Jon Cohen

twenty eight years old. Our specialty is really helping brands understand how to connect to music and culture. And sometimes that's creating full service advertising creative. Sometimes that's purely music specific strategy. Sometimes that's experiential on how they interact with festivals and things of that nature. And then we have a media company called The Fader, and The Fader started twenty five years ago and it is a music platform.

Started as a print magazine. We gave artists like Kanye and Cardi B and Kendrick Lamar and Drake and the Strokes, the White Stripes, some of their first covers, some of their first coverage in the press, and we really grew it into a full service media platform. We've got great social channels. We do a lot online. We have about three thousand pieces of unique video across all of our different video channels. We built a festival called Fader for

it and then attached to that business. We've got a film and TV division called Fader Films, and we have a music division which is Fader Label. It's our management company and our publishing company. So it's a lot of entities, but they're all very tightly connected.

I mean, there's a lot of synergy by having so many businesses. Robert English, who's been with us for twenty five years, he's basically the de facto head of an R across the entire entire company. So when we're looking for music for a campaign, he is talking to all the agencies and the managers and the labels. He's doing the deals, and he'll do that for Fader, he'll do

that for Cornerstone, he'll do that across everything. And then there's a music division which is headed up by a young guy named Carson Oberg, who does an incredible job. He oversees our management, he oversees the label team, he oversees our publishing, so he's pretty much isolated in that world, but he then gets to tap into some of those back end resources to help power what we do on the label side, so there is some crossover. It does

work really well together. When we explain this to people, it's always overwhelming, and some people only know us by one small segment of the company, and then others have worked with us across the entire enterprise.

So we made a decision to operate the company on a much leaner level, and it's worked out really well because it's given us a chance to focus on the revenue streams and the aspects of the business that are doing the best.

best friends since seventh grade. We discovered music together. Not only were we, you know, great friends growing up having so many amazing life experiences, our love and passion for music started when we were kids in junior high school all the way on up to high school. I remember discovering hip hop listening to run DMC with Rob Stone on cassette. I remember every big album that would come out. We would drive around in his car and listen to music and discovering not only hip hop, but you two

so much music. And the bonds of our friendship led us to enter the music industry, and Rob and I started together at SBK. We worked under Daniel Glass. Rob was ahead of mixed show and dance promotion. His job was to really work with all the different DJs around the country. I was working in the field. I was working, you know, as a local promotion rep in the Northeast.

I started in video promotion work my way into the field, and we worked together there and the seeds for our company were born out of all of those conversations, all of the time we spent loving music, and you know, we basically saw this rise as young people in the music industry and learned so much from so many people. I went and left SBKA, I went to Columbia Records. Rob left and he went to work for Clive Davis

at Arista Records. And when our respective contracts were coming up, we started talking about the plans to start our own company. And Rob's deal expired first in nineteen ninety six, he stepped out and left Arista. At Arista, his claim to fame was he is the person who was big eas uguest confidant. He spent his time at Arista breaking notorious big. He traveled around the country with him, He got his

music played on the radio. He was really the liaison between you know, bad Boy and Arista, and he really established himself, you know, in the world of hip hop through those times. I was working in alternative promotion for

Columbia at the time. So Rob left first in ninety six when his contract expired, and the idea was we were going to start a music marketing company, and Cornerstone was initially a place for artists, managers and labels to hire us directly to help supplement what the labels weren't

doing enough of for their artists. It was our ability to get records played on the radio, our ability to help build the right marketing plan, to build some resources to promote artists on college campuses, and we were wildly successful. So Rob started in ninety six. My contract expired a year later. Rob Rob started the company out of Loud Records. Steve Rifkin was a great mentor to Rob and to both of us. He gave Rob off of space and

was a partner in the initial start of Cornerstone. And Rob was able to work with Steve and the power of Loud and all he was doing in the hip hop world to really cement Cornerstone's early success in the hip hop world. I left, I joined him and I started doing the alternative side of the business, and we were working for every major label. We were talking directly to so many artists. What was amazing about that time in Cornerstone was that a lot of artists they wanted

to talk to somebody outside of the label system. They wanted to hear other people's opinions. So, you know, people like labeled like bad Boy would have us coming to the studio. We would go here Outcasts Records before even Arista had heard some of the music. You know, people like John Silva were asking us to come here Beck Music.

We were working so closely with the labels and the artists that we were making an impact because we were helping use our knowledge of what we learned in the music industry to help them make better decisions and help use our relationships to break artists. Slowly we started making these tools, like we made a mixtape SERI like every month we put out a mixtape. Then eventually all of

the access we had to music led to Fader. Fader was our way of documenting all of this access we had to music early and brands started getting their hands on all these materials. The head of Sprite was a guy named Darryl Cobb, and he called Rob and I up and said, Hey, I don't know who you guys are, but I've seen some of your materials and your work. We're trying to revolutionize Sprite and embrace the culture of hip hop to market Sprite, and we need someone to

help guide us. Would you guys come down to Atlanta and sit with us and our agencies and our team to tell us a little bit more about music. I was reluctant. I was like, Ah, that's sellout shit, you know, like that is you know, like we're about the music. Rob was like, I think we should listen to this guy. He's really smart. He's really opened my mind. So Rob convinced both of us to go down there, and two

things happen. Number One, we realized that these guys cared more about the music and the culture of the music than the labels at the time, and they had such enormous budgets compared to what we were working with within music that not only could we be more successful and make more money, they were willing to put more money into the marketing of all these artists. And that's when the light bulb for Rob and I went off and we realized, like, holy shit, we can have the best

of both worlds. We can really consult some of the most powerful brands in the world in how they market themselves. And then we can take that money and that power and really strengthen our ties to the artists, to the managers, so we can do more for them, and we can enhance what artists can do outside of their normal record deals and put some more power on their hands. At the same time, we're building Fader as a way of

documenting all of this access we have in culture. So number one, you know we wouldn't I wouldn't be here, My business wouldn't be here without the incredible legend of Rob Stone, and it's it's just sad to have this conversation without him. He Rob loved reading your work, Bob. We would often talk about various things that you write about.

And I feel horrible that we're not doing this interview together because we had an incredible friendship that we've experienced so much, an incredible partnership with so much success, and the fact that you know, I'm talking about these things without him, it just still doesn't feel real to me. He was such a special person with such an incredible career and the impact he had on our company. What we've done together is something that it just it feels

really surreal to be doing it without them. So that's the long Paull story of how we got to where we are with the business. But we are proudly record industry people. We are proudly born and raised in that system. And for all the flaws and things that we didn't love that led us to want to start our own business, there's so many things that we do love and it's still an incredible business and it's the reason we're successful

coming up in that business. The things that we learned in our respective jobs gave us the platform to build what we have. And it's almost like we have operated someone under the radar. You know, we're still very close to so many people in that business, but we kind of live in a parallel universe, slightly under the radar. But music is still the thread, that's the DNA for every aspect of our business.

in the industry were shocked. And he he just chose to put the focus on his recovery and his family. And you know, I was there along along with him for the whole ride, and he and he faced it and fought it bravely, and his hope was he was going to continue to improve and let more people in the circle. But unfortunately it just got out of control, and you know, he lost the battle.

kid and he's still working hard. Rob's dad was in the trucking in warehouse business in Brooklyn, And we both came from real working class families, and I think our parents both instilled that work ethic and that hunger to run our own businesses, you know in both of us, and I think they both. They all had a real effect on how we built this company.

having any success as a musician. But what I realized through some great friends in college, is that there was a real industry behind the business. And I just loved researching and learning what I could about the business. And that school, as you probably know, had an unbelievable alumni that comes from our business. You know, there was so many generations. There was you know, the Rob Lights and Phil Q and John Syke's generation that all came out of Syracuse, and I always looked up to them and

studied their stories. And then you know, I was there with an unbelievable cast of current players in the industry, whether it was Joel Klayman, who was the former GM of Columbia Records, or David Sadlow who runs Lama Vista and was at Aristo, or Jacquelin Saturn at virgin and Syracuse really gave me the platform to understand more about the music industry and and and a lot of different aspects of our business. And it's it's a really amazing school in the sense that they connect you to the

people in the real world. You don't just learn and you know, take a bunch of things that anybody can learn from a book. They they've got this network where they really do a good job of connecting to people, to the to the outside world so they can learn first time.

a college rep on campus. And my job back then was to hang posters of our artists, take inventory or record stores, get artists played on the campus radio stations. And I would go anywhere from the Albany region up to Boston to cover stuff. And you know, SBK had a very unique deal. They had a deal with EMI that was based on gross revenue. So the idea was for them to have as much success as possible, but they didn't really have to worry about the bottom line.

