Gel.
Okay, every band, every band is incomparable. But what does fresh water sound like?
Fleshwater sound female lead from Los Angeles actually, which isn't which is kind of unusual for this scene. Theyough military guns from Los Angeles too, What do they sound like? They sound like Green Day meets Damn It Bomb, green Day meets Mastodon. There's there's punk, there's metal, and there's alternative in this in this kind of movement.
Okay, so in this movement, the audience that's aware of this movement, how are they discovering this movement?
It's it's uh a fall on word of mouth, social media, di I y shows. I know, I know a promoter whose name is Casey Smith who handles things like the Catalyst in Santa Cruz and and venues in Berkeley and up and down coastal California. This they're Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz area is eating it up. It's it's a skate rap mentality, but there's but there's metal in it. It's it's really unique and they and what I love about this genre more than most is they like look
out for each other. If when Drain or Drug Church is playing, every band of that scene is on the side of stage watching them and rooting for them, and they take each other out, which I feel rock needs more of.
Okay, so if flesh Water is playing your festival, that's one thing. If they're not playing your festival, how many tickets can they sell them? Where can they sell them?
They're doing They're thousand plus now they're moving. One of the last things I booked with Save Live was a Fleshwater show in Oklahoma City. It's called beer City Music Hall five hundred that went clean. And that's and they're from Los Angeles, So there's a movement. There's a movement.
Okay, let's say you're one of these bands in these movements. Can you work every night of the week if you want to? Is there a big enough audience across the country. Yeah?
Yeah, And again they play like they don't play big places, and they're in you know, they're doing at hardcore, they're in vans, they're sleeping at friends houses. It's a real kind of punk diy mentality. And I know for a factor and style was living on couches. Another when they launch in twenty five they're playing Madison Square Garden in the forum.
Okay, So I think it used to be a joke when people would get a festival slot, and especially in early slot twelve for one, and think that it could help their career other than saying they played the festival with so many fewer avenues of exposure. To what degreed does playing one of your festivals. I'm talking about a starting band, to what degree might that help their career?
I pull bands aside Bob at these festivals and say, look what you do for your thirty to forty minutes at one thirty is not why you're here. You know, put on your best show, leave the blood on the stage. But you get involved in our media. We have media tents, use our press, go see other bands. I know countless stories of young bands that have played at one thirty that have gotten onto support slots from bigger bands because
of our festival. And that's a perception thing. You know, you're you're on the poster, You're on the poster with Metallica, You're on the poster with food Fighters. You know, like when when they're when they're when an agent or managers pitching their young band perform with food fighters.
What's the headliner worth money wise?
Yeah?
Come on, now, okay, has the price to what degree have you seen price inflation since COVID or has it stayed steady?
Now it's look, it's it's it's gone up. Part of it's justifiable because of look, the gas for their tour buses are more. There was a problem post COVID, right out of COVID with crews and people took different career year pass who were you know, working as a tech or a roadie or and they they moved on and those are became kind of scarce, so you pay them appropriately because man, a good a good tour manager, a good sound person is priceless, right, So their cost have
gone up and therefore that's that's the justifiable part. The other part is a problem, and you know the the and and all I could say to that is who's going to speak the loudest will be the fan and there will there can be an implosion.
You know.
It kind of reminds me if you remember of the record label days when in promoting with the independence, where they just started gouging and gouging and increasing their rates where it just got to be enough. There was there wasn't. That wasn't a fan element. But I think there is a is there. There can be a breaking point, and we're starting to see that, you know, as some of these festivals are going away. Some of those tours like the Black Keys and j LO are are not happening.
So I think there's a breaking point.
If I'm opening on one of your stages in one of your four days, that's still five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars.
Sure, yeah, maybe a little.
More, okay? And how did the prices go up? How close to the headliner's performance do I have to be for it to be real money?
Look, we never have an issue. If I can, I'll give the grid event Fleet example, because it's a good one, you know, with the first time we booked them was for five hundred dollars and they were totally buzzing. Fun story. The last show of the run was Aftershock, which was which was that payday, and they had a one point thirty slot by this time in October of that cycle,
they were bigger there. And I'm going in quotes again, their van broke down on the way to Aftershock and they couldn't get there till six o'clock at night, and of course we're all, okay, that's that's a good one. And to this day I've talked to them and their people like all right, just cop to it. Did your and literally their van did break down, that's a true story,
but we're like, you got to play. So we worked it out where they headlined the side stage at like eight thirty pm and the only lights they had were these kind of Christmas lights from their from their van. It was it was adorable, but they had this great show. So obviously we started a great relationship with that band. And the next time, next cycle, their agent was like, okay, you know, I know what you paid. Here's the number now,
and we're like, that's really high. But you know what we're in because we there's no such Bob, there's no such thing as a bad band, just a bad deal. I didn't make that one up. That is an industry that's an industry classic. So if the band's worth it, we'll pay it.
Generally speaking, you're booking so many bands, how many times or maybe one hundred percent of the time are you negotiating the price. It's like going in to buy a car. The car salesman says the car is fifty thousand dollars. There's not a buyer in the world to say I'm taking it. Okay, they're going to counter offer? To what degree when you're booking this talent? Is it a matter of kinnter offering getting to the number or to what degree is it I'll take it.
