Peter Paterno

the key I think to the World Series. I mean, the Astros are very, very good and the Yankees are good too, so it's just gonna be an issue to see who who makes it. In Well, what we learned from last year were learned from last year. Don't pull your picture when he's pitching a one hitter in the seventh inning. I know the guys too into the statistics. So in any event, in addition to being a music lawyer, you're a huge music fan. How did you get into

music like when you were a kid? I mean, I think I got into music the way that a lot of us gotten the music, the Beatles. I mean, you know, I blame my career on John Lennon. Okay, so I believe that the path, the path for better or for worse that I've taken is basically due to those those guys. Okay, so were you a fan? Were you listening to the Top forty or anything before the Beatles run ed? Sullivan, I was a kid. I listened to music. I didn't think any of it was, Honestly, it's kind of weird.

I remember the year before the Beatles broke, sitting there as a kid thinking music isn't very good, is it? I really, you know, it was, you know, all these like girl groups and whatever else was happening then, and it just wasn't good. I mean, I think the week before the Beatles broke, I think number one was Dumb and eque by the Singing Nuns. So it was close yeah around there. Yeah so, and that was one of

the better songs on the Top forty. She never did have a follow up though, No, they apparently she had to. She haded tragic circumstances that pursued her, but I don't remember what they were. Actually, I don't remember that. Okay, But did you have a transistor radio as a kid?

Of course? Okay, but for you listened to the baseball games, I assume I listened to the baseball games when I was a kid, and the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn and New York to Los Angeles, and I was living in New York at the time, and I put my transistor radio on and the game started then at eight They started now at seven or earlier in the game started eight, which is eleven o'clock New York time, and I put

the transistor under my pillow. I listened to the ball games because the broadcast the Giant Dodger games back to New York. I listened to Vince Gully on the radio and fall asleep with a radio under my pillow. And I remember you. They used to have the nine vote batteries and I would test them by putting them on my tongue to see if they still had any zip to them. Yeah, I don't think I had nine vote battery transistor radio. I think mine was regular whatever the

double as or whatever they are. Okay, So what age did you move from New York to Los Angeles. I was twelve, with twelve is kind old enough to know what was going on. So when you move, where did you live in New York? Again? I lived on Long Island Okay, what town, Baldwin? Okay, alright, by my backyard was in the center, but main house was involved within. Okay, And before you moved to the West coast, did you

go to any concerts because he had the Nasau Coliseum? Okay, maybe the Nashville Coliseum wasn't even built by that point. I think it was because it's ended. It was like a dump thing. The team's moved out of there, but now they have a new arena. In any event, you moved to l A, where do you move to in Los Angeles? I actually moved to Orange County. I grew up in Orange County and Tustin. Tustin is like landlocked. It's not like by the beach, and it's pretty flat. Yeah.

At the time, though, it was kind of the end of the world. I mean all the freeways ended there. It was still very heavily populated by orange groves instead of people. Yeah, I mean the house next to me had horses. And you know, we lived in Tustin proper. It wasn't like we lived in like some weird place. It was just it was a small community. And and we used to go to the beach pretty regularly because Newport Beach. You just got on the freeway and drove down down the fifty five to its coast of Masa

and then you went to Newport Beach. So, yeah, we spent our summers at the beach. How far was that from tust him, you know, I think it's seven miles actually something like that. I didn't realize it was that close. Yeah, And what did your father or mother do for a living when you lived in Tustin. My mother was a teacher. She taught um for a while, biology, then she taught languages at the local high school where I went to high school. And my dad was a contracts administrator for

various facets of the defense industry. So he'd get laid off every two or three years when the budget name would go down and go up, and go down and go up. So his training was in finance or engineering. I think he got I know when I was a kid. He went to n y U and got an NBA at night at night in night school, so he you know, he had he had. My parents both went to Brooklyn College, but my dad left early to go to the world. We're talking about the Brookley in Brooklyn, California. Brooklyn College.

They went to Brooklyn College. They my parents grew up in Brooklyn, which is why I'm a huge Dodger fan. And my dad left early. They allowed the people that you know, the guy shipping out, They let him graduate early. So he went out to the war and then came back. And you know, I don't know what he did, but when I was a little kid, he went to get his graduate degree at n y U and business and ended up doing whatever he did, okay, did he used to tell stories about the war. Not much. It's actually

it was fairly traumatic for him. And I think he had a little bit of a you know, uh p ptsd P. Yeah, I mean, I guess what I heard. I mean again, I was I wasn't born yet, but I heard that he had he had some issues following the war. And do you know what he did during the war. He was he was in the South Pacific and he um, I think he was a communications officer. He you know, did walkie talkies and stuff like that.

And I think I don't know that much about it, okay, But for those of us living on the East Coast, to grow up in California in the sixties was a dream. Yes, So what was it, like, I so didn't want to go, I mean because I had all my friends in Baldwin and I you know, I was getting ready to I just graduate, and uh, you could graduated great school. So I guess I was going into junior high and I didn't want to go, and I was really upset. And uh then we moved out here and it was great.

I mean it was just really great. I mean, you know, um we lived in Orange County, were close to Disneyland, which was exciting for me as a kid, and then I could go to Dodger games and and there was the beach and it was it was real. It was great. How often would you go to Disneyland A lot? Really? Yeah? I did? I went a lot. Okay. And were you a popular kid in school? I don't know if I was necessarily popular. I was the first couple of years I had a New York accent and that wasn't cool

in California. But I kind of get along with everybody. I was, you know, in high school. I think I was voted most comical or something like that. Really, so you were a good student. I was a very good student. Yeah, and you did because parental pressure. You were just good, or you were grind or all of those things. Wasn't a grind? I just I was good at school, okay? And you're you have the one sister, correct, two sisters, two sisters, okay, and their daughters are super successful. Right,

but it's starting at this level. You're in the middle, or where are you? I'm the oldest, you're the oldest. Now. The next one is Vicky, who's an m d. Yeah, she's a doctor. And the one after that Susan, she's a journalism professor. She's um currently on sabbatical because she was in the middle of writing a book about college admissions. So she became the poster child for all the New

York Times and l A Times. They all interviewed her because she was writing about this, and she's now taking sabbatical to finish her book that she was in the middle of when the scandal hit. Well, in terms, you were talking about the generation after being super successful by baby boomer standards, everybody in the family really rang the bell. What was the drive was that, you know, the parental ethos? Why do you think everybody was so successful? I don't know.

I think basically, I think my mother was probably pretty much uh, a driver. My dad wasn't so much, but he expected us to get good grades. And I remember, I remember when one semester I came in with my grades. I had all a's and I had four unsatisfactories and conducts six. I used to just tell jokes in class and and so my dad just started yelling at me, going, anybody can get as it's the conduct that matters, and you're failing. And so anyway, that was did you, uh

those conduct grades go back up? Yeah? I mean again, I wasn't particular. I was sort of more of a comedic foil than I was a troublemaker, you know. And so you went to the same high school your mother taught at I did. Yeah, what was that like? It was a little weird. I had her for about three weeks when I first started as a freshman, I was in her class. And then then they started these um I was I don't want to sound equal to etotistical, but I was. I was doing super well. I wasn't

very engaged. So they put me in all these advanced placement classes and so I had to transferred over class and do the other classes. Okay and okay, so the Beatles hit. Were you a record buyer or just a radio listener? Um? When at that age, you know, I

you know, basically buying records was kind of an event. Um. I remember I in my sixth grade class, I won some award and the teacher gave us some forty five um, And so I just went home and listened to him incessantly because they were all that I had, you know, and for what those records were, I will follow him by Little Peggy Mark. I think that was one of them. I can't remember the rest of them. I just heard

that the way. That's a great song. Yeah. I mean I never would have listened to it if they hadn't given it to me, But yeah, that's what I had to listen to. Okay. So the Beatles break, you're first aware of the Beatles by seeing them on Ed Sullivan. Yeah okay. And then how does that change your life? Well,

I you know, it doesn't change my life. I was in seventh or eighth grade, so it was like, you know, I mean I just became a big fan, and I by the you know, the little trucks would come by with the ice cream and they'd have tops baseball cards, except they were Beatles and I bought them, and you know, I just it's a fan. I'm not like an intense super fan. I'm just a you know, I just really think that, you know, I'm really into the music, but I'm not crazy. I have other things that I do.

You know, you're about music in general or the beat music in general. Okay, I'm a really pretty big Beatles fan, but I'm not I'm not going to get confused with one of these people that just basically knows everything in the world about them. Okay, But in terms of music, you're saying that you have other musical actury and or other interests other than law, baseball and music. Yeah, I mean, you know, I do you know, I fall sports. You know, I'm yeah, I mean, I have other interests, but I'm

you know, I like music a lot. So when did you start going to concerts? I remember the first sort of unofficial concert I went to because I didn't it wouldn't have been anything I would have chosen to go to. Was I worked at a flower shop in Orange County and the guy, the owner's son in law, was about seven years older than I was, and he got tickets to Melody Land, which was this theater in the Round in Anaheim, right right next to Disneyland. It was hell

about three thousand people. It was a you know, it's theater in the round that used to have The King and I, which I saw there with my mom. And they had a concert that day with Little Richard, four Tops and Bo Diddley. So again, not wouldn't have been my choice of of things that I would go to, but it was great, and I went to that, and then I didn't really go to anything on my own until until I was like a junior in high school and I um and the Doors played the Hollywood Bowl

and we went and it was funny. We went and bought tickets at whatever the equivalent of ticket Master was then, which was just this weird box office where you'd buy tickets and there you had a choice, and I, you know, I've never been to the Hollywood Bowl and and I have a funny story about that, but I've never been to the Hollywood bowls. So they had tickets available for five dollars in the first row behind the Garden Terrorist or whatever it's called. There were five bucks and the

ones in front we're six dollars. So we made a conscious decision. We got the five dollar tickets because they just one roll back and and uh we went and saw the Doors, Um Stepping Wolf and the Chambers Brothers. That was one bill. That was one bill. It's the famous show what they have on the movie about the doors.