They just wanted to gross as much revenue, so we put out a lot of records. We were the home of a lot of the big one hit wonders. Back in those days, I worked on projects like Jesus Jones and Wilson Phillips, and then as I when I graduated, I went to work for them full time. The week after I graduated, we had put out Vanilla Ice. That summer arrested development. We had so many enormous artists, some of them that really stuck around for one or two singles.

But it was an incredible time because they had this unique deal where they were all about really trying to rush and ramp up the success, and it was a fun time in the music industry to be a young person.

this sounds cliche. I knew he was going to be a huge success back then because he did two things. Number One, he outworked everyone, but he had this calm for a young person around him. But what I loved the most about Monty, and I subsequently got to know Avery really well to his brother, who he started Republic with. What I loved about Monty is he was an A

and R guy. Even though they had him doing promotion, Monty was always looking for what was going to be next in music, and I really had this gut feeling he was going to be a superstar, and for me to have a front seat to watch him rise has been an honor. Both Rob and I were still are very close with Monty. I love him to death, and you know, he really had everything that you knew you needed to succeed in our business, and for a young person back then to really think beyond his role. You

could tell he was going places. And I was lucky, like at the talent of the SPKA days, I got to see those two start Republic and they worked out of this I live in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. They started the label out of this really small, one bedroom apartment three blocks from where I am right now, and it was just so much fun to go over to see that these two guys quit in the middle

of their height of their career. They could have made fortune continuing to work on the corporate record side, but they both had the balls to step out and start

something entrepreneurial. And it was just so much fun when I would go knock the door of their apartment and I'd see boxes of CDEs and they'd be shipping stuff and they'd be running this business out of this really small apartment and it you know, they gave Rob and I a lot of confidence that, hey, you gotta be gutsy and step away from what's safe to really make

an impact. So I have huge love and respect for Monty, and you know, beyond Monty that the one thing that Daniel doesn't get enough credit for is what a great teacher he was. I mean, we had so many incredible people that went on to big things in the music industry that came under his tutelage of Charles and Marty too,

I mean they deserve tons of credit. I mean that Trio had so many amazing people who are running such big entities right now in our business that they deserve a lot of credit for what they really started.

that MTV had. When you got a video and what they call buzz bin back then, or a video into any form of rotation, you saw instant success, and not just a little success. You essentially knew you were going to break the artists. So our job was not only to submit our videos, but it was to figure to build relationships with that team at MTV and really figure out what what was an artist place and what was the best way to establish that artist. And we were

very successful. I mean, labels, if you remember, spent so much money Bob on on making videos and the level of production, and MTV had such few slots. I mean, it was so hard to crack MTV. But if I think of the industry back then versus the industry today, MTV was a vehicle that just meant so much, and I sometimes think about imagine there was something like that equivalent to that where you had the Taylor Swifts and the major pop stars of today have access to that.

I was thinking about that during the VMAs the other night, and the VMA has felt slightly more relevant this year than past. I mean, you probably have a better take on it than I do. But that was our role.

Our role was not only to get our videos played, but to find the right way to get artists on one hundred and twenty minutes or then Unplugged came later, and then you had the VMAs were basically the equivalent, if not bigger than the Grammys back then, so it was a really good first experience for me to learn the ropes of breaking artists, how.

with artists. I really cherished that part of my job and working closely with artists. So they sent me to the field and I was responsible for getting our records played on stations like WBCN. And one of my claim to fames in my career is this young new British act was flying in to come to America for the first time and they sent me to the airport. I'm like, very new to the job. I'm literally on the job.

A couple months, not even and I go to pick up this band called Blur, and I pile them with all their gear into my car and I drive them to WBCN and it's Damon and Graham and the whole band and their tour manager and we go. We do a great interview on WBCN. They do this great acoustic performance, and we're leaving WBCN and it's pouring rain now and I'm at a red light six weeks maybe into the job, and it's my first big thing that the label's having

me to do. And Daniel nervous, He's like, how's it going? Is it going all right? Like this is really important? And I'm at a red light and a car skids from behind me, hits my car. We get into a total car wreck with Blur in the back and I look over. I'm like, holy shit, I hope these guys are okay, And thankfully they all start cracking up and laughing at the whole situation. We get out of the car, I get their gear, we go to their gear. Everything goes well, and luckily, the next day WBCN adds the

first Blur record. But for a minute, my short lived career in the field could have ended very quickly, and I'm proud to say that I'm still you know, Dave, I consider Damon one of my best friends in the world to this day, and you know, from that minute it was it was an example that I made the right decision because it put me in the field and allowed me to get close to so many amazing artists and be part of so many moments. And I really learned a lot from from being out in the field

and learning, you know, how to break artists. You know, I think the lost art is it's not just getting your records played on the radio. You're a part of what happens live. You're a part of, you know, having a relationship with the local press. Your job when you're in that job, and it's sad that this role doesn't really exist in today's record business. Your job is to connect that band, those artists to everything possible on a local level. And it's really changed a lot since then.

I still think there is an importance to that mentality, but it's kind of gone from our business. Everything's so centralized.

country are the ones who succeeded. Radio had succeeded because they were a British band that really committed to doing laps around America. Oasis did a fair level, a fair amount of touring, you know, as chaotic as their world was, and I was at the first Oasis gig in New York. It was at Wetlands. I'll never forget it. I had an SBK act actually opening and I stayed and watched them. They put in the time and it's still the old school fundamentals that are important today. It's touring and lure.

In those early years, they were frustrated with America. You know. It was I worked with Suede when I was a Columbia, another band that was so big. They could sell out the two or huge arenas all over Europe, but when it came to America, they could sell max Three four thousand tickets. And I think the reason why the those artists didn't break through in their early years, or the reason why Blur didn't break through at the level, was that touring commitment. They had success at home, and I

think they put in a little more time now. Damon too, his credit started to fall in love with America. He started to realize, Wow, this is an incredible place. He took so much inspiration musically. He discovered hip hop himself, which inspired Gorillas, and then when it came to Gorillas, he really committed to putting in the time and touring Gorillas and doing press and really spending more time here. And I think that's a big part of the reason

why Oasis broke Blur didn't. But Gorillas did, and I think that's a big reason what made those UK acts stick around here and those that haven't.

Columbia with Jeff Buckley. And Jeff Buckley is was so brilliant and so talented and and so troubled. I mean he was you know, when you met him, you knew he was. There was an inherent sadness or something that just was eating at him. And I think that's part of that was part of his success. But Columbia was was the major leagues. It was. It was a hard place to work. Donnie was brilliant, but relentless and really

tough and He pushed us really hard. And you know, when you went to that lake and they're working major stars like Aerosmith and Springsteen and Mariah, there was no patience or tolerance for anything less than hitting a home run on everything he did. And it was hard, it was high pressure. But I got a lot out of being there. I learned a ton and the fact that I was able to work with Jeff Buckley changed my life. I mean, that is something that I don't I don't

think enough artists study or know who he is. And I think the sad circumstance of his death and the shortness of his career, he just he isn't on a lot of people's radars. And I don't know what with your experience with Jeff Buckley, like we were able.

are both on a great track. And Rob stepped out first, was doing well, not blowing it out to the point where I was going to make the same living joining him that I was at Columbia, and I had just had a kid, so I had it added responsibility and I had to make sure that I was making a move. But both of us had this mentality that if it didn't work out out, we were good at our jobs, we probably would be able to step back in and get a job in the corporate record industry again. And

I also didn't, you know, love working for anyone. I mean, Donnie was a hard driving guy, Daniel was a hard driving guy, and I think they both taught me well, and I'm grateful for the time I had with them, But They both made me realize, like, wow, I want to be my own boss. I want to call the shots, and there are very few people on our industry that will put their money where their mouth is. And Rob and I both did that and we never looked back.