Sure, there's a negotiation, there should be. You know where I'm not a big quote price sky what's your quote? What do you guys? You know, cause yes, if they if they say one hundred is their quote and you know they're worth half that. So look, you got to do your research. You got to you got to do your analytics. What what's the Spotify number? What's the I'm a I'm a big YouTube guy because it's where I
live in a visual medium. So when I see a new band, or I get send a new band like please send me, Please send me your best video link, or I could just find it on YouTube anyway, which I do so, but I want to see what they look like. I want to see their visuals. I want to see and I want to see how they present themselves.
I want to see what the crowd's like. And then yeah, the analytics of everything from Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, what what's your what's your what's your followers, what's your monthly listeners? And then the big one for me is hard tickets. You know what's and I know that now because of my m B A I got with with Save Live of of two years plus working the heart ticket venue world.
I know when I'm getting hyped h and I know a band's worth so hard tickets a hard ticket value combined with all the spokes in the wheel I just mentioned and radio airplay, and who's their team? You know, I know good agents, I know good managers, I know good lawyers, and I want to see who they've been out with. So all that combined kind of let's well, we have a line like we're this band's great. I love this band, this great song. All right, let's dive
into it. Let's look at the analytics and even if it's really young and the numbers aren't great, and you still love it. You know, I remember the years ago. I can la times. Paul to let have a quote, He's like why why? The question is why did you book that band? Like? I booked that band because I liked them. They're cool and that's great, and we do that like this, SPAN's cool. I like it. That was that was turnstile.
Okay, So when you decide you want someone, you get a hold of the agent, you make an offer.
Yeah, or they're already hitting us at this at this point in our in our in our careers. And yeah, we take the submission lists seriously. We we know batting, we know batting averages. You know, there's certain agents like at Kirk Summer, like the guy doesn't miss you know his from from the Killers to Adele too. I'm sorry I mess up his roster, but he's what Yeah, they're all he there. And then there's guys who you know, are hypers who this this is the one, Gary Dell,
this is the one. And you know I was in record promotion for sixteen years. Man, you can't. You can't hype a hyper I could. I could read through it because that's what I did for sixteen years before. I was on the other side and hyped and hype some stuff that I didn't personally believe in. And that was always a problem for me.
By the way, what did you learn about hard tickets? Working with Geigert? Saved Live.
Like legit numbers. You know, I Mark is so good at at separating his passion and gut from and so and so is Danny from his brain? Uh, And I I'm ever evolving. I'm an instinct passion guy. If I like something, I will tell you without look. I have a really good batting average. I just and that's from being a drummer as a kid and being a music guy. And like you, I'm song I'm a song driven man.
I know a good song. And I was working at record labels and working with some really good radio programmers because how you devise a festival is quite similar to how you properly program a radio station. You know, if when k Rock, Kevin Weatherley, name drop, who's probably the best rock broadcaster in our lifetime, you should have them on your show one day. He won't put when he plays Metallica, the next song won't be wet Leg. You
got to get to wet Lake. How do you get from Metallica to wet Leg, Metallica to the Foo Fighters to Incubus to you can probably go Incubis to wet Leg. So that's a good way to program and curate a festival. I learned a lot, and so did Dell on our record promotion days too. I feel have a step up on festival curators.
In terms of hard ticket sales. Do you rely on the Polestar numbers? Or do you actually call people? How do you get the number that you're faithful with?
Both? Polestar's great somewhat of a bible, but they only you know, we all know what the Polestar usually will the people that turn in Polestar numbers are they're usually because they're good, right, who's gonna? Who's Why would you turn in bad post numbers to Pollstar? What good will that do you? So? You know own venues? I knew I knew I book bands, I book rock bands, hard rock bands, metal bands, all bands. Sleep Token there's one there, there's and I'm sorry I left them out, spirit Box
being another ghost being another Uh. Sleep Token is a phenom and.
Well ghost has been operating for number of years. I'm fully up to speed on them. Sleep Token, I'm not tell me the.
Story there sleep tokens from Britain. Sleep Token is a maxed band. Nobody knows what the lead singer looks like. So there's a ghost uh kind of parallel. They're like ghost meets Deftones. They're like heady thinking person's metal, very kind of pink Pink Floyd's a weird reference, but I mean that because they're spacey. Uh. The songs are space The songs have space in them, like Deftones, but it's rocking and it got it just connected, you know, Nick Storts,
the agent can't put his finger on it. It just connected. They they sold out two days at Red Rocks in four days at Radio City. I don't know if it's fo multiple and their arena level. Now they can only play in the dark. There's a couple bands that we deal with that that won't that have to play in the dark, which restricts us sleep Token being one of them. But love them and sleep Token, Man, if there was ten sleep Tokens, my job would be a lot easier.
Okay, let's go back to an earlier story where I forget the name of the band. You discovered them on YouTube? Were you literally just independently coursing around YouTube and you found them?