And and again I think that my theory is, you know when people hold up lighters for encores, I think it was invented at this show because the show was on I believe the fifth of July, and everybody had sparkers left over for from fourth of July, and so after the show the set ended, they put up the sparklers for light my fire. And I think that was probably if you go before that, I probably don't think you're gonna find anybody putting up lighters. And everybody was

holding them up for light my fire. Now, I never I've seen the Chambers brothers. I got squeezed on Boss and Garden. That's why never there's a crowd. I'm weary now. But how were the Doors? I never saw him? They were, Well, it's funny. I later got to be pretty friendly with Robbie Krieger and uh, and it was really weird. I mean, you know, the show was I mean for me, you know, I was a kid that was great, but there was

generally some kind of issue. And Jim walked off stage and disappeared for a while, and they brought him back out and he was rambling and stuff. But again, you know, that's what they do. I mean, you know, Lee, listen to some of those uh songs, like the end and stuff like that, there's a lot of rambling. And Robbie said, yeah, Jim dropped acid right before the show, and by the end of the show he was just tripping beyond belief. You know, I'm sitting in the audience. And the funny thing, too,

is in the in the movie version of it. In the Doors movie, they have all these women, you know, these naked women dancing on the side. I believe I was fifteen years old. If there had been naked women there, I would exactly not that way. So how did you get from Orange County to the Hollywood? Well, my friend, Uh, I had a friend who had a microbust and right, and uh it relates to Anto the other story I was referring to. So we wanted as microbus to the

Hollywood ball. Then that summer we went to we decided to drive up and see if we could find the Beatles.

We went up to Capitol Records and as microbus right, and we show up at the Capitol Tower and we don't know anything or kids, right, so we start wanting around the tower looking for the Beatles, who weren't there obviously, and then we thought maybe the doors with the studio and Studio A at Capitol It's like it's on the same floor as you enter, and so we sort of wandered there in the guard said, well, you can't go here, and we're looking for the doors, you know they're not here.

So then we got in the elevator and we went up to the it's still the thirteen floor, but they don't call it that um and we started wandering around all the executive office, like me and two of my friends, and my one friend kept going, you know how many groups are on a record, There's just one long group and it's harassing all these executives. And nobody threw us out, nobody did anything, and we then we left and never found the Beatles. Well that's something that could not happen

in today's security world. I couldn't even get into this building. We can't get anywhere. We have silly security everywhere. So you saw the door. Any other memorable concerts in your high school era, Well that was about it for my high school era. I was, you know, I went in Orange County. I was pretty sheltered. I wasn't like l A kids, you know, so I didn't really start going to shows until I went to college. Okay, so you

went to college. You went to Harvey Mud, Right, how long had Harvey Mud been in existence when you went started in fifty seven? I started there in sixty eight. I guess, well that must have been I mean, granted you're living in the area, but in the East Coast where the school has been open for hundreds of years, it seems Why did you end up going to Harvey Mud? Um, no clear plan. I actually went and visited some schools. We went up to Mount Baldi to you know, slide

in the snow and sledge on the way back. My mom said, why don't we visit these colleges? And it was kind of pretty. And then the other one I went to was Occidental, And you know, I applied to all the u c s and so I decided I was either you go to Occidental and Major and political science to go to Harvey Mudd and major and maths. So you can tell how focused I was on my career and at the end I ended up going to Harvey Mudd. My sister went to Occidental with Barack Obama,

but really she knew him, Yeah, she knew. What did she say about him? She said, I didn't know him well, and people go, how do you know you know him? She goes, there are eight black people in Occidental. You know Harry Mudd? There were there was one, so you know at the time, okay he was bury Obama. I think, yeah he was, but he was very Obama. Okay, so there were there five Clearmont colleges. How many people went to Harvey Mud the time I went there four And

that's men and women are just men. It was men, and I don't want to say anything in correct politically incorrect, but yes, there was men and women. There were There were only about i'd say eight women at Harvey Mud. It's gotten almost fifty fifty now, but at the time, you know, it's a science and engineering school, and girls

from the fifties didn't really do science and engineering. That's changed, but at the time there just weren't very many women there, but you know, again, there were women at Scripts across the street, and there were women at Pitzer across the other street. And there was you know, co ed down to Pomona, and there was a men's college at Claremont. So that was fine. It was It was an incredibly great atmosphere. Just Claremont McKenna was men only. Then it

was called Claremont Men's College. Really yeah, they they changed the name to Claremont McKenna when they started admitting women. God, because I always wondered, what was Claremont McKenna. Okay, so what is your experience going to college? They wanted to keep the M so it was still CMC and McKenna was a big donator, A donor a donator. Excuse me, So what was your college experience like? Were you basically

studying where you're partying? What were you doing? You don't you don't party at Harvy Mode if you want to stay there. You know, incredibly smart people there, and it's like ridiculous, Um, you know, I mean basically, you know, I mean again it's college, you don't study all the time. But if you know, it was I remember my saw my junior year. I'll tell you what my classes where if I can remember right, had topology, which is not what you think of topology. It's like this advanced math.

I was doing quantum physics French lit uh um partial differential equations, and then some physics class and quantum mechanics are quantum something. So those are my five classes. It was pretty intense. And how if there were four people there was one hundred unior class. There were seventy five in my classic class. Where were you in that class? Not that it really matters, well, they were like I was a math major, so there were like fifteen math

majors and I was kind of in the middle. Um. But this is what convinced me that I was never going to be a mathematician. Is that the year that my senior year UM, which was what year seventy two, I was a year ahead. I was skipped a grades. So I kindergarten. I just went right. I went right in the first grade when I was five or some so. UM. So in my senior year they take you take the NSF I mean, uh whatever you call them, the the g r E s and there's a testing end too.

They then they evaluate the g r S and some other factors. I don't know what they do, but they hand out, um, they hand out thirty NSF fellowships for grad school and six National Science Science Foundation and sixty At the time, there was sixty or so runners up. So this was in the math and the math part. So out of the thirty people got the Math NSF fellowships, two of them were in my class. And out of the sixty runners up, four of them in my class. So the six of the fifteen math majors were like,

they were ridiculous. So I said, you know, I don't know. You know, again, I was fine, I was I wasn't great. I was fine. But math people, when they there's just guys that are just some different level, they just you know, and uh, we had a couple of those, I mean they when I went on to prove a very important theory and he didn't prove it. He did the set up to the guy that proved it was the I think it was four days last theory. I'm the four

color theory. One one of those one of those sort of stating I won't borrow anybody with this, but it was a four hundred year old problem. That he actually helps solve. So anyway, I was out of my league there and uh so, anyway, but you went to graduate school. There's a reason for that. So I go to Harvey Mud and I'm gonna graduating class of seventy people or seventy seven or whatever it was. And um, I decided, I'm I'm you know, these guys are too smart for me.

So I'm gonna go to law school. So I go down to Pomona to take the L s a T. I show up at Pomona. I have not read the materials. I haven't done anything. And I show up and they go, where's your idea? And I go, it's back at the dorm and they go, well, you need your idea? I go, why you know people cheat on this test? I go, what nobody's taking this asked in my class except for me? And they go, no, you can need your I d so,

but we'll wait for you. So I'd go bicycle back up to my dorm room, come back and they're about three quarters of the way through the instructions, which I have never read. And you know, people are taking L s a T prep courses and they're all getting ready for you know, the day and I basically opened the thing and see it for the first time as I'm

sitting there. So I took the test. I didn't actually okay, not great, but okay, six forty or something okay, And so I got into some schools, but not really anything that I wanted to do. And so I all my friends, meanwhile are getting these massive for the time fellowships to do grad school because they're geniuses. So I go, well, okay, everybody's getting all this money to go to grad school,

maybe I'll do that. So, like here we are, basically the spring of seventy two, after everybody's done all their applications, I applied to a bunch of grad schools um and my only criteria for the grad schools is that there's no application fee. So I just applied to the which they had at the time. So I paid no application fee, and I applied to seven grad schools and got into a bunch of them, and they gave me. The biggest fellowship I got was Hawaii. I just basically I basically

based my city. I based my decision on who they paid me the most. So I went to Hawaii. HA never been to Hawaii, and so I did that and then yeah, so that's what I did. So okay, and so you did that was one year? Well, I was supposed to be two years. But remember I went to a college full of geniuses. I tested out. I had nine graduate units. I tested out of everything. I mean, the people in Hawaii, God loved them. They have every The professors were really smart because a lot of old,

really smart mathematicians retired there essentially. Um. But so I tested out of everything. I got my masters in a year. Um, and I took the l s C T again and I did really well and got into pretty much everywhere I wanted to go. So so you so you had never had an intention when you're going to White to actually practice in the math area. They were too smart. So you just said, I'll do this and I'll apply to law school. I got paid money. It was great. I got to earn some money, and I got to

spend a year in Hawaii. It was kind of good. Okay, So you take the L s A T again and you ultimately decided to go to U C. L A. Y Um. Well, I wanted to go to Berkeley because my friend was in My best friend was in the physics department there. Uh, he was a year behind me. He had gotten while I was going to grad school. He when he got in the physics department at Berkeley. But I got wait listed, and so I actually had a I had a bunch of fun correspondence with the

Berkeley admissions office. They waitlisted me, and I wrote them back and said, thank you very much for wait listening. Uh, could you let me know what's going on? And they didn't, and so then they finally rejected me, and I wrote back and said, well, I reject your rejection, and could you give me information on the dorms. I'll be showing up on such and such a day. And they wrote back and said, we can't give your innovation on the doors.