We got lucky, but our mentality was if this fails, we are both good at what we do, we'll find our way back in. I was I think I was twenty six or twenty seven when Rob and I partnered up. He was twenty six when he broke out of Arista or twenty maybe we were twenty five and twenty six. I don't remember exactly, but somewhere in that range. So you know, I was lucky to start early in the

record industry. I was eighteen or nineteen when I started, you know, doing all that college work, and I had spent a lot of time there, so I had some good relationships to build our business on. It wasn't like I was a year into a career. I was still young, but I had spent so much time that we had a good base to start the business.

We had this incredible friendship and relationship at work, and the best part of my job was I Hadtone at one end of the hall, my best friend in the world, and on the other end of the hall, I had the woman that I was going to marry, and it was a great time to have those two people there on a personal level. Coming up in this exciting time

in the music industry was incredible. And I think one of the things that really helped me start my business and have the confidence is I had a wife who came from the business and had a really good understanding and she was very supportive. She was totally calm and chill about what I was doing. And I think the fact that she put in some time in our business gave her an understanding that this was going to be okay. And here we are twenty eight, twenty nine years into Cornerstone,

let alone my career. She has this amazing patience and respect and love for what I do. You know, she she'll come on the road with me. You know, she'll come to festival. She's she's not deep in it. She she definitely only goes to what she likes. But she has this understanding and respect and that gave me the confidence that I can do it. But there was pressure. I mean when you have a newborn. I got married very young. I got married at twenty four years old,

and you know it wasn't a new relationship. But having a new kid changes everything. And you know this, Bob, I mean, you our business. You're out late at night, and if you're if you're not out and you're not in the scene, you are out of mind. You are not in the mix. So the hardest part, and this is why I love my kids so much, is that I wasn't around as much as a young father. Because

here I am in my early twenties. I had my son when I was like thirty, I think, or my late twenties, and I am on the road I'm not around. I have to go visit clients. I have to go visit you know, artists. I am traveling, you know, to festivals. And to my kid's credit, they I made up for it as they got older and they learned to appreciate what I did. And we're a very tight knit family.

And they had a real patience for me, because you're trying to be a parent and do all the hard things of parenthood, but you're also trying to be committed to your business, and it's a very delicate balance, especially as a young parent. And hopefully, you know, it all worked out the way it should have, and they seem like great kids and they're happy, and they have such love for what I do. And my son actually works

in the music industry. He works for an agency called well Or Media Agency where he does he helps run live nations, TikTok and does a lot of social media work within the business, so he has an appreciation for it.

And my daughter works for the Infatuation, which is the food and restaurant, you know, content business, and you know they've done really well, but you know, it was a really big decision in terms of family and knowing that I wasn't going to be able to be around quite as much as your typical parent.

you know, honored the deal and let me go. And then Rob and I joined forces sometime in early ninety seven. I believe I was twenty seven years old at the time.

to all the specifics. It's a little big, but like I remember Jeff quant It's calling me and saying, I have this new band, Limp Biscuit, I want you to hear it, and he played me Limp Biscuits, like, I want to hire you to help us break this band, Limp Biscuit. I remember Silva getting me involved in Beck Records. I remember, you know, a lot of label people like friends like Ross Apen hiring us for whatever Geffen was

working at the time, even Columbia. I mean, you know, I ended up working for a lot of labels that I was with, and we had a lot of success. I mean they wanted to hear not just They didn't want just our relationships to help get people to support their music. They wanted our opinion. How should we roll this out? What do you think of this single? And so Rob was building the hip hop side, I'm building the alternative side. And then together we are brainstorming, Okay,

what tools can we create? How do we build some new ways of marketing music. So we started the Cornerstone Mixtape. Then we started what was called the Cornerstone Player. These were compilations where obviously we live in a streaming world, they're kind of irrelevant, but there were compilations where we would get big name DJs to mix the best current music.

So we would get a young Mark Ronson, for example, who we were friends with, who was a great, smart, young kid New York DJ, and we would get him to do a mix of whatever current songs. Or one time we did a jay Z mixtape with Mark Ronson, which I think you could find on eBay for like a thousand dollars, where we would have Ronson great this compilation. We'd get the rights from the labels to say, hey,

we can do it. We eventually even started selling those opportunities for the labels to put music on these, and we would send that mixtape out to like five thousand people and every major DJ, hotel manager, restaurant gatekeeper that could break music. We would want them to have our mixtapes so they can hear what's next in music. On the Alternative mixtape. One of the first songs that we really broke that we were a big part of was

Coldplay Yellow. You know, like where Kevin Weatherley or Mark Hamilton in Portland would hear some of the music on our different mixtapes as a way to turn them onto what was next, and then we would get a call and say, hey, tell me a little bit about this band, and if we were working the record, we would help. If not, we would connect them to the label so they can get more information about what was on those mixtapes.

was a lot of what's beautiful about our business. It just became very inbound. We didn't have to chase people, and Rob and I had the mentality that we wanted to be expensive, and we wanted to work just a handful of projects at a time, and we wanted to be involved for the long haul. We didn't want to keep plugging and playing like if someone committed to a project.

If RCA wanted us to work this new bands, we wanted to know that we were going to be a part of what they were doing to break food Fighters for the long haul. So we would get hired by Dave Gottlieb, who was the marketing person at the time, and Ron Forr who was the promotion person at the time, and Silva who was managing at the time. We'd be working for all of those entities, and they'd be talking us to us directly because they would want to know

the pulse of what we were getting back. And then our job was to fill in the blanks and help the label do all the things that they were already doing and anything that they weren't doing. So it was can you help us get on the radio? Who would MTV? Do you know? Can you help us with can you get in Lewis Largency here about this. Can you talk to this? You know, who do you have in the field that can talk to whatever retail they have managers with are their DJs that can support this? That That

was the way. You know, That's something Daniel taught us really well, is that you know, artists broke from so many different directions. Even though I comment on having mass drivers in the industry, and this is still true today in today's business, is that artist development is the amalgamation.

It's the total of a lot of little arts. And that's what I think Rob and I really excelled at is we built the system of smart young people that had their ear to the ground, that were plugged in and we knew Rob and I had the relationships on the math level. But then we had all these kids around the country, around the world for that matter, that knew who the cool kids were that could turn the

right people onto music. And I think that's why we were successful in the early days of the promotion and marketing business.

So we built our own infrastructure and to market Fader. We built what we called the farm team, and these are college reps. In every campus. We would hire one or two kids at Columbus Ohio, a kid at NYU, a kid at Syracuse, a kid in Michigan, a kid in la and they would just give the Fader away for free. You know, if they could get us on a newstand, that would sell it great. But they're Our mission to them was, We're going to send you one

hundred copies of Fader. Make sure one hundred of the coolest people in that city get a copy of it. And we started hiring those kids to do all the more marketing in the field. They would hang up posters, would they would give out twelve inches to local DJs. They would drive the right people to see the artists at early on, so they would know the local radio, the local press, the freelance writers. Eventually, over time we started moving into digital direction, so they would know all

the people that were doing the right things online. Years later, but we basically were a full service artist development company, and we would charge anywhere from ten grand to twenty five thousand dollars a month, pending how many of those services you wanted and what kind of tools we were making, and it started becoming really successful. But the key transition

is when the brand started calling us. Then that's when everything switched, because then we could be really selective and only pick the best of the best music and put our focus on working some of the brand projects.

hell is this? And they made us fly out to meet with them, and they told us about this secret note new video game system called Xbox they were launching, and they needed an agency to really help use music in college campuses to help establish it. They then came to our offices. They realized that our whole company was operating on Max, and they were appalled that we were willing to take on the business. And they said, hey, we're going to pay for this, but we need you

all to switch to MAX. And Rob and I said, switched to switch to Windows. I'm sorry, switch switch to Windows computers. And Rob and I said that's a non starter. Me. Rob and Anthony, our CEO, said, hey, we want your business. We are so excited about this video game system. I don't even know if it was called Xbox, yet we want to be in business with you. We're not willing to change from you know, our MAX setup, which is

so key and inherent's our business. So we said no, we call their bluff, and thankfully they still hired us and uh, but yeah. So that's how the brand stuff started evolving. And then you know, we were doing Nike work. Nike started discovering what we're.

we think you should spend your money. These are the artists that you should lean towards. These are the different ways to market this. So they hired us to consult them and it was exploded. It was really successful. It led to us getting hired for this new energy drink they were launching. They eventually hired us to work on Coke Base brand, so it went from that one consulting project to really working across the portfolio. And here we are twenty eight years later, we're still work or twenty

six years later. Since then we're working for coke stuff.

this ad? Where did this ad come from? And we kind of played dumb, and they knew that we were taking ads, and we did that because we wanted to show that Fader had some muscle and it was making an impact. And the Nike people actually called us and they reached out and we got a meeting with Nike because they thought that they liked what they saw on Fader.