Yes? And I love Algorithms can be the devil, right, but sometimes there's algorithm heaven. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you about a band that dropped from the Algorithm's sky to me. They're a band called My First Time. They have a song called Wark where it is Arctic Monkeys meets wet leg. They are unsigned, they have no agent, the manager. I've fell in love with it. Anybody listening,
go find My First Time. If that was nineteen ninety nine, a major label would snap them up, Alternative radio would jump on it, and they'd be on MTV buzz bind and see you later, Charlie. I invited them to play at Rockville, and I convinced Danny and Dell and we had an opening slot on the Food Fighter stage and I often and they turned it down, which made me want them more. Of course, I think because the money
that we actually had. This is to the point of an earlier like why the numbers they can't They couldn't get their work, visas and the flights. And that's why it's so hard for bands overseas and rock to break in America because, unlike you know, overseas, you can place to ten shows, you get on NMA, you get a melody maker, you play the festivals, you can get real traction, and that doesn't work in America. You gotta grind, you gotta play you gotta play Des Moines, you gotta play Fargo, Duluth.
You know.
So back to your thing on Turnstyle. Yes, what I do in music discovery is all there's that's a you know, Spotify and YouTuber outstanding to me that way on the right side of YouTube there's bands and this particular turnstyle. I just anybody listening go to like YouTube turnstyle, like Turnstyle twenty seventeen, and you'll find the craziest shit. Like fans couldn't not they had to be on stage and the band I couldn't stay on stage. It's just this
there was a community spirit. So that's why I brought up Fugazi, that there was no boundary between stage and band and fan, between stage and the audience. And I just flipped out and there was so much energy there and I just I have to I got to book this band. And I don't remember the band I was looking at or following that led me to turnstile. I have no idea.
If I am early in the day, do I have a radius clause M yep.
But we're again, we're flexible because we also realize those bands, say you're in a van, you can't get front like welcome to Rockville and Sonic Temple are back to back weekends. That's Florida to Columbus, Ohio. You got to get from Daytona Beach to Columbus. So we so you play Charleston. I'm just doing a simple map, and you play Savannah and Charleston and Norfolk and you got to get to Columbus. And if they're like, look, man, there's no avails because
of your festival. All the bands have taken up the outside radius. Can we please play Lexington, Kentucky and if it's a three hundred seater and we'll talk about it. Okay.
Conventional wisdom is rock doesn't stream. Do you believe that? And if so, what are your thoughts.
Why I don't. The answer is no, but it doesn't stream as much as popular music. To my earlier point, I think rock was always on the wrong side of the tracks. Another band that I should bring up to you Knocked Loose, get Ready. They're on a They're on a rocket to the moon. They have a song called
Slaughterhouse that has thirty seven million Spotify hits listens. That's a really good number, thirty seven mil for a band that has zero zero terrestrial radio airplay, so you find those uh yeah, I mean you know, you look at Beyonce or Taylor and there's no competition, But then you look at like again, food fighters. I think I looked at last Night it's what twenty three million monthly listeners. That's that's pretty damn good.
Although there's a difference between acts that broke in the MTVVH one era and certainly since twenty ten. It's a different marketplace. But okay, you have the six festivals this year? How many rock festivals of this stretch? People who are not in the business have no idea how much it takes to put these things on. You don't snap your fingers. A good idea and execution are different. But is this an underserve market? Could we have another seven or ten of these? Or are you pretty much covering it?
I think Look, I think DWP has the the flag in the sand. There's not there's boxes that you should check when you think about doing this in our In my opinion, when you look at a market or a region, is there what what's the festival layout? Is there? Is it a shed market where where these rock bands are going to play the shed? Louisville not a shed market, Daytona Beach not a shed market. Columbus, Ohio not a shed market. Is there feeder markets big on that where
people could come in? Is there radio support? Because again in rock, I can't speak for other formats or genres, but terrestrial radio is still very powerful because the number I don't know if I should on the data and the data if it's not number one, it's right there, the number one way. You've heard about this festival through the local rock radio station, which is nice. Granted, they should play out more new music, and they they they're scared of it and that that pisses me off. But
that's a whole other story. So I think there's boxes you should check, and I don't see a lot of markets or regions where I would check all the boxes where you could say that we haven't covered that, where you could say, yeah, there needs to be a rock festival there.
Now since you've been doing this for an excess of a decade, or any festivals that you shut down and why.
I told you about, you know, the partnership with AEG there was let's see what, uh you're always looking for the bad huh? Yeah, Look, things run its course for what was the one in Dover that AEG had that was a good one? Damn it.
Uh I'm aware of the third parties, But you have a very specialized festival and you don't have an unlimited bank account. So I'm wondering if you've learned anything from things that haven't worked.
Yeah, there was one like we used to. We had a couple of great experiences with something we called Chicago Open Air in Chicago, uh where, and we had tool and system of a down one year, but Chicago Lollapalooza, Wrigley Field, Pitchfork a shed number three market in America. Every band's playing there. We're kind of a big serve the underserved. We're kind of, you know, hit them where they ain't. We're Southwest Airlines, you know. That's the that's
the mentality of that kind of a nice unspoken mission statement. Louisville, Kentucky, Jacksonville, Florida now Daytona Beach, Florida, Sacramento, the Saint New York or Los Angeles, uh so, Chicago. For those reasons. We did one in Fort Myers, Florida, which was a sister of Welcome to Rockville, which we called Fort rock which was because of Fort Myers did that for a couple of years to kind of reading and leads it, you know, for for the Saturday bands, put them on the Sunday.
But Fort Myers wasn't big enough.