You're not accepted dorms. And I go and then I write back something like I need a place to live while I'm going to school there, and they right back, You're not going to school here. And the funny thing was is a dean of admissions at Bolt Berkeley Law School was named Sarah Tomato. So so in my final letter, I took a Heinz catchup bottle, cut the little tomato out and said dear ms, and put the Tomato in

there and wrote a one final letter. And you know, obviously I didn't go there, but I did get into U c l A and a bunch of other people places. So I went to u c l A. And that good experience. Going to law school bad experience. It's law school. You went to law school. Yeah, I mean, I had a similar experience at law school that, uh my college was so rigorous that law school. The other thing is, you know two things Richard Nixon said nothing. I want to quote Richard Nixon. The only thing you need to

get through law school is a lead butt. And I'm convinced, if you're a smart person, you apply yourself, you could take the bar review course and never go to law school and pass the bar. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think the experiences probably helps, because I I didn't. I walked into law school in the first day, I looked around and saw the Polly sign majors from cal State. I went, finally, I'm smarter than somebody was in college.

I wasn't, and I didn't really. The other thing that I did in law school was I hadn't I hadn't taken really a test in two or three years because in math, what they do is they just give you a theorem and they said, go home and prove this. You know, I didn't sit there and study for a final. Either were able to do the you able to apply what you learned to uh proving the theorem, or you weren't. So I hadn't taken a test in at least two years and probably more like three years, and I just

went finals. This was it was painful. So like my first year of law school, I didn't really I did okay and do great, and then about the first quarter my second year, I figured it out. I figured law school out, and then I just cruised the rest of the time. We got all a's from then on out. Okay, So you graduate from law school and your intention is to do what well again, uh, keeping it with my personality, my intention was not to work for the man. I

mean not not No, that's not right, that's incorrect. I didn't to work for a big corp. I didn't want to work for a big corporate law firm. I had most people interned or summer clerk at you know, the big firms. My first year I clerk at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. My second year, UM, I did the State Energy Commission, which is where I started realizing how sort of bad the government is. I mean just bureaucratic, and it was regulatory stuff. I started getting

my economic views from working at the State Energy Department. UM. So my third year I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I because everybody was interviewing with firms for jobs. I I decided I do some interviews. And I interviewed with a big firm. It might have been Greenberg Gluscre, which is four flow floors below was it might not have been, And so I did my one interview.

I did a few, but I did this one and the guy says to me, Um, you know, he's going, well, what have you done that you know that extra curlercular activities that would help qualify you for career as a lawyer? And I go, well, I ran the speakers program at U c l A. I was on the pub board at the Daily Brune. I was the president of the Student Bar Association. I did you know, I did the fair amount of stuff and I was on the communications bought board, And they go, yeah, but more sort of

intellectual scholarly stuff. Well, I did you know, I don't remember. I was telling him some more stuff. I knew exactly what was getting at, and he says, why aren't thinking more of something like law review? And I go, Honestly, those guys were the biggest dicks in the school and and I had really no interest in doing that. He guess, well, I was the editor of the U c l A nine six. I got, well, that's your problem then, isn't it. And then I you know, they didn't have email, but

I they messengered the rejection to my house. So so I my career trying to be a big firm lawyer was not met with an initial round of success. So I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't really have a great idea. So I took the bar and sat around, and I said, no, there was a book that out set us how to start your own law firm. So I read the book, and I'll start my own law firm. So me and a classmate from u c l A started a little law firm and

we started doing whatever walked in the door. I had p I did personal injury, I did h wills and trust, I did everything I did litigation, I did whatever came in and um, I did that, and I started realizing all the things that I didn't want to do, which is pretty much everything I was doing. And this is gonna sound really yeah, I don't care. I'm I'm old now anyway, But poor people tend to have not very

interesting problems. I mean, you know, you know, it's like a dog bite case or you know something, and so the case, you know, I was taking whatever walked in the door, and it was somewhat not that interesting, you know. Um, but I am. I did a good job for everybody, so that wasn't that. I mean, I was a young lawyer, so I was learning stuff, but I didn't really love it.

And then, uh, Howard King, my partner, um had gone to law school with me, that he was a year behind me, and he calls up one day and says, if you know somebody who wants a job being a music lawyer is going to be an opening on Friday. I hate this bitch that I'm working for. The bitch actually happened to be a friend of mine. She's I had gone to law school with her also, so I go, well, yeah, music law, that sounds a lot more fun than what I'm doing so I applied. It was at Manatt Phelps.

He was at Manatt Phelps. I was on my own and I applied to Manatt Phelps and uh, you know, after a couple of months, they interviewed me and they may be an offer to go work in the music department. So that's how I ended up doing that. Okay, what was your experiencing that? It was good? I enjoyed it. I was there for about ten years, and uh, you know, I started out working for Lee Phillips and servicing a lot of his clients, and he had great clients. It

was all the people I wanted to work with. I mean, it was really exciting to me that I was going to go to a firm that represented Linda Ronstad and Neil Young and you know, and um Jackson Brown and the Eagles were not really so much the Eagles, but the label that they represented electro Psylum Records, so they had you know, the interface with you know what. Actually that wasn't the label that you know, I paid attention

to labels. I loved a lot of their artists, and it was a super political firm to which I thought I was interested in a certain soon disabused of that notion, but because at the time was Manatt felt Rothenberg and Tuney and John Tunney had been his dad had been a big boxer and he had been a senator from the state of California. So it was very and Chuck man At had been the head of the Democratic Party that a few years before I got there, so it

seemed very exciting to me, and it wasn't. It was great. I mean I had a good time. You know, they didn't pay me, but it was fun. So the next step was Hollywood Records. Yeah, well before you get there, though, you were you're like an incredible rainmaker. Okay, you have a relationship with all the clients. Did you learn that at Manatt Phelps? Well, no, I probably, I don't know if I learned it. Ever. I think it's just sort

of an eight. But I mean I got clients and my little stupid law firm when I was just me and a friend. You know, it just they just were not you know they used to at Manat used ago this goofy guy. Why should we pay him? I mean, he's the only reason he gets clients because in the music business. And I want to know, if I were a corporate lawyer, I'd have clients because that's what I do. I mean, I figure out how to solve problems and succeed at what I do. But so I don't know,

you know, you just I'm gonna service business. I can service people. I mean, okay, when you opened up your you know, hung out your shingle, as they say, how did you get clients? Then you know, I just you know, invite. We had a party. You invited a bunch of people, and I let it know, you knowing that we were open, and you know, people would start referring their brothers and their fathers and stuff, and you know, I do whatever came in the door, and I was willing to learn

whatever it was. It was actually fairly good training for being a music lawyer, because music musicians have all these problems and they think of you as their lawyer. So if they have a family law problem, they want, you know, they call you. They don't call a family they don't know anybody. Or they have a tax problem, they call you. And so it was very useful to me to have done all these different disciplines because I actually can sort

of fake my way through pretty much anything. Right now, at least long enough to get up to somebody who really knows what they're talking about. Okay, So, now, in your ten years at Manette, where do you feel you are in the hierarchy of music lawyers. Well, it was really really kind of funny. Actually, um I remember was it then? And I think it was sort of the

end of my tenure at Manette. Remember this big article on all the new hot young lawyers that they've done in one of the periodicals, And I'm looking at, you know, the new hot young lawyers. I'm going And the reason I wasn't in that because I wasn't a new hot young lawyer. I was an established lawyer. By that, they're all older than I am. They're all older and I won't mention any names, but going, well, she's older than I am, and he's older than I am. Why am

I not hot? In New York? You're not a hot new lawyer because you're an established lawyer. So okay, And at the time, you were basically doing contracts. What kind of work were you doing about I mean basically yeah, I mean, you know what you do as a music lawyer. Back in the day, the practice was I mean largely

not entirely, but doing record contracts, doing publishing contracts. You know, I actually, um, one of my heroes was David Geffen, and he was a client of the firm, and so when I'd been there maybe a year and a half, he started Geffen Records, and I went to Lee Phillips and said, I'd like to work on this. You know, I was second year lawyer, and I go, I want to work on this. And so one of the things I did from my first two or three years was

just the paperwork for Gethin Records. I the agreement that formed record Gethin Records was written by me ages entirely by me. Um. You know, by the end of it, nobody was reading it. You know, I was more scrivener than a dealmaker. But they'd make the deal and I'd sort of translated and tell them, well, wait, you can't

do this. You can't do this. He can do this, and so you know, so you know, it was that I did the you know, and and uh and then just a lot of record contracts, you know, touring contracts, whatever you do when you represent talent. Okay, and who were the main competitive lawyers or law firms at that time at the time. Well, it was always John Branca, Don Passman, Krugman Um. You know, I missed out on Bruce Springsteen as a client because he lived in the

East Coast. I did the first management agreement for John Landau. Well at least that's what John told me. Maybe he's been we have management agree with him in Springsteen. Yeah, I wrote the management agreement and John tells me that to this day it's it's a one page agreement or two page agreement. And I think to this day Bruce signs it every three years. Well, how did you know, how did that come together? How do you know John

who lived on the East Coast. I think remember the bitch that I told you about, Debbie Reinberg, who was not She's really a nice person. She was number one in my class. She knew John for some reason because I think she was a big Bruce Springsteen fan and she you know, we we did the work for Electra Sylum Records, and we did the work for RSL Records, so we we represented a bunch of record executives, so there was some I don't remember how she knew John,

but she ended up I ended up meeting John. I think through her Okay, she had gone in house at a lecture by then. I think, so was she today. I think she might be retired. I haven't talked to her in a while, but I think she might be retiring. So um, in any event, tell the story of how you end up getting the job at Hollywood Records. Okay, so um, somebody else show may name less and I will may name us because we're not friendly. Um, i'll

tell you off the record. Um. But anyway, they were looking for somebody to start their record company and this guy was working in house there and he told Michael Eisner about me. So, um, this is the person you don't have a positive opinion of. Yeah, I mean you know, there were other people that told him to I think you'd heard. I think it was him and other people.