They thought it was a ball the interesting move that we wanted to do it, and that led to us having some early meetings and conversations with Nike and we started doing some work for Nike Basketball. It eventually led to us doing a campaign a few years later that celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of Air Force one. Air Force one is Nike's iconic sneaker, and they put us in a pitch where it was Cornerstone and Fader. We consider ourselves one entity for that versus Widening, Kennedy and

all these other big agencies. And they briefed us, they say, it's the twenty fifth anniversary of Air Force one. We want to make history. We want to do something non traditional. Here are the parameters here's the rough budget perimeters. And our idea was, don't do an advertising campaign, Let's make an original song. And we went to Rick Rubin. I called Rick, who we had covered in Fader, and luckily he was cool and always was a bit of a friend and listened to me. Rick Rick signed on to

produce a Air Force one twenty fifth anniversary track. Kanye was the lead artist. We got Kanye on board, we got KRS one, we got rock Kim, and then we got Nas and we had the four of those artists on a Rick Rubin produced track. The budgets were enormous bomb I don't even remember the money. So we were able to entice all these legends because we had good money. They also had a lot of faith because they knew us from the hip hop space, they knew us from

the years in the music industry. And Rick co wrote the song with Kanye. They produced an incredible track. I'll send you the link when we're done later so you can check it out. And we got DJ Premier from Gang Starter do a remix. And then we built a video and a whole platform around this campaign for Nike, and instead of it being a TV commercial to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of Air Force one. It was a song that had a whole marketing campaign around the sneaker.

We did an event in New York City. Not only did all the artists come and perform, but Nike invited every one of their marquee athletes that we worked with them to produce. And the earned media and the viral nature of the song was so much more impactful than any paid media that they could buy, and it was an enormous success, and the pinnacle was we decided to work with them to submit the song to the Grammys and everyone's like, Ah, you're crazy, this will never do anything.

And it was the first time a brand campaign ever got a Grammy nomination. And it didn't win, but it was nominated for Best Hip Hop Performance that year. I think it lost to another Kanye record, ironically, but it was an example of the type of evolution of our business and the way we could use our roots in music and our creativity to do things outside of music to help brand really make history. And from those moments, like those early moments, we were off to the races.

The floodgates open. Then a lot of people started wanting to hear ideas and we started shedding the music work. We said, you know what, we don't need to be a hired hand for music. Let's focus solely on using our brand relationships and budgets and platform to do good for music, to do really good creative things with artists. And that's when the agency business really transformed to become more of a full service ad agency.

their strategy in general advertising. So not only are we doing all the TV creative and the billboards and at a home you see, but like we help them with their All Star Game and their finals and not licensing music for their campaigns. The you know, we help work with Apple, who's their media partner. And building and developing and maintaining that relationship. But the agency business has changed a bit. Marketers are no longer anywhere near as brave

as they were in the heyday of our company. You know, they are much more conservative and how they spend everything was so successful back in the day because brands operate good brands, not all brands. Brands operated on gut. Nike was a brave marketer. They didn't give a shit about what the metrics or the measurement or what the CPM value was. It was are we doing something that's going

to change culture and lead culture. Now we live in a world where even Nike, the biggest brands in the world, are so measured and so conservative, and they're so you know, brands are so caught up in you know, are we getting maximum value? And I think it's hurting a lot of brands. I think, you know, the best most iconic brands in the world, the Apple, the Nikes, they always operated on gut. They were never guided on what the

numbers said. And I think we live in such a measured world that, in my opinion, not just the agency business, the whole marketing business is really shattered and it's a reason you're seeing a lot of smaller, more niche brands rise because they're being a little braver and boulder, and a lot of young consumers don't lionize, you know, some

of these big iconic brands the same way. The playing field is leveling, and it's because a lot of these brands, whether it's change in management or they're publicly traded companies

with more pressure to maintain the stock price. I think they've lost their way, and I think I hope we're going to see a change for the better over the coming years where brands are going to get brave again, because right now, from my perspective, I believe the agency brand, you know side, it's just agencies can't do great work if they don't have the budgets and the support and the courage of brands. So I think that business has changed the lot.

can find the resources. And we've got this amazing team of in house talent that knows how to keep building on what a brand needs. But I would say more often than not, our specialty is still going to be culture and music or so than being full service. Full service is a blessing and a curse. It can be very lucrative and very powerful, but it could also be so crippling because you have to hire so many people.

You know, Like the biggest client we've ever had in the history of our company was Converse, which is the Nike owned sneaker brand, and at the peak of our Converse work, at one point we had fifty people working on the Converse business and we were doing incredible work. I mean work that I am so proud of, campaigns

that are historical. But the problem is eventually there's a change in management and that goes away and then you have these amazing fifty people or you know, forty five people or whoever's working on the business, and you don't have the money to maintain the scale and the size of the staff. So you know, the blessing is you ramp up, you build this enormous business, the billing's great, the level works great, and then eventually it all ends.

So being full service is pricky. I think at our core we want to stay rooted in music and culture. But when we can grow with the company like we did Converse or our Major League soccer, of course we're all in to do it.

to our staff. The curse is when you go through tough times like a COVID or or you want to invest and grow a business, it's inefficient to grow certain divisions of the company out of the profits of another division of the company. And when you hit a COVID and big, you know, complicated, you know, life changing moments and a business, you know, it's sometimes is really nice to have a deep pocketed parent company. So yes, to answer your question, We've been approached a lot by a

lot of the major agency. We've been approached by a lot of the big media players, and have had amazing conversations with so many great people in the music industry. We've even talked to a lot of the majors about becoming a division of some of the majors because our services could really help exploit that. And it's not that I'm opposed to doing a deal at at some point, but I think we want to stay true through our

mission and we're just somewhat selective. What I don't love about some of the advertising holding companies is the types of deals they do. You're essentially borrowing your own money. Some of these deals are earnouts, where essentially you're just getting multiple on your own success and in essence you're literally borrowing your future earnings to get a check up front. And I don't think that's the kind of deal that

we would want to do. I think if we're ever going to do something, I would want to do it

with a great music player. You know, music is in the DNA and it's the through line and the threat of every aspect of the company, and the best partners for us out there would be someone that is really true to building something great or has been building something great music And it's you know, when you work twenty eight years and now when I'm in this weird position that I'm in sole control of the company, these are really hard decisions to make. And you know, we came close.

We came close to private equity, we came close to selling to some major music players, and ultimately we just never pulled the trigger. But at some point I think we would do something. It's just got to be the right people. I think people, not the deal or what's going to guide who we do something with. It's got to be people that really share our vision and believe in music and believe in artists and believe in what we do. And that's kind of what I'm looking for in a potential partner.

constant turnover. And usually when you get hired at these brands, your strength of the relationship and success is the partnership you have with the CMO and his or her team on down. And that's really you know, usually when we change clients, it's because of a change in management. And what happens is you get in a great groove with whoever you're working with, and then teams change and that person wants to build and bring in their own team.

But to your point about you know, the Internet and culture, everything that's out there that affects all these brands, I think, yes, that has made certain brands more conservative. I think brands are definitely more calculated because of the messaging out there. I think brands are a lot more thoughtful because they

want to manage public perception and they're really concerned. They're concerned that, hey, I'm building a ten million dollar campaign with an artist that God forbid this artist does something wrong or steps out of mound. We're liable, we have a lot at stake, And I think you're right. The Internet magnifies so many problems that I truly believe that you know, that is what contributes to some of these brands being gunshy.

think that's when the partnership succeeds. When the partnership is purely an exchange of money where you're paying a big name artist to endorse or support your product, it fails and it's just transactional and the artist is being pushed by the brand or the agency to check off all the contractual obligations, and the artists feel badgered by you know, having to shill or sell for for the brand they just took this enormous check from. And I think that's

where a lot of these things fail. You Now, it's different in the festival, in the concert space because sometimes that's signage, or you're buying real estate, or you're buying

you know, hospitality set up. But when it comes to an artist partnership, in my opinion, the most successful partnerships is when the decision makers, not just the agency, not just me and my team, but the actual CMO and the people at the brand get to sit with the artists and get to ask each other questions and look each other in the eye and say, hey, does this feel good to you? Is this a non starter for you? What's important to you? What's going to turn you off?