Okay, what is the demo who comes to your festival? What are the ages?
I'm going to go with an overall twenty five to forty nine, with the core for thirty four to forty four being it. And you sure you see kids, Sure you see kids with dads and moms, and sure you see teenagers in bulk, but the core is that kind of thirty four to twenty nine to forty four Bob sixty five, male thirty five maybe a little more more than you think on female.
Okay, you talked about it generally financial paycheck to paycheck. I don't want to use the term blue collar, but let's just use the term lower middle class. The people who buy VIP are they a different economic stratum? Yes? And no.
I mean it's value priced, they're they're all of there's there's again, there's there's camping, there's literal PLoP up a tent. God bless them for four days in a tent. You know, I'm clamping at best middle aged Jewish man myself. There's Hotel v I P. So yeah, the I don't know the higher price there. There's a guy who I met who's a dentist. His name's Giddis. Shout out to Gidas if he's listening. Guy uh who is a dentist in Detroit, and him and his wife Sarah, this is there. They
go all in super v I P. There. They just love rock and roll. This is their vacation. I think he has like a I think he also has like a Michigan lake house too. He does very well for himself, but he that spare no expense. You know. There's a certain core of that where they grew up with rock and roll and this is this is their dream weekend. It's it's guid us by the way.
Sorry, let's say it's dark. It's on the main stage. A Trump impersonator comes out, somebody dresses Trump. What's the audience reaction going to be?
Could this? Could this be another podcast? Fortunately? Bob as I am. When it comes to politics, for me, it is all about character and morals and empathy and having the government be supporting and not having the government being a punisher. So that's where my politics lie. And that's predominantly every person who I deal with behind the scenes at a festival too. And fortunately, God bless these festivals. And I'm telling you are very apolitical. We haven't had
one instance of that. Man, I'm telling you.
Let me change the question. The perception of this audience is the lean right would that be accurate?
That is the generic h uh thought? And if that was the case, I would have a hard time doing my job as a as as as a person again of of of moral character. That is not the case. It is when I say they leave their politics and at the door at the front gate, they really do. Again, I've I've never seen i haven't seen it. And I'm really and uh and and maybe it's just the true nature of this community of this rock festival. I'm not blowing smoke. I would tell you. I'm I'm an open
book on this on this stuff. We were We're in the throes of a coup right now, God help us. And I'm just hoping that, uh, that sanity wins out. And unfortunately, again at these festivals, bands are a political but they'll speak from their heart and nobody's It's never been an issue, And if it was, I would tell.
You what about fights in violence?
No, you know that the whole the old saying of if you see something in the mosh pits and the slam dancing, you can see somebody down, pick them up, it's not and and and that these people are drinking all day it's not violent. It's it's wonderful. I I just I urge anybody who has doubts, and I've gotten a lot of people down off the fence to come to one of these festivals, and the energy is vibrant and alive. And the last thing you think about at
these festivals is that rock is dead. It is the I'm telling you, And that's what makes me happy because I am just such a flag waiver of rock and roll. I'm a rock and roll kid. I could give you my trajectory from from the British Invasion to Cream and Zeppelin and Henrix to Bowie that led me.
Okay, let's let's just put a bow on this. You live at where you have a festival, Your sixteen year old daughter comes to you and says, I want to go for a day to one of these Danny Wimer festivals. You say, have at it, or you say, well, who you're going with? Maybe I'll take you. What would you say as a.
Parent as a parent, as a parent, yeah, who you going with? Sure, I've been a big live show. My kids, my two children have seen more than I'll ever see. And yes, outside Lands, Coachella, Goveball, my kids have been to a lot of these festivals. DWP festivals are completely safe. Have at it. Who you going, how are you going with? Have at it? Have an amazing time. Keep keep your cell phone on you let me know where you are here, and here's who here's who you should see.
Okay, we've mentioned all of these acts that a lot of America is unfamiliar with the people. Are you listening to this spot? Cast Ethan? Is there any chance that these bands I'm gonna use cliches will cross over, but let me just put it a different way, will become much bigger than they presently are. I'm talking about new acts. There weren't the beneficiaries of the old system MTV, when terrestrial radio was much more powerful acts from the last ten or twelve so years.
Yes, well, look in one band I'll mention that is from that area you mentioned that is currently having a big crossover successes the band shine Down. But so there is hope you know wait.
Wait wait, shine Down is from a long time Yeah.
I just said that. Yeah, so you know. No, there's not many rock bands that cross over. That's okay for us, that's okay. Meanwhile, like I said, Knock Lou, a band that has zero rock airplay, Terrestrial has thirty seven million hits on their song Slaughterhouse.
Okay, let me be very direct when I get Ryan Downey's email, when I look at the active rock tracks, I say, if I played this for the average person, they would say turn it off. Okay. And then I analyze the music a lot of times, some of it does have melody, but a lot of it doesn't. So, if you put on your record industry hat and you were with one of these bands and you wanted to broaden their audience, what is it that these bands have or do not have such that they're in this cocoon.
It's not insignificant you have all these festivals, But what would it have to change in the music such that more people would be interested in.