So what happened was I was in New York, um with Chris black Blow because I represent a Delicious Vinyl and we were doing a deal with Island Records with Chris Blackwell, and I get a call from my you know, I called into my office. See anybody call in and she goes. Assistant goes, um, yeah, you got a call from Michael Eisener. I go, yeah, sure, I go, yeah, right, Michael eis was calling me. She goes, no, really, I

go really because I didn't know Michael Eisener. So I called Michael Eiser back and he goes, uh, I've been hearing things about you. We're starting a record label. We'd like to talk to you about it. And I go, oh, to be the lawyer. He goes, yeah, or maybe to you know, run it. He said. So he said you want to meet and I go yeah, sure, and I go he goes, how about tomorrow. I go, I'm in New York. And when you're back tomorrow, it says how

about the next day? And I go okay, fine, And so I met with him and UM, now you earlier say you're not good with the man, So how did that meeting go? Well, I told you I corrected that. It wasn't that I wasn't good with the man. I'm I'm bad with authority. And the meeting went fine. I mean, michaeliss is a great guy. I mean he's very personable, he's super smart. Um, so the meeting went fine. And the really funny thing was we were walking out and I said, it was nice to meet you. As you know,

you're obviously a legend and it was great meeting. I'm parked on the street. I don't like Valet, and he goes, neither do I. I'm parked on the street too. That's hysterical because I've had my car. You know, I had an accident in Valet parking. I do my best thought because you can't collect. I mean I did collect it. I was tenacious, but it's almost impossible. I just I'd rather not have to wait for my car. It's really as simple as that. So anyway, I met with him.

Then he liked me, I guess. And he brought me in to meet Frank Wells, who was the president of the Disney Corporation, and uh, I guess Frank liked me. So they aren't being to meet Jeffrey and Jeffrey Jeffrey Katzenberg and um. Again, this is from my perspective. I don't know jeff him. I have a different perspective. But in between one of those meetings, I had a call from David Geffen. You know, I've been doing his legal work. He said, come over here. I know what's going on.

You come over here right now. He wanted me to come meet with him. So I go to that point his office on Sunset Boulevard in the building. Yes, yes, yes, So I drive over and we meet for two hours,

and he tries to convince me. I had asked him about six months earlier, because he had been there have been talking of him reviving asylum records, and I had asked him if it would be, you know, if he'd considered me to run, And you go, no, you need to get some experience like business affairs, like I don't. I don't want to do that. So he calls me over and spends two hours trying to convince me not to take this job. And he basically says, you know

why you shouldn't take this job. And you know why I'm successful because I do things where my chances with success are high and my chances of failure are low. Your chances are failure are high, and you shouldn't do this. So he tried to convince me to do it, and I didn't listen to him. It turns out he was right. Um so anyway, so then I met with Katzenberg, and but also you know, he just focusing. He did say, because tell you telling me the story before that you

needed more seasoning in addition to the odds. Yeah, that's what he did. Okay, so he So do you think at this point you did need more seasoning or you just were in a bad situation. No, I don't think. I mean, look, as it turns out, I needed more seasoning, but I don't think running business affairs at a record label was the season and I need it, you know. And and Eisener later told me again it's all you know, he considered the source. But he said the reason Geffen

was so uh so intent and not discouraginging. He didn't want you to leave as his lawyer, which I don't know how much. I believe he had grew him and he had other people, so um so. Anyway, so I disobeyed him. And uh again, some of this comes from Eisener, some of it comes from what I could see. But between him and Jeffrey, they spent four years trying to get me fired. Um No, I don't know. It's unfair. I didn't they uh As Eiser once said that bas

I fired myself. I don't agree with him, but um you know, there's corporate politics at Disney, and and I didn't play that well with the strategic planning people and the finance people, and they didn't much like me because first time sort of anti authoritarian and I'm sort of not sober serious about this stuff. And and the thing that really really hated as I understand math, So you know, they would have most of the creative execs didn't understand

what they did well. I understood really well. I'm good at math, so I would get in discussions with them and they wouldn't like how they went so and I was was it was an experience. Okay. So from the first meeting with Eisner, you talked about taking the top job. Yeah, and again nothing happened, and then he called me about a month or two later and said, look, we're still considering, you know, like, oh, that's fine. I got a day job.

I know, I mean, you know, because I was conflicted about doing it, and especially given I didn't want to have geff and mad. I mean, Geffin had been a good friend for a year, so I didn't want him mad at me. So it was easier if nothing happened. Okay, So then how did you Ultimately, ultimately they decided they were going to move forward, and they asked me if I wanted to take the job, and then I said, yeah, okay, what did Minatte say about your leaving? I mean, you know, man,

that it was great. I left left behind my client base, which they took over, and I became a client of the firm. I used them for my internal legal work, so you know it was great for them. Okay. So the first thing you do when you open it was it already decided was going to be called Hollywood Records. No. I think they decided they had Hollywood films at the time, and they decided I don't remember. I think Michael or

Frank or somebody picked the name. They thought it would be good to affiliate it with the film company, the studio they had. Um then we, of course there was already a Hollywood Records that have been in the fifties. We got in a big fight, paid the guy off. It was anyway, I didn't pay him much, but whatever it was. It's a guy named mole Lettle who was It turns out if you go look through your case books,

he's a fair lititious guy. He would he you know, he bought up all those old fifties labels and would sue people. You know, it would that, you know, like a patentrol today yeah, or or like, um, I'm not gonna say, like all the copyright infringement lawyers that bring these stupid suits that they shouldn't win and they get lucky and win sometimes. Okay, so you got Hollywood's the first thing you did at Hollywood record This was funny. I remember walking in and I had I was in.

There was nobody there. I just wanted I walked in and go. I guess I had to start a record company. I mean really, like I walked in. I was the only employee. So I was money and issue do they have? Budget was large? Money wasn't an issue, um you know, I mean whatever we lost was a pimple in the Disney You got enough money to hire or in Yeah, oh, no question about it. So, um, I realized, probably the first thing I have to do is have to find somebody to run the radio department, since back in the

day the world really dependent on radio. Unless you know, well that's funny unless you signed sort of street hip hop, which I wanted to sign and did sign actually, which did not go over well with Disney people. When I got hired. They I did an interview where I said I wanted this higher signed hip hop and hard rock and so like. Somebuddy organized the campaign to basically send letters to Disney saying you've made a horrible mistake. He's

going to ruin the company. And and I think they got three or five thousand letters and they were all the same. And you know, so who'd you hire? I hired Brendan Romano, Okay, who's still working today at Intersco at Interscope. She's great. And what had she done before that? She was at PolyGram? I think, I try to hire I try to hire Polly Anthony and I couldn't convince her to come, but she recommended Brenda Tomin to me.

She was a number two person and wherever she was PolyGram, I think, And she's, you know, unbelievable, she's fabulous, she's okay. Who else did you? Oh? I mean that was my good hire. I hired a guy named Unfair Transition. I was thinking of my marketing guy that I hired that it was a mistake. I hired west Hine would run Enigma Records, so he'd actually run a label. It was

an independent label. I hired him to sort of be my number two guy, and then hired and our people that probably could have done a better job at since basically they didn't sign anything that was any good. But yeah, okay, the marketing person I'm familiar with what was without mentioning his name, what was the problem there? Uh well, I mean it's the guy that we hired to replace him.

When we hired somebody to replace him. He wasn't particularly creative, but the trains ran on time, so it was actually better having him than the creative guy that I hired first that basically just randomly spend money on, you know, crazy marketing ideas that we're very creative but not particularly economical or successful. Speaking of success, so the two things you're noted for in Hollywood Records. You made a deal for the Queen catalog and you signed you distributed Dave

Clark five album which had been off the market. Let's start with the Queen albums. Actually it's kind of reverse. I didn't sign the Queen count What happened was I was that I was a lawyer I told you for the outside lawyer for Electure Records, and they were signed to Electra Records, and um they were I don't want to say dead dead would be an upgrade from where they were in America. They were in a really, really

bad place in America. They were beyond washed up. And um, I was Bob Krass Now I ran an Electoral Records and said I got a thing. He had two albums left it that he was committed to do it a million dollars an album because I can't put these records out, I'll lose my ass. Get get rid of them. So basically I was My job as a lawyer was to negotiate with Jim Beach a release of Queen, And essentially he was Jim Beach. Jim Beach is the manager of Queen. She He was a lawyer at the time he became

the manager. If he watched the movie, they referred him as Miami Miami Beach. So I, um, and I you know, I'd done all the Queen negotiations in the past, So I negotiated with him to basically give them. It was a licensed deal. They they were signed at E M I and the rest of the world, and they were licensed to North America to Electra Records. I think Geffin had tried to sign him. I don't know the history, but I think he had tried to sign them, and somehow they ended up on a Electura. Maybe it was

when he was running a Sylum, I don't remember. Um, so I negotiated an exit with him where basically we got out of paying the money and he got his catalog back. So then a few years a little bit slower you talking about they Okay, they had a million dollar deal with Electra and then what was the next step in terms of them getting their catalog back. Well, it was a license, so I don't remember how much they had left on the catalog anyway, on the licensed deal,