That's when these partnerships succeed and they fail, and more so lately, they fail because it's just the monetary exchange. And I don't blame artists or management for taking the money, but I do blame brands for not doing their due diligence and really taking the time to speak and get to know the artists as they do this. And I think it's a very delicate dance between a successful partnership

and just the paid transaction. And the good news is a lot of artists in our business have been able to succeed outside the economic downturn of aspects of the business. You know, there is non traditional money out there for certain acts. The bad news is it really only affects the upper middle to high tier of the industry. Developing artists just don't have as much opportunity on the brand side. There's just not as much out there because they just don't move the needle as much. So it's tricky.

You know, it didn't speak to kids. Kids didn't give a shit. But they needed to do something to at least celebrate the moment. So they came up with a platform which connected music icons and influential icons that organically wore a Converse by their feet. You ever see paper dolls, how they're out and their connected paper dolls are connected by their hands. Well, they worked with anomally their creative interest. They created this platform to connect people by their feet.

And our feeling was that's good. It's gonna be a striking visual. And if you think about Converse, the Ramones were Converse, Elvis wore Converse, Nwa were Converse. The Nirvana Kurt Cobain, you know, sadly died in Converse, and Converse has always been a music icon. And what we said to them is, guys, your DNA is music. If you think of Nike as the performance brand, your your your parent company. They own running and sports and golf and

tennis blah blah blah. Converse owns music. You organically, the Strokes are wearing Converse in the height of their career, you're organically there. So they built this platform off of that insight to connect people as paper dolls from their feet, and we said, to celebrate this, we're going to build a platform, and to con versus credit, they gave us Sideenttle budgets. We're going to build a platform based on

the diversity of how much music embraces your brand. And we create a platform called Three Artists, One Song, and the idea was to bring three disparate artists that would

never work together. Whereas my ninety examples the kings of hip hop, this idea was, how do we bring three people that normally would never work together, where their labels would never have the budget to give them to do something like this, and we would envision giving them budget to make a music video that the industry couldn't afford to do anymore, and we would make a song collaboration

with three disparate artists. The first one we did, we took Pharrell, We took Julian Casablancas from The Strokes at the height of the Strokes success, and we took Santy Gold, who was at the time a really buzzing, you know, great up and comer, and we had the three of them. We had this happened in my office. I had Julian and Farrell meet in my office for the first time. They had a lot of mutual respect for each other,

didn't know that much about each other. And then subsequently Santy came and got to meet them as well, and they agreed. We paid them all for their participation, and they agreed to work on a collaboration and Forarrell and Santi and Julian wrote the lyrics and the track. Forrell produced the track. Julian played some instruments on the track, so out at Santy, and then we made We gave

them an enormous budget. I think the budget was like half a million dollars for a music video, this beautifully animated, really cool music video. And instead of making a TV commercial, Converse would cut segments of the music video and they would run it during the VMA's. They would run it digitally.

They would We made billboards of the three of them connected by their feet, and we put these iconic images of Farrell and I'll send you all the stuff so you can look at it after our call as well, Farrell, Julian and Santi. And it exploded because it blew people's mind. They're like number one. They're like, what the fuck are three of these artists coming together? How the hell did Converse pull this off? And to Converse's credit, it was

so successful they went on their gut. They then funded us to do it for eight more years, and every single season when they had new product come out, we

would do another three artist one song. We did one with Frank Ocean, which is one of the very few brand deals Frank's ever done, Dip Low and the two surviving members of The Clash, Paul simmon In and Mick Jones, and they all collaborated on a track which was incredible, and we made you know again the same image of all of those artists, and we put that on billboards in Hiccadilly Circus and on Sunset Boulevard and in Times Square.

So we were moving the needle where we looked the artists in the face and said, hey, what would you want to do if you had almost endless budget and total creative control. And we did nine of them. We did Kid Cutty, Rostam from Vampire Weekend and Best Coast. We did we did so I'll send you the list of all of them. And we did Bernard Sumner from New Order and Hot Chip did one, and then we started doing them with regional appeal. We did an early version of a K pop one, you know, for just

the Korean market. So that's an example of when you get people aligned creatively of what it could succeed. I'm trying to think of a failure example, but I don't have one on the spot for you, But there are a lot of those.

But I think what these campaigns do first and foremost is they start getting their younger consumer excited and talking about the brand, and then the hope is eventually it makes a sales connection. A lot of our stuff always has a retail call to action. So if we were doing these three artists one song collaborations, you would go into a Journey's store in the mall, or you would go into foot locker and then you would see that display and you'd see a connection through the campaign in there.

But the best marketers are again, they're not making the future success of these campaigns solely based on a scent rise in sales. When they do that, they don't allow it the time to flourish. A lot of these campaigns succeed because we repeated them. We did it consistently for five, six, seven, eight, nine years, and a lot of brands right now will do these campaigns as a one off, but they don't build any momentum. And if you don't build any momentum,

you're really not going to see the sales reaction. So yes, there is a form of measurement eventually that's needed, but it's not as black and white as hey, we need to see a ten percent rise in sales or we're not doing this again.

it's no big deal. What is the status of the impact on one of these clients, And would you say every client there's a musician, there's a way to do a brand deal. Or should certain acts still not do brand deals?

consumer is a lot more accepting, even embracing. I mean, we live in a social world where, especially in hip hop and certain genres, you know, the right brand association really elevates an artist's status, you know, and it shows that you know, whether it's high fashion that embraces a lot of music, you know, or the right car brand. There are situations where brands can elevate the consumer perception. I do think consumers are much more forgiving and accepting.

They're not as critical as maybe they were back in the day. But there are certain artists that have to have a high filter. You can't just take every check. You know, I have approached I'm not going to name names, but I've talked to I've spoken with, you know, and talked to some of the biggest superstars in the business on behalf of some of the biggest brands in the world, and they have cited certain corporate policies and issues for the reason that they're not going to work there. So

brands do artists have a very high filter. They have a lot of social conscience. They're not just out for the biggest check. And I think the best artists will always evaluate brand partnerships based on not just the finances, but what is the best for them, their fans, and how it's going to be perceived.

that DJ blends records. So it's the way a DJ is going from one record to another record and on

the mixing console of his DJ gear. And the idea was to start a small, you know, publication focus on what's next in music, to turn the same people who were giving those mixtapes to that I was describing, to turn those people onto what's next in music, to document the access we had to hearing all this early music and using some really great photography, writing some great stories to turn DJ's influencers just people that could help break artists.

And the first issue. Rob was the one who pushed us. He's like, I'm so fucking sick of hearing of this idea we're getting in a room right now, and we're making this thing. And it was a team of like six or seven of us. Our CEO, Anthony Holland, was one of those one of those guys who just get you come up with an idea, he figures out how to do it. And Rob was the muscle and the energy to get us to all to stay in the office for a week straight and just figure it out.