Songs? Again, I personally wouldn't work with a band that didn't start as songwriters. As I said, the things that went at these festivals energy, songs, attitude, and I put songs as a one B because you can get away at our festivals with a thirty to forty five minute set with total energy. But you're gonna plateau. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna just fall fall off
the rock and roll cycle. You need songs. So bad Omens has has a song called v An with Poppy that is I would think, and look, I don't know what hot Ac your top forty is actually doing. I'm that is. I'm not totally paying that close attention to to those charts personally, but.
Well, you know, at this point in time, all that stuff means less. If something catches fire, radio is less. But we're living in the rock is somewhat ghetto wise. So the question, and we all know you know when you hear it, So the key is what would it take for it to be broader? Now you talk about sixty seven, seventy whatever needle to say. You know, certainly by the time you hit the seventies, AOARFM radio ruled
the country even though there was a pop chart. So rock is actually a pretty big ten and the type of band you were purveying or a slice of that ten, But it's much broader. Is it the fact that these acts are not moving to these other areas. I'm basically saying, what is the future for rock music? This scene is very healthy, but what does it take it to make it broader?
I've met when I youtubed, when I fell into that Turnstile algorithm, I never thought. I never thought in a million years that band would write a song like Blackout or TLC again using turnstyle. That song was all over KRQ. I never thought that band could do that. I just loved their energy. Now they have energy and songs and they're gonna They're gonna play arenas. So if you have, if you're, if you're, if you have it is back to the basics. You gotta deliver live in rock and roll.
You have to. You have to have a great live show. And then when you have, there's an old saying, you're a song away. Right and Turnstile, which was a five hundred dollars band not too long ago, is now an arena band because of their bass, because of their live show, and because of the songs they now write.
The undercard because you're booking a lot of bands to what degreed do those bands continue to slog out or a lot of those acts just call it a day.
Yeah, and they you know, they they we it's not our it's not our job too. How should I say this? It's not it's not the festival's job to break the band. We like to have a part and would like to help. If we're into a band, we want to support as
much as we can. So at a certain point, yeah, if they plateau and they keep on coming back every cycle every two years and hitting us up, there's a certain point where we have to kind of cut the chord and find find the flesh Water who was Fleshwater four years ago, right, who is like, we're into that band, we're gonna put you on, we believe in you, we're gonna get we're gonna give you a nice profile. And then there's a certain point where a band and their
team have to prove it and keep on going. We have we have countless stories of that, from Knock Loose to bad Omens to five Finger Death Punch. They opened up a main stage. Now they're a headline hard rock bad act because they have a ton of songs they have popa roach. You can do a sixty minute hit set to the core to these forty thousand fans and they'll that those fans will know every song, so songs win.
Okay. Now you come from the record company world. It cracks me up when the record companies get a hold of me and they'll stay, you want to see this show, and they have a ticket buy. These are major labels with like ten tickets. You know, I don't need their ticket. I get it from the promoter. But to what degree did the record company even fit into your business?
Less and less? It's kind of sad, you know, because I've been I was. I grew up with record labels, you know, I knew which label the doors were on and and Sire Records and I R S what a great label? Yeah, you know there I used. The radio chart used to be in our early days, a big influencer of of what bands to look at, especially for the undercart. It's it's now, it's it's nice spoken the wheel. Uh, I think you you you said it. You know, movie
studios and major record labels are released less. You know, it's sad, man, it's uh. I'm so loyal to a fault. You know, I root for for the old school. I was. I was. I think I was the last human I knew who had the BlackBerry and not I have. I have switched everybody. So and rock and roll is a loyal thing too, you know. It's rock and roll is jazz with great with songs that are that are forever embedded into our lives.
So you've had festivals played this year twenty twenty four. What have you learned this year?
Uh? Curate, properly, give them, give them the appropriate ticket price, bulk wins, and treat your fans right. Give, don't keep. Don't keep them in the dark. It's it's about the fans. Without them, they're are no festivals.
What do you mean keep them in the dark.
Don't keep them? Did I say keep him in the dark?
No, you said, don't keep him in the dark. What do you mean, keep.
Them informed, keep them engaged? I think it was Dean de Leo, my friend of a stone too, a pilot said, Gary, when we do a show, we hit him out, We hit him over the head with a hammer. Just just hit them with information. Have great, great apps for for scheduling if there's weather issues, keep them informed, keep them in and keep them in the know. They like that.
Okay, you know fifteen years ago everybody was festival crazy. There's been a pullback in the UK. There's been a lot of festivals canceled. What do you think of the festival landscape going forward.
I'm of the belief that if you're branded, and you have your you have your mission statement, and you and you know what you are as a festival, you should do good business. If you're a festival that just plops up the bands that I mentioned a while ago, I'm gonna put on a festival and UH in a park with Siza and Noah Kahn and Blink one eighty two. Those won't survive. Branded events, UH will survive. And if and and if you have a great marketing staff.
Well tell me about the market staff. How you know you've sent everything down? How do you get the word out? Which is harder than ever before? Yeah?