I just you know, it was thirty years ago. I don't remember, but there was something basically the idea was, here, we don't have to pay you two million dollars to give us too stiff records, and you can have back whatever we have of yours. So I got it. Yeah, so um that happened. And then um, fast forward a few years and I'm running Hollywood Records and I show up in the door and look around. There's nobody around, and I send an email that Jim no one of my email facts to Jim Beach, and I said the

beach um is Queen's still free for North America. And he writes back, yes, and I go, I'd like to sign him because I'm listening to the Queen records. They're making it the time when they're dead in America. They're great. The records are great, and those were hits in the rest of them were huge in the rest of the world, and they should have been. They were great. So so I go, there's something wrong here and this band is great and you know so I He says, yeah, they're available,

and I go, great, I'd love to sign him. He goes, would you be interested in the catalog? I go yes. So basically I made a deal for It's really funny too. I made a deal for the Catalog and Queen and I don't want to talk about this. This is could put me in a bad light. But in any event, there were a lot of impediments like basically, uh, um, the night before, the night before I was going to sign them, Michael iSER called and said, I'm not going

to tell this story. Um. In any event, we were so there was a spanner in the works just before you're going to sign Yes, But I convinced Michael first. The first thing was the catalog was it's not a secret now it was a ten million dollar purchase, which for then was a lot of money, and it was an outright purchase. No, it was a license. But I had an I built in. I was a good lawyer. I built in an option to buy it. Okay, exercise that. Yeah, No, I don't know. I was gone by the time this

came up. And I think there was renegotiations along the way, but the ultimate result is that Hollywood ended up with Catalog and certainly it was there for my lifetime. So um so yeah, So Frank said, we can't pay that kind of money for this thing. He said, I'm going to tell you can't do it, but you're free to go talk to Michael about it. And I went to talk to Michael, and Michael just basic said all right, if something really want, it's on you, you gotta go

sign it. Then the day before there was, as you said, a spanner in the works. Then he finally let me go ahead and do the deal. And uh, I remember we were going to the we A convention that that week, and you know you present at the convention because present distributor. Yeah, we present. Uh it's funny Steve Burman, you know Steve Burman. Steve Burman was my weird Repp. He was twenty years old. So I've known Steve forever. Um, So you know, I'm

still not sure whether they're gonna sign. Queen's gonna sign or not. There's been so many bumps in the road. And we have two presentations that we have presentation with Queen and presentation without. We have two separate presentations. Ten minutes before we're supposed to go on, I get a fact from Beats with the signatures of Queen on the deal, and then we went out and we started and started out with one vision or something like that, and I just played almost was gonna cry and mean, it was

so happy. I was so because I love Queen and I just you know. So that's how we ended up with Queen in during your tenure was Wayne's World. Yeah, that the story about that, which there has been told a number of times completely wrong, and I think in

the movie is pretty much wrong too. But what happened was, Um, remember I told you I wanted to sign hip hop bands, right, So I signed this kid named high Sea, And the day before the record was going to come out, somebody was playing in one of the office is one of the Disney Whites came by and heard you know, the lyrics were lyrics, I still remember. Uh. So anyway, so they went to iSER and they said, we can't put this out. So I made a deal with Mo Auston where he it went on on his label as a

distribution deal, and he helped He helped me out. He was Moawson is one of the greats. And uh I remember sitting there with high c at one point talking to him and he had the lyrics, one of his lyrics like I like to fourteen year old girls and okay, and you told him what I said, Hey, Crawford, look here's in the line that uh here's the line. Look at this line. I know you say your own you're only thirteen years old, Honey, I don't need no idea

from a Rolling Stone song straycout blues. That's a really clever way to say exactly what you just said. He goes, yeah, but it ain't street. I like to say, I fun thirteen year old girls. So so that one went over well, So, um, what happened was that on The Wayne's World? But wait, wait, so Mode put out the record? Did he put off the record of that lyric? Yeah? Mo didn't care Mo was about creative. He respected the creativity of his artist.

He didn't censor anybody. Um, so Wayne's world. Um, so they send me the script, right, and I read the script and it's honestly terrible. And and I go to, uh, it was in the script. That scene was in the script, but it was script sucked. And so they and the same people were attached to it. Yeah, it was. It was all the same. This is not This was just months before it came out. And so they they said, um, we'd like to, um, you know, we'd like to put in the movie. I go, I'm fine, and let me

talk to Beach. I don't you know. I told Beach sucks. But it's a movie. And you know, they'll give us a thing fee. And he goes, okay, fine, our master fee. And and so I said, okay, fine, they guy and we want to put it on the soundtrack album. I go, there's no way. I just I just paid ten million dollars two months ago for this thing. I'm not putting on your soundtrack album. That's not gonna happen. And they go, well,

we're gonna take it out of the movie. Then I go, okay, you know what do you mean okay, okay, and my company's going this is a good marketing opportunity to go A. The movie sucks. B. I've worked in a studio long enough to know that it's in the script. It's not coming out. It's the thing people don't get is when you have leverage. I knew it wasn't coming out. So they just kept badgering me and kept threatening and taking

and I just kept going, take it out. I don't care, and movies terrible and you know, and uh, you're not taking it out anyway. So what happened was more called up and most said, you know, really it would be really important. It's a favor to me if you would let me put this on my soundtrack album. And I went, welm, it's you and you're a great man, and sure you can do it, but you can't come out. Before you know, I'm doing a rerelease, a reissue of Classic Queen Too.

No we didn't. We did Classic Queen two, and they should have been on Classic Queen Run Bohemian Rhapsody, but since we knew it was coming, I stripped it on the Classic Queen Too. And um, anyway, So so about three weeks before the movie opens. I go to see a screening of it, and I come back and I get on the phone and me like, I called my video guy and go, Stu, we gotta did a video done immediately this thing. He goes, what do you mean? It goes Swain's world. Un blately, he said, I thought

you said it sucked. I went, the script suck. The movie is amazing. I go, I've learned something comedy is not in the script necessarily. So we did the We did the video. We got Penelfes fear Us, who directed the movie, to do the video. Obviously it did. It did fabulous. And Freddie had died not tour much earlier. He died the fall before the movie came out, and I think it was in February of that ninety and you knew he was going to die. I did not know.

That was the story about Michael Eisner. I mean, I won't say who, but Michael Eiser had had a little bird telling him Freddie was going to die. He had aids and he was going to die, and that's why he didn't want me to sign him. And I said, well, Michael, there's two possibilities. I know he's ill. I mean, Freddie didn't hide that he was ill. I said, but I

don't know why. You know what I said. So either he'll get better, in which case is the greatest front man that ever lived, then we'll go put him on tour it'll be great, or I'll die. And honestly, death sells records. So anyway, so we didn't know. And then they announced it like two days before they announced that he had AIDS and then he died two days later. And what I did is, I said, I'm gonna put um.

We put out a single, these are the days of my lives, These days that there are our lives, which was on the record that I saw find them for It was it's a great record, and we did a really nice video. They did a video, and then Disney Animation did a video and we're gonna donate all the money from the single to the Magic Johnson Eates Foundation. So what happens was we see that we're in Waynes World thing and I said, well, we've got this record coming,

Let's put Bohemian Rapsody on the B side. Wayne's World blows up. In five seconds, Bohemian rapidly flip flip the record over my single gets lost in the mix. We're selling just tons of bohemian rapsody singles, and I'm going eating all the money to charity while I'm losing my ass and the record business. So we at some point cut off the single and just put it on the

album and put it all out. But we we raised about four hundred thousand dollars for the Magic Jobs and Aids Foundation, because a lot of times they say it's charity and there ends up being no money to give you. It was like three nine dollars or something like that. Okay, so while you were there, did the Queen deal pianout, pencil out as they would say? Yeah, I mean when I signed them, I mean, you know, we've done some

projections and you know, look, let's be real. If there's been other labels willing to pend ten million dollars, I suspect they would have signed somewhere else. But as far as I could tell, when we first started putting it out, it looked like in about seven years we'd get our money back. Then Freddie died, which sells records, so it looked like in three years we get our money back. Then Wayne's World came out and we got our money back that week. Well what about okay, since we'll put

it in the song on a soundtrack album? Did they buy the original? They buy booth? About both? I think his records sold two million copies, of Mind sold four million copies. Wow. What about Dave Clark. Dave was a friend of Freddie's and so that's how he got to me. Yeah, he was a friend of Freddie's and um he had done that play on in UM the West End with um famous English actor and Freddie had written some music for it. Whatever. He was friendly with with Freddie and

so that's how I met him. And you know, he was incredibly precious about his out a lot. He probably waited way too long to let it come out. It took took two years to convince him to to um make a deal. And you know, there's there's a demographic sweet spot for that, and he might he might have missed it. Um. And by the time we made the deal, by the time it came out, I was gone and

I was as big champion, you know. So he always told me that it was you know that it was basically basically if I had been there, it would have felt a lot better about how things but at this point the records are commercially unavailable. I don't know, yeah they are, and at this point Disney still loans Queen Galog definitely on the Queen coun okay. And during that interim,

if I remember correctly, there were really no successes. Um, well, I mean, you know, high Sea sold you know, I mean we had moderate successes, Like high Sea sold three or four hundred thousand copies. The Party sold probably eight hundred thousand records total, so it was it wasn't completely barren. And then we had a huge hit with Sister Act soundtrack out, Yeah, you know, and there was Remember I made an allusion to the fact that I maybe didn't hire the best day in our people. Well, I didn't

hire the best day in our people. The only stuff that sold on that label with stuff that I signed, which is scary when you're forty years old and you're running the n R Department, which I wasn't running. I just you know, I mean, the stuff that ultimately worked was this stuff, you know, the Queen stuff, which was me we signed, Um, we signed the Briant Such Orchestra, which didn't work at Disney, but blew up big time on because I was gone when they started putting it out.

We signed Bush. You know, that didn't work until I was gone. Um, you know, so there was stuff there. It's just you know, Okay, at what point after you walk into the building do you realize this isn't gonna work out? Oh? I never thought it wasn't gonna work out. I thought no. I mean I actually I kind of sucked the first two years because I didn't really know what I was doing. But I learned a lot, and by the last couple of years, I think I was actually pretty good at the job. But I wasn't really

particularly good at the Disney politics. I could have been. You know, It's not like I'm stupid, and you know, but I thought because Michael liked me and Frank like me, I didn't think I had a play ball with Larry Murphy or whoever. The head of Stress died shortly thereafter that. He died after I left, right after I left. And then, um, was there any advantage of being with Disney? What do you mean? It's a Disney's corporation? Now, you said they

made a couple of videos for you. When you're working for that, could you leverage anything they had. Yeah, I could leverage they were so hot at the time. I could leverage their name, and you know, it was what I was selling because we didn't have a label that was doing much of anything. Um, they weren't particularly synergistic.