And Rob and I wrote a lot of the early pieces to get We hired some freelancers, We had some friends. We had this incredible guy named Jonathan Manyon who was an up and coming respected hip hop photographer, and he came in and got the first few covers for us, and Anthony hired some young designers that did the layout. In designing, eventually we met a young guy named Jeff Staple who has a very successful clothing company, big designer

and in the clothing space and super successful entrepreneur. Jeff Staple came in and became our first real designer to help lay out the designs of all the early issues of Fader, and we just scrapped together the ability to make this magazine. The first one had funk Master Flex, a big New York DJ from Hot ninety seven on the cover and it was almost like a pamphlet. And then the second one thanks to a great young girl

who worked for us for years, Sarah Nwkirk. She most recently she manages Raging against the Machine now to this day. But Sarah was able to get us Zach Dala Roche from Rage, Rob was able to get Run from Run DMC and Premiere from Gangstar and we put the three of them on the cover of Fader. Again, here we are Bob men, melting genres, bringing really disparate genres together, and we get the three of them to be on

the cover of Fader. And it was the caption the title on the cover was three Kings and people's heads exploded when we put the three of them on the cover. People started noticing, holy shit, what the hell is Fader? Who's behind this? And how did they get those three artists together on the cover. And from there it exploded because every young photographer saw that we were making Fader on this really heavy paper stock. We were breaking all

the rules. We were allowing young photographers, not the legends have their first shot to shoot covers. We were giving shots to artists that were really young in the evolution in their career, and we went from that Three King's cover to getting Beck and D'Angelo together on a cover, and then we had the idea that we were never going to sell the ad space on the back cover,

but we were always going to do two covers. So the idea was, how do we take all of our history and the alternative rock space, the dance electronics space, and our history in the hip hop space and have a truly diverse magazine that represented everything in culture. And it was modeled after the Face like. We saw that the UK was doing things in magazines and media so much better than the US. Spin and Rolling Stone at the time had gotten stale. They were moving in a

much more pop direction. And our whole mandate was, let's break the rules, Let's start putting relatively unknown artists on these covers. Let's do two covers of every issue. And it really exploded, and we went from selling the ads ourselves and writing stuff to building a team and bringing in some expertise, and with every every issue it got bigger and bigger. The bet d'andelo issue led to us

having outcasts on the cover. Outcast led to us having thanks to the help of Paul Rosenberg, a young eminem who was just starting out and putting EM and M on the cover. And then then the world started just noticing what we're doing, and everything was inbound. Everybody was pitching us their ideas and stories. I think fader Though, really came to life when we started doing events, and when we started celebrating every issue with an issue release party.

It really started to all the right people, whether we were in New York or la or London, all the right people would come out and come to our parties and our performances. We did an event in New York in the Round. We got Red Striped the beer company to give us some money and we had this virtually unknown artist named Mia play in the Round in New York City and it was her first New York City performance ever think and it was like moments like that where everyone knew that we were playing a big role

in introducing new things in culture. We eventually would go on to start fader Ford. Fader Fort was our festival property that was almost like counter programming to different things that would happen in a city. We did it in New York City during CMJ or the VMAs. We did it in Austin during south By Southwest, and it was our way of bringing the editorial of Fader to life in a physical sense. Fader Ford in Austin. It's one of the first shows Amy Winehouse did down there. You know,

she did like a handful of shows. You know, she chose to play our events as a young artist. Fader Fort was the place where so many established and young acts would come and perform, and they'd use Fader as a platform. We did events with. You know, Travis Scott played fader Ford at a at a very early stage of his career, both in New York and in Austin. Eventually Kanye would headline Fader for It, Drake would headline

Fader for It. Bony Ver, a young nineteen seventy five, open Fader for It when they were just starting out. So we built this editorial platform that was focused on telling the stories of who was next in music. And we're so proud of the artists that we were part of. Pharrell and Chad Hugo when they were the Neptunes were

on the cover the White Stripes. But then we brought it to life in a physical sense for creating our own festival property, and it really exploded because we were doing things differently.

It would help, you know, really just build a better network of relationships that could help all the other aspects of the business. Eventually, Yes, we hoped to turn it into a profitable business, but the Fader in its early years it lost money. I mean, we were lucky that we had an agency and other businesses that we could pour that money into funding the start of Fader. We always wanted to keep a clear separation of church and state between the agency and Fader, but they did help

each other out. Fader opened up a lot of doors for us to get a lot of meetings on the agency side, and then Cornerstone got us the brand relationships where we could go to these brands and said, hey, help us meet your advertising people. We need your help to support this great new media property we're starting. So both businesses did help each other out, and then probably a couple of years in, we started becoming profitable and it became a great standalone business.

writing our stories online. We never wanted to stop printing the magazine and the Internet really was a great evolution of Fader. It opened us up to so many worlds. Eventually we started spending more and more money on video and short form documentaries. We you know, really we're telling great stories both in a video sense. That would lead

to us starting some podcasts, you know. A couple of years ago, during COVID, we started a partnership with Mark Ronson and we started a podcast with Mark we call a Fader Uncovered, so in between him producing whatever massive album, he would interview the who's who of icons and music. So we started using the podcasting platform. We still do a lot of social video obviously now everything is on

Instagram and TikTok. Unfortunately, we haven't printed the magazine since COVID because it just doesn't make financial success, you know sense. But we're we're really trying to reactivate print. I do want to bring it back and maybe do two issues a year. But the media business is true, and you know, you and I were talking about this in in London a few months ago. The media business is so challenging.

Dollars have moved away from media, dollars are from from brands, are being spent again on social media and measured platforms. And it's been a really really challenging period for Fader and any media business. You know, it's it's as a business, it's become really really hard to figure out what is the path forward of media. And I think, you know, we're not alone. A lot of media properties are in

this business. It's it's the film and TV world going through it, it's the it's the content business is going through it. Every business in media is really in a struggle. Luckily, we we really doubled down on Fader label and building a whole music division, and that through through the success of streaming, has been an enormously profitable business and been a really strong component. But the media business is something that we're challenged with to figure out what is the

way forward. And we're experimenting with a lot of new things on a lot of new approaches, but it is not easy.

you guys. Let's become partners. We'll put up the money, we'll do the work in the marketing, you'll be the artist, and we'll create what is now a pretty modern deal structure that the whole industry is embrace. I'm not saying we started it, but we wanted to be early to create a true fifty to fifty partnership with artists. So we met tons of artists through Fader. They would always be in our office, they always play us Munick. Some were on majors, some were disenchanted with that system. They

wanted options and help with their career. And it started with this brilliant artist who we still work with to this day named Saul Williams, whose first record was produced by Rick Rubmin. Came out on Columbia on Rick Rubin's label, and then we eventually signed him over to management and signed him to Fader label. We then got Trent Reznor

to work with him on the second record. Saul was on tour with Trent and they made the album together and Saul's what really got us started, and from Saul, we then signed this amazing duo named Matt and Kim. They had an offer from Warners and Colombia, all the majors. They just were an indie band all the way, and we just fell in love with each other. They were this brilliant duo who toured relentlessly and they had excellent music.

They had played me Daylight, which would become their career head and they were managed by Kevin Patrick, who to this day is a great friend who is an A and R guy at Columbia who I worked with, and just a really smart, brilliant guy. And he always knew that the major label system were going to eat them up, and we partnered on that and our label just really

started that way. It started organically was profitable, but as we entered the twenty ten to twenty fifteen era, it was a tough time to make money in the music business, so we were very conservative about how we signed acts and what we went after. And all of a sudden, we started looking at our catalog circa twenty sixteen seventeen, and the revenue that we saw coming in from streaming

was enormous. It started to really make sense. We had built this great catalog, and all of a sudden, the third small component of our business was becoming one of the most profitable and most efficient by virtue of the success of streaming. And it was at that point that we said we got to double down on this business and reinvest in it. And I met Carson Oberg who was a young manager who's managing a few artists, and

we brought him in to head up the label. He was in his early twenties and really really smart beyond his years and or in his mid twenties, and he, uh, he really transformed the label. We we then I met Claro. We signed Claro, who you know, is an absolutely brilliant artist. We then parlayed the success of Claro and and and grew the label roster from what was about six artists to about thirty five artists right now. We built a

publishing entity that goes through Cobalt. The label is solely owned by us, but it's distributed by Virgin And then we have a management company that Carson heads up. And we worked with this, you know, brilliant roster of artists. Dell water Gap is our biggest success on that side. He is an incredible artists, the hardest working artist I've ever seen in my thirty seven years of music. He is so committed to what he is. He is everything

that an artist needs to do in today's climate. But it's a challenging business for independent labels and it's a challenging business for young artists. We're doing really well with everything, but as you and I have talked about in the past, is it is so hard to break through in today's business. The opportunity is there for so many. The problem is to have real success and to make a living and sustain for independent artists and independent labels, it's really challenging.

And you know, by having a catalog, we're able to continue to invest in new artists and that's our mission. Our mandate with Fader Label is to sign career artists, whether it's to management or label, and really put in the time to have a five to ten year plan or horizon. You know, I remember you and I talking about it. It's so many artists don't make it because they don't have the perseverance they they they just they can't either survive financially, which is difficult, or they just

can't take the years of lack of progress. And it's the name of the game for independent artists right now. It's it's you've got to be a great songwriter, you got to tour like crazy, but most importantly, you've got to have perseverance and time in the game. It's all about how much time you know you're willing to put to gradually establish your career. Now, yeah, some people do get lucky, they have a TikTok hit, they have some moment, but at the end of the day, it takes artists

a long time to establish themselves. And that's that's our mentality of fat or Label is that we want to really partner with artists that want to stay in the game and our career artists. We're not looking to sign quick hitting songs. You know, obviously if they come along, it's nice because it will fund the next wave of signings. But our our rosters what we see as a bunch of career artists.

can control the type of deal structures. So as an artist get bigger, if we build them on the label, we then have the option to go sign to a bigger label, another indie major if it's moreranted. So it gives us a lot of flexibility and I think where that used to be taboo in the business, I think you're seeing more and more or that artists and managers like the control. Doing everything under one roof enables you to call all the shots and makes the make the decisions.