Cracking, that's cracking the codeh man. That is if if if we knew how to crack the code, then are then we'd all be zillionaires. But with Rock again, it when I say paycheck to paycheck, things don't blow out in Rock a lot. It is a rind. The more and that's the more window you can have, the better for a show. Keep your marketing fresh, keep it, keep your audience engaged, use radio appropriately, use social media right. Band engagement more critical than ever. And it's not just
like an iPhone video. Hey, this is so and so from the band so and so. See it Rockville, you get them, you know, do a guitar lesson, showing me your new song and and and the chord struck. It's it's keeping him engaged. Having said that, where I have a where I try to draw the line, Bob, maybe you two. I love the mystique of rock and it. You know, MTV took the took the Wizard of oz
cape down a little bit. Where that that guy, that rock star that you can only dream of on on stage or on the album he's writing, he's right in your face. You know twenty four to seven that that empty takes a steak out of rock. It's not as special. So there's that fine line. But god, it's not enough to have a great song. You have to know how to you know, TikTok. Right, That's that's that's just the sad truth.
Have you had any viral moments on TikTok with promoting these festivals. Have you found that it's worked for you in any special way?
Yeah, certain bands have have, like definitely Instagram TikTok moments. You know what we like is uh? For instance, Disturbed Q Prime has as a as a number one rock song with Ann Wilson of Heart and they're playing our festivals. So what they do they'll grab a lower level rock band as a female lead singer on our shows and ask them to do the duet when especially now because Anne is going to be recovering from cancer and hope
she does. That goes viral. There was a it was Ash Costello of the New Year's Day who played probably I think one or two o'clock, and there she was in front of forty thousand singing this song with Disturbed,
went viral. Dave Yes the if you maybe maybe you caught it Mammoth Wolfgang Mammoth w the h played earlier in the day and he was side a stage and Dave had what he does is he introduces everybody and he starts playing eruption, and then he starts playing with one hand, and then he starts playing with no hands and shoot to Wolfie on the side completely went viral. So those special moments we love that.
You've certainly been to Coachella. Let's say I just five thousand people from Coachella and I put them down in Rockville. What would their reaction be.
I think they would fucking flip out. I think they would love it because that that was the ed M guy with the with the with the laptop, you know, creating the drop. That's all these songs. That's what these rock songs are. Verse chorus, verse chorus, breakdown, middle eight course chorus. They would I think, Bob, they would love the energy, and that is what we do. It's look, it's part super serving on the left and then part
education on the right. And I don't know if it's it's maybe it's seventy thirty super serve educate, maybe it's a little less. I like the educate. I like turning bands onto people, and I have forced industry people to come. I forced John McHugh to come to Rock on the Range and we ended up doing a documentary about which You're in the rock, about the rock festivals called long
Live Rock. There's a plug for you. So yes, all day long, Coachella kids with your VIP and your daddy's money, come out to one of our festivals.
And your kids are how old?
I have a twenty seven year old in Berlin and a twenty five year old who is at Wasserman right now in Brooklyn. They know they don't live in Manhattan. They all live in Brooklyn.
Yeah, can't afford to live in Manhattan.
Never mind, Brooklyn is now hip but yeah and expensive.
You call them and say, I'm gonna fly out to my festival. Are they into this kind of music?
That's a hard pass for them?
Okay? How about your wife?
Jill has been The great story of Jill Spivac is she went to Louisville and Eddie Vedder, who at the at the last song throws out tambourines, and there was we were side of stage, and he had two. He threw one out in the crowd and he threw one to the side and she caught it. And it is now in our playroom, not to be touched. It's it's a spinal tap guitar. You can barely look at it.
But no, Jill, Jill's Jill, my kids. I'll tell you what if Radiohead tours we're traveling we're deadheads for them, so we'll go out with radio.
Okay, But Radiohead could never be at one of the Danny Wimmer rock festivals.
That's okay, Radio he doesn't en play with guitars anymore, so so that's nowhere. Yes, the Radiohead won won't be playing one of these festivals.
Yes, And since you've been doing these festivals, tell me about two performances that stick in your head.
What put us on the map in two thousand and eight was the return of their first show in seven years of the Stone Temple Pilots with Scott Land Big Band for our Core sold it out. That put people in the industry like, oh, those guys aren't fucking around. And then probably what comes to mind is the Food Fighters.
At the first time we had the Foo Fighters Welcome to Rockville, and something happened in that crowd and Dave Grohl, Pat Smear Chris will cite that show as one of their favorite American shows ever he can YouTube it because something there was an insane amount of crowdsurfing, to the point where Dave stopped the song and goes, hey, promoters, is there, like, do you guys have like a crowdsurfing contest going it was hysterical. It just worked. Man, when
a band connects, they're like the ultimate. They're the they're the ault. They could play in your backyard. They're they're the ultimate rock and roll party band because they have energy, songs and attitude and and that and production at the songs and it just works. So those two shows come to mind. Thank you for asking that question.
And then you were just at Wimbledon. That's an event. Did you learn anything at wimbled in that you can translate into your own business?
It's the you know, that's that's Coachella. You know, you go, you go to Coachella and you're like the grass and how compact it was. And I like that, you know at at at at Sonic Temple in Ohio, it's it's in a stadium and then there's grounds you can kind of put your arms. I hate these vast festivals where you're getting your steps in too much. And no, thank you for asking. It was Wimbledon was remarkable and everything I thought it would be. And I wish I was
there still because that is the mecca. As you know, I want to go to Glastonbury. I haven't been. I feel that's probably the mecca of the overseas festivals.
Without talking about Glastonbury. Is every festival branded separately or is there one place where you can go as a consumer and find all of these rock festivals.