I mean The Party, which was a band that I put together out of the Mickey Mouse Club, which actually had Britney Spears in it for about five seconds, and J. C. Chase, who ended up in one of those other bands in Center or something like that. I don't which one. Um, you know, they didn't really get the fact that I needed them to drive sales of this, you know band that was basically manufactured of the Mickey Mouse Club. Um, it actually did fairly you know, like I said, I

did fairly well. But um, they didn't really help a

whole lot. And it wasn't until about five years later when Clive Caldler used a Disney channel to break in Sync and Backstreet Boys in a huge way obviously that the Disney people went, oh, wow, you know, we can help break these backs because at the time I needed something like that because radio, I don't know, probably don't remember radio from their early nineties, but Hit Radio thought their audience was thirty five year old housewives, and so they there was I remember one time we had the

party on. It was number one phones for three straight weeks at the station in Hawaii, and they called up Brenda Romano said, we're dropping this record. Just what do you mean you're dropping the record? These kids are clogging up our phone lines. I can't sell enough pimple cream to make it worth my while, so you know, and so we needed something like that to drive it, and it really wasn't particularly helpful. And you know, the film company was not particularly helpful, you know, it was. It's

a big corporation. Every division is Therefore, you know, they get paid their bonus based on how their division it does. And if they're out trying to promote my records, they're not out promoting their TV show or their film. So you know, I get it. I'm not bitter about it or anything like that. What about the famous memo. There was a letter that you wrote I've leaved to Michael Eisner, and within a very short period of time it was

leaked and everybody in the music business credit right. It was basically a seven page get off my back because I was tired of the strategic planning people, in the financial planning people where they come and say, we need to do a P and L on on this new artist, like I've done two artists. I don't need to do a piano if you want to know, a P and L L, because most artists fail. And I said, you know, so it was sort of that. And and I'm almost positive I know who leaked the memo because they're all

I might have. Well, there were. I delivered the memo to Michael Izer, Frank Wells and this third person who was the CFO and UM, and then I was walking back to my office and I was reading it and there was a typo in the memo and I went back and fixed the typo. And the memo they got leaked had a typo in it, so it had to be one of those three copies that got leaked. And Frank had his copy with his notes on it, and Michael had his copy, So you figure it out. What

was the backlash when it was leaked? UM, as somebody referred to it, it was a seven page suicide note, and you know, it blew over eventually. I mean, they were there were you know, look, I never got any good press while I was there. I mean it just got you know, I was bringing Satan to Disney, and you know it was they loved to pick on. I mean the queen signing go back and look it right, How stupid that was, and what an idiot he was signing this washed up gay guy, you know. And so

it wasn't like it was funny Christmas. About a couple of years and there was an article in the New York Times and basically talking about what a complete disaster it was and what a complete city. And I was. My sister calls me up and says, did you read this New York Times article? And yeah, I read it, and she goes, it's horrible. I can't believe they're doing this too. You and I go, really should rate it again. It was like water off a duck's back at that point.

So how did it finally end? Um? It finally ended that Um, you know, they decided they were going to go in a different directions, So I mean, literally, okay to keep going yet Well, he just called me in his office and you know, basically said we decided we're gonna make a change. And I go, is there anything I can do to talk about it? He said, no, and I went, okay. And at that point, okay, when you walked in the office, do you knew that was gonna happen? No? And do you have any time left

on your contract? No? So it was literally kind of like the end of the contractor we were like, you know, I technically didn't get fired. I technically they just didn't pick up my option. Okay, so you walk out the door. You're done that day. Well, I mean, you know, he said I could keep an office there, and he, you know, he's from the film business, so he said, maybe we could put up a production company on the lot. I go,

that's not what we do in the music business. And so, you know, but you know, this is actually a story that I actually use a lot. So it was on a Wednesday or Thursday or something like that, and I said, could we just keep a lid on this thing until the weekend? And he said, sure, I won't tell anybody,

And you know, I said great. And so the next morning, my general manager is wandering the halls because you'd get it at six in the morning or seven in the mornings, like ridiculous Jeffrey Katzenberg hours, and and he runs into some strap planning kid. You know some kid it was like in this six years old in the strat Planning division. And he says, you know, patern has been fired. And and so I get there on Brad says to me, you know they told me you're fired. To go what's

that about? I go, I don't know it's I go to see Eisner. I go, I thought we're gonna sort of give me a couple of days on this thing. He goes, he said, I had nothing to do with it. He goes, uh, let me, let me find out what's kid's name? I got. I don't all. I call Brad. He goes, you know, so Is Star calls up this kid and he said, so I heard you tell Brad Hunt that you know that we're firing paternal And he goes, oh, no, no no, I didn't do that, and he goes, okay.

He calls Brad Hunt and talks to Brad Hunting and he gets off the phone and he says, to me, that kids lying. He calls the kid back and said, you know what, I don't know who you are, what you do, or what where you come from. But he said, let me tell you something. I don't think it's really wise to the wide to the CEO of your company, and he hung up on him. Okay, and you didn't want people to know for the weekend. Why you wanted to tell your staff yourself. Yeah, I just wanted to,

you know, keep it under wraps for a while. Okay, So then your knned After that weekend, You're done. What's your emotional state? Not good? It's not fun getting fired, iSER said to me. We all get fired at some point. It's it's a it's a building block towards a successful career. Because I've been fired, that's great. I don't like it. So how long to take you to pick your feet up from pick yourself up? Um? Well, I mean it wasn't immediate. Um I tried to find a job for

a while. You know, I sit there and go, okay, it's in. It's in the nineties. There's a convergence between film, TV and music. I've obviously got music nailed film and I mean film technology and music, and I go, I've worked at a studio for four years. I kind of know my way around the studio, which I did learn. And technology well, my background I used to write software, so I got that down. So I should be very hirable. So I went to some of the placement firms whatever

they call like corn Furry and stuff like that. These things you learn when you're unemployed, Like, first of all, they don't really want to place you. They want to get paid for finding you. So they were pretty useless because again, I look like a good candidate, you know, I mean again, it didn't seem to me that it

would be impossible to find a job. The other thing I learned is there's probably ten people in hand out the job that I wanted, and if you don't have a good relationship with not to say you have a bad relationship, but you know, it's it's somewhat a meritocracy, but it's not a complete meritocracy. It's a meritocracy based on relationships. So if you don't have the relationships, you know,

it wasn't gonna happen. And the guys that I knew that handed out these jobs were Geffen who was mad at me, Eisner who just fired me, and you know whatever else. So that didn't work. So I kind of sat around and and try to figure out what I was gonna do next. And then sot of my old clients started calling me and saying, could you help out

as a lawyer. The last thing I wanted to do is be a lawyer again, but it was I had to just kind of crawl back to being a lawyer because it's really all that I was in demand for. So how long after you got cam by Eisener were you really back in the swing of being a lawyer?

Probably about six months in Metallica asked me to help them get out of there their deal with Electra, so that I started working on that, and then I started working on some other stuff, and and after about a year my current partner said, why are you working out of your house? Why don't you come in here and we'll give you an office. We don't have to have

any commitments. And so I came in here and got an office and just started People started calling, Okay, what was the name of the lawyer who ended up running Polydor Polygraham? David Broun, David Broun. Okay, everybody whoever was a lawyer who went inside, when they came out and tried to practice law dead in the water, failed miserably. Hey, were you aware of that? Be? Why why did you break that mold? I was very aware of it and be I mean, I don't know why I broke them all.

The reason I went back to the lawyers, I couldn't get a job, and you know, like I'm not independently wealthy, so I needed to get a job. And it was the job that people seem to be willing to hire me for. And you know, it's funny. I went back to Minat and said, I remember, I go, maybe I could come back here and at least you can give me work, and they go, well, what are you looking for?

And I said, well, look all my old clients that I left behind, I won't you know, I won't make any claim on any of them, except for Metallica because I'm already doing work for them. So like, say ten percent of what Metallica is generating or five percent some low number. And then I said, like, I'd like a third of any new business that I bring in, and you can pay me on my hours. And they go, well,

third in new business. If you have two million dollars of business, we don't have to pay seven under thousand of dollars. That's not how it works here. And I go, it's two million dollars of business. You don't have I'm not asking for the old stuff, and they go, well, um, that's not what we do here, but we'd like you back, but we'd like to pay you. Like it was ridiculous,

whatever it was. So I just didn't do that, and I went like, I talked to some other firms, but again, the law firm business, it's like, we'll pay you for what you kill. And if I'm gonna get paid for what I kill, I might as well keep it myself. So I started I started back here at this with my friends, and people just started calling. I mean, I didn't approach anybody really, And the old clients that you left behind him at what percentage of them aimed to you? Now?

A large percentage, a really large percentage. And why do you think that was? I think they were happy with the work I've done for them, and you know that, I don't think they felt like they it's gonna fit at the time. Okay, So at what point did you and Howard and Holmes ultimately decide, well, you're gonna throw in together. Well, I just started generating a lot of work and so I needed, you know, it seemed like a much better idea to have people that help, you know,

so that's kind of just evolved. I think they wanted me to do it, and they just were trying to be nice to me to give me the space to figure out that I wasn't I wasn't going to get a job. And once when you were back into it, did you make peace with being a lawyer as opposed to a business executive? Yeah? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm It's something I'm good at, so I'm gonna as well deal with it. Well, at this late age, you feel like, you know, any regrets you didn't do something else.