That's not taking anything away from you know. Partnering with another good label like Mom and Pop on the Dell water Gap side have been incredible partners. Love working with them. They're smart, they they spend money the right way and we'll invest heavily in our project and they work really hard. So that's an example of where it works. Sometimes you go to a major it doesn't always work, or another label it doesn't work, So we like the flex to have the ability to do both.

eventually puts you in a vulnerable position. And you know, when your deal structure is so artist friendly, you run the risk of someone coming along with a bigger check and a bigger opportunity. So we do see ourselves as

competitors to the majors. Clearly, I don't have the catalog, or the budgets or the muscle that they have, but I do have an incredible young team who really live it, and they are so all of them are so good at their jobs, and they have such passion for what they do, and our artists work so closely with them, and we have a label head who's a manager first, and when artists come to Fader label, even if we don't manage them, we act as a second management team.

We are there to supplement and help the existing management team on any aspect of the project. So, yes, we compete with the majors. And it's a really stricky business for us because a lot of times, after we do a couple albums we get an artist to the next level, we often do lose them because there's a big advance or something waiting. Occasionally they come back to us. We lost Matt and Kim to Harvest and Capital for an album and luckily, you know, after that didn't you know,

hit the expectations they want. They came back. So occasionally that happens, and you know, we don't get bitter when we when we lose an artist or an artist moves on. We actually set up our deals knowing that that inevitably can is going to happen to us. The hope is if we do our job really well, everybody wins they want to continue with us.

with fate or label. We don't do perpetuity deals.

a handful of records a year. I mean, we are not you know, we're not in a system that you're competing with you know, ten other priorities at any given time. We try to slot every one of our releases, so

that is getting the sole attention of our label. So really good, strong, diverse infrastructure, excellent relationships where we can parlay all the relationships across the history of this company to talk to agents and festivals and all the key partners and music and the driving force is this amazing young team we have. You know, I you know what I learned really on in my career, it's that that

young generation that drive our business. It's kind it's kind of what's broken in our business if you think about it. And I'm putting all the power of Fader label into sal our. A and R guy who is a former Fader writer who we made an A and R guy Carson who's a young manager who's now running a label as well, Sophia who heads up marketing, Rita who's our

head of digital and project management. These are young people, all thirty or younger, that live, eat, and breathe the culture of what we're building around our roster, and I think there's something to be said about that energy and that hunger and that work ethic because they're peers of these artists and they're going to kill for them, and they are just as much as we're trying to establish

the artist's career, I'm trying to establish their careers. I'm trying to teach them and mentor them the same way that I was mentored. And the idea is, you know, how we can make them really excel at their jobs and successful just as much as their artists, because if they become more powerful and more skilled and build better relationships, that's going to rub off on the success of our artists. So I think that's why people should should consider us

as an option. It's we're a very different company than what's out there, even even the other indies we're competing with. We're just we come from a different mentality.

you know, it's not just about the next TikTok. It's about people that are willing to go out and get their hands dirty and do the work. You know. I was with you, Bob in London and we were at Nile Horn, and the one thing that really blew me away is I love seeing you at two o'clock in

the morning. We are there at Niles after party. It's the last show the tour, and you're still there and you're talking to people and you're engaging, and that to me is still in It may sound flippant, flippant or stupid, that is inherently what is most important in our business. It's being out and listening and seeing music and talking to people and engaging with people. And we need a general that isn't tired and is still willing to do that,

because that's where the fundamental is. This business doesn't change. And we live in a world where everyone's on their phones and they're so quick to think that they can stay plugged in because they're watching TikTok and social media. And you know, I watched you in that room. You and I were two of the older dudes there. We were the last men standing. And I think that is a lost art in our business. People have gotten tired or they've gotten complacent with how digital things have become.

And to me, in the music industry is all about being present and being out there and being immersed in the culture. And that's what I pride myself on doing and leading by example. That's what I'm trying to push our staff to do. And it's hard. It's harder. Even

young people are a little tired of doing it. But I think that's what makes the big successes separate of those people that are having moderate success and they're in the scene, they're willing to to stay out there and they're curious and they're asking the questions and meeting people and watching with their own eyes, not on their on their cell phones.

we need some help either globally in other areas. And it's hard, I mean, Virgin is part of a major label system and they've just merged the company with three other companies. And my fear with all of the indie distributors, not just Virgin, is that they're so consolidated and we're competing with so many other releases, and we're competing for attention, and there is not a true indie focused system out there right now, and it's really it's concerning for me.

I mean, Virgin has been a great partner, They've done great work. I think as they complete the merger of these other companies that they merge with, they're going to get stronger and better. But my concern is that there are not a true indie distribution resource. It is a conglomerate of a lot of different companies that are all merged into one, and all of a sudden, we find

ourselves competing with tons of releases for attention. And I think our philosophy is we got to try to become as self sufficient as we can and take what's best out of that system and really rely on ourselves for everything else. But because the major label system is it's at a real cross at least when it comes to indies. They're all these labels are in more of the artist's business. They are doing as many direct deals with the artists themselves.

They're giving artists bigger percentages of their revenue, They're fronting them cash. THEA walls of the world are doing a great job of it. Virgins starting to do more of this, and my fear is they want to be as direct, thus becoming competitors to our model, and it's a concern to us. And you know, I believe that there's a role for us within these systems. But I'm trying to figure out what is that way forward.

it's radio's own fault. Radio didn't evolve. Radio basically latched onto this older demographic and played the ratings game when they could have really rebuilt and rebranded themselves. And now you're faced with a generation that just doesn't care. They are not listening to radio at all. They're listening to Spotify or Apple Music, or they're finding music on TikTok, they're finding music on reels, YouTube, YouTube shorts, and I think radio is really only capturing a much older audience.

Pop radio maybe has more impact than some of the other formats. Maybe specialty shows and mix shows make some impact, but I don't think radio as a driver for commerce to develop new artists has anywhere the same impact. I do think there are offshoots of radio that can can be helpful and useful, but I think the major labels play that game. We don't invest in it. You know, we invested in it with Claro back in the day.

Occasionally we'll take a shot. We don't really see en up tick in our streams that's commensurate to the amount of money you just spent. It will help touring, it will help awareness. I just don't think radio isn't a good place right now. And I think they they could have reinvented themselves in so many ways, and you know I didn't. I don't root for radio's failure. I'd love

to see radio turning around. But radio's gotta just get innovatives, and right now there's no innovation with the way they're they're going about their business.

in the studio to get you some experience. Let's get you know, Bob a session with so and so and see how it goes, See what you can learn from that session, and let's start to make some early music. Would probably start by putting out a handful of singles or mapping out a few EP projects before we speed

for racing to build an album. And then the most important thing is as we're doing that and we're developing your craft and your writing, we are working on making sure you can perform live the biggest lost art in music, and the one constant that hasn't changed in all the years I've been doing this is you have to be a great songwriter and you really have to play live and be willing to do the work to tour. And I don't care if we start you playing to fifty

people all night. We've got to start to establish you as a live act. As that's happening, We're then working on the imagery's let's hear your creative vision. What's your look and feel? How do we want to style you? What do you want the photos to look. How do we help rebuild and work with you on your social channels? What message can we convey about you and who you are, where you come from? What inspire you on your social channels?