Danny Rember Presents. Yeah, they're they're all there. We we will do certain packages, but we'd like to separate them. You know. It's it's it's a company whose hedgehog, whose wheelhouse is rock festivals. But there is Bourbon and beyond there is Golden Sky, which is a country festival, and and and then there's a big casino business that the company has too. But yeah, it's it's, it's all there.
I don't see another company doing what this company does and just waving the rock flag when very few want to. You know, it's it's it's it's a passion play and it's it's hard. It's it's it's it's hard to put these on. It takes a fucking village. And it's in negotiating. I love to negotiate, I love to hustle, and it's just it's just a siege on on on your nervous system. But it's it's what I signed up for, you know. They what's saying, Uh, you don't find rock and roll,
rock and roll finds you. I'm a sucker in that. Can I tell you something? Yeah, And I just thought of this. I graduated from University of Colorado. My father, who's still alive, my mom, who passed. My dad joined to start up in nineteen sixty two called ibm uh huh was an IBM or and here I am a ski rat and a drummer. And what I got for my graduation was a briefcase in a suit. I just and I could laugh about it now with my dad, but I was so pissed off because they, like, they
didn't get me. That's not I want to I want to be a drummer. I want to be in rock and roll. And I'm like, all right. So I had this dichotomy, you know, of growing up in a businessman's house but loving rock and roll. Like, I guess, if I'm not going to be a rock and roll drummer, I'm gonna I'm gonna find a way to be in the business of music.
Okay, So they gave you the suit in the briefcase, you got your diploma. Then what.
There was two shows that shape my life. One was The US Festival, I wouldn't be here talking to you, which again I'm extremely grateful and humble about at this moment. But the US Festival, and in eighty three and then Jane's Addiction did seven shows at the John Ansen Ford Theater in Hollywood, two thousand capacity. Quick story on that.
I'm a kid, I'm a young twenty four year old and I get lost in that show, like mentally lost, and there's I've since talked to Perry Ferrell about this, and he remembers there was a rope between the you know, you know, Jennet's four right on the left side and
right side there's a little kind of VIP area. Somehow, somehow, my I, my friend and I Joshua Barbone found our way Mark Pollock, Hi, Mark got us tickets and I found my way to this VIP and there's a rope that connected to the monitors and this VIP area and they were playing pigs and zen and I climb up, I jump on the rope and I'm I'm hanging on a rope like a monkey, and soon enough like security grabs me and I get kicked out. This is before cell phones, and I'm out, and this is like one
of the greatest shows of my life. And I'm like, I gotta find my way back in, and I sneak backstage. I don't know how I got it, but I sneak back and I have to be incognito. And it was a bunch of Hollywood freaks out there, but there was one average looking dude. I'm like, that guy could be in my fraternity and I go up to him and we watched half a song and I go, Hi, I'm Gary and he goes, hey, I'm Mark, and I go what do you do? He's like, I'm the agent for the band, and I go in my mind, I'm like,
I better say something. I'm like, how big is John answered fours? It's about two thousand, and I do, like seven nights fourteen thousand, Wow, you could have booked the Forum. And he looks at me like only Mark Geiger knows how to look at somebody and goes the Forum We're playing seven fucking Nights at John Ansen Ford and walks away.
And that was the first time I met Mark Geiger. Anyway, I go back to the show and I end up getting an interview through a girlfriend that I was dating at Electra records to be an assistant, and I didn't want it. I didn't want the job. I had long hair, I didn't know what I was doing. But I go into the meeting at five point thirty. I'll never forget this. The head of promotion, his name is Brad Hunt. Love him and hate him for getting me into this world.
He has a stack of resumes and he looks at my resume and words to the wise to any young person listening when you go to interview, just be relaxed and be you, because that's what I was at certain interview because I didn't really care, and he looks at my resume. He goes ah University of Colorado, and this is the year the Colorado Buffalo's won the national championship.
And I'm kind of a big college football guy too, so that our interview was fifty minutes of talking about college football and then your favorite bands and everything, and he's like, you know what I'm gonna I'm going to leave this resume over here. I'm having a going away party a couple nights later, because I was going to move to San Francisco and live with my college roommate, Rodney Lou who was a stockbroker and he had an apartment and take my drum set and go live in
San Francisco. And I'm having to go away party in the phone rings and I pick it up. I'm like hello, He's like Gary, this is this is Brad Hunt and I'm doing a sign now I cut the music, cut off the party. Mike kai Brad and he's like, what do you think about San Francisco? And I go for an assistance job. He's like, no, I got a better idea something about you. I'm going to put you in the field and I'm going to offer you twenty seven
thousand dollars. And I was twenty five. Do you remember the time when like you made more than your age. I was like a big moment.
Yeah.