I think we all have regrets, but you know I did okay, So okay, so now you come back in Okay, let let's jump forward and then jump back. What is the difference practicing law now as opposed to before when you were before you went to Hollywood Records? You mean now or when I just got back in now? Now it's super different. I mean when I got back into

the nineties, it was pretty similar. I mean the business is just I mean, look a lot of what I don't do much in the I don't do a lot of record deals anymore, which is the basis of the practice before. The whole marketing aspect of the music. The record business has change, has changed. I mean basically when I was involved, you know, even when I was at a record company, they talk about marketing and they talk

about all this bunch crap. I mean, basically, everything you did was to drive something either to radio or MTV. And that was what marketing was, is to get MTVS attention or radio's attention. Um, and so the path was pretty clear. There were a bunch of gatekeepers, and you wanted to figure out how to get it to the gatekeepers and get it through the gate Now, I don't know what the hell you do. Everything breaks that viral

a I don't know the good news. I guess you can bribe pray lists, except Spotify won't let you bribe them. And it's it seems a whole lot more difficult to break an artist now, and it's just or not even so much to break it is to sustain a career. Okay, but uh so since before now we talked in another time about what's your viewpoint on the music today? The music will see in the Spotify Top fifty. The stuff that labels are signing, I mean labels are signing, what

drives revenue? What drives revenue is the stuff that gets played over and over and over again. And what gets played over and over again what thirteen and fourteen year olds like because they'll play something a hundred times a day. Whereas if you or I buy a record, we might listen to it, you know, but we have jobs and

we have other things to do. Kids listen to consume music, so whatever the you know, whatever they and their friends are consuming is what gets you know, in the way Spotify works is they you get paid based on the number of places that you get for your particular track

compared to the overall number of plays. So essentially thirteen or fourteen year olds or fifteen year olds or whatever it is, are are sort of driving what gets picked up by major labels because that's what but by the same token, in terms of the overall music business, the streams and the labels are a smaller percentage than ever in our history, I'm sorry, as well as a percentage of the overall revenue is uh streams and major signings. Like a lot of your acts, you put out the records.

Metallica puts off the records centraally themselves. They own the record, They find a deal so, but they're generating a shipload of money there, you know. Yes, Yeah, and a lot of the other clients are like that too, Yeah, No, a lot of That's a lot of what I do. I'll do a lot of deals with Live Nation, whereas I used to do a lot of deals with the record companies. I do a lot of deals with around Live Nation, a real lot or a g And are those deals tend to be overall deals? Yeah, I mean

there's a number. I mean I do a lot of you know, like Live Nation buys a lot of management companies, so I represent managers that are selling the Live Nation and you know, there's like a Coachella deal for Dr Dre for instance, I'll do that deal, or a national tour deal for one of my clients. We get very involved in that, whereas that was just the province of

agents before. And how did you get Drey as a client? Um? Uh, the general manager of Interscope Records, David Cohen Um was dealing with whoever his lawyer was at the time, and uh, it was being very difficult and they couldn't get anything done. And and Jimmy obviously has a great relationship with Dr Dre and Cohen went to Jimmy and said, look, there's my friend that just started back into practice again. And m you know, I think he's he's more of a

problem solving a problem creator. Maybe we should see if Drey wants to meet with him. So they set up a meeting for me with Dre, and I met with Dre and and he hired me. At the time, I mean, Drey wasn't Dre. It was it was his Queen period, it was his fellow period. Um, you know, but I thought I think I had a I mean I was always a fan, so that was you know, I just thought he was enormously, enormously talented and we'd figure something out for three or four years. It was just it

was it was tough. Okay. So in terms of payment or all your clients on a percentage deal, No, most of my clients are hourly, and uh, if it is a percentage deal, was a traditional five lawyer house. Okay, So what would how do you decide if a client is a percentage deal or an hourly deal. I let them decide. I don't decide into some book up a lot of hours then say hey, I'll be in a percentage We don't like doing that. I mean, that's the one thing that I'd have a problem with this year,

the percentage or an hourly client. I don't want to sit there and have you on a percentage where you're making no money and then when you start making money you want to go to hourly. That's not right. And so if I'm on a percentage deal, will you take care of all my legal business or just my my music business, like wills and trust, you know, and things like that. We don't do wills here, so we've heard

that out. We do anything that's kind of I mean, if it's litigation, we charge on top for that, um because we're one of the few entertainment firms that have litigators. But we'll do any kind of contractual stuff, any kind of corporate stuff. So if it's a live Nation deal, we'll do that. It's a publishing deal with that record deal, will do that. It's a corporate formation or a joint venture, will do that. And that's all part of the five percent. Okay,

So tell me. Because your firm was involved in the uh, the famous hit case that went through a whole thing, and now we have the stairway case. Uh the borderlines right, So what's your viewput on all that? Don't get me started. The court system is just not set up to understand music. They suck at it. I I about six months ago was a reception with Justice Kagan from the Supreme Court, and I said, well, well a little bit. So how

did that come together? Um, I do a lot of work at u C Law School, and she was there for a reception and the so they invited me. I work with Kenny's Different at the Different Center, and us and me and about ten other people are twelve other people, and so I just said, could you please leave the music cases alone? You get you get them wrong every single time. I mean not every time, but at least half the time. Because the judges can read books, they

get the bookcases right. They get the script cases, all the script copyright cases, they get those right. They throw them out because they generally deserve to be thrown out. They can't read music. They don't understand it. The blurredlines case, there are no notes the same between that and the Marvin Gay tune. There are no chords the same, there are no lyrics the same. There's nothing in the same except they sound the same. And that's not a copyright infringement.

You know, I tell you that the Stairway to Heaven case, it's probably more has more in common with the Spirit song then Marvin Gay and Blurred Lines, and I think that the Stairway to Heaven case, it looks like they're gonna just you know, get rid of that. So it's in this Katie Perry case, another disaster. It's like they say, well, there's an eight Austinado that's the same between the two songs. Once you say it's an ostinato, you're talking about a

common figure in music. You can infringe in ostinato. It's a repeating a bunch of notes. It's ridiculous. And they let these go to a jury and they don't stop them on a summary judgment. It's it's pathetic. Okay, So what's did at this point in time on the Blurred Lines case? Did they pay the judgment or is there anything left? It's we're done, we're you know, we we asked for a non bunkering they granted and they led

Zeppelin case. They didn't grant it to us. We're done, and the Supreme Court is not going to take the case. If they'd screw it up anyway. So so they paid the money or you're negotiating with no, no, we've we you mean the defendants we paid, Okay, And so what do you think should be the law in terms of copyright infringement. The law is fine, they just don't know how to implement it. I mean, the law is fine. You look at the law, these cases you know they

shouldn't not. There's I don't want to get too deep into this, but there's something called the extrinsic tests and the intrinsic tests, and the extrinsic tests where they have music colleges do gang wars and try to, you know, say whether it's an infringement or not extrinsically. And and if if they decide that, um, if they decide that there's a substantial similarity in strinsically, they sent it to

a jury to decide whether intrinsically there's substantial similarity. I'm just I don't know to tell you other than you could sit there and look at the music and these cases should mostly be thrown out. Okay. So your prediction is uh that the spirit estate will not win the Steerway to Heaven case. But you're I'm not holding you,

but it does look like it, okay. So let me just say in the in the Blurred Lions case when it went up on appeal, there was a descent in the Blurred Lince case that was completely a h percent right. You want to know if the law should be or the law is? Is what the descent said. How many judges were in that there's one dissenting to in the majority. The two in the majority uh upheld the trial court on procedural grounds that they didn't they didn't opine as

to the merits of the case. She opined. The judge win applied pine is to the merits of the case and got it completely right. So if you want to know what that's what the law is. And I think I think she was the presiding judge in the m Bank appeal and that led Zeppelin case. So my prediction is that what she wrote in the Blurred Line case is going to become law of the circuit, which is what it should be, okay? And where will that leave

copyright infringement? Because the Blurred Lines made everybody anxious. Do you think this will move it towards more liberalism or to be a crackdown. What do you think. I think it's gonna be. People will be free to create and have to worry about everything they write and generating infringement suit an infringement suit. I mean, it's just really, I mean, every time somebody and I represent has a hit, some idiot sends an email saying, I have a song on

the internet. You must have heard because we have people that saw it on YouTube, and therefore you stole my song. I mean, you know, it's every single So certainly the Cathy Perry Katie because you have to prove access. This guy had some you know, Christians who would have heard it. While she was Christian at one point, so she might have heard. I mean, it's just it's just ridiculous. And the jury in the Blurredlines case nobody could read music. None,

not one of the jurors can read music. It's just stupid. Okay, So if we look forward, what do we see in the music business, what do you mean in terms of Okay, let me go with differently you when it comes to anti trust law. I'll let you answer. Your viewpoint is there is virtually no anti trust anywhere. Okay. The only anti trust that this is gonna get me a lot of trouble. But the only anti trust that exists is when it's government supported and I trust like a T

and T in the past or something like that. So in terms of company mergers, you're that you're totally cool with that, completely okay. So to talk about recently T Mobile and and T Mobile Sprint, totally fine. Yeah, okay, if there were further consolidation three labels to two, would that be fine? Yeah? Okay, So because you feel eventually there's a third party that will come. What do you think about Facebook and Snapchat and all that anybody have

a problem with them? I mean seriously, you know they recently Snapchat has been logging the ways that face forget the government, Snapchat has been logging the way that Facebook has been anti competitive in their eyes, allowing may not allowing them to have any content on Instagram that is Snapchat oriented, uh, having a special program such that they

could see what was going on in Snapchat. I mean there's some legal issues there also, you know, as opposed to just raw anti trust, but some of them in the privacy stuff and that you know, data, you know, snatching stuff, that's a different story. I mean that's that's its own it's its own problem, you know. I mean again, I don't have an opinion about that. Okay, let's go back to Metallica. Walk us through Metallica Napster. What you thought and what you think now and whatever. I don't

think any differently than I thought then. I thought Napster was a massive bootlegging uh scheme, and and you know, everybody goes, well, you should have settled with Napster. Really, how are we supposed to settle They're charging nothing, They've

got twenty five million followers. In order to get any decent income, we'd have to charge ten dollars a month, and we charged ten dollars a month, and you're still half the size of the business you work two years before, and somebody starts Crapster the next day, and it's another free service out there, another free file sharing service. So it was I never had a problem with it. I only felt bad for Laws and James because they took so much abuse. But in terms of like, do I

think that that it was wrong to sue Napster? No, I'll never believe that. And everybody who thinks differently just wasn't there. Well, I certainly believe that Napster was copyright infringement on a massive scale, and I thought that the lawsuits and the parties proved that, although I was under the illusion there would be some kind of step forward, some kind of licensing deal after that decision was made. Yeah, well,

I mean again, I don't know. I don't know how you make a deal because it's so easy to just replicate what they're doing someplace else. So until you have the framework that it's clearly massive coyper and infringement and it's easy to shut down, there's no incentive to make a deal. Okay, but there were you know, the revenue from recorded music was going ultimately went down by a little bit more than half. What could the record companies?

What could the industry have done? Because they proved their point legally, but substantially substitutively, it was a loss for there for at least a decade. Yeah, but what was the alternative? I mean, they you know, remember they tried to start downloading services fair player, press player or whatever they were called press player. I think they're not good at that. They needed Apple to come in and solve their problems. I mean, they needed somebody to devise a

system that people could use economically and and easily. And there was no deal. I mean may because there was no system in place that could could replace what these people were doing. But in addition to dragging their feet, they were actively whole putting, putting their heels in the past and not jumping into the future. That but naps there was never the future. I mean whatever I'm talking

about it forgetting Napster nas Napster's done. And then there were other companies as hard to get a license because then it became okay, we don't know what your business is. And I mean this gets very complicated. I don't want to go that far into it. But they were reluctant to make deals that might have been beneficial to them, or they were reluctant to give away there there assets for some startup company that's gonna make a lot of money on the back of the music. As I say,

I think that the truth. I think they I think that's true conceptually and the other there. You know, it's just like people every you know, certainly once a week somebody emails me. At this late date, I have a way to save the music business, you know, I don't. I don't respond anyway. But it's like, even if you had this idea that was like eighteen years ago, no one even cares now, and we all learned unless you weren't connected to talk about, you know, if you unless

you have relationships, nothing's gonna happen anyway. So uh, let's say you no listen. It's worked out at this point. But as I say, the business has changed completely. In my viewpoint, the major labels, by having such a narrow focus, are seating the territory and all this other music, and I think to their detriment. I don't disagree with you, but we'll see if we're right. I mean, the point of it is that that, um, you know, all this other music is not broken through on the level, at

least on a streaming level. That that the stuff that the major labels chase does. And so if you're right, in two or three years, some random not hip hop, Atlanta trap band or artist is going to break through like Billie Eilish. Um, you know, um, but I'm not disagreeing with you, but it hasn't happened yet except for Billie Eilish. Okay, you represent Frank Ocean, right, Yes, well, I don't mean are firms afirmed those He famously delivered an album on his contract and then put out another

album independently shortly thereafter. Yes, what was your viewpoint on that in terms of what I mean? Well, some people say that the label was blindsided, certainly legal under the circumstances. Is that your viewpoint? Or is there an obligation to the previous contract holder? I don't think there's an obligation in the previous contract holder. What record contract is ever fair in favor of the artist? The fact that they've made a mistake here, it's so rare. I mean, that's

kind of what I live to take advantage of. And again it wasn't my particular case, but but I mean, these record contracts are heinous. They're eighty pages along and type this the size of a pen prick, and all they are is basically ways for that they can grab, right, So they label basically owns the artist. They want pieces of your tory, and they want to have These label waivers are just annoying beyond belief where you have to get a label waiver for your the US to do

anything because they're basically owned by the label. Okay, you know, the interesting thing is is, you know, the major labels steal from the acts. Even if they go into royalties, they have a lot of ways they don't pay, etcetera. Why do the labels think they can get paid accurately on the touring and these other things. Well they if they think that, they're kidding themselves. I mean, as always said, there's nobody smarter at stealing money than a promoter. And

they don't know that. And at least we know a little bit about what the promoters do. They just they started hiring ex promoters and to to to police this thing. The labels are not as they're not as what's untransparent. Uh, they're they're more transparent than they've been in the past. I don't really. I think there's you know, like the back of the day where they sell records out of the back of a truck and not report them or you know, want of Uh well it's thirty years past.

It's actual limitation. But Electric Records had a CFO who had an account in Hawaii called Jackson Hawaiian. They code it with the free goods anything that went to Jackson, Hawaii, which was their They didn't have a distributor in Hawaii. So they sent all these records of Jackson. Why they would be coded as free goods and the artists wouldn't get paid on any records for like five years sold in Hawaii. There's not that anymore. They're owned by major corporations,

they're public. They don't really steal overtly. They steal with the pen, you know. They basically, like I said, eighty pages of oppressive contract. They that's where they do it. It's not really the old school, you know. Well, what I find is, you know, they have these royalty clauses and they give them to completely unskilled people to calculate the royalty. Is just crazy. Yeah, you know, you get screwed that way. So what are the challenges you find

artists have or clients have in today's business. I think I said it before, sustaining a recording career, not sustaining hey touring career, because most of the artists can, you know, build a touring base and sustain it by going out on the road and working. But it's really hard. The turnover is kind of incredible. I mean, you know, when you take an artists as big and as great as Taylor Swift, and you sit there and look, and every time she puts out a record, it's like, is anybody

gonna care? I mean, she's really talented. People should care. But it's not like, you know, at least you'd get a slightly longer career. Back in the old days, you could extend your career. Now it's just really, every every record is an adventure. There's no you know, there's no guarantee that you're gonna you know, it's just because they've had past success, they're gonna future success. Not that there ever was, but there's even less than I think than

there used to be. Right, So, if someone who's anticipating a deal with a major label comes to you, will you negotiate that? Yeah? Oh yeah, you know. I mean, look, there's interesting there's an interesting sub phenomenon with all these hip hop acts. Um, the ones that are blowing up virally. You know, they get to ten or twenty million streams on their own, the labels start bidding like crazy for them, so you can actually leverage the bidding war to get

fair terms. Although most of the hip hop acts just care about the money. But I mean, to me, you know, maybe that's not wrong. I mean again, if you don't think you're gonna have a career, get as much money as you can today. If you think hip hop acts do or do not care about I care about money. So you know you'll get two or three million dollars

as an advance for a hip hop act. And the label's bet is that I can take these twenty million streams and tournam into half a billion streams, which case I've covered my bat and then everything's gravy after that, you know, so it's a little bit risky. And you know, again, what I've always done in my career is trying to get the artists much of an option as I possibly can.

So the number of albums they owe the record company, or number tracks the old the record company to a minimum, I try to give them as much opportunity to get free as possible, so that you know, when a new trend comes around, they do not beholding to a label. But you know, if you don't think your artist is gonna have a career and then get as much money as you possibly can, how about the opposite. You have an artist that's got some live traction, but nothing's going

on in recordings. You know, I mean, let me give it. It's not a great example, but it's a good example. Anderson Park guys phenomenally talented. He does great live business. He's one track away from from having a massive career. So you just keep trying. I mean, you don't. I mean that's really kind of what you do. You just keep trying and uh and if worst comes to worst, hopefully you keep your touring base and heritage. Jack's should they even put out new music? What do you say not?

I think they should. I think you know. I mean, look, I'm a big Beach Boys fan. Brian Wilson puts out records. Everybody talks about how terrible they are. They're not. They're not terrible. They're actually pretty good. And Paul McCartney, you'll have a couple of good songs on every record I'll have. They're not they're not day in life, but they're decent songs. And so you know, go do it. I mean, why wouldn't you do it? It It gives you know, unless you

just don't want to. And then if someone listening to this who's thinking about a career as a music attorney, what would you tell them, Well, it's really interesting. For a period of time there was anybody thinking about doing a career as a music attorney. The business sucked and technology was where the action was. You know, um, you know, I mean again, if it's if you love music and you want to do something and hopefully things are looking up,

you know, why not do it? Things that things do look a lot rosier than they did five years ago. And what's the easiest or best way for someone who does have a legal degree to get into music. It's not easy, and you just gotta find somebody like me or you know, done passes firm they were willing to take a chance on you, or go work at a label. If you can get a job at a label, it's it's like anything else, you know, you got to figure out how to get your way in. And so how

many attorneys work in the firm now? Um, about about half of which are music lawyers and the other half are some litigators corporate guys. And how many support staff? But we have about ten paralegals and I don't know how many assistants are here. And in terms of management of the firm, are you involved in that at all? I like how to do most of that stuff? I worked too much? I really do Okay, So yeah, I

know you're working around the clock. You get an email from you at twelve, When do you not work to service business? You're on all the time, and the thought of the thought of potentially retiring, Uh not yet. I mean, you know, I was I was witness and an expert witness. And Milt Milt Alan was a music lawyer that was tragically he was tragically killed by a cop texting on Mulholland when he was riding his bike, and it was

a wrongful death case. And the insurance company was trying to show that he was sixty six year ols old when he died and he wasn't gonna have much of a career, was going to retire soon. So they interviewed me and said, well, what do you think I go? Like Jake Cooper was still pricingalized Lee Phillips in his eighties, said, music lawyers and basically all lawyers get taken out on the slab. They didn't retire, they just get taken out on the slab. And I we knew, Bill, why didn't

give it up? No? Exactly, Peter, this has been wonderful. Thanks so much for your wisdom and your stories. Okay, thanks Bob,