How are we using TikTok verse Instagram? How are we you know, bang the right content and shooting the right content within a reasonable budget. So over the course of these next six months to a year, we're parceling out content at a regular cadence. It's probably too soon for a new artist to have brand partnerships, but I want to get an idea of what a what are your brands? What do you like what do you what do you like fashion wise? What sneakers do you wear? What do

you drink? Where are you from? How do we tell a story about where you're from and the influence of that market that's around you? And then who are the artists that are in your periphery. The best way to break a young artist right now is collaboration or getting the uplift from another artist. If I think back to Clara, you know, she was incredible because she she had such good taste, She had such an amazing frame of reference for a young kid. You know, she was a music historian,

and artists started seeking her out. They would find her online, they would see what she was listening to or posting or playing, and she would get you call dms from incredible artists because they liked her taste, they liked the way she established herself. And as I got to know her, I was like, Wow, the DNA of her is not only what a great songwriter she is, or what a great performer she is, or the fact that she wanted to learn and play as many instruments as herself, but

it was her frame of history. She knew so much about music. Does not get enough credit for what a great music mind she has, and what a student she is of music. She names her dog Joni, after Joni Mitchell. And if I'm pointing to the things that make her successful, it's all of those combined. She was a student of music and really knew her history, and really pushed herself to listen to a lot of things. And I'm not

just talking current peers, but really did the work. Was always writing songs, always doing sessions, and then to her credit, pushed herself so hard on the road to the point that she really exhausted herself. If I think of Dell wa and why, ten years into our career, he is so successful in doing what he's doing, He's like the next one. He is so on the verge, Bob of being our industry's next big artist. It's because he bled

and did the hard work for ten years. This kid has toured, relentlessly, paid money out of his own success, like the money that he should be living off, to downsize his lifestyle, to reinvest in touring, to write, to do sessions. So if to answer your question about what I'm going to do for you, it's can I instill that work ethic in you? Can I inspire you and help give you the tools to be a good writer.

But more importantly, can we establish that live act and can we give you a little bit of that experience and frame of reference so you really have the basis to build, you know, the career that you want, and it just takes time. Then from there, it's lots of

little steps. It's you know, I have so many artists that the p and ls don't look great, that the growth is slow, but lots of little things add up and then you know, you know, then you then you break through to a Clara, then you start seeing the success of Adull Water Gap. It happens, but it's time in the game. It's like I said earlier, you gotta you gotta keep in the game. And over time, if you're just making that little progress, you're going to start to break through.

it doesn't look the same. But if you look at Fontane's DC, Bob right now signed to Excel Records, Irish band like they are, They're a rock band that is really succeeding. It's not about radio. It's about the fact that they toured like crazy. They've got lots of press love for whatever that means. I'm not quite sure how much it moves the needle. You know, we've talked about that,

you've written about that. They've done all the little things, but most importantly, they've built a direct pipeline to fans through touring. And Fontane's DC is a rock band that is really succeeding and breaking through in a big way. And I think I think rock music. You know, you look at Noah Com, you look at Zach Bryan, country rock, whatever you want to call them, Like, there are plenty of artists. You look at McGee right now. I don't

know if you know this kid McGee. You know he's playing New York tonight, But like he comes from Dejon's camp, great guitar player, like very modest streaming numbers, but he's he's selling out Terminal five tonight. He sold out the Brooklyn Paramount on Sunday. These are rock based artists that are so under the industry's radar, and we all talk about the death of rock. Rock is dead, and these

are young kids coming to see them. They're selling tickets, they're streaming, they have buzz and they have These aren't just moments, these are gonna be careers. And I really think rock is in the best place it's been in a long time. I think that pop music has become an amalgamation of lots of genres. You know, noa con of pop artists. But he's really a folky rock artist at heart. And I think even Taylor Swift, as pop

as she is, she's a songwriter, singer songwriter. At the core of what she does is pop, folk leaning country music. And I think rock is in a strong place. I think hip hop's in a more of a transitionary place. I think hip hop is it's it's the passing of a torch to a new generation. And it's the question with hip hop is who are going to be the

new stars. You know, Kendrick's clearly the leader right now, and he's an icon, and he's amazing, and he's doing good things and he's saying good things, and I love that he's doing the super Bowl. But the question in hip hop is, Okay, who's the next you know, who are the next leaders? You know, there are plenty of really good young hip hop acts, but are they going to be the heir to the Drake Kendrick throne. You know, Playboy Cardi doing really well, but he's he going to

be that that major hip hop icon. I think music's in a good place, though, The question becomes, you know, does rock music continue this run? Because I think rock music is really in a better place than it's been in years.

set it up. A lot of people in this business will say, same as it ever was, you know, the young people feel the same way, it's as good as it ever was. I believe that's patently untrue. Listen, I lived through the Beatles. Whatever Taylor Swift is and it's big, it's not the Beatles. Okay, So we're is music today and what might music change to further its place in the firmament.

it goes away. I mean, you know, like there are so many big moments. The question is are they going to be lasting moments? You know, Like I think you know, the question is the medium that's delivering a lot of these kids, the exposure to this music. It's it's not set up to resonate from a career standpoint. Even the festivals, which you know they're in a transitionary period, are being

programmed more with that mentality. The festival lineups are being built around more of a TikTok mentality, and you have kids winding up for one artist for one moment in one song, and then that song comes and then they're moving to the next one. You know, Chapaaran's kind of transcended all that. She's proven like, maybe I can be an artist that broke that moment, but I got the

kids paying attention to everything I'm doing. But I think we're in a very precarious position to establish the next Beatles or the next wave of superstars, because right now media is in this mentality. However, you know, you did your whole round about super fans and super fandom and how that insight was gotten wrong by Universal. I do think that there is a hunger from the music consumer

to be a super fan. That is there. Maybe on a business level, a lot of the major players are getting that wrong, and I do agree with your take on that, But I do think and I see it Man del Water Gap. I see it from working with Clara all these past years, and I went to her show the other night, which was absolutely fucking incredible. There is a passion that artists have for the artists they love, and a willingness to go so much deeper into into

that artist. And that's something that I think today's media landscape is helping. And if we can make fans want to go deeper and learn more about those artists and buy more merchant and buy vinyl and buy tickets, I do think we're going to head to a place where we may never have a Beatles again, but we're going to have career artists. You know. Noah CON's got that,

Charlie FCX, at least in the major cities. I don't know if it's working in the Midwest, but I know like in New York she played MSG this week and it was one of the hottest tickets of the year in New York City, Like, you could not get a ticket, you know, even even industry people struggle to get, you know, tickets that so, you know, and that's a ten year

plus career of the making. Maybe I think she started in twenty twelve, So I do think that media has made it a lot harder, and kids attention span is a little more disposable and they're not going as deep. But the few people that latch onto an act and fall in love with that favorite act are going deeper. The problem is how big can can those acts become? You know, Taylor Swift an anomaly. You know you're not

gonna have many of those. I find it pretty mind blowing that the buzziest tour of twenty twenty four the Oasis reading. I mean, the the mania for that. And it's not just old britpop fans like me or British people. I mean, there are so many kids asking me for tickets or are curious. And you know that's the Internet driving that, that's TikTok driving that. That is there is

a curiosity. The problem is it moves so fast. And what's beautiful all about the Beatle and a lot of stuff that you and I grew up listening to and how we discovered music. We had to work for it, and you had to take your time, and you had to put a piece of vinyl on the turntable or go to the record store buy it, or you had

to line up for a ticket. I'm not saying we should go backwards to that, but when you had to put in that kind of commitment and you've got to slow the process down, it made that connection to that music so much deeper. There's got to be a version of that connection that comes from all of the new media evolution. It's just a question of will it be lasting or is it gonna even get quicker, or is

AI going to even fuck it up more? Or our algorithm is gonna take us so much further that that's still I'm sorry to not have a conclusive answer.

the music. My favorite thing is being with our artists, you know. I love, you know, being on the road with Dell water Gap this past year, touring with him and watching his evolution is one of the most enjoyable things I get to do in my job and my career. I love when Damon Albarne calls me up and asks me to come here what he's working on for Gorillas. I love going to say I declare even though we

don't work together on this new current project. Going backstage and seeing her face after she just played ten sold out residency dates in New York and LA and seeing how happy she is with the react That means the world to me. The stuff that drives me nuts. The reason I have all this gray hair is the business is hard. It's challenging as fuck. And the agency business, the media business. I want to see them thrive, and it's it's been relentlessly hard to keep them even going

at the levels that we are. So I have to be realistic about where all these businesses are going and what to do. But I want to keep doing it forever. I don't want to bail, but at some point I want to make sure I empower the youth of our company and the future is set up because it's a young people's business, and I think the best people in our business really empower that next generation and support them, and that's what I need to do.