So I'm like yes. And so I'm like, hey, everybody, I just got a job. So I became the Electro local in San Francisco and it was glorious for four months, and then I got a call that Electra Records this is ninety one was cutting its staff in half. So because I was so cheap, they were so cheap, and I had such a cheap salary, they didn't fire me, and they moved me to Denver, so because I went to the University of Colorado and I spent six months in as the Denver local and bob to this day
as a ski rat. I'll never forget it. It was the first snowfall and I had all my ski passes lined up because of all the local radio stations, and Brad Hunt again called me. It's like, I'm going to promote you to Los Angele like, this is ten months and I'm looking at the snow. I'm like, ah, I'm going home. And that led to Electure in Los Angeles, and at the time this is now if you remember, there were about twenty alternative stations and I knew something
was going to click. I knew something was going to happen with that format, and I worked at Electra and loved it. It's where I met Dell Williams, by the way, and I took a job at MCA Records as the head of Alternative, which was the worst alternative label for alternative in the industry, but it did have a guy named Gary Kerr first God bless him, who had a label called Radioactive who had the Ramones and a couple other bands, but he had this band Live that had
throwing copper and that I broke Live with Gary. That became my resume. That led me to Atlantic, which that's where my two kids were born, led me to Capital, and led me to my final and by the way Capital, I got to work with Radiohead, and I took a band that nobody believed in and nobody in America wanted to hear about, called Coldplay. They had a song called Yellow, Sorry for giving You My life story, No No Go,
and very few people believed in it. There was a station at Portland, Oregon, K and RK and Lisa Warden at K Rock and they put Yellow in and the rest for that band is history. And we broke Coldplay. A new regime came in which happens at record labels, or happened at record labels, and I was one of seventeen vice presidents. When I was fired, I was one of two vice presidents remaining, me and Rob Borden, and I was let go because I just wasn't part of
their plan. And for anybody listening who hasn't been fired, I hope you get fired one day, because it was the greatest thing that happened to me in many ways at the time, it was fucking heartbreaking and scary, and I went out on my own terms. I got one more label job, but Geffen was just a stop because I was thinking about what am I going to do?
And that's when myself and Dell Williams aligned and Danny Wimmer and we formed right our entertainment and started rocking the range of Carolina Rebellion, and that led me to where I am at this very moment.
Okay, just one fill in. Most people graduated from college at twenty two. You didn't get the job with Brad Hunt at twenty five? Would you do in that period of time?
I farted around. I took a job with Premiere Radio Networks in selling syndicated radio shows to radio stations. I think that helped with Brad Hunt, though he cared more about college football seriously, and that led me to meet Mark Pollock, who was at home Holliwood reporter, who led me to get Jane's Addiction tickets. So I had that job. I was drumming in a couple struggling LA bands. One of them was called the Riddom bandits an all white reggae band. R I D D I M. I love
reggae music. And at the time I thought reggae would take over the world. And this reggae that I personally really love is mostly like the British Steel Pulse oz Wad that there's a punk ethic with those bands that I that I really enjoyed. Bob Marley of course, Black Ohuru. So we were a roots reggae band and we we got on K Rock's Reggae Revolution, big moment I got. We got opening gigs for Ecamouse and Yellow Man, and
we had a couple label meetings. One of them was IRS Records, and one of the A and R guys it was like Junior and our guys said, you know, because I was a spokesperson because everybody else was too stoned or whatever about things. And they said, one guy said, you'd be really good at promotion, and I'm like, what's that? And I led me to interview at IRS. By the way, they ended up not signing the Ridden Bandits. Obviously, they went with dread Zeppelin. Remember that one, of course you do.
Of course I love that for anybody who doesn't know dread Zeppelin. They were a reggae band covering Zeppelin songs, but the lead singer was an Elvis Presley impersonator. How about that lost out to that. I think they live comfortably in the where they now filed. Right.
Okay, did you ever use the suit your father got?
Ye? Yeah, probably that friend's the younger kids bar mitzvahs or something. The briefcase I used for My wife used it for she had a photo shoot once she got like a Miller's outpost. We were dating, so she I think I still have that briefcase.
And at what point did your parents accept your career path?
God bless them. They still to this day don't know what I really do.
Well, it's one thing not to know, it's another thing to respect or accept totally respect.
And there was a moment we had a show called Epicenter in in Pomona and we had tool and Lincoln Park Alison chains and they went to it. I got them on the side of stage. My dad was wearing an Epicenter hat and they I think they were like, this kid is doing all right. You know, they were at to a point where I am, as a parent, as long as your kid is happy. As long as your kid is happy, that that's that's it.
Okay, you got two kids, you stip of money.
Uh, they're still on the spivac company teat a little bit. For some reason, they're still on. We still have a cell phone family plan, and I'm like, why are they Why are we pay for their cell phone bill? I gotta get them off. No, they're almost but they're yes little thing. When if my daughter's going to fly to l A, I'm going to pay for that.
Okay, I don't want I got a lot of questions. I'm want to go too deep down that avenue. Gary. I want to thank you for taking all this time and telling your story and giving us the nuts and bull to the rock.
World, Bob, thank you for having me, thank you for letting me kind of wave a rock and roll flag. We're on the other side of the tracks most of the time. We don't get these looks. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you for being a microphone and standing up and having moral character and fiber. We're in a we're
in a dark spot right now. I'm still optimistic that America will take its cue from Britain and France, you know, so that let's I would like to take this moment to say we should Hopefully you're in the near future, or have our peace and say it, but let's stop the boat leaking. The far right is loving what's happening to us right now. They're eating it up. So hopefully we'll pick, we'll have a unified moment. We need that. That goes to you too, George Clooney. So whoever it is,
let's be unified. So good wins over you.
Well, I put it until next time. This is Bob Left